15 November. Dinner @ Beanbag Bahia

Beanbag Bahia, in Umdloti, north of Durban - The sister restaurant of the Durban stalwart Beanbag in Windermere rd. Soni and I went for dinner with our mates Liz, Greg and Elsie.

The setting is awesome, right across the road from the beach, at night though there is no view, but still the sound of the crashing waves as background.

The interior design is great, a retro feel with tropical wall paper, contemporary lighting and a mix of modern moulded ABS chairs as well as a sence of nostalgia provided by great fifties rattan chairs. This was aproject of the internationally reknowned design team at EGG designs, husband and wife team, Greg and Roche Dry.

We started with a mix of Oyster shots, raw oysters in a Bloody Mary, and the warm Caprese salad, cherry tomatoes and bochoncicni in abalsamic vinegrette on rocket leaves. All Bloody marvelous!

The mains were spicy calamari, served with couscous, Prawn pasta and slow braised rabbit on polenta. Whilst the calamari was great, the balance of the mains were at best ok (WITH ABOUT 3 PRAWNS PER SERVING!), and the rabbit tough and very difficult to eat out of the oversized bowl it was served in.

The service was intermittant, if that.

The evening was great fun tough, due to the copiuos amounts of red wine (great one Liz!) and awesome company and conversation.

I have however, only heard great reports from everyone that has gone there for lunch, it must be the view, so to be fair we'll give it another go - For lunch this time!

NABC - Dinner 4

I've been hectic, things are CRAZY, but it's no reason for not posting, so apologies!

About four months ago a bunch of us started a dinner club - NABC - it's a revenge club for us to counter act the wives's book clubs! Not Another Book Club!! Initially there was F... floating around the middle as well, but we thought we'll keep things tidy!

So this is how things work is there are 10 of us, each month a different guy acts as host on the last Thursday evening. The host chooses the restaurant, makes the booking, circulates the details and basically makes it happen. Sounds like fun?? You bet!


We've done four so far:

• July, I hosted at Market.
• August, Max hosted at Dish.
• September, Solly Jr hosted at 9th Ave Bistro.
• October, Graham hosted at Cafe 1999.

I've got no pics of the first three, but lots memories of great food and fun times, but I'm not gonna back track, I will however commit to post details of our meals (or at least those sitting around me and my own) from here on.

Cafe 1999

What a vibe!!!!!

I hadn't been to Cafe 1999 in a long time. This restaurant has been around for a while, as the name suggests, as a matter of fact the last time was when Andre Schubert was still the owner (he is now the proprietor of Market, and Arts Cafe at ACKZN Gallery). It was like nothing (except a barely noticeable decor update) has changed. A Tapas style menu, as good as always and way ahead of the trendy fashion curve, still had almost all the guys ordering the same meal - it never happens! So in the main it was Grilled calamari on glass noodles for most, with Paulie doing deep fried Anchovies and myself having parma wrapped figs, stuffed with bleu.

For Mains it was a full-house of Pan fried Lamb Fillet, served on herbed mash with a spicy tommato sauce, topped with Gremolata. Graham, who's a regular, suggested a substitution of the mash with the porcini risotto, which most of the guys opted for.

Great food, great company!!!!