Lekker, simple, affordable fish on Garden Route

Only the privileged grab a shopping trolley and load it without looking at the prices these days and when it comes to buying fish — the fresh sort or even the frozen hake fillets from your everyday supermarket or grocer — prices are hideous.

Apart from the frozen crumbed version which you just pop into the oven for 20 minutes, I hate cooking fish at home.

The smell seeps into curtains and it just seems pointless to use all that oil for deep-frying fish for two people.

The price of a box of this oven-cooked fish used to be about R70, but now it’s closer to R100 which got me thinking.

In this economy, we don’t eat out willy-nilly any more, but rather choose to be circumspect and eat out when we are getting something that can’t be cooked better at home, a treat in other words.

And we aren’t the only ones.

When local restaurants have special offers, you are sure to bump into friends also enjoying value such as the half-price sushi at Drydock — a weekly special we all take advantage of because you definitely can’t make sushi at home and when it’s on special the salmon and tuna sashimi is unbeatable — delicious, but also a great price.

A lot of newbies to the Garden Route come here and try their hand at fishing which makes sense considering we are surrounded by water from the estuary to the sea.

This family is no different, but I think that if 10 fish have come home in the eight years I have lived here, that’s a lot.

The most spectacular catch was a Bonito off Robberg, but once the thrill of the hunt is over, the thing needs to be scaled and cleaned and the head with that big sad eye disposed of.

Then it’s not so easy to cook fish.

We ate some of it as sashimi and fried the rest.

It was a foraging thrill, but heck of a process and far from perfectly cooked.

Over the years, I have heard about Mr Kaai’s fish shop in Sedgefield from people all over the Garden Route who swear by their fish and the fantastic value.

People from Knysna, Wilderness and even George make Mr Kaai’s a frequent stop for their dose of heart-healthy Omega-3 fatty acids even if it’s just to pick up a takeaway.

It’s impossible to live here and not hear about Mr Kaai which works on word of mouth, does no formal advertising, but still bustles with loyal customers.

Coming from Knysna into Sedgefield, you turn right at the traffic light, cross over the N2 and you will see the sign on your left.

Don’t expect anything fancy, but that’s part of the charm of this place.

Mr Kaai’s is a small, happy and simple place with seating for no more than 30 people at wooden tables and benches.

A word of warning here; when it rains not all the seating is undercover so in that case you might want to consider a takeaway.

The cold weather we have been having this winter is offset by blankets for your knees and in the late afternoon a huge roaring fire is lit.

Hosts Ferdi Westraadt and Kirsten Frost treat Mr Kaai as they would their very own home.

You are warmly welcomed on arrival, they know their customers by name and there is a smell of fresh chips cooking.

 They had a very busy week during the Knysna Oyster Festival with visitors joining the local yokels, but this kitchen knows how to pump out those fish orders.

“We get awesome local support from Sedgefield folk, real regulars who eat here twice a week and those who collect a dinner takeaway after work.

“People come from afar as Plett, Mossel Bay and even Riversdale,” Westraadt said of his clientele.

There are two rush hours; at lunch between 12 to 2pm and then again from 4pm when people chose this kitchen for dinner or get takeaways, but it ticks over all afternoon.

Kevin and Mandy Klemp established Mr Kaai 17 years ago, when there was nothing such as it in the area.

Westraadt, who has a background in hospitality and has always lived on the Garden Route, took over as manager seven years ago, at the time when the Klemp couple took their first holiday since buying the business.

It got its name because Kevin was known as Mr K and that became Mr Kaai.

The winning formula of this spot is that the menu is small and the quality of food is just honestly always good.

“The most important thing we strive for here is consistency,” Westraadt said.

“We want people to enjoy and to come back — and we want to give value for money.”

All their fresh fish comes daily from Mossel Bay and it is kept on ice rather than frozen.

Westraadt says the way to go with fish is to fry it (grilled is on the menu though) so their secret recipe is fish that’s lightly floured and battered and comes out of that fryer golden delicious — bursting with flavour and definitely not oily.

I am so glad to hear that Westraadt is a chip freak because of all the things in this world, there is nothing better than one of those fat chips (not the skinny sort) that is crisp on the outside and fluffy in the inside.

Testament to what comes out of this kitchen are the numbers: This last December 100kg of fish was cooked every day — 2.2 tonnes in four weeks.

“It was so crazy busy that we took people’s phone numbers and they went for a walk on the beach or something and we called them when their order was ready,” Westraadt said. 

During this period, some 40 hake portions were being fried every half an hour.

For R75, you can get a generous portion of hake and chips that hits the spot.

If you want to splash out you can have a seafood platter for two at a cost of R380, but it’s literally loaded with two hake fillets, pan-fried queen prawns, calamari strips, mussels and it’s in a creamy garlic sauce — served with chips, rice and their homemade tartare sauce.

In today’s prices, that’s not bad given that you take your own drinks.

Westraadt says that prices went up in 2023, the first increase since 2019.

“There was no complaining from locals, but rather an understanding of the cost of food,” he said.

The trail to finding value-for-money fantastic fish would be incomplete without mentioning Blue Lagoon takeaway in Knysna, Long Street opposite Woodmill Lane shopping centre.

In his tiny shop in the heart of town, Bruwer Basson has been making fish for the last 28 years.

His place pumps fish at fantastic prices (as cheap, if not cheaper, as you could do it at home).

For a small hake and chips, the cost is R45, for two hake and chips R85 and a huge helping of three hake and fish is a modest R115.

Basson is pedantic about quality and consistency.

All chips are handmade from scratch and he goes through 1.2 tonnes of fish every six weeks, deep-fried to perfection.

He bemoans that informal fish operators have popped up in the centre of town and they are undercutting his prices with what he calls really bad quality fish and chips, but says he will be there to make 30 years.