Anyway, on to what the 27dinner was all about, what happened, and who did what. Firstly, Guy didn’t pitch. Work related reasons. Tsk. I didn’t see Leon there either. Tsk-tsk! (OK, I just noticed he removed himself from the list…) Others I saw was bje, nbm, Bryn, Alan, other Alan and Ian. I met some interesting people, some of which are Tania, Johan[n], Jonathan, Heidi, Sarah, Carlos (briefly), and about 3 other people from Quirk whose names I forgot as soon as it was mentioned, you know how it goes…

There was some socialising beforehand, outside the door, on the top level, bottom level, middle level, all over the place. We ended up listening to a bunch of people yacking about topical stuff. Except for Graham from Stormhoek. He related the history behind Stormhoek, and why Stormhoek is really part of the blogging community. OK, so maybe that was topical too, but I didn’t catch much of the story I’m afraid. I’m not a big wine drinker. Allthough, the glass of Stormhoek wine I had (I forget the name…) wasn’t half bad. Dry white I think.

There was this lass called Verity (A talented artist I must say) that told is her story, which involves selling CDs for her album… Which she hasn’t recorded yet. Yes, novel idea. Selling a product before it’s made. It’s working. Nice on-the-way-to-success story. She also sang some songs, nice local sound, nice voice. She’s good. And good-looking too…

We also heard about affiliate marketing and how to make money using an affiliate network, from a rather short lady going by the name of Shelly, who was there from a company called Traffic Synergy. Interesting talk on how to monetize your (blog-) content with more than just adsense (which, let’s face it, is what most of us end up sticking onto our blogs to get a couple of extra bucks… I’m yet to make my first $100 from the adsense on my blog. Can you see how popular it is? Heh.). Shelly, however, has one of those voices that one expects from a marketing person. Not a bad voice, but a marketing voice nonetheless. I’m not a big fan of marketing people. The rate amongst estate agents and telecoms monopolies in my books. But Shelly made some really good points, which I will take with me to work, and possibly even on my blog too. Thanks Shelly!

There was a gentleman that chatted about what roll the Mobile internet will play in the internet’s future, sorry dude, I can’t remember your name, I don’t think I caught it. Anyway, he made some good points about where mobile is being positioned, and where it will play an important roll, but then also had comments that included “Yes, it is expensive, but if you ignore the cost” or something along those lines when talking about 3G and HSDPA. No, sorry, you can’t ignore the price, because price is what rates the affordability of a product. It’s useless to you and me if there’s this really awesome, really fast mobile internet solution out there, if it only comes bundled with your R1000+ cellphone contracts, or if you end up paying exorbitant fees like R20/mb of traffic. What’s the frigging point? No, we can’t ignore the cost. He also mentioned that WAP will still be a viable delivery medium for content to endusers for at least another 4-or-so years. This may be true, but that will also be driven by what the phone manufacturers end up putting into their phones. If Windows Mobile 5 takes off in a big way, the phones will have Internet Explorer on, and WAP (and the whole WML thing) will be useless, and you won’t need to have a specific WAP version of your site, ‘cos the phones will be viewing your normal site anyway. And besides, with sufficient CSS-fu, you can make a mobile version of your site run off the exact same URL as your normal site. No need for this stupid .mobi TLD. It was a dumb idea to begin with. Stop it!

Dave Duarte from Cerebra also chatted about stuff, and at 1am, I can’t remember what. He’s quite a character though… Actually, I think he hosted the whole thing. haha.

We also heard from Guy Lundy, who also really talked about things non-topical (topical being what the blogging community wanted to hear, not what the speakers wanted to tell us…), he mentioned an e-mail he sent to 15 people that then pyramid-schemed itself ti “millions of people”, and the books he’s sold etc. Yes, we get it Guy, you like South-Africa. Yay for you. I like it too. Guy’s talk sounded a bit too much sales-pitchy though…

After that the Stormhoek guys auctioned off some t-shirts, some poor sod paid R350 for a white t-shirt with some black writing on. And then it was on to more socialising and paying the bills. Apparently there was a rather big shortage of paying customers at the JHB 27dinner… Shame on you people!

Anyway, it’s almost 1am, and I have work in 5 hours. I hope you enjoyed my summary of how I experienced the 27dinner, and I’d love to experience another one, but not if it’s at an expensive place like this, really. It cost me R200 in total for me-myself-I to have supper and a couple of drinks. And no dessert! Tania said Spur, which brought on a “Yes!” from Jaco, and a *groan* from Neil. Heh.

Anyway, bedtime.

Selection of an airlines company for your travel trip depends largely on your budget and destination. Companies like jet airlines offer affordable packages with flights to almost every part of the world. In the same way selecting one from the hotels available depends on a balance of your budget and comfort. You can get almost all qualities of hotel rooms as per your criteria. And finally, to get there, national car rental service should be an easy find for you.

Tags: 27dinner, Relish, Stormhoek, marketing, Mobile

A chunk (yes, literally) of scrambled egg, one rasher of cooked pig, and a hashbrown. Oh, and there was this red thing that’s supposed to be a tomato. I can’t confirm. Strawberry yogurt and a Mantelli’s buttermilk rusk finish up the “meal”.

The egg was stuck to the bottom of the foil container, the hashbrown was, well, actually, the hashbrown wasn’t bad at all! The bacon had to be eaten in two larger-than-I’m-comfortable-with pieces, as the plastic knife and fork just didn’t do much for holding it down or cutting it. Not to mention the fact that the nice lass at the check-in counter was polite enough to place me in the middle seat between two strangers. I’m finding it hard to type this due to the space restriction in this flying sardine tin. I keep on bumping my elbows against the two people next to me.

The yogurt was passable, there was even a piece of what looked and tasted like strawberry. The rusk was a bit stale, but still nice. Oh, and here’s the highlight!

“Coffee, tea, juice or mineral water sir?” After the japanese tourist next to me grunted and pointed at the orange juice, I opted for coffee. (This was a 6:45 flight after all, I can do with any wake-up juice I can get!). “Milk and sugar sir?” “Ayup! 2 sugars please!” I an 8oz cup of filter coffee, with milk. The branding on the cup? Wiesenhoff! Heh! The sugars go in, and I stir with the plastic spoon I used to eat the yogurt with. The damn attendant woman didn’t give me a stirring stick. And as luck would have it (Murphy being on every flight I’m sure…), the flight goes a tad bit bumpy as I get my coffee. Not bad enough to worry though. The coffee was actually good. Not too strong, not pissy weak, with no after-taste at all.

Anyway, I’ll see later on what my stomach thinks of this “breakfast”. I suspect it might just agree that it’s not something to hold on for long…

Oh, and what flight was this? “Welcome to British Airways flight BA6400, operated by Comair.”

What fun! I’ll be spending the next couple of in Johannesburg, catching up with the long lost family (Haven’t seen them in a year), and sleeping as late as possible to catch up with 9 months of newborn-baby interrupted sleep… Oh, and there’s this business meeting today as well. I won’t go into that.

I actually wanted to go to the PnP to get some more Frosties (Hey, at R9.99 a packet, you go back for more!), but they only opened at 8am, and I didn’t want to wait 15 minutes, so I just popped into Wiesenhof to get some caffeine-in-a-cup.

Cha-Ching!  R9.95 later, I have a small, yet stylishly branded latte.  Sippy-cup lid and all.  The nice lady behind the counter made it all fresh using one of those really nice coffee-shop proper espresso machines, and even added a little bit of milk froth on top.  No chocolate sprinkles, cheap skates.  Two sugars go in, stir with a stick, and off I go.

I had to walk to the car quick-like.  That cup was hot.  Too hot to hold.  Good thing I still have that cardboard cup-holder from when I sampled the McDonald’s coffee…  It must have been a good 15 minutes before I could take the first sip without burning my tongue.

Nice, smooth coffee, medium strength, with a slight smokey after taste.  Quite a nice taste.  2 sugars was just the right amount for that cup, I quite enjoyed it.  R10 for that small cup is a bit pricey for my liking though.  I noticed under the cup it says “8oz Hot Cup”.  So ja, our small cups seem to be 8oz cups…  And according to Google, that’d be 0.236588237 liters, or just under one standard measuring cup.  But still, R10 for that is still a bit pricey, but this time around it was worth it, it was a good cup of coffee…

Anyway, Wiesenhof Coffees also does a nice R10 breakfast, had it before (well, had two in one go).  R10 for a slice of toast, an egg and a rasher of bacon.  Only between 8:00 and 8:30, no exceptions.  The waiters actually check the wall clock when they place the order.   And they even have a guy sitting in the corner playing guitar sometimes, all in all, a nice coffee shop to go sit and chill.  And drink some nice coffee indeed.

Technorati Tags: caffeine, latte, Wiesenhof, sippy-cup

Anyway, Sundance’s prices seem a bit high. R9 for a regular cup of coffee, and R9 for a large cup of coffee (go figure…), and R12 for an even larger cup of coffee… R12 for a regular cappuccino or latte, R15 for the larger one. I opted for the R12 regular cappuccino, two sugars.

The to-go cappuccino comes in a paper cup, with sippy-cup lid, and a round piece of cardboard that wraps around the cup itself to shield your hand from being scorched by the hot-hot liquid inside through the non-heat-resistant paper cup. Thoughtful.

The cappuccino was quite bitter, and rather strong. I suspect that the large cup would have the same amount of espresso in, just more milk and froth, so would likely be less bitter. The regular cup is rather small, but sufficient for a first shot of the morning cuppa… The barista (heh-heh, I’ve been reading!) even added a dash of chocolate powder onto the froth, but that’s a rather useless action ‘cos of the lid that goes onto the cup. The chocolate sticks to the lid. (I licked the inside of the lid when nobody was looking…). All in all, the cappuccino was a bit too bitter for my liking, and a bit too expensive for what you get in the end… I think the large (not grande) size cappuccino or latte will probably the better tasting one. But at R15 for the large, I won’t pay that for just any cappuccino.

Technorati Tags: caffeine, sundance, sippy-cup, coffee, cappuccino

The cappuccino comes in a heat-resistant cup, with a sippy-cup lid, a swivel stick to stir, and the amount of sugars requested. My car lacking cup-holder, I requested to have one of those cardboard cupholder things. The guy complied.

Cappuccino, meet three sugars, three sugars, meet cappuccino. I must say, trying to get three sugars to dilute with a swivel stick is a mission and a half. 1 minute later, I’m done, ready to roll. The cardboard cupholder even fits perfectly right behind my car’s gearlever in the middle, so no mess no fuss. Hot coffee!

The first thing that I thought when tasting this coffee was “Whoa this is sweet!”. They seem to use sweetened (of sorts, I think) milk for the froth. Not a lot of it. Those Press-A-Button-To-Get-Your-Beverage machines that McDonalds have, have NO idea how to make a proper cappuccino, there was way too little froth, and likely too much milk. Anyway, the froth was sweet, the cappuccino itself also fairly sweet (maybe 3 sugars was a bit over the top.)

One thing I missed in the taste of this McDonald’s Cappuccino, was the taste of coffee. The taste of the milk and froth was so overwhelming, that I could hardly taste the actual coffee. All in all though, it wasn’t too bad, but not exactly something that I’d go and pay R8.95 for again in a hurry. Maybe a bit too weak (if there’s any coffee in there at all, I can’t say for sure!), and perhaps a bit too much sweetened milk. They get plus points for the cup though, I like these stripey cups that don’t scorch the crap out of your hands.

So, want a quick cup of wake up juice? The maybe McDonald’s cappuccino is not the thing you should be buying. Want a quick convenient way of getting some sweet caffeine into your system, then try the McDonald’s Cappuccino. At least once.

Tags: McDonald, Coffee, cappuccino, froth

I did a quick count from memory how many coffee shops (or at least shops that sell coffee) there are within a short walk from where I work in Cape Town CBD…  10.  All within about 300 meters from our front door.

So, this is the start of a (hopefully) regular blog-posting about my experience and tastes of coffee from around here.  Do keep in mind that I’m no professional coffee-taster.

Wild Bean Cafe – Cafe Latte

This morning’s coffee was a large Latte from the Wild Bean Cafe at the Tokai BP petrol station.  It cost R9.95.  It was made within about a minute.  I was given a steaming paper cup, one of those nice heat-restistant thicker-than-paper cups, which is nice ‘cos it doesn’t scorch the crap out of your hand.  Three sugars go in, sippy-cup lid goes on, and I’m outta there.  After spilling some of the coffee in the car (due to not having one of those cup-holder doodads in the car), I finally managed to take a sip while driving.  The first thing that went through my mind was “Where’s the caffeine?!”.  The Latte was weak, to say the least.  Little bit of a smokey taste, Arabica beans I believe.  But weak.  I think all they do is use the same amount of coffee powder, and just stick more water into it, to get a Large instead of a standard, weakening it.  So the standard size might taste a bit better.  Regardless, I didn’t have the standard size.  I finished the coffee, feeling rather cheated.

Plus points for Wild Bean Cafe is the cup the coffee comes in.  The sippy-cup lid even has a big red “CAUTION!  Hot contents!” sticker on.  Minus points is really that the coffee tastes too watered down.  If you want a great coffee, then don’t bother buying theirs.  If you want an average cup off coffee, then try the standard sized one.  (Even though it’s only R1 cheaper…)

Anybody else tried their coffee?

What’s next?  I’m going to take on McDonald’s coffee I think.  Get all the dodgy ones out the way first.

UPDATE 1: Apparently, it’s been decided that coffee *is* in fact good for you!  I came across this article on the Cape Argus just now: Coffee shakes off bad rap…

UPDATE 2: That same article has subsequently made it onto IOL too…

Technorati Tags: caffeine, coffee, latte, review, Wild Bean Cafe

Parking at the restaurant is ample, and from the outside it looks nothing more than a grey building with tinted windows. Walking in we were greeted by a hostess, checked our reservation (do not try to go here if you did not make a reservation, booking a couple of days in advance for evening meals is advisable, also, they’re not open on Sundays), and seated in the non-smoking section. I was later surprised to find that they converted the smoking area into a non-smoking area earlier in the evening, kindly asking smokers to step outside to feed their addiction. They do this in the event of non-smokers outnumbering smokers. Loved that.

The setting at Magica Roma is traditional, low-volume music in the background. There was a Christmas get-together in the one upper area of the restaurant while we were there, with a couple of guys playing live musical instruments, traditional Italian music, with one or two other songs that I recognised as not Italian. There was some dancing going on, as well, so it seems to be quite a versatile venue.

Their menu headings and meal names are all in Italian, but it was fairly easy to figure out which bits were Starters, Pizza, Pasta, Salads, meats, etc, and there are descriptive English meanings. After mulling over the wine list for a few minutes, I opted out of having wine (I would have been the only one drinking, and there’d be no way that I’d be in any state of mind to focus on my dessert if I had to finish it by myself…), ordered a beer, and browsed the Starters. They have a nice focus on seafood across their whole menu, and I settled on the Baby Calamari tubs with garlic and chili. T had the Shrimp Cocktail. Wow. The baby calamari was absolutely stunning. It gets fried in the garlic and chili sauce, served with rice. I have never enjoyed a starter this much. The garlic was not overwhelming, and neither was the chili. It had just the right amount of bite to be a bit hot, but not enough so that my taste buds were scorched. There was sufficient garlic and chili sauce to mix in with the rice, and let’s face it, rice with sauce is just yum. T’s shrimp cocktail looked good, I tasted it, the shrimps seemed a bit too crunchy for my liking, but maybe that’s just me. It was server in a typical Thousand Island-type pink sauce.

Main course. This was a bit of a problem. There were so many dishes I wanted to try, choosing just one was near impossible. T settled on a 300g fillet, with a herb and garlic sauce, served with rice and veggies. I settled on their Tagliata Fiorentina, which is a sliced, grilled fillet in olive oil, balsamic and herb sauce, server with chips, no veggies (by choice). The Tagliata Fiorentina was great, a unique way for me to have fillet done. A bittersweet taste, soft meat. Great. T’s fillet was plain, covered in herb sauce, and a dollop of garlic on top, just as she likes it. There was a bit of a mix up with what exactly “Medium to Well Done” means, but Ezio, one of the partners that owns that restaurant, personally made sure that it was sorted out promptly. He’s a nice guy, and even came to chat with us a bit after the main meal. I wish I paid more attention during my Italian Language course, and practiced after the course, I’d have been able to at least greet him in Italian.

After the applause from several tables around the one behind us (One guy just proposed to his girlfriend, she said yes, and from then never took her eyes off of her ring…), it was time for dessert. One look at the menu, and I knew what I wanted. Creme Brulee, and a real Italian-made Cappuccino to wash it down. T’s been at Magica Roma with her cousin before, and that time, after ordering her own dessert, saw her cousin’s dessert choice: Spumone. Vanilla & chocolate ice cream, layered with meringue & dressed with hot chocolate sauce. That was T’s choice this time around. A nice touch was that both our desserts were served on the same, large oval plate. The Creme Brulee was made to perfection. Soft, not runny. Just enough burnt sugar crust, not over done. The Spumone I believe is a house-speciality, and looked fantastic, well dressed, soaked in a combination of chocolate and another, less chocolaty sauce. The cappuccino was also very nice. Properly done, with crema and the right amount of foam, not like other restaurants that only attempt to make a cappuccino. Magica Roma doesn’t try to make a cappuccino. They get it right.

All in all, I had a fantastic night there, the food was delicious, the service was excellent, the owners and staff were friendly, the venue was great, and I enjoyed every minute there. If you want a brilliant experience at a great restaurant with great food, go to Magica Roma in Pinelands, and ask for Chantal. She’s a great waitress, and will make sure that your experience at Magica Roma is well enjoyed. You can tell her that Aubrey (That’d be me) referred you to them.

It was a bit strange to go to an Italian restaurant and order a steak, but as I said, we were very spoilt for choice. Next time I go there, I will definitely consider the Baby Calamari tubes main course, or perhaps one of their delicious-sounding pastas.

www.dining-out.co.za has a page for Magica Roma, including their menu, some pictures of the restaurant and owners (Ezio, the friendly chap that we chatted to, is the guy on the right), and a map on how to get there. You will not be disappointed.

Tags: Italian restaurant, Magica Roma

We sat at a 4-seater table at the door leading to the deck area. I had my back to the door leading to the deck area, T (my S.O.) sat to my right, Wendy-Lynne (T’s friend visiting from Johannesburg) sat across from me, and Dirk (Wendy-Lynne’s husband and friend of mine) sat to my left. The chairs could have been more comfortable, I suspect the cushions may need some replacing after having been sat on too many times, as by the end of the evening, all of us were complaining of aching feet and legs. Perhaps the chairs are about 1cm too high? The table had a blue oil lantern, lit, and napkins folded in a pyramid shape, side plates to the left, menus on the side plates.

Our waitress, Pearl, was, as we discovered through the evening, a girl from originally from Soweto. She failed to introduce herself, deciding to skip straight to offering us some bread for the table, before all of us were even properly seated. The room was dimly lit, sufficient to be able to see what you’re eating at least. With our table so close to the deck area, we were able to here a little bit of the night sea-life (a penguin making a noise here, and I think I heard some water hit a rock…). For the rest of the view, all I could see was the big black hole where the ocean is, and then the very nice view of the rest of Simonstown, Fishhoek around the corner, Clovelly, and Kalkbay further to the right. Lots of pretty lights, full moon over the sea, nice view. But I digress.

The Menu
The menu consists of predominantly sea food, as one would expect from a restaurant called ‘Seaforth’, situated on the beach. Drinks are typical of that of any restaurant with a bar. Anything from the bar is available. A Savannah Dry, a Smirnoff Spin and two Windhoek Lights to go with the table bread and starters. Due to only myself and Wendy-Lynne being remotely interested in drinking wine, we opted not to have any. Me not being a wine connoisseur and not able to differentiate between a sweet bottle of wine and a semi-sweet, and apparently Wendy-Lynne’s conversational skills diminish into a deep slumber half-way through the evening if she consumes wine. We decided on good conversation through the whole evening.

Starters
Their starters were varied, containing both seafood and non, including a soup of the day. Yesterday’s Soup of the Day was Indian Rice Soup, which, as Pearl described it, was not something appealing to any of us. We were given sufficient time to decide on both starters and main course, and when Pearl came back to take our order, we loaded her with both starters and main course orders. Both Wendy-Lynne and Dirk opted for the Mussels Mariniere, T opted for a Prawn Cocktail, and I went with the Calamari starter. The starters were presented on the plate very well. As far as mussels go, all I could see were a couple of mussels (3 or 4 I think), laid out on a smallish plate, soaked in garlic and white wine sauce. T’s prawn cocktail looked fabulous. Lots of little prawns, in a “secret prawn cocktail sauce”, mixed with greens. T was kind enough to let everybody taste a prawn from her cocktail. Honestly, I think their “secret prawn cocktail sauce” is Mayonnaise and Tomato Sauce mixed, the way mother did it. But I can’t say for certain. My calamari was very hot when it arrived, came with a small patch of rice, and your typical tartar sauce. I took the longest to eat my starter due it being so hot, but boy was it nice. Deep fried in a light batter, not too long, so the batter was not burnt to a crisp, and neither was it soft. The Calamari itself could have been a bit more tender, but was not ‘crisp’, so it did not deter me from actually enjoying it.

Main Course
The main course arrived far too soon for my liking, not even 5 minutes after we finished our starters. I would have preferred a bit longer for the starters to settle, and some more conversation between courses.

Both Wendy-Lynne and Dirk chose the Pork rib combo, consisting of a small rack of pork ribs, 2 or 3 mussels, and some calamari, served with rice, new potatoes or chips. If I recall, they both opted for potatoes. T had the rump steak, with both rice and potatoes, because both were very appealing on the menu, and one cannot have too much of a good thing. I went with the steak combo. A small (it was rather disappointingly small…) piece of sirloin steak, 4 small prawns, and yet another serving of calamari, served with chips and a sweet chilli sauce. Mmm-mmm. Based on the lips smacking and groans of delight that went around the table, the food was good. I was told the ribs were tender enough to practically fall off the bone, the mussels were, well, mussels (I’ve never tasted the odd-looking things…), and Wendy-Lynne made a point to comment on how nice the calamari was. T’s steak looked very good, although both her and my steaks were a bit underdone (we both wanted Medium-to-Well, but the steaks ended up a bit too pink inside for being medium-to-well…), and she commented that it was nice. If her steak was anything as good and tasted as mine was, then she was quite right to say it was nice. Soft, tender, juicy. If only a bit small. My 4 prawns were a bit small for queen prawns I think, but then again, I’m no prawn expert, so I wouldn’t have known if these were queen prawns or just plain non-royal-variety prawns. That being said, they were good. Mmmmm. Soft, juicy, tasty, easy to take out of the shell. One thing I could not do was eat the prawns with knife and fork. It’s impossible I think! I reverted to my hands, and enjoyed every second of eating them. The sweet chilli sauce was delicious as well. Not quite sure for which of the three items on my plate the sauce was for, I dipped everything into it. Nice and sweet, with a bit of a bite, but not so much that you need a glass of milk. The one disappointing thing with my main course was the chips of all things. They were uninspired. Plain old chips, dry, not tasty at all. I left most of them. Dunking them in the sweet chilli sauce helped a bit though.

Dessert
Ah yes, dessert. All of us eyed the dessert menu even before we ordered our starters, so we all had a pretty good idea of what we wanted. Pearl tried to sell us on the Coupe Romanoff (strawberry ice-cream, with strawberries and other berries), but none of use went for that (Apparently no strawberries in Cape Town). Dirk, not being a big dessert fan, abstained. After some deliberation (I believe Pearl’s words were “They make the mousse look like it comes from the Ritz”), Wendy-Lynne went with the Chocolate Mousse, T went with the Chocolate Ice Cream Delight (not your average ice-cream and chocolate sauce, trust me), and I opted for a less solid Don Pedro with Kahlua. I really wanted their Malva Pudding, but by the time we were ordering our desserts, I didn’t think I was able to fit anything else in my stomach.

Wow. Their desserts are impressive. The Chocolate Mousse comes on a large plate, with the mousse being an upturned container in the middle, decorated with a cherry or two, mint leaves, chocolate sauce, and sprinklings of icing sugar. Mmm-mmm. It looked delish! T’s Chocolate Ice Cream Delight looked even better. It was prepared in such a way that it looked like a master piece. Whoever made it has a very good talent of presenting desserts. It came in what looked like a martini glass (I’m sure this glass was bigger and its purpose for desserts and not alcohol), and was decorated beautifully. It was almost a sin to start eating it. Chocolate ice-cream, with some small kumquat (apparently related to the orange) pieces, cream, cherries, mint leaves, peppermint liqueur, and some other liqueur as well. I was told it was delicious. My Don Pedro was a bit disappointing. Typical white wine glass, a little bit of chocolate sauce on the inside, filled with very sweet vanilla something, and some Kahlua. I couldn’t really taste the Kahlua, and the rest of it was too sweet. From my experience, Don Pedros are usually made from slightly diluted vanilla ice-cream, whipped to make it into a drinkable consistency, with the Kahlua or whiskey mixed in. What I got was what seemed to be a vanilla milkshake with Kahlua. Too sweet. Too thin in consistency. I finished it, but didn’t enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed one elsewhere.

After dessert myself and Dirk opted for Cappuccino, and the ladies went with plain old filter coffee. The plain old filter coffee was exactly that. Plain. I can’t comment on the old, I’m assuming it was fresh enough to taste nice. Plain cups. The cappuccinos were also a bit disappointing, coming in the same cups as the filter coffee did, instead of your normal bigger, wider-lipped cups. Not a huge amount of froth, but all in all still enjoyable.

Final notes
All in all, we enjoyed our evening at Seaforth. The venue was great, the ambience and view brilliant (I’m sure lunch there would be even better, or perhaps supper earlier in the evening), and the food was fantastic. The restaurant was not difficult to find (mind the big bump in the road as you turn down Seaforth Road though), and the fact that there are friendly penguins waddling around near the restaurant adds to the experience. As I said, the view becomes a bit of a dudd late in the evening (we arrived at about 8pm) due to lack of being able to *see* the view, but the full moon last night helped with that.

The pricing of everything were on par for the venue, which was a bit on the expensive side actually, but not at all unreasonable if you take the whole experience into account. For 4 of us, each with starters (The prawn cocktail is R45, the rest less than that…), main courses, two drinks, dessert and coffee, the bill came to just over R600. Add a 10% tip for Pearl (She deserved it, she asked the right questions, knew the menu, and was pleasant all in all), and you end up with a rather enjoyable for less than a fortune. I suspect though, that the Seaforth is probably aimed more at tourists than locals, but there’s nothing wrong with locals enjoying the view that they see every day.

The Verdict
Venue: 8/10
Food & Drink: 9/10
Service: 8/10
Price: 8/10
Total: 8/10

Pros:

• Lovely venue for early evening or lunch
• Excellent food
• Varied menu, including pizza & pasta for non seafood lovers

Cons:

• Don’t try the chips, go with the rice
• Red meat a bit on the small side

Links:
Seaforth Restaurant‘s own website
www.dining-out.co.za‘s page on Seaforth Restaurant, including a map and directions.

Update: I’ve seen a couple of searches hit this entry. Do me a favour, if you read this and you agree or disagree with my findings above, please go ahead and comment… I think it’d be useful for other people that stumble upon this entry as well. Thanks! -Aubrey