Julie's Boggle

It’s our second last night in Durban and Julie and I managed to beguile the grandparents into looking after Jonathan while we snuck out for a date night (with Jessica in tow on account of her requiring Julie’s milk apparatus).

We selected The Gazette in Florida Rd because we were after Italian and it looked cheap and cheerful.  “Cheap and Confused”, though, would probably be a better description.

Our initial greeting was by a casually-dressed chap who had been sitting at the back and who looked about in apparent mild panic before sauntering tentatively towards us.  He vaguely waved us in the direction of a table and then disappeared.  Shortly after he reappeared to take our drinks orders.  When we asked for the Chardonnay on the menu, he muttered something about not having Chardonnay and that he’d find out what other “sweet white wines” he did have to offer.  Cue several rounds of coming and going before we settled on the “dry” house white, which turned out to be a not-unpalatable fruity white with an interesting syrupy after-taste.

Having scanned the menu, we settled on a focaccia to share (covered in mozzarella and Roquefort according to the menu) and we both requested gnocchi for mains.  Julie’s was to have a tomato, bacon and cream sauce, while I plumped for the Roquefort sauce.

About this time we mysteriously graduated to a waitress who was dressed the part and seemed somewhat more table-savvy.  She proceeded to bring us a vast (about 40cm) focaccia dressed simply with garlic.  Not what the menu said, but happily a little closer to what we’d been wanting anyway, so hey-ho.  Along with the focaccia came a miscellany of condiments which included but was not limited to:

• A bottle of malt vinegar which had the vague incantation of “balsamic” mumbled in its direction.
• A bottle of what looked, tasted and smelled like sunflower seed oil.  (Extra-slapper olive oil perhaps?).
• A cup of mysterious green paste.  Not pesto by the smell, but we ventured no further.
• “Balsamic, garlic and olive oil” salad dressing which tasted strangely savoury.

By now the table was feeling distinctly cluttered, as though someone had emptied the pantry onto it while searching for something right at the back.  But it did liven up the focaccia to combine it with so many different flavours.

Next came two giant servings of gnocchi.  Julie’s was almost as promised, but was missing the cream she’d been looking forward to.  This was rectified within a few minutes, after some referring back to the menu in consternation.  Mine wasn’t too bad, although “Roquefort sauce” might have been a slightly optimistic description; better might have been “white sauce but the chef thinks very hard about Roquefort while stirring it”.

We decided to leg it after the gnocchi, feeling faint just at the thought of the Bar One cake and white chocolate cheesecake which were listed as dessert options.  Still, all in all, we left quite full, not poisoned and for the definitely cheap total of R148.00 (£13.05).

Yesterday, we finally got around to going to the IMAX film, released last year, of Deep Sea 3D. (I’d been keen to see it ever since I read a fascinating DIVE magazine article about the filming of one of the sequences and how they’d almost had a fatality when a diver’s specialised scuba equipment malfunctioned.)

We chose the Science Museum IMAX, because it’s an easy bus ride from home, and met up with our friend Dale, always a willing co-conspirator in these sorts of ventures.

Verdict: A definite thumbs-up!

Literally the next best thing to actually being there as a diver, and sometimes even better than that, because it takes you up close to so many rare and exotic creatures (and sharks!) that would otherwise take a lifetime of diving to track down. (And even then you would also have to be extremely lucky to see doing them all the antics the film-makers managed to capture.)

The 3D-glasses, as we’d experienced on previous 3D IMAX movies, really do their job. In this case bringing clouds of jellyfish, tiny mantis shrimps and coral reefs, among other things, to almost within arm’s reach. Utterly amazing.

[Aside: After a quick check, I see that South African IMAX theatre's are showing a movie with an identical trailer titled just "Deep Sea"... Probably still worth seeing for the great footage.]

When we wandered out of the museum, lunch was calling loudly, and Tom had the brainwave to take us to a great Chinese restaurant he’d visited on a work outing – The Good Earth. Handily, just a short walk away up Brompton Road.

I did have recollections of Tom raving about the “Crispy duck pancakes” he’d had when he’d been here, and that was clearly going to be our dish of choice for today as well.

We shied away from the “full duck” option, which seemed enough to feed a large family, and went for the “half duck” shared between the 3 of us, with rice, mixed veg and some spring rolls to fill in any gaps.

Fortunately Tom had been around before and could explain what was going on when a chef came over to us with a plate bearing what appeared to be a flattened half duck, waved it before us, and then disappeared with it again in the direction of the kitchen. Apparently, that’s the part where they prove to you that there was actually a fully assembled duck involved in your meal — at least to start with.

And sure enough, when he reappeared several minutes later, the same plate was completely covered with shredded duck meat, along with very tasty bits of shredded crispy skin.

Tom then demonstrated the making of a perfect crispy duck pancake: Open the woven basket containing the perfectly-formed layers of steamed Chinese pancakes (think half-size crepes only with a more delicate appearance), lift one onto your plate and arrange some of the duck on top of that. Spoon on some of the delicious hoisin sauce, add some of the crunchy green bits provided, and wrap up. Eat with fingers as chop sticks are way too fiddly. Wow. A definite Yum!

By the time we were finished the duck, we’d gone through two of the pancake baskets and were onto our second dish of hoisin sauce. And perfectly replete after an exceedingly good meal.

After long, long months of drawing out the project I started on back in January 2005, the start of the global roll-out suddenly came upon us in a rush.

And because the London office is in the middle of a big office move, we’d decided to start with the German offices… and also persuaded the project manager that a couple of us should go along to ease in the transition.

So Sunday evening found us on Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, a short 1.5 hour trip (+ the usual airport hoo-ha), and then a taxi ride to the hotel booked for us in the city.

The rooms were very chic. Spacious bed and a great shower. Not much more you could ask for in a hotel room.

We managed to leave our street map behind when we left the next morning. Fortunately, we knew the street name we were after, and that the office building was red with a very distinctive “Japanese-lantern” type roof…

After a good morning getting to know the small team that manages IT for the 300 or so German users, we had lunch at an Austrian restaurant nearby. Pumpkin soup, followed by interesting spinach dumplings on tomato ragut, topped with super-strong grated cheese.

Back to work, and an afternoon that didn’t come close to working off the lunch, then it was time to head out for dinner.

Our international IT trainer was the brilliant ideas man for our choice of evening meals. He recommended an Aussie bar-restaurant — wow, Aussie restaurants in Frankfurt?! — where we arrived just in time for happy hour.

I had an emu salad, but also partook of a large platter that others were sharing which came with emu, crocodile (!) and kangaroo. The crocodile meat was quite pale, curious texture, not unlike chicken in taste. The kangaroo was good, slightly stringy, with a strong flavour of game; and the emu could have passed for a regular steak, slightly on the well-done side of medium.

(Interesting note from the menu: emu has zero cholesterol.)

After eyeing the dessert menu, we elected to head off instead to the “best ice-cream shop in Frankfurt”. Directions and ice creams courtesy of our trainer.

I have to give a very definite thumbs-up to this little shop. Run by a friendly Italian woman, they have dozens of flavours and the ice cream meets all the necessary requisites for true greatness in terms of creaminess, texture and flavour. Drool!

(Unfortunately they close up shop for winter — seems daft but apparently the locals don’t really go for ice cream in winter — so definitely no holidays here for me and Tom before next Spring!)

Tuesday in the office was hectic. I like to think that we really did prove our usefulness that morning even if it stressed us out.

I say morning, because lunch (taken at a real German cafe nearby) seemed to have barely passed before we needed to head off to the airport for our 17h00 flight…!

The taxi-driver they got us appeared to have specialised in maniac driving; but figuring he must have some skill to still be walking and talking in his fifties, I tried to reassure myself that he probably wouldn’t kill us off on the way to the airport.

The airport was massive, complicated, intrusive (we each scored two complete friskings) and expensive (€3.50 for a bottle of water in the duty-free section) so we just walked through to the boarding gates area and whiled away the time with chatting and reading.

All in all – a good trip! And I’m glad that I don’t get sent abroad often enough that all this would stop being fun.

A little while back, we took advantage of the lovely long summer evenings to go a bit out of our way to find our evening meal. In this case our destination was the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Bayswater – about 15 minutes walk from Notting Hill Tube.

The GBK chain has been spreading like wildfire over London this past year. I had read a few reviews so I was mostly prepared for how things work there. Basically it’s a curious cross between a pub and a restaurant. A waiter shows you to a table, and gives you a menu but then you have to go and order at the counter, remembering to give them your table number (which cunningly is not marked anywhere on said table). You pay at the counter and then go and sit down, drinks and food are later brought to your table.

The scope of the menu is quite wide given that it’s all variations on burgers. It was quite hard to choose just one from the list! In the end I had the Kiwi-Burger, with pineapple, beetroot, cheese and egg (!), and Tom had a blue-cheese-sauce burger. We ordered one of their milkshakes, which come in big silver milkshake containers like the ones they use to have at the Tropicale in Durban.

Sadly, the milkshake was an area that rather let them down. Although I’d seen them putting real icecream in, they obviously don’t use very much of it, and they make up for it with some sort of thickening agent. So the milkshake looks thick and frothy, but acts runny and the foam is suspiciously springy. And it has that artificial “thick-mouth” feel when you drink it. To crown it all off, the chocolate flavour wasn’t very realistic – so big thumbs down on the milkshake.

The burgers were pretty good though. They arrive with a wooden skewer through them to hold the whole assembly together, and while the presentation isn’t awesome, the food is very tasty, meets most of the requirements of a first-class burger, and hits the spot. And for £16, it was a cheap and cheerful night out.

Tom and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary this week with a trip to The Gaucho Grill. These guys are renowned for their steaks but we had a feeling they wouldn’t come cheap so we were saving them for a special occasion.

There are a number of Gaucho Grills around London these days; the one we went to is about 10 minutes walk from Tom’s work, in Chancery Lane. For us, only their reputation preceded them, but it turns that their menu and style is Argentinian.

You know a restaurant takes their steak seriously when the waiter comes over with a wooden board decorated with 5 raw steaks while you’re looking at the menu; and proceeds to describe (in heavily-accented English) the pros and cons of each cut of meat!

One that looked particularly interesting was the Argentinian specialty Churrasco de lomo which is a “spiral cut fillet”, marinated for 24 hours. (All their steaks are proudly proclaimed as Argentinian beef so no getting away from the food miles on these babies.)

With that new information on board, we returned to our perusal of the menu. Unlike some steak places, Gaucho’s do have a wide range of alternatives, but we were there for the steak so we didn’t linger over the other pages as we nibbled on the tasty bread they brought to keep us going.

Considering how much we were likely to manage, we chose to share a fillet – small, 225g – and their Churrasco de lomo which only has one size of 300g. To go with that, we opted for a blue cheese sauce and some creamed spinach. And an Argentinian Cabernet to complement it all.

The Churrasco de lomo was definitely the star of the show. A flat strip of meat, it was fantastically tender – everything you could ask for in a steak. And the blue cheese sauce was delicious! We could have used two of those. The plain fillet wasn’t as impressive after the churrasco in that it had some fairly chewy areas despite being rare. But still well better than average for a London steak and we devoured the lot.

We were more than happy to look at the dessert menu when it came around. Earlier we’d spotted whisky Don Pedro on the menu – something that we’d never seen in London except at restaurants serving South African food. I think we now have a better idea where this South African favourite orignated from! (If you haven’t met it, this is a sweet combination of blended ice cream and shot of whisky / Kahlua served in a glass.)

So Tom had the don pedro, and I had the Argentinian pancakes with vanilla ice cream and dulce de leche. I wasn’t completely sure what to expect for the dulce de leche, but guessed it was some form of caramel. And that was exactly it, just like caramelised condensed milk, in wavy stripes all over the top of my pancake, under which nestled two generous scoops of vanilla ice cream flecked with dark vanilla pod specks.

All in all, our evening rated far more highly than our visit to the slightly disappointing Chez Gerard this time last year. It was also more pricy than any meal we’d ever had to fund ourselves, but worth it for the good food and interesting experience. An excellent way to celebrate a great nine years.

We had a fun excursion last night – visiting a new area, socialising with a large number of other (mostly new-to-us) South Africans, and trying a new restaurant.

The occasion was Gavin’s birthday supper – Gavin being a friend of Tom’s from ThoroughTec days, who moved out to London last year in the wake of a mass family exodus from SA. Gavin had invited all of his extended London-based family along to his birthday bash, and with us and a few other friends that took the numbers to 14. There was one American, and one unknown (because we didn’t get to talk to him) – and all the rest were SA ex-pats.

The restaurant, Abiba Cuisine, had an extensive menu – with large sections indicating a distinctly Lebanese theme. Tom and I both chose the fatayer (spinach parcels) for starters. These were 4 substantial little pasty-type creations (with a bread-like pastry) with tasty spinach and pinenut filling that went down well with the very drinkable French chardonnay we’d opted for.

Tom couldn’t resist the fillet steak for mains (even though this meant stepping outside of the 3-courses-for-£15 bounds) while I had the less tender but quite flavoursome sweet duck breast. And we both finished off with a heavenly crème caramel – as good as home-made (and that’s definitely saying something!)

As usual, when it comes to the European community of the Greater Durban Metro, everybody discovers that they somehow have links to the others. Our crowd was no exception. One of Gavin’s friends remembered Tom lecturing him at UND, and I recognised a classmate from DGC (last seen in Standard 3) who turned out to be Gavin’s cousin!

Our walk back to Notting Hill station took us back down the diverse and interesting high street (very few chain stores, and a number of places with Arabic signage indicating middle-eastern leanings) and then through some swanky suburbs and lastly into the retail districts of Notting Hill with all of its imaginative and offbeat shops.

On a whim, we decided to take our car to be cleaned at our favourite car wash this afternoon. (It kind of needs to be a whim in this case because getting to this car-wash is a bit of an excursion – so just needing to have the car washed is not normally enough of an excuse. Of course, we were also giving our tired battery some extra charging time!)

It is no coincidence that this car wash is in the car park of The Royal Oak – a large pub which does pretty good food… The pub itself is in Farnham Common, outside of London’s famous orbital motorway, the M25, in Buckinghamshire. It’s a lovely, fairly rural setting – and not a bad drive from Shepherds Bush – but at 35 minutes door to door, you can see why we don’t pop out that often.

So after leaving our car with the friendly attendants, we settled back for a lazy Sunday lunch washed down with a pint of Speckled Hen and followed by a stroll into the village nearby where we cased out the Real Estate shop.

After goggling at the number of “spacious family homes” going for £500 000 on average, we wandered back, handed over our £25 for the car wash and valet, and headed back to London with our sparkly car…