Restaurant - Mariner's Wharf, Hout Bay Cape Town

I so want to love all the places in Hout Bay. Both Mariner's Wharf and Dune's have such an amazing setting, but sadly they both disappoint, a lot.

My focus here though is Mariner's Wharf. Every time I leave the establishment, I think to myself that I am not going to go back there, and then every couple of years I think - let's give them a try and it is again a disappointment.

A couple of weeks back we got a flyer through the post for their winter specials - really good value options, so we decided on a grey, wet Sunday to go for lunch - just before we left I did spot the small print saying that the specials were only for during the week - I was  bit annoyed, but only at myself and we decided that we would still go.

As mentioned before, the setting is really great, right at the harbour with an amazing view of the mountains where they used to mine manganese many many years ago.

FOOD - My sidekick had the Kingklip with veggies. He really enjoyed the fish, said it was a very big healthy portion cooked to perfection and very tasty with the spices and lemon butter sauce. The sides were chips, rice or veggies. He opted for veggies which he was sadly not as lyrical about - he said that it is frozen veggies from Spar, which were served, cold and soggy. He rated his Kingklip 8.5 to 9 of 10, and no score for the veggies.

With it being a cold, miserable grey day I was in the mood for seafood curry. The portion was HUGE, with a variety of fish | prawns | muscles etc. The flavour was however, unfortunately not WOW - it was very spicy, I quite like spicy food as long as it doesn't burn me to such an extent that I can't taste anything. It was just a bit too burny for me, and lacked something. But it was a lot of food, and waste great when I had it a bit later at home.

DRINKS - Mark had a draft, Seadog or something, which does not really have a distinctive taste, 'very bitter foamy beer' is how he describes it.

I had a glass or red wine, nothing really special (can't actually honestly remember what it was, so could not have been that spectacular).

SERVICE - friendly and efficient

VALUE FOR MONEY - Let's face it, it's a tourist trap, so prices are higher.

Kingklip R167

Mariner's Curry - R137

RECOMMENDABLE - The view is wonderful, but it is touristy,  so very noisy, so for me it is only OK - 

5.5 / 10