The Variety of Life

The last week has been such a hectic week. It is end of year wrap up of most companies so I had 2 year end functions as well as a Christmas party and a night in the casino being entertained by an international comic. I love the fact that we get such a variety of entertainment in Cape Town.

Tuesday we had our book-club Christmas party. We booked at Kitima as it is in Hout Bay and easy for us all to get to, but mostly because it has amazing food and I think was even awarded the ‘Best Asian Food’ Award. The décor and service is brilliant, even when it is rammed full like is always is. The bartender was a bit full of himself and not great on the customer service, he snapped at me when I complained I had been waiting almost half an hour for my cocktail. But the food was good as was the company, we had a lot of laughs.

Wednesday was the end of year party for the company I contract through. It was booked on a small yacht, where we were told we would ‘cruise round the harbor, drop anchor in Camp’s Bay and have lunch’. Sounds divine doesn’t it? It wasn’t anything like that in actuality. We booked the only rubbish weather day of the week. It was a misty drizzly day and the water was very choppy. The driver took off full belt out of the harbor and we bounced and rocked and it was horrid. They seemed to be trying to just take us somewhere, anywhere, and then get us back as quick as possible. We were drenched with sea water, sea sick and sodden. Not pleasant in the least little bit. Why the driver (pilot?) had to go hell for leather I have no idea. No one could stand without holding on and one guy was so sick he spent the whole trip in the loo.

Thursday was our group of mates all off to see Jimmy Carr live at Grandwest Casino. We were all rushing to get there as our group of 14 could not pre-book a table. Seems insane to me, but there you go. So we had a group go ahead and book as big a table as possible. We all squeezed round a table for 10 and threw the food down our necks to make the venue on time. We didn’t have long to wait until the opening act, he was very funny. Of course Jimmy was, but it was a nice treat to get to hear a new local comedian. After the show some of the group went off for drinks but as I had been out late every night we headed home.

Friday was our end of year function with the company where I am currently contracting. We went to Moyo out at Spier wine farm. We had welcoming cocktails in a tree house, then went down to our tables in the tented area. The food was great, the drinks yummy and we all had a lovely afternoon.

We had Lily’s BF down for the weekend, and I wasn’t up to cooking for us all so we ordered in pizzas for the 6 of us and had a chilled out evening at home.

Saturday we were going to put up our Christmas tree and have a braai, but the weather looked a bit iffy so I decided to do homemade burgers. Lily and I made baked potatoes, a big salad and mealies to accompany it, and we had a feast! Nothing fancy, but plenty of food and lovely to have the family all together other than my son.

This is the last week with our visitor from the USA so I decided to treat us all to dinner at somewhere a bit special. I booked a table by the window at Salt. We had been there during the world cup and were very unimpressed with the food then, so most likely would not have gone back but then I heard they had changed their chef and I thought I would give them another chance.

On the day I got a call from the venue asking me to phone and confirm my booking. I missed the call but phoned back and spoke to someone to confirm both the booking and that we were by the window, yet when I arrived I got a bit of snarky attitude from the hostess who said ‘oh so you are here’. As we were there early for our booking, I wasn’t sure what she meant? I said, ‘yes I phoned to confirm as you requested and spoke to a lady with an Asian accent.’ So I asked if we could just have a cocktail as we were a few minutes early and we popped into the bar.

Once our drinks arrived, we went and asked could we be seated and away we went. We asked the waiter what he recommended and he suggested the fillet steak. It appealed to us all and the entire table ended up ordering it. We all asked for it to be medium rare except for Lily who can’t bear her meat even a bit pink.

We ordered a few bottles of wine and sat back to enjoy the lovely sun set and chat. Our waiter was very attentive, but not annoyingly so.

The steaks arrived and all of them except for Lily’s was overcooked. Not a drop of blood or pink to be seen. I said to the waiter they were overcooked and he just looked devastated. I would always send back an undercooked steak, but the idea of wasting 4 beautiful cuts of meat was too much for me to bear. So we ate them, but we all felt a bit cheated. It meant the meat was dry, there was only a dribble of au jus on the plate so even that didn’t save them. We were very disappointed.

The desserts were very nice, other than Mr K. He ordered some sort of vanilla chocolate panacotta stuff flavoured with wasabi. He said all he tasted was wasabi, he expected it to just have a bit as an accent but it was overwhelming. The girls and I had a chocolate crème brulee which was divine so I think he just made a bad choice. Our total bill was almost R2k bucks so I would have preferred to be able to rave about how brilliant the new chef is, but really I can’t in all honesty do so.

So what do you do if you get overcooked meat? Do you send it back and make them worry about the wastage? Or do you avoid making a fuss and just eat it?

I’m always paranoid I get some nasty chef spitting in my food if I complain…