Actor, funny man and foxtrotter extraordinaire Rob Van Vuuren is hosting this year’s Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards on Sunday 25 November 2012. We spent a few minutes finding out all his foodie secrets.

If you were a fruit, vegetable, herb or spice, what would you be?
Hmm… something really simple. We have a whole lot of baby tomatoes growing in our garden and my daughter – who’s two – absolutely loves them, so I would choose to be a tomato.

What’s your favourite burger topping?
I’ve been trying a wheat-free, sugar-free diet, which has drastically changed the way I eat, but I’m not going to do it forever. A burger is one of the first things I am going to tuck into!

You know you can get a three-cheese chilli popper on a burger at Hudson’s, with sweet chilli sauce and extra cheese on top?
That. I want that to be my answer.

Craft beer or fine wine?
I enjoy my beer – I love this whole new local microbrewery thing that has been happening for the last couple of years. But I also enjoy a glass of wine. Depends on the situation.

Best food memory?
Food has such a memory connection to your childhood, doesn’t it? My favourite dish growing up was spaghetti bolognaise, it always made me feel so cosy and at home. Even though my mom is the worst cook in the world, she managed to do spaghetti bolognaise. I also love gnush (a traditional Xhosa dish of samp and beans), which reminds me of my gran and growing up in the Eastern Cape.

Do you cook?
Sort of. Not a lot. But I do occasionally, and I am a kind of a make-it-up-as-I-go-along kind of cook. One of the best presents I ever got was a recipe book made by my good friend Louw, who was Corne in The Most Amazing Show. He and his wife hand-wrote and drew a recipe book – The Venter Family Guide to Hearty Home Cooking – with little illustrations and great recipes. There’s a Thai green curry in there that my wife and I absolutely love; we make it regularly.

What is your last-ditch dinner when you get home after a gig, starving, at 2am?
Unfortunately two minute noodles do happen, but what I’m trying to do at the moment is have a slice of rye bread.

With Nutella on it?
With peanut butter on it. My wife is the Nutella freak. She is addicted to the stuff. We were in France for a couple of months and she developed this super-human extra-sensory power of being able to smell Nutella pancakes. The French make the most beautiful crêpes. She developed a quite worrying addiction to crêpes avec Nutella.

What’s the most exotic thing you’ve ever eaten?
Squid off the beach in Zanzibar. As a child I used to eat insects all the time. Flying ants.

What is the best, most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?
Flying ants.

Tell us about your favourite restaurants?
With a little kid now we don’t get much chance to eat out, but we go to Olympia a lot, which is great. The Annex, next to the Kalk Bay book store – it’s such a nice set-up. There’s a lovely kitchen with glass windows, so you can see the chefs preparing everything. Really delicious food.

Any great delis or speciality food stores that you love?
A new Food Lovers Market has opened up in Long Beach Mall, which is fantastic. And I love getting stuff at farm stalls, like the local konfyte.

You have a spectacular imagination, as demonstrated by your play Electric Juju, which creates an entire fantasy world on the stage. Can you dream up a crazy fantastical recipe for us?
In that play, which is actually being developed into an animated feature film at the moment, the whole premise of the story is about a giant heart that’s being eaten by an evil sorcerer. So I think I would whip up a giant heart brûlée.

By Linda Scarborough

Catch Rob at the Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards on Sunday 25 November 2012. Tickets to the Eat Out Conference on Saturday 24 November are still available.