Ragamuffin Curry

Good news everyone! Curry Quest has opened in our old spot, serving delicious home style Durban curries at amazing prices!

Kevin and Vani has such a beautiful heart for people and making them feel welcome. 👌

Congratulations guys!

A big thank you to Thinus Ras for supporting our new restaurant. Thinus use to be the previous owner of this establishment.

It's been a while, but I would like to write something on the closure of Ragamuffin Curry... almost a eulogy.

Firstly, I have to apologize for announcing so abruptly that we have already closed, but as you all know we have been facing difficulty for some time, even before COVID. The last couple of months has been tough, as the slow, then sudden, realization set in that it is time to close.

At its best the little shop had a beautiful buzz, which brought out a playfulness in our staff and our customers.

Hospitality, to me, is about community. Specifically creating an atmosphere of community and then including customers in that atmosphere. Customers are then “welcome” within our space in the most literal sense – their “coming is well”, their coming is celebrated.

Some of my favourite memories are customers offering to share their table with strangers when space was short. Or people sharing their wine with the next table. On our opening night a couple arrived with a bottle of wine to congratulate us. I once walked in, and one of the staff members was having a push-ups competition against a customer. The guy that came in every morning for breakfast and a chat – he would even let me know if he was not going to come that day. The support we got for standing up for the homeless. These experiences will stay with me.

Hospitality isn’t about the customer always being right, but it is about always being on the customer’s side. And communicating this not only in words, but in actions.

I secretly loved having a difficult customer. I thought of them almost as a puzzle to solve. How do we get through their defenses and communicate we are so very for them.

All in all, we had our share of bad luck, but I think my own lack of experience was the true problem, and yet I think my naivety was part of the secret sauce of the little restaurant.

Thank you to all our staff, for who these last couple of months have been even tougher than for me. Bless you on your way.

Thank you to our customers. Thank you for coming into our community, being kind, gracious, familiar, and cheeky along with us.

Thinus

We have closed

We have changed our operating days. We are now open Tuesdays to Saturdays.

(our hours are still 12h00 - 21h00)

We are closed on the 9th and 10th, back on the 11th.

Psst! We have opened for sit down

A reminder of the specials we currently have :)

New special! Oxtail potjie!

We are open till 20h30 and we are still doing free delivery between 18h00 and 19h30.

Back on the menu! Oxtail Rogan Josh on Sweet Potato Mash.

For you, special price R110.

(Regular price on delivery services.)

Back on the menu for winter!

Oxtail Rogan Josh on sweet potato mash.

New special! Thai green curry!

As this is our first batch, we did it hot.

Available as chicken, prawn, and prawn and chicken. Vegan coming soon.

Available as in house delivery and Uber Eats

This one is back on the menu for a limited time. 😁

Karoo mutton curry available from tonight. With a definite Malay influence, it is milder, sweeter and lighter than our Durban curry.

What's your favourite Thai curry...?

(Like the appropriate comment below to vote.)

This was a real hit for the frozen meals. So we decided to offer it as a special for takeaway as well.

Served with rice.

On Uber Eats R150 pp and in house delivery special R130 pp.

Phone us on 083 548 0708.

We are back!

We have simplified the menu a bit (we are not doing sambal and sides at the moment), and have lowered the in-house prices a bit as well.

We are doing free in house deliveries daily between 17h and 19h. Due to the short operating time, we can only offer this to people in Claremont, Kenilworth and Wynberg.

We are also on MrD and UberEats, which will operate from noon.

We are still doing our frozen meals.

New special: Hoison Pork Belly with picked ginger and Sesame seed.

A double portion with rice and butternut for R230 including free delivery.

We are having some trouble with our website, so here is the menu. For orders from Tuesday.

There has been some confusion lately about the sale of cooked food. Yesterday, the government gazette clarified that it is the sale of HOT cooked food that is prohibited.

We are therefore continuing providing our frozen meals :)

Monday to Saturday in the Southern Suburbs and Wednesday to CBD, Seapoint, etc.

0835480708 or [email protected]

A show stopper at home: Ragamuffin Youvetsi!

Generous double portion at R250 with free delivery. Order at 083 548 0708 or [email protected]

To keep the quality high, we only par cook the pasta so there is a little assembly required.

We have added our Burnt Basque Cheesecake as a special dessert option with your frozen meal. Limited availability.

[email protected] or 0835480708

This went so well, we are going to do it every Wednesday.

Southern Suburbs deliveries every weekday.

Good Friday is a good a day to tell you about my favorite book in the world.

The Supper of the Lamb is a cook book written by Episcopal priest, Robert Capon. As a chef, he was a well respected and regularly wrote recipes for the New York Times, but I came across this book from the other side: through his theological books.

This book in kind of a meeting place of the two. A theology of food, if you will. It sounds odd, but so many religious festivals from all religious are intimately connected to food. (If you are Christian take a moment to consider that at the pinnacle of Jesus’s ministry, He instituted a simple meal in remembrance thereof.)

Capon is cocky, witty and opinionated. The book can seem self indulgent at times, and even a little weird. But I think that is part of the charm.

He takes the entire second chapter to literally dissect an onion with you. (I’m not exaggerating, he tells you to take an onion, close the door and cut it open with him.) The point is to make you appreciate this building block of cooking, which is so often taken for granted. We look at the onion and do not regard what it is, but what it means to us: what it can do for us. We replace the very real, white, smelly, slippery, ball with a simple idea – a diagram. And as he says “One real thing is closer to God than all the diagrams in the world.”

His theology is antidiagram. I almost want to call it “anti-spiritual”, or maybe I should say “anti-spiritualizing”. Which is to say that the realness of messy ordinary life is spiritual enough, but he will simultaneously beg you to just pay attention.

On top of the actual recipes, Capon also believes diets are from the devil, and margarine is the great con of our age.

You might be able to see why I like him so much.

Happy Easter, everybody.

New batch Oxtail stew will also be ready for Saturday :)

We are doing restaurant level oxtail stew (yes, stew), as a ready made meal.

Chimichurri is a punchy Argentian garlic and parsley sauce and colcannon is rustic Irish mash potato with cabbage.

Served as a generous double portion of 700g for R250, and we throw in free delivery.

Phone us on 083 548 0708
Email us on [email protected]

Phone us on 083 548 0708 or email us on [email protected].

Menu on 2nd image.

I would like to hear your opinion:

It has been brought to our attention that we could keep trading in this time if we sell our meals as frozen meals.

On the one hand I feel uncomfortable trying to wiggle my way around the lockdown. My wife is working with the government to prepare guides for healthcare workers on how to handle this crisis, so I see and feel the seriousness of this life and death situation.

On the other hand, I tried to go to the supermarket yesterday, and walked out because it was so busy. It seems that a delivered meal (with one way contact) might be a much safer option.

Of course, I will be discussing this with my staff, but I would like to hear your opinion.