A taste of South Africa is on the menu at Bistro J in the coming week.The man behind the anticipated feast is the restaurant’s head chef Andrew Larkins.As a Durban native, he has years of experience cooking dishes from a host of regions and provinces in South Africa.He is to showcase some of the best in a five-course meal at the restaurant on Wednesday.Bistro J held a similar event almost two years ago that was quite popular, Mr Larkins said.“A lot of people obviously hadn’t tried South African foods and they thought it was very different.“What’s unique about South Africa is we have different regions and provinces and you get different ethnic groups within the areas as well.“For example, Durban is mostly an Asian concept to the food, ingredients and spices, while in Cape Town there is more of a Malaysian and Dutch style of influence.“I would say up in Durban foods are much more spicy. Cape Town is more similar to here, but you get your ethnic or traditional foods that have a lot of fruit and fresh herbs in it.”South Africa is also well known for lamb and beef dishes. Wild game, like springbok a small antelope wildebeest, ostrich and boar are typical offerings.Wednesday’s menu will include bunny chow, a mini white bread loaf hollowed out and filled with a very spicy curry of Durban beef and butter beans. The hollowed out bread is then placed back on top of the dish, so guests can dip it into the curry.“There’s a history with the bunny chow,” Mr Larkins said. “It comes from the Durban City area and they used to call it the poor man’s lunch and you could get it in most fast food places and restaurants. It’s quite a fun thing to eat.”Though he kept many of the traditional flavours intact, he also added some mint and cucumber yoghurt as a cooling agent and a touch of spicy red pepper salsa to make it “a little more jazzy”.Swakopmund chowder is named after a city on the coast of northwestern Namibia, well known for farming shellfish.The dish typically combines fresh oysters, clams and mussels from the area. Mr Larkins’ version will include line fish, oysters and black mussels topped with puff pastry freylon.The third course will feature quail, farmed mostly in the mountainous Eastern Cape region of Amatola.The quail is butterflied and flavoured with honey and cashew nut paste and grilled quickly before getting finished off in the oven. It’s then rested on a bed of arugula greens that have been drizzled with lime.“We are quite well known for producing our own special brandy so what I have done is make an apricot brandy jam to go along with the dish, which has a sweet flavour,” he explained.Water blomjie bredie is a combination of slow-cooked lamb shank, water lilies, lentils, rosemary and African porridge.It is widely eaten on the Eastern and Western Cape, especially among the Afrikaans people, with the recipe handed down through families.“They use mostly lamb and vegetables and potatoes and lots of herbs,” Mr Larkins said. “I am using rosemary because it’s quite strong. The main part is they use water lilies or flowers [and] when everything gets cooked together it creates its own special flavour.”For dessert, Mr Larkins is serving up a traditional Malva pudding which is similar to sticky toffee pudding, but made with lard.He said the meal would be particularly interesting for anyone who hasn’t tried South African cuisine before. He said he tried to cover most of the regions and obvious backgrounds within the diverse country.Mr Larkins got his start cooking as a teenager at barbecues, known in that region as braais.He found he liked it so much he wanted to turn it into a career and travelled to London to study culinary arts. After finishing his studies he worked for a big hotel and casino in South Africa, run by the Sun International Group, before going on to work in exotic locations like Oman, Dubai and Botswana. He has been in Bermuda for the past three years.South African Night is one of several themed dinners to be hosted by the restaurant in the coming months.The idea was to take advantage of the fact that the restaurants chefs came from around the world, marketing manager Suzanne DeCouto explained.“We encourage people to try something new and if they haven’t been to Bistro J, it’s a good opportunity for them to come to our quaint little bistro.“Our choices change every day. That’s the beauty of it, you’re not going to have the same thing all the time, and it pushes you to try something new.”For an $8 corkage fee, diners are able to bring their own bottle of wine to the restaurant, for a special available on Mondays.To sample the $75 five-course menu at South African Night at Bistro J, telephone 296-8546.