Restaurant - Pure, Hout Bay

A lovely spot in Hout Bay, PURE is the restaurant at Hout Bay Manor. 

FOOD: The normal menu is really quite pricey, however they currently have a hamburger special, R85 for a hamburger, bubbles or a beer (or juice for those who don't want something alcoholic). 

It was delicious! The patti was big! perfectly cooked (medium / rare), and deliciously spiced. The chips were quite,  spicey, could be a bit hot for some. 

They also have a high tea special from 11:00 to 16:00 daily. For R50 you can select from a range of sweet goodies (lemon meringue, peacan nut pie, macaroons, scones) and tea. It was just a bit too much for dessert, definitely something I would like to try out soon*. 

DRINKS - the bubbly was delicious! 

SERVICE - very friendly and helpful. 

PARKING - parking is outside; the security guards are great and incredibly friendly and welcoming. 

VALUE FOR MONEY - the winter specials definitely are, the main menu is pricey. 

RECOMMENDABLE - definitely 8/10

*This was sadly something that was only running in August for women's month. 

Restaurant - Posticino, Hout Bay

This is (yet another) relatively new restaurant in Hout Bay. The atmosphere is OK, the murals a bit amateurish, but the food and value is really good.

FOOD: Delicious! I opted for the gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce. My sister went for the seafood pasta with a cream base. I tasted it and it was also very tasty. 

DRINKS: The Grapetiser/Appeltisers is very reasonable less than R20 each. 

SERVICE: Very friendly server. 

VALUE FOR MONEY: Food and drinks very reasonably priced. 

RECOMMENDABLE: Yes, not bad at all 7/10

Race - Totalsports Ladies Race, Stellenbosch

09 August 2014 - A beautifully misty start to the morning. It cleared up a bit later and was a gloriously clear warm day. Really like this race. What was personally really cool for me was comparing spots where I walked last year and running them this year.

Last year I ran this race in 01:15, this year I completed it in 01:03:something. Super chuffed! 

No medals, but lovely little bracelets, which I thought was a nice change.

RECOMMENDABLE: YES! 8/10 

Restaurant - Café Paradiso, Gardens, Cape Town

This is one of the hidden gems in Gardens that I really enjoy going to. Lovely garden setting for warm sunny days and a cosy indoor setting for winter and evenings.

FOOD -  Generally a bit pricey, but the food is DELICIOUS. One of my absolute favourite desserts | guilty pleasures in life is lemon meringue and Café Paradiso arguably serves one of the best .

DRINKS - at my last visit I had the Earl Grey which was the 'fancy' type served in a silk packet.

SERVICE - always friendly and efficient.

VALUE FOR MONEY - as mentioned previously a bit pricey, but really worth it. They also have a great mid-week winter special currently that I am keen to try out - buffet for R59 including a glass of wine.

PARKING - Street parking

RECOMMENDABLE - Definitely, make sure that you try their lemon meringue 9/10



There cold meats platter is very tasty for a light afternoon snack. You may need to ask for additional bread.

 

Venue - Regus, Century City

VENUE: The Regus office options are great. We have often used the Regus boardroom at Century City because this is quite easily accessed for most people within Cape Town. At a recent workshop, they seated about 30 of us around tables fairly comfortably.

PARKING - this can be somewhat confusing, they recommend that you park at the MyCiti bus area, but I generally park in the parking area right in front of the building, the only snag is that the parking is quite pricey - about R40 for the day, which I suppose is fair for the whole day.

FOOD - the food has always been good. I think they get the pastries from Woolies, which is a guaranteed winner. At the full day session, we got lasagne, salad and rolls and it was very tasty.

VALUE FOR MONEY - compared to other venues it really is very competitively priced, and the food is good.

RECOMMENDABLE - Yes 8/10

Restaurant | Take-away - Snoekies, Hout Bay, Cape Town

Definitely with out a doubt the best fish & chips in Hout Bay. The view is not as great as Fish on the Rocks, just around the corner, but we generally get takeaways, and for me good food is more important than the view. I do love the old photos that they have in their restaurant area of the original Snoekies caravan where it all started. 

Their crispy chips are really great - you do need to ask for it specifically.

The portions are very healthy, and the value for money incredibly good. At the moment they have a winter special, R54 for two Hake portions and large chips, and they very kindly split it into two equal portions. 

PARKING - Big parking area

RECOMMENDABLE: Definitely 8/10

Venue - Hotel Verde, Cape Town Airport (area)

VENUE: What a wonderful venue! Very conveniently situated at the airport. This is one of the first totally 'green' hotels. We were fortunate enough to go on a site tour after a morning session and see all the green initiatives. 

FOOD: Delicious, baked on site. They also have their own vertical gardens, which not only looks beautiful but also great to have fresh produce on hand. 

PARKING: Seems to be ample underground parking. 

RECOMMENDABLE: Yes! 8/10

Venue - Attaché Guesthouse and Day Spa, Midrand

This four star venue unfortunately did not cut the mustard. 

VENUE: Midrand is very convenient as it is quite accessible for people coming from Johannesburg and Pretoria. 

There is just something missing. The atmosphere is not great. Everything is OK, but OK is not good enough for a four star. 

FOOD: The food was presented in the aluminium / plastic containers. They kindly changed it for us when we asked, but then the caterer came to defend the use of the platter plates in front of my clients, which I really did not appreciate. 

PARKING: Seems to be ample safe parking. 

RECOMMENDABLE: Sadly no. 3/10

Venue - Chavonnes Battery Museum, V&A Waterfront Cape Town

VENUE: What a wonderful hidden gem at the V&A Waterfront. This is an incredibly fascinating museum - when they did excavations for a new building a couple of years back, they found the ruins from this original fort; this area has now been preserved and is a heritage site. They have such interesting tours that they offer, sharing the history of South Africa (all dressed in period garb). This museum is run by the very dynamic Dale Dodgen.


Dale and her team went out of their way to give us a wonderfully memorable experience this morning.

FOOD: The spread was lovely, and beautifully presented.

PARKING: It's at the Waterfront, so there is ample parking available. However, make sure that you set enough time aside to deal with early morning traffic (if your event is early in the morning).

RECOMMENDABLE: Absolutely - they can comfortably accommodate 20 people (if not more!) in the seating arrangement that we had.

RECOMMENDABLE: Definitely! 9/10

Restaurant - Twelve Apostles Leopard Bar Restaurant

10 August 2014 - My sister came to visit, so it was a wonderful opportunity to maximise a sea view on a gloriously warm sunny day. It's wonderful when mother nature throws in these beautiful days in between all the grey and rain. We had not booked, so could not eat in the restaurant, so we found a spot on the top level at the Leopard Bar and sat outside on the veranda. 

FOOD - It was too late for breakfast, and not quite lunch time yet. We are both suckers for cheese, so opted to share the cheese board. While we waited we received corn, olives and peanuts to snack on. I think we were both hungrier than we realised, so the platter was a bit sparse. The mini loaves are delicious, we ordered two additional ones which seemed to hit the spot. 

DRINKS - I had a non-alcoholic cocktail- 'Cookie Colada' which sounded wonderful on the menu - ginger & pineapple, but when I got it, the coconut milk overpowered everything you could not taste any of the other flavours. 

SERVICE - fair, waited a bit to order the additional breads.

VALUE FOR MONEY - it's touristy, so it is pricey.

RECOMMENDABLE - The view is undoubtedly glorious, for sundowners. Parking could be an issue on a busy day.  It is definitely a lovely spot to visit. 7/10

Restaurant - Vovo Telo, Lynnwood Pretoria

This is another of those places where the décor and setting just resonates with me. I quite like this new(ish) centre in Lynnwood, Pretoria (Lynnwood Bridge).

FOOD: When I arrived I was HUNGRY! I ordered their Strawberry Chutney BLT & Brie Baguette; this is a Classic BLT with homemade strawberry chutney & Brie. It was HUGE (as you can see from the picture). It was very tasty and I think quite reasonably priced at R39. This was served with a free coffee (bonus!). 

DRINKS: I started off with a carrot, apple and ginger juice- so refreshing. Then had the filter coffee and later a red Cappuccino served with cinnamon and honey - delicious! 

SERVICE:  Quick. 

VALUE FOR MONEY: Very reasonable 

RECOMMENDABLE: Yes, especially as there are a lot of places to choose from at this centre. There are a number of Vovo Telo's in South Africa, and I've visited a couple, and so far - fortunately - the standard always stays the same. 8/10

http://www.vovotelo.co.za/

Restaurant - Café 41, Brooklyn Pretoria

31 July 2014 - After the wonderful scone experience on Sunday at Rhodes Memorial, I decided to indulge myself with another after a very early morning flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

My meetings were in Pretoria, so decided to go somewhere familiar before the days meetings started. 

FOOD - their are two warm scones in the portion - good start.  I was clearly spoilt with Sunday's scone, so my expectations were high. The serving comes with one portion of apricot jam (one of those plastic containers and mine had seen better days). A portion of butter and a huge portion of Orly whip cream (disappointing).  With extreme rationing skills, the jam and butter (whoever wants to ration your scone condiments anyway...? and why should you) the small portions were not enough for both scones. When I got a waiter's attention and requested more jam, he brought me marmalade. I don't mind marmalade on toast, but not a scone. So by the time I got more jam and butter the scone had gone cold and dried up. 

DRINKS - lovely beautiful pot of Earl Grey tea. Love the way the tea is presented. 

SERVICE - waiters waiters everywhere but not one to be around. On the up side, was seated fairly quickly but there are a myriad of waiters and yet the service was quite slow. Saw two managers if not more but no one bothered to greet anyone. 

VALUE FOR MONEY - Not bad, quite reasonable; scones, R39.50 and the tea R16.40

RECOMMENDABLE - if you are specifically in the Groenkloof Centre your choices are limited, sadly I think they have lost their edge. 5/10

Restaurant - Andiamo, Cape Quarter, Cape Town

30 July 2014 - Lovely little quaint place at the old part of the Cape Quarter. We sat on the outside close to the street, which had a lovely atmosphere and was quiet. The other side on the quad's side is busier and noisier.

FOOD - my companion and I shared a HRM pizza  It is topped with mushroom, salami, ham and a whole lot of goodies I can't recall. The pizza itself was OK (Pappino's Hout Bay is still my personal winner). Anyway, although I was not loving the toppings, the base was delicious! Wonderful, crispy and tasty. They also served us a delicious warm bread baked on site, which I enjoyed with thick dollops of butter! I would have been quite happy to just have that for supper. 

DRINKS - the drink prices were outrageous! R27 for a normal tin of Appeltiser!! I know places make their money from the drinks, but this seems excessive. R27-wow. 

SERVICE - the server was very attentive, almost too attentive, but he made a good pizza recommendation and made sure that we were happy. The manageress did seem eager to get us going and paying. Brought our bill and machine before we asked for it. (It was not as if we were the last table to leave). 

VALUE FOR MONEY - fairly reasonable. Except for this crazy Appeltizer price. That really dented my desire to go back there. 

RECOMMENDABLE - OK 6/10. 

Restaurant - Protea - Breakwater, Waterfront Cape Town

30 July 2014 - With a day riddled with meetings all over the Peninsula. I had a meeting at the Protea Hotel, Breakwater Lodge at the Waterfront where (fortunately) the meeting turned into lunch, and we shared a mezze platter. The weather was clear, so we sat outside on the verandah. Beautiful view of the mountain and the V&A Waterfront. The only pity is that there are huge constructions underway currently at the waterfront, so it was quite noisy.

FOOD - I am a huge fan of mezze platters. This one was delicious and quite reasonable for two people at R125. The platter had a variety of cold meats - salami, spicy sausage, pastrami; cheeses - blue an Brie; olives, pickles, rye bread, olive oil and boiled eggs (crusted with paprika, which wasn't quite my cup of tea, but interesting nonetheless). Everything else was very tasty. My only problem with a platter is that I generally end up eating waaay too much!

DRINKS - had a white Grapetiser. 

SERVICE - a bit slow and when I was ready to go there was no one in sight; I just think they forgot about me. 

VALUE FOR MONEY - fortunately I have a Prokard, so got 33% discount which was great. Value in general not bad. 

RECOMMENDABLE - yes, quiet a nice gem of a place in a bustling Waterfront. 7/10

Restaurant - Rhodes Memorial Restaurant and Tea Garden, Rondebosch, Cape Town

27 July 2014 - This is a wonderful place for a tasty meal, pastry (especially their lemon meringue!) and beautiful view of Cape Town. 

The weather had been miserable all week so it was lovely to have a clear day and sit outside to admire the view. Love it when we have guests and the weather plays along. 

FOOD - as tempting as the huge pieces of lemon meringue was, we did go for breakfast, so opted for something (only slightly) more 'responsible', scones. I can't remember when last I had a scone. They were massive, warm and served with apricot and strawberry jam, cream, real butter and for an additional R5, cheddar cheese, which we opted for. 

DRINKS - Capaccinos, lovely big servings.  

SERVICE - Was good. Showed to a seat almost immediately when we arrived. Server was efficient. 

VALE FOR MONEY - definitely. Those scones were huge and the condiments delicious and sufficient, they do not scrimp on their portions. 

RECOMMENDABLE - Definitely 8/10

_________________________________

November 2014 - headed here for breakfast with the Sidekick.

FOOD - I was torn between having the scones and eggs Benedict - opted for the latter. Very tasty, especially as it is served on a freshly baked herb muffin. Mark's full breakfast looked very good too - his only comment was that he would have preferred to have the mushrooms and sausages grilled a bit more. All in all the food is good.

DRINKS - I had a smoothy - bananas, berries and yoghurt - quite tasty, not overly sweet. Mark had a Cappuccino, which looked like a big decent portion.

SERVICE - Good, but a bit slow towards the end of the meal to get the bill.

VALUE FOR MONEY - Really good. My eggs benedict was R70, and Mark's also there about.

RECOMMENDABLE - Definitely! 8/10

 

Restaurant - Deli Delish, Hout Bay

20 July 2014 - This is a favourite for us, especially as we can take Bella (the puppy) with.  Some time ago the management changed so we decided to go for lunch (celebrate Bell's third birthday), and check it out, as we had not been in ages.

FOOD - very pleased that not too much has changed, the only changes I did notice were small positive ones e.g the menu and outside play area are both a bit neater. I digress, I had their hamburger and local beer special (R69). The meat was cooked just right and the chips tasty. I like that the hamburgers are served on ciabatta rolls.  The better half had a burger with bacon, avo and feta (in the past this specific burger was served with Swiss cheese), he enjoyed the new version too. We are both very happy that the quality of food has remained the same. We like it when we get what we expect and hope for. 

DRINKS - I had a Savannah Light, have not had one in ages. Better half opted for a Windhoek Light. 

Bella got a bowl of water, which was a nice touch. 

SERVICE - efficient and sufficient. 

VALUE FOR MONEY - yes, the pricing seems to be the same. 

RECOMMENDABLE - yes, lovely spot with delicious food in Hout Bay, and we can take the puppy! 9/10