La Tête, otherwise known as the ABBA-ttoir

In attendance:

Hostess & Husband

Reto & Nic

Natalie

FJ & Greg

Orit & Michael

Special Guest from far: Champion, the Lesotho yacht squadron captain. 

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Part 1: Getting fed

Thursday night:

“I’d like to book a table for 12  for Saturday night please.”

“Uhhmmm... have you ever been to our restaurant?”

“No, why?”

“Uhhhmmm, ok, I’ve just started working here and I don’t know whether we can seat 12... um, can I call you back?”

To be honest I knew I was pushing my luck as I had eyeballed the place when we did True Italic, the two establishments being neighbours. I knew it was a very long and narrow affair, and that organizing a table for 12 would be near impossible.  It wouldn’t have killed me to have been forced to forfeit sautéed foreskin, baked testicle or offal cheesecake, for you see, La Tête serves the whole animal.

However, I also knew that phoning on Thursday to book a table for 12 on Sat anywhere other than Spur would be challenging no matter what the shape of the restaurant, and when that sank in, I began to panic, and so while New Waiter was finding out about seating arrangements at La Tête, I frantically went on line to look at other places to see whether they looked like they could fit a table of 12. Burger and Lobster had space, and I booked despite the fact that they quite literally serve only beef burgers and lobsters. I had already lost one dear vegetarian to La Tête (basically the only vegetarian fare is wine and coffee)- how many guests could I lose to a menu of only 2 options???

New waiter called back within minutes- the manager wasn’t in and he could only check tomorrow, and could he please get back to me. Kudos to this lad, he really was invested in us.  He did indeed call me back the next morning to say they had made a plan for us. Fuck. Back to eyelids au gratin.

And so we arrive.  I had been psyching myself up for the décor at La Tête. The decor is a...situation. Or perhaps more accurately, the decor is the spectacular absence of a situation. It's decor-free decor.  Basically... white- on -white violence. White walls, white lights, and on the walls: white sheets of plyboard with little holes in them for hanging tools up etc. We spent the night fantasising about going on a wild Jackson Pollock mission with the ketchup and mustard squeezy bottles.  Thing is, though, one wouldn't find ketchup and mustard here. In fact, even Orit's request for balsamic vinegar was met with a "no, ma'am". For reals- no balsamic vinegar. But back to the a-decor.
  

       

We decided that it this could actually be a set for Law & Order... the mug shot room....

..... with several giggle-related re-takes...

My conclusion about the a-decor is a follows: I think that they are so hipster that they are in fact  their own abattoir by night. Sterile conditions,  easy to clean, concrete floors, well-lit, plenty of space on the wall to hang tools... what more? If we're not wasting any body parts, why waste on butchers & abattoirs? Do it all in-house!

Anyhow. Let's go to the food. One has simply GOT to admire a menu that says 'brains on toast' on it.

In my mind, I picture that particular item as a coronal slice of the brain- like brain polony, if you will.... Sadly, no-one ordered this delicacy, but it did afford me the opportunity to propose a *brains on* toast [LOL, right??].

Brain polony

So how was it?  Well, I had the pig cheeks (did not ask which end), which were completely delicious. My chocolate pot, though, was underwhelming. I sat next to Mike who was by far the most intrepid  gustatory traveller. He gave me a bit of a battered pig's tail... Ummmm.... it was very chewy, with a crunchy surprise in the middle. Let's just say I won't be swapping my streaky bacon for these.  He also gave me one of his chicken hearts. I felt like I was chewing on a bouncy ball filled with the unrequited loves of a pubertal little white hen. FJ ordered Madeleines, which were divine. 

The service was reasonable, the wine was excellent.  Most people at the table said they wouldn't be back in a hurry if at all. The menu is very small and this made it difficult to choose, and as I've mentioned before, I lost a dear vegetarian friend to this lot. It is definitely worth trying, even if just once.  I  feel like I've ticked the box and I won't be back. I just don't know whether I can cope with braised spleen or haemorrhoid salad. Mike made the point that his Chinese business colleagues think the West is wantonly wasteful, using less than half of a slaughtered animal for food. I completely concur and I know academically that it's all just protein at the end of the day, but I feel that little chicken's lost love in my intestines now, and I just can't deal...  

The Un-Usual Suspects

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PART 2:  Putting the ABBA in ABBA-ttoir

The next phase of the evening had been beckoning to me like a beacon all night.  I had seen the little gem the night we had been to True Italic, and the sign had been gleaming at me from across the road over Champion's head all evening.  Once we had paid up and left the body parts behind, we proceeded to the Lido Bar for karaoke. Now this was certainly the most bizarre karaoke I've ever partaken in. One walks into the club, only to be ushered into a separate room for karaoke. This room, as FJ noted "smells of the past".  The combination of faux damask curtains, pleather booth seating, face-brick, orange paint and lurid lighting makes one feel as if one is in a whorehouse diner in Benoni.  They even have a live current running through the metal bits of the seating, for extra kicks.  They don't serve anything soft that isn't Coca Cola and I wasn't brave enough to try any of the hard stuff.

The karaoke itself is, well, indescribable... you get handed a console in what looks like Thai script, into which you key the song code. The console was enormously fussy and could practically only be programmed if facing east standing on left foot and wearing chandelier earrings. Once you get your song up, your lyrics are shown on TV screens mounted up high.  The lyrics are not alone.  They are accompanied by a nonstop loop of holiday videos- Ads says this is a live feed from all the Chinese tourists filming the world over. It's a bit disconcerting singing "Creep" with delightful palm tree visuals. Even "Dancing Queen" gets a bit weird when you're singing it up an elephant's ass.  We had a few rounds  but the place lacks karaoke chemistry. There's no stage, the mike didn't seem to be working, and the videos... the videos... And that's not to say anything about the extreme lack of a mirror ball. We were recently at the Manila Bar- a much better karaoke outfit.  When we left, we were expecting to pay per song or whatever, but the woman seemed too embarrassed to ask us for any money- I think she knows deep down that they need karaoke rehab.

All in all a night for the history books. Next up is Villa 47. Live!

Grabbing life by the supper club- a commitment to living.

The back-story

Two life-changing things happened to me in Dec 2015/ Jan 2016.  In December, I got the news that I had passed my Masters, cum laude. On 1 January, my cousin Lauren was killed in a car accident. 

Now let me tell you that 'cum laude' does not come cheap. I can tell you that twice over, because I 'cum laude-ed' my undegrad degree too. Yess, yess, that makes me sound terribly clever and it does look good on the CV but the cost... the cost... My undergrad cum kind of just happened. I didn't aim for it. Didn't know the concept even existed. Even if I'd known, I wouldn't have dreamed I could attain it. Having been styled the straight-A student by teachers and family alike, however, I definitely wanted to do well.  In fact, my very identity was tied to academic performance.  So I didn't get involved in any extra-curricular activities, I didn't party hard, I didn't really 'student' much.  I mean I had fun and a great circle of friends, and we did cool things, and I still see those as the best years of my life, but I've always felt a sense of regret that I wasn't a little - or a lot - more irresponsible. That I didn't have more experiences. But those external and internal expectations insisted that I direct most energy to getting good marks.

Now with my Masters, I made the active decision that I wanted to cum the degree. So life stopped. For 4 years.  I could have done it in two, but relentless perfectionism, a deep emotional attachment to my research project and a couple of unforeseen circumstances delayed me. So for 4 years, I was plugged in to that Masters, and nothing else. I was teased by my husband and best friend to the extent that there were almost 2 more dead bodies in the Liesbeek. I had to step into a very big job much sooner than was desirable during that same period, so that and the M consumed my every waking minute.  So when I graduated, I now had all this free time on my hands, and I was a bit stunned that there was a mountain in front of me, and an ocean just down the road.  

About two weeks later, Lauren died.  But my god, she had also lived. She had an immensely rich, full life, whilst also being a medical student.  I was shamed to think of how comparatively little I had lived when I was a student, and that I had repeated that very cycle with my M.  Lauren shocked me back into the world, forcing me to examine what I was doing with every day. And so, I made the active decision to not immediately go on to a PhD, but to LIVE, see, feel, inhale, wonder, bask, revel; to LOVE my poor, long-suffering husband; to REKINDLE neglected friendships, and just generally be present. 2016, though extremely painful, also brought with it immense gratitude for Cape Town and my loved ones, both of which I have been vividly imbibing all year. Please stay tuned while I flood you with photographic evidence. You'll be rewarded with the actual supper club details and restaurant review at the end...

And so, to the supper club  

So this year, after a breakfast with dear friend Reto and the husband, we spontaneously took a walk to Bree street, on Open Street day. There were a few restaurants around, and I suddenly decided that we should pick a street in town and work our way through the restaurants from one end to the other over the course of the year, to force ourselves out of the comfy Southern suburbs. 

I randomly decided on Loop Street, knowing nothing about any restaurants that might be there. I had no idea what the first restaurant on the street was.  On the Friday before Adalbert's birthday, we took his nieces to Long Street for cocktails and then decided to walk to Loop and find our restaurant. Wellllll. We found darkness, warehouses, and almost certainly used condoms and syringes, and above all, no restaurants, for about 3 blocks. Right, so, then, I needed another street. I should have just gone Long Street, right?  Easy, low- hanging fruit.  But I thought no, I've 'done' long street (read: been to Long Street Cafe as student, Neighbourhood once, and the Grand Daddy in 1925). So I settled back on Bree- unchartered territory.

Reto has christened our little effort the "Bree'de Bunch" (LOL squared). He then decided I should blog about our little journey, hence the reason you are suffering through this.  The journey begins thus:

The supper club hostess:

• Cunningly uses Google Maps to find first restaurant: Little Saints (however, looking at the map now, Little Saints is most certainly not the first- it's about smack in the middle... I'm sure I didn't misread the map. It must have moved overnight. Heavenly powers and such.)

• Call Little Saints x 3- no answer

• Mail Little Saints- still nothing- I just checked again.

• Tried next restaurant down- website down

• Try next next restaurant down- phone number does not exist

• Get fed up and randomly select True Italic, which 'struth is actually the very last restaurant on Bree, and was to become the first.

True Italic 

In attendance:
Hostess
Husband  

Reto 
Nick 

Review
Somewhere on Google it says this is one of the best Italian restaurants in town. Um. 
Firstly, they ran out of soft drinks. Yes, soft drinks.
The decor doesn't have a clear target market.
My food could have been a Woolies spag bol ready meal. The company was equally under-whelmed.
The service was.... eventual.
My best part of the evening was waiting for a cappuccino for 20 minutes only to then be told they had run out of milk.  [inserts emoticon with eyes but no mouth]. Yes... milk.

So if you're not on a symbolic gustatory journey down Bree Street, rather go to Primi Piatti. To try and be fair, they do apparently change the menu every night, so all 4 of us may just accidentally have arrived on B-sides day...

What's next?

Next up is La Tête. Until then, let's all continue actually living life.

I want to be a Simba chippie. Oh wait, that’s not it- I want to be a professor!

 If you had asked me about an academic career 3 years ago, I would have laughed in your face.  I had always conceptualised academia to be all about labs and test-tubes.  I had never really contemplated the human element- that peoples’ life experiences could also be researched.  Imagine my delight when I discovered that, in medical education journals, people were actually quoted. About their feelings. Nary a centrifuge in sight! Well. For the first time, I was thrilled at the possibility of doing research that I could really enjoy; research that could celebrate creativity and lateral thinking. It blew my mind.  So, also for the first time, I thought that hey, maybe I could be Prof. Gordon one day. By studying ways to inspire students; to teach them in fun and novel ways. To find ways of getting them to really absorb the fact that patients are people, with lives, children, emotions- not just a liver in bed number 2. And that other people might be interested in what I have to say/ what I do.

I have also realised that I could actually do it.  For the first time, I have put self-doubt in an old shoebox, in the furthest corner of the top of the cupboard, where it can get all cobwebby and dust-crusted. I have no idea how long it could take; how it actually works; how much work is involved, but I am ready for the challenge.  Something fundamental has shifted.

I am fortunate in that I have the most amazing cadre of cheerleaders behind me.  This is how I know I can do it.  Foremost among these has been my dad, who has always predicted successes that I would achieve, without me ever having similar inklings.  He has the most unwavering, (naturally biased) faith in what I can achieve.  So Daddy, this goal is partly for you. Naturally, my adoring and adorable husband is as firmly in the Chivaugn camp as I am in the Adalbert camp.  He is also awakening to the fact that he is capable of sublime success (ok he’s not quite there, but I certainly know this about him), in what he really loves, which is not medicine. So look out world- here comes a flurry of activity in 10 Livingstone Road!