beefcakes: a pink burger bar

beefcakes burger bar

It’s a pink restaurant, on the pink strip which does a really good burger. 

the pink interior

Its kind of an all American diner and has a downstairs dance floor which opens up at 21.30 with only eighties and nineties music (with lyrics), so your evening can evolve into a bit of a party if you so wish. Abba, Kylie, you get the vibe.  There is a plastic fun fair, roundabout horse with pole on the stage, which brings out the exhibitionist in the most demur. 

We went there on Saturday night for a friend’s birthday party and had quite a blast. 

pink times at beefcakes

 You can have your burger with skinny fries or wedges and a plethora of toppings and a side order of big, fat juicy beer battered fried onion rings. Starting price R49 - and going up to around R69 for a more gourmet offering. You can have it in Chicken, Beef, lamb, Ostrich or Veg. 

There are fantastic salads like ‘Ripped Roman” and ‘Buff Biltong”. 

There are milkshakes like peanut butter and choc brownie and even a creme soda float. 

There are desserts like cheesecake, waffles and homemade apple pie (does it get better than this?). 

Sandwiches, wraps, chilli poppers and nachos – the whole bang shoot. 

The wine list was a bit limited and they had run out of the only ‘cheap and cheerful’ sauv blanc, so in the end the evening added up a bit. 

Then there was the birthday girls ‘body shot’ (drinking a Jagermeister from between the deep crevaces of a very hot man’s 6 pack – nice!). 

this is definitely one way to drink a jagermeister

 A good burger is right up there in my favourite food category and Beefcakes gets  a solid nod of approval from me. Next time I go there I am so ordering ‘Buffy the Hamburger Slayer”: bacon, cheese, caramelised onion, avo and mushroom sauce 

Beefcakes Burger Bar: 40 Somerset Road, Green Point, 021 425 9019

party time

thai cafe – hout bay

great for a quick fix of healthy thai food after a hike

Stopped off at Thai Cafe in Hout Bay for a quick phad thai after hiking up Chapmans Peak yesterday.  All round a nice little experience.  One had the pork and one had the chicken and both were enjoyed.  We were not hungry enough to have the tom yum goong as well (the acid test as far as thai eateries go), due to having consumed hot cross buns at the top of the mountain, but I can see future little stop offs here in winter when we hike in Hout Bay.

Nice!

we like

my pork phad thai with miniature dried shrimp

 Although this is a food blog, we do need to see how beautiful Cape Town is. 

davids panorama - Noordhoek to Hout Bay - me eating a hot cross bun

a nice little hike up chapmans peak on good friday - davids pic

beautiful views over noordhoek beach - i love the wave formations

view of hout bay on the way to the top

sandbar camps bay – argus day and lance armstrong

the sandbar - camps bay - cyclists cruising past

The Sandbar in Camps Bay is in the perfect location generally, but today it was the perfect spot to sit and have lunch and watch the Argus cyclists come zooming past.

I had been up and about much earlier in the day to go and see my hero- Lance Armstrong  on his final approach a couple of kays away from the finish line.  It was all a bit too quick and brief, and I was totally overexposed to the awesomeness of the moment, I forgot to scream out a little message for him. Managed to get some pics though.

and there he is hardly slowing down round the corner

just a flash of awesomeness and perfection

Anyway a quiet little lunch turned into a very social afternoon, and our table for two became a table for ten, with old and new friends popping in and out.

The Sandbar do a great burger, with mandatory crispy fried onion rings (a crucial element) and chips.  The Chicken caesar salad is also pretty good.

nacho's burger @ the sandbar in camps bay - delicious

chicken ceasar salad at the sandbar

All round a stunning little spot for breakfast,  lunch or just a coctail in the most stunning location.

Next year I am going to overcome my fears and get on my bike (I see the smiles and can hear the mumbles all the way to Dawson Creek, Canada).

great views all round from the sandbar

katima – hout bay

the girls

We had been talking about going to katima for a while, so decided to convene the ‘cheap and cheerful’ supper club for a ‘not so cheap’ but very cheerful dinner on Friday night.

This restaurant has a winning formula; a combination of more formal and reserved eating areas, and a less formal bar and outside space, which is  consistently busy. What a nice vibe!

starting off outside

We started in the courtyard, enthusiastically tucking into the home-made prawn crackers and drinking a very enjoyable Mulderbosch Rose.

I love dim sum, so was very pleased to see a whole page worth of options in a very extensive menu.

the extensive dim sum menu

I ate the crispy duck with pancakes which was delicious. The curry was lovely as well as the steamed fish, served on a wire tray with intense lemon grass and Thai flavours.

crispy duck @ katima

The service outside was exceptional, inside not quite as good, but overall it was a night filled with laughs, many more bottles of the rose and  culminated in the upstairs bar for some shared chocolate spring rolls.

chocolate spring rolls for dessert

I can’t wait to go back.

bonding @ katima

olympia cafe kalk bay

 

one of my favourite restaurants

Olympia café is without a doubt one of my favourite restaurants.  The original philosophy of the founders was to open on 5 days of the week and for breakfast and lunch only so that they could spend the rest of the time doing whats important in life.  The same laid back ‘just off the beach’ vibe still exists and I love the  honest food, especially the linguine del mare which I pretty much order every single time. If I lived closer to Kalk Bay, I would go there more often and order other things off the menu.  The ciabatta, which has been freshly baked  next door, drenched in olive oil and balsamic vinegar is part of the ritual of eating there that brings me back time and again.

delicious linguine with prawns, mussel and fresh fish

The restaurant is buzzy and has a vintage rustic feel that is so authentic. A lot of the cooking takes place inside which adds to the theatre of it all.  The waitresses are friendly and quirky and somehow the Boland Sauvignon Blanc (their house white) always tastes so delicious. 

a little mid week lunch with a special friend

 

black board menu

lots of lovely memories

fresh baked goodies

kalky’s and kalk bay harbour

an institution in kalk bay

 I love Kalk Bay! It just seems to get better.  There are so  many little treasure trove places to visit its a mini adventure everytime I go.  I have so many ‘favourite’ places to visit when I am there, I rarely get to try any new ones, but on Saturday I got to go to Kalky’s for the first time. 

I have always seen and heard about it, but quite frankly thought it was far to grungy and greasy looking to go into.  What a pleasant surprise! I was with friends who wanted to eat fish & chips so off we went. 

very busy inside kalky's

 The place was packed and there was a steady queue at the counter.  The very generous and reasonably priced portions of battered fish and chips kept rolling out the kitchen.  All served on stainless steel plates and bowls and at wooden bench tables covered with red plastic table cloths.  Lovely! 

My friends ordered grilled yellowtail (which is green on the SASSI list), fishcakes and a salad which comes with an olive oil and coriander, pesto type dressing (which I thought was quite impressive given the surrounds), and everything was delicious (I had a little sample of each). 

very fresh fish and chips

 All the fish is freshly caught and available right there at the harbour. 

One of the highlights was a very charismatic waitress ‘Gadija”. 

Gadija - a delightful waitress

  I’m looking forward to going back when I want an authentic, local fish and chips eating experience. 

kalk bay harbour

buy some fish to take home - such fun talking to the fisherman

local kids fishing in the harbour

grand cafe & beach- granger bay

girls night out @ the grand cafe & beach

We had a fabulous girls night out to the Grand Cafe & Beach in Granger Bay on Friday night.  It’s quite amazing how they have turned an old rusty boat building and yard into a private beach and one of the trendiest restaurants in Cape Town.

a private little beach in front of the restaurant

It’s a sister to the Plett and Camps Bay Grand’s and has the same menu apart from the additional pizza oven (very nice indeed).

They are still going through a bit of an attitude crises as is common among new and uber trendy restaurants that have just opened in Cape Town, and are very strict around bookings for both drinks and dinner.  They seem to ‘lose’ bookings often, so luckily we had our printed confirmation. This same ‘situation’ was experienced by other friends of mine on the same night. One wonders what will happen in winter when the vast cavernous space inside will need to be filled with ‘locals’, I suspect the attitude will have changed by then.

sunset at the grand

The menu is small and in my view a little bit ordinary and limited for the premium prices that you pay. The food is good enough and among us we ate the linefish, calamari, fillet and the sirloin tagliata with shared salads and chips.

The tagliata  which is what I ordered was in my opinion the most interesting item on the menu and was delicious.  Lovely slices of grilled sirloin, with  a soy, garlic and chilli dressing, topped with rocket and parmesan shavings.

sirloin tagliata @ the grand

It’s a lovely chic little spot with an older crowd, but I think it would be more fun if they allowed more people into the bar and to create a bit of a vibe.  At a outragious R52 for a gin and tonic, I won’t be going there all that often.

nice for sundowners

willoughby & co – delicious sushi

rainbow reloaded .....so delicious

 last night I was taken on a lovely date by a lovely man to Willoughby & co at the V & A Waterfront.  The sushi menu is extensive and is exceptional and if you don’t mind eating at a table in the middle of a mall, it’s some of the best you will find in Cape Town. 

The rainbow reloaded are delicious with a nice sweet and spicy edge.  We also shared the rock shrimp tempura on a tuna roll, which were very, very tasty indeed.  

my dinner last night

 The meal was washed down with a  Waterkloof Circumstance Sauvignon blanc, which is one of the best sauv’s I’ve tasted in a while. A very balanced wine.  We also had a glass of Ataraxia Sauvignon blanc afterwards which was nice, but not quite as good as the Circumstance. 

Willoughby & co is a superb all round seafood restaurant, with sushi options, oysters and other Japanese dishes.  Theres also a lovely little food shop tucked in the back which specialises in asian goodies

nobu cape town

the black cod den miso....taken on my phone

Last year I was spoiled by a very special old friend and taken to Nobu at the One & Only in Cape Town for dinner. The evening was superb,  from the first sip of bubbly at sunset to the last dance at Jade Lounge at 3am.

The whole meal and every morsel we ate at Nobu was exceptional and so off the chart amazing it actually left me feeling a little sad.  Sad that I can’t eat this sort of food all the time and sad that it has raised the benchmark so high that it leaves similar genre meals fading into the background by comparison.

One (of the many) highlights of the evening was the Black Cod den miso.  This is Alaskan cod (nothing like british cod) that is marinated in miso, hence the black appearance and is one of Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s signature dishes in his restaurants.  At a staggering R435 per portion, I have to say it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever eaten.

I drank sake (warm) for the first time that night and it was delicious.  No doubt I was drinking a higher quality offering, so can’t really comment on this particular beverage more broadly.

Sushi is normally eaten at the end of the meal as a palette cleanser, but we regrettably didn’t get that far. The numerous other dishes that came before, like the white fish sashimi with dried garlic, the salmon skewers and the prawn tempura, rock shrimp style with jalapeño, ponzu and creamy spicy dipping sauce, left us with zero space for this.  So it’s very clear that I need to go back to this superb and vibrant restaurant.

generous portions to share

the sandbar – bushmans river kenton

 

arriving by boat on NY eve

This is one of those restaurants that without a visit to, the summer holiday to Kenton on Sea is not quite the same. Its kind of like a ‘house boat’ restaurant and floats on the banks of the Bushmen’s river – a little way up and surrounded by dense aloes and other vegetation. It can be hit and miss on the food and service, but I am a bit emotionally connected to the place and really love going there by boat.

It has changed ownership but still does pretty much the same type of food.  They are known for fish & chips, calamari and prawns. It’s pretty basic Eastern Cape, holiday fare (apparently this is the way the locals like it). They have a nice selection of wine.

We went there by boat for an organised New Years eve party. The trip around sunset was lovely and we pulled up to the Sandbar drinking Graham Beck Brut Rose and listened to the distant sound of bagpipes. It was a misty evening so this was quite a special moment.

loving the pink bubbles