The weekend that was…

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This is my very own “artistic impression” of what went down this weekend:

Apologies.  I can’t draw to save my life.  But let me try to explain what you are looking at…

This is my cublicle at work.  The sides of the cublicle and also my chair are all in a matching colour of “zesty” lime green.  I couldn’t find the right colour pen, so picture something lighter & brighter than the green I’ve used above.  Now according to the study of Colour Psychology, green symbolises nature and the natural world and is usually used in decorating for it’s calming effect.  Well I can guarantee you guys one thing, being stuck in a green cubicle does precisely none of that.

On my desk there you’ll see my PC, my phone and my company branded desk calendar slash clock combo unit which we all got as a gift at the beginning of the year.  I don’t really understand why they gave us these desk clocks in the first place… I mean, you can just check the time & date on your PC screen.  Duh…  I would totally re-gift it, but I think my friends would be suspicious of the big ass company logo on it.  Hmmm.

Then that’s me in the chair.  I’m double facepalming myself while banging my head on the desk.  Yes, this hurts… a lot… but it strangely makes me feel much much better. ;)

This artistic moment came about at around 5pm on Sunday – after pretty much spending the entire weekend at work (after a loooong week of working late and oh also working the weekend before that).  At this point, I had hit a serious low…  Then I remembered reading somewhere that “drawing your feelings” helps you release all your pent up anger & frustration and all that other good stuff.  So I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a bash.  If anything it allowed me to laugh at my situation a bit which I guess is a good thing.  Well… except if it’s an evil laugh.  Kinda like a psycho serial killer in a horror flick.  That wouldn’t be a good sign at all.

Anyhoo, I still have a long road of crazy hours and weekend work ahead of me.  So maybe I’ll be posting more “art” as I go.  I’m guessing they’ll be taking more of a darker turn though.  My creative side is  feelin’ some flames and firearms… :)

xxx

Massimo’s for killer pizza

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On Sun I was really in the mood for some Italian food…  I think it must have been thanks to my disappointment at Ragù the day before.  It seemed to have left a lingering need in my soul. ;)

I didn’t want to hit up any of my usual spots, so I decided to consult my trusty EatOut website.  They do this “Best of” thing, for example “Best of… sushi” or “Best of… bistros” and then they give you their top picks for each major city.  In the “Best of… Italian” list for Cape Town I spotted Massimo’s out in Hout Bay.  I checked out their website and looked at one or two online reviews, liked what I saw and decided this would be the dinner spot I would drag two of my friends, Lara & Grant, to that evening.

Now just a tip for getting there.  It’s on Hout Bay Main Rd, but if you’re coming from Cape Town via the Llandadno side and then hit that traffic circle which gets you into Main Rd, turn left at the circle towards Constantia, not right towards Chapman’s Peak.  You see I made this mistake and then got horribly lost.  Add to that the fact that I have seriously poor night vision and that area (and the road to get to Hout Bay) isn’t well lit, you get a minor panic attack.  But hey, nothing a glass of wine couldn’t fix…

Massimo’s is part of a little country style shopping center and sits snug in the far right hand corner.  It’s definitely got a strong country kitchen feel, nothing too flash, just nice and cosy, with lots of wooden details and a big pizza oven right where everyone can see the action.

For starters I tried their soup special which was green pea & mint.  Lara had the Bresaola (air dried sliced beef with parmesan shavings & extra virgin olive oil – R42).  And Grant had the Tagliere (Coppa ham, salame felino, Mortadella, bread & preserves – R42.  So his was basically a plate of meat – just the way die manne loves it right. :)

My soup was quite blah.  I would have preferred it to have a thicker texture and I needed to add quite a bit of seasoning.  Lara & Grant enjoyed their starters.  Of course, there wasn’t any cooking involved in those 2 dishes, but the ingredients were fresh and tasty.

For mains I was initially totally set on having a pasta.  But as we were sitting there beautiful pizzas kept coming past us and the smell of those freshly prepared stunners totally got to all of us.  Pizza it was!

Lara and I both opted for the half & half option (you only pay R7 extra).  Grant wasn’t as indecisive as us and opted for a normal pizza.  Below you have mine on the left.  I went for half Pere (olive oil, gorgonzola cheese, sliced pears – R72 for full) and half Cacio (garlic butter, Italian sausage, cacio cheese, roasted peppers – R118 for full).  So the cost of mine came to:  R36 + R59 + R7 = R102.  On the right below was Grant’s pizza, he opted for one of the special pizzas for the day.

This pizza was right up my alley.  Super thin and crispy base.  Not too much heavy, rich sauce, like with damn Debonairs pizza. Blegh.  A solid spread of toppings.  Fresh ingredients.  To me it was pizza heaven.

After starters & and a BIG pizza, we were totally stuffed.  Dessert was not on our minds at all… well that was until the table next to us got the most amazing looking baked cheesecake.  We basically drooled all over their table and then were like “for us too please!”.

Yeah, nothing soothes the soul like ass killing cheesecake WITH ice cream… Mmmm…

Now when I mentioned on Twitter that I was heading to Massimo’s, I got a mixed response.  But I must say we really enjoyed ourselves there.  I will give Massimo’s an overall Miss K Kiss-o-Meter rating of:

And I will have to go back to try the pasta at some point.  But before I do that I’ll have to do lots of running to get rid of the after effects of this meal first.  I hear “muffin top” is like so not a good look with your skinny jeans this winter. ;)

xxx

De Waterkant dining

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On Sat I popped over to the De Waterkant area with the “Ou bros” (aka the Asian Twins) for lunch.  Our original plan was to try out new spot, Ragù @ 123 Waterkant St for a little summin different.  ;)

It’s a cute little spot which serves up a mix of Italian fashion & food under one roof and then I hear they also serve up some great cocktails.  The menu apparently changes daily and therefore only has a limited number of options.  Decor wise, I absolutely loved it.  It’s quirky and fun with lots of awesome little details which makes for a cool visual impact.

BUT the prices were just plain crazy.  Most lunch options were around the R120 mark and a spaghetti bolognaise was a whopping R130!  I’m sorry, but on no planet am I spending that much on a spag bol daahlings.  Even in Italy, when I was paying in euros, I did not spend that much… craziness I tell ya.  All 3 of us agreed that there wasn’t anything on the menu that looked enticing enough for us to “fork out the cash” so to speak, so we decided to rather opt out and find another place to dine…

We figured we would just walk around the area and see if we could find something else we hadn’t yet tried.  Thing is at that point it was almost 2pm and a lot of the freestanding smaller dining spots in that area close their kitchens at 2pm… problem.  We also tried Cape Quarter, but we weren’t really feelin’ any of the options there.  I was however quite surprised to see that a few places had actually closed down recently - Aqua in the old Cape Quarter for example and then also Vanilla which used to occupy quite a big part of the new extention.  To be honest, neither was a favourite of mine.  Guess other people felt the same.

Eventually we settled in at Soho - a Thai restaurant which is part of the Village Lodge, a 15 room boutique hotel offering bed & breakfast accommodation on Napier St.

Love the building…

The restaurant interior is quite nice.  It has a chic, cosmopolitan feel with lots of rich colours and a very cute bar area:

It was relatively decent weather though, chilly but the sun was out, so we decided to soak up some rays outside instead.  We would have preferred the roof-top pool bar area (which Joe & Ben assure me is a must see), but sadly it was closed for the afternoon.  Not too much of a loss though as it was very chilled out there on the stoep.  They had Cafe Del Mar style tunes pouring out onto the street and you got to take in the beautiful street view:

De Waterkant just has a special feel about it… doesn’t it?

Totally starved by that point, I was ready to dig in.  Joe (who cheated and already had lunch round 1 at home) decided to go for something light.  So he got the fishcake starter and some Tom Yum soup (didn’t get the prices of these two dishes – sorry):

Tord mun pla – deep fried spicy fish cakes served with cucumber salad and a delicate sweet & sour sauce

Thailand’s most famous soup – a spicy hot & sour soup served with mushrooms, lemon grass & coriander.

I on the other hand needed something more substantial, so I went for a green chicken curry (R90 – steamed rice included):

Kaeng kiew wahn – green curry cooked with coconut milk, fresh herbs & thai aubergines

Then Ben who NEVER eats light (seriously this guy can eat… don’t know where he puts it all!), opted for their Phad thai noodles (R85 – also the chicken option):

Phad thai – famous thai noodles with peanuts & bean sprouts

Now I can’t fault the food, everything was really good.  My green curry had such a lovely flavour and just the right amount of burn to go down like a treat.  Joe also said that his Tom Yum soup was the best he has had in Cape Town.  But we did wait quite a while for the food to come out and I did think the prices were a bit steep compared to some other good Thai options in town.

I will give Soho the following Miss K Kiss-o-Meter ratings:

  • Vibe & Food: 
  • Service & Price:

And I definitely want to go back for some drinks at that roof-top bar at some point.

xxx

The Cosmo Jeans bash

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Last Thu eve I attended the Cosmo Jeans 2012 fashion show which was held at QV54 in Queen Victoria Street.  The dress code for the evening was of course “denim”, which is an easy one cause let’s face it, everyone loves a toit jean pant. ;)

Now as much as I love the city centre, I absolutely hate the limited parking.  Add a big event with lots and lots of guests and what do you get?  PAIN… and lots of it…  Sure I have considered getting a scooter, but it’s just too damn cold here in winter PLUS you don’t get any street cred on one of those and I’m far to cool for school…

Anyhoo, when we finally got there I had to first stop to do the obligatory “pic in front of massive banner” photo:

Ta da!!!

Apparently thanks to that we just missed out on the last few free Brutal Fruits they were handing out.  Damn my love of being in the spotlight! :)

Bjorn and I were teased because we apparnetly looked like we had totally coordinated our denim looks.  But I don’t see it…  Yes we were both working the “double denim” trend (that’s when you wear a denim shirt with jeans, in case you didn’t know – the key to this look is to make sure the two items are totally different shades or even colours of denim, matchy matchy is like a massive no-no).  But I was rocking some red and he was doing a bit of brown leather…  Ag I’ll let you guys be the judge:

Too close for comfort maybe? Are we just one step away from matching parachute material tracksuits??  With our initials embroided on them??? hahahahahaha.  My home town of PE would be so proud…

My friend Leigh even compared us to the 2001 Brit Brit & JT denim tuxedo crisis!  (Check her comparison here)  Now that’s not fair… we’re like way hotter and stuff. hehe.

Anyways, we were not there to harp on about our fashion choices, instead we were there to check out some winter denim trends from Michiko London, Ackermans, Edgars, Adidas, Donna-claire, Foschini, Bronx & Calvin Klein.

Sadly, as much as I loved the building, it was terribly cramped inside and there wasn’t really any great ramp viewing spots.  This meant I was standing on my tippy toes, camera far above my head, trying desperately to get a few shots of the action.  These were the only ones that came out half decent(ish):

The show had a strong “Wild Wild West” theme, so for the finale they did the whole cowboy/cowgal thing and then tossed their stetsons into the crowd as the last Yee-haw.

Ride along now cowboys…

** You can check out the offical pics on the Cosmopolitan website or on Channel24.

For entertainment breaks in between the fashion we got to enjoy the guitar stylings of Tombstone Pete:

The golden voice of Natasha Meister:

And then my personal fave, the quirky awesomeness that is Yoav:

I’m totally obsessed with this guy…

Leigh being one of those lucky people who always wins random lucky draws and such, walked away with a gleaming white stetson.  I have my suspicions that she probably pushed poor Clouds out of the way to catch it…

Hmmmm, lucky or just reaaally competitive…

Either way, it was her pride & joy for the rest of the evening.  I didn’t stay for the after party because 1) I had a crappy day at the office and was totally pooped and 2) the new Steers at the 24 hr Woolies was calling my name (Steers chip attack!! – my ass has been cursing that place. haha).

So tell me, who out there is brave enough to also give the double denim look a test drive this winter?  I say we should start a mass tuxedo revival and then do a flash mob to “Hit me baby one more time”.  Who’s in? Come now people, you know it’s the right thing to do. ;)

xxx

The Ooh! Box… oooooh

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Last week my first Ooh! Box arrived and I’m happy to report that it’s totally awesome.  Check it out:

It’s biiiiiig!

But what’s inside?  Well first you have some wine – 4 glorious bottles to be exact:

Jislaaik, check out all those award stickers… hectic bru.

And then a variety of gourmet “foodie” things:

Mmmmm…

And the best part is that I got all that, including FREE delivery for only R295!  Ooh! Box is a new initiative where you sign up for a monthly “taste box”.  The products are hand picked by the Ooh! Box experts to ensure that you’re getting only the best… and for way less.   This is for example the value of the items in my first box:

  • 1 x Avontuur Chardonay Pinot Noir -R58
  • 1 x Kanu Keystone – R120
  • 1 x Spier Creative Block 5 – R115
  • 1 x Zevenwacht Sauvignon Blanc – R67
  • 1 x Rio Largo Balsamic Vinegar – R48
  • 1 x Morgenster Black Olive Paste – R32
  • 1 x Dalla Cia Grappa Chocolates – R85
  • 1 x Khoisan 100% Organic Bourbon Vanilla Rooibos – R18

TOTAL  = R543.  So that’s a saving of about 46%.  Impressive stuff…

The contents of the box will change month to month and the saving won’t always be exactly the same (some months might be more, some might be less), but they do guarantee that it will always be a pretty damn good deal AND the subscription price stays the same, no matter what the value of the box is.

Other costs?  Just a annual membership fee of R114.  Minimum subscription is for 3 months only, after that you can opt-out anytime you want.

The only catch is that they only have 1000 spaces available.  So if you’re keen, you need to act fast.  I have confirmed with them that there are still a few of the May boxes available at the introductory price of R295.  The June boxes will be released soon and they have decided to keep them at the R295 price for now as well.  The subscription price might go up slightly at some point, but they are playing it by ear for the moment.

If you’d like to sign up – register over here (they do nationwide delivery btw).  But if you have more questions – check out their FAQ page or just pop them an email to: member@theoohbox.com (they respond quite quickly – I’ve tested it quite a bit ;) )

I’m very excited about the June box.  I hear it’s going to include wine from Waterford, Diemersfontein and Asara PLUS a Bubbly from Moreson called Miss Molly.  This is definitely something which is going to make the cold winter days more bearable. :)

xxx

News “flash”

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Now I won’t lie, I am not really a newspaper reader or SABC/ETV news watcher.  But even so, I do still want to know what’s going on in the world.  So I usually just end up skimming through the news headlines on my Twitter feed, making the assumption that the headline pretty much explains what went down and therefore I’m totally covered. ;)

Then this past weekend I was paying for lunch at a restaurant and I had to go up to the till to use the card machine.  As I was waiting for them to process the transaction something caught my eye on the front page for the Cape Times:

Seems one of SA artist, Brett Murray’s pieces seriously pissed off the ANC…

I thought to myself… Hey, that painting of our president actually seems quite nice.  It had a cool modern feel, I liked the use of colour…  I really didn’t see anything wrong with it at all.  Why would they even waste ink on printing this story?  Meh.

Luckily the card machine was a bit slow, so I had a bit more time to kill.  I opened the newspaper and as I passed page 8 I had a very stong “Oh… now I see…” moment.

Right… right…

I have learnt a very valuable lesson here – ALWAYS get the full story. :)

xxx

Mozam life…

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So Flamingo Bay has a sister lodge, Barra Lodge, which is just around the corner and has direct access to the beach.  There are free shuttles every hour that will take you between the two (it’s only a 10min drive) and then you can make use of all their facilities.

Me in my element… right next to a shop!

I would say Barra Lodge has a more family friendly vibe.  Flamingo Bay is for couples looking for a romantic getaway, in fact children under 12 are not allowed.  But at Barra Lodge they cater for all ages.  Just look at the pool for example, it’s like a water based playground:

Pimpin’ pool… I like…

Then you can walk right onto Barrra beach which is a beautiful stretch of seemingly untouched coastline:

And you can chill at their beach bar for a bite to eat…

And cocktails of course!

From Barra we decided to WALK to Tofo.  For some reason Bjorn had it in his head that it was only about a 30 min walk (you see he had stayed on Tofo beach once before a few years back).  So I was like yeah why not.  It sounded like some good exercise, especially with all the food we were eating and this would be a great opportunity to check out the more scenic route.  But we knew we had made a very poor choice when about an hour in a local fisherman asked us where we were heading.  When we said Tofo he said “Tofo!?!  That’s really really far.  Are you really going to walk!?!”  Hmmm…  30 min hey… yeah right…  About 3 HOURS later we finally made it to Tofo.  I was proud that I didn’t try to drown Bjorn along the way in a fit of rage… but I seriously considered it though. ;)

Things were cool again after we settled in at Fatima’s for some lunch.  It’s a popular spot for locals & tourists alike and apparently a big party spot in the evenings.

A proper beach bar with lots of African flavour.

Then the Tofo market was just around the corner.  Here we bought delicious coconut breads (so yum!) and these super sweet small bananas:

A must try. I don’t really like bananas normally, but these were really cool

Not wanting to do the crazy walk home again, we asked some locals how to get back to Barra.  For the first leg of the trip we took a combi taxi which cost next to nothing.  It was quite amazing watching them fit up to 25 people into that thing at one point – small babies and all!  Then we had to wait for a connecting taxi – which is basically a dude driving back to Barra from Inhambane after work in a bakkie.  He then slows down and people just jump on.  It’s totally informal, but it works like a charm.

He even gave us the best seats, right up front.

The next day, back at Flamingo Bay, we did a catamaran trip to Pansy Island.  Check out our slick mode of transportation:

Here’s me trying my best “I’m on a boat” pose.  If you haven’t yet checked out that clip which was featured on Saturday Night Live, go check it out on Youtube.  It’s pretty awesome.

Oooh and check out how crystal clear the water was:

Our first activity was to pick up pansy shells on so the so called Pansy Island – which isn’t really an island, it’s more like a sand heap that happens to be visible at low tide. Hehe.  But it was cool to walk around and collect these pretty shells nonetheless.  For those who don’t know, this is what they look like:

Pretty incredible huh… I love the detail, it’s so perfect.

As our “island” disappeared with the incoming tide, we headed out again, passing some fishing boats along the way…

Then we stopped in what I’m calling “starfish alley” to do some snorkeling.  The incredible thing is that there are like hundreds and hundreds of these guys all chilling in one little area.  We were really bummed that we didn’t have one of those disposable underwater cameras, cause it was truly incredible to see.  This pic I tried to take from the catamaran as we started passing over them really doesn’t do it justice at all:

But at least you can kinda see how big they are.  They are big meaty guys, about the size of your face and they come in all different colours.  So cool.

On our way back Bjorn wanted to maximise his water time, so he got them to drag him behind the catamaran with a rope (like one does of course). :)

Boys will be boys I guess…

The next day we headed out for an ocean safari.  The goal was to see & swim with whale sharks – which I was reeeaaaally hoping to do… like I was crossing all toes & fingers.  But sadly it didn’t pan out.  You basically head out on a rubber duck and spend a few hours searching the ocean.  But as you can guess, it’s very hit or miss.  We did at least get to snorkel a beautiful reef and this time round we were clever enough to get a little disposable underwater camera at the shop before hand.  We just haven’t gotten around to developing the film yet.  But once we do, I’ll do a little post on our underwater adventure.

On our 2nd last day in Mozambique we did some quad biking.  I have to note that this was my first time ever on a quad bike (or any kind of bike for that matter – other than a bicycle).  So I was a bit nervous going into it.

Ready to rock & roll. But hoping I come out of it in one piece.

After some basic instructions on how to change gears and all that, we were off:

We crossed Barra beach, checked out the lighthouse, then headed through the little villages of the area, all the way to Tofo and back.  Along the way we passed lots of kids who would stand on the side of the path with their hands out so you can high 5 them as you come past.  It was so cute.  We stopped in one of the villages and this little guy totally stole my heart:
He walked up to us like he was the mayor of that town… hand sticking out for a firm handshake, checking us out and then giving us the nod of approval to pass through.  Soooo sweet.

Along the way we also got a close up look at a cashew tree and its fruit:

See that little bit at the top – that’s the part you get the nut from.  Cool hey?  I had no clue cashew nuts actually came from a fruit.

As we took in our beautiful surroundings, I got more comfortable on the quad bike and we picked up some good speed.

To peaceful…

Everything was going really well… until… I crashed into a tree!  Haha.  I was trying to turn, battled, put a bit of extra muscle into it, then over steered, panicked, over corrected, totally forgot about the breaks and wham…  Then just 10min after that I almost went off a cliff! (but luckily my fall was blocked by another tree)  For obvious reasons we took it very slow on our way back.  Bjorn now calls me “stuntie”.  He says I crashed like a pro. :)

My body certainly didn’t feel like a pro afterward.  I was covered in scrapes and bruises with this one stretching my entire calf muscle being the most impressive out of the lot:

Boom!  I’ve been thinking about starting a twitter account for it… it’s THAT BIG.

Anyhoo, injuries aside, I had a total blast.  Our week in Mozambique was the perfect blend of relaxation and adventure.  I can highly recommend this absolutely beautiful country to anyone & everyone.  And the fact that it’s so easy to get to from SA is a total bonus, I mean Joburg people simply drive up.  Easy peasy.

I’m hoping a return trip or two will be in my future.

xxx