The Old School Bunny

09 October 2009

The signage on the building caught my eye as I was scooting to Springfield Park... 'The Bunny Chow Specialist'. Set back off Umgeni Road, across a wide grass verge on Quarry Road East, this one could easily be missed. It was late afternoon and the store looked like it could have closed down, so I took some photos of the classic perspex signage and decided I'd try get in contact with the owner, via the Yellow Pages, and make a plan to go back another day...

Returning a few weeks later we were chuffed to find that this store is indeed a specialist in bunny chows and a definite must on any bunny admirer's agenda. Ramesh Bhikha and his family have been running the business since 1955 and bunny chows are all that is on their menu, OK except the odd samoosa and chilli bite. They have roughly 15 varieties of bunnies to choose from and we decided to try the half broad beans (I was famished!) and the quarter mixed veg & beans. One particular bunny that Ramesh was rather proud of was the 'Babelaas Bunny' (beans, egg & tomato) which was quite the hit back in the day for jollers wanting to catch a quick cure from a hangover. This apparently did the trick.

This is truly the 'old school' bunny chow! The flavour, the price, the size... everything was just right but keep in mind that there's nowhere to sit and eat it so you'll have to do the car bonnet technique or take it somewhere pleasant. While in the store we were also treated to some really tasty sev which they make themselves by the dustbin load and a good few folk came in for a scoop while we were there. And we haven't mentioned before that we really love a good sev, this was so flippen fresh and topped them all!

We'll definitely be back for another from the specialist!

13 August 2010

Made a return visit to Springtown today. Been a while.

Considering it's Friday the 13th, today has been a LUCKY day. A nice stash of long awaited DVD's arrived in the mail and as I've mentioned - it's Friday! What better way to top that off than chowing a decent bunny... I had a quarter beans (broad & sugar mixed) and once again was not disappointed. OK, could have been bigger considering that it was double this size on my last visit? - see image below, but the flavour made up for that. At a price of R12 it's a good deal. Not a lot of bunnies in this price range are much to be said about. They could have thrown in a flippen serviette, and there were no sambals but a lot of the time they're dodgy and get left in the packet anyway.

This outlet is a bit off the edges of town but well worth the trip. Now for the weekend!

Photos: Luke Comins