Category: economic issues

Slug & Lettuce – Lunch

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The Slug & Lettuce in Green Point opened in December, but unless you are a regular at Ultra Liquors next door, you’d probably never know it. Somehow, I seem to have become aware of it. Hmm.

Of course, for all those Saffas who did their stint in the UK, most likely working out of somewhere with a SW postcode, “The Slug” was a favourite haunt. Now the idea has been exported back to South Africa, where presumably hordes of expat English will descend on the pub, get hideously drunk, be arrogant about their country’s sporting prowess and then dance topless on the bar.   

It was thankfully quiet when we popped in there for Valentine’s Day lunch. Mrs 6000 was immediately drawn to the S&L classic Snakebite & Black, while I settled for a draught Peroni (they also have Jack Black on tap). The pub itself is tiny, but the welcome was warm and the service excellent. The tapas menu looks interesting and I would highly, highly recommend the chili poppers, the mere mention of which is making my mouth water in front of the Winter Olympics highlights this evening.
We also tried the sweet potato crisps, which were great.

Mains were a superb cheeseburger and a standard, but enjoyable calamari. We probably would have stayed for dessert, but by this time, Mrs 6000’s third snakebite & black had gone to her head and we wandered down to Three Anchor Bay where I took advantage of her inebriation to comprehensively beat her at Putt-Putt.

The Slug will need to get a few more punters in if it is to survive. On a strip where there is a bar every few yards, some advertising wouldn’t go amiss. Apparently when there is an event on at the stadium, it is packed, but unless it manages to reproduce those numbers on other days, it will quickly fall by the wayside. And that would be a pity.
The trick will be keeping it open until June, when it’s sure to be a big hit with the visiting fans. I’ll certainly be making it my pre-match drinking haunt. Whether the match is in Cape Town or not.

We can take them breakfast

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The innocence of kids. It blows me away sometimes.

Yesterday evening was one of those times. Having picked the boy up from his grandmother’s, where he had spent an exciting afternoon mainly eating, playing snap and eating, we were on our way home via the M3 and then slipping down the Constantia Main Road off-ramp. At the lights on the junction, I saw a mother and her two kids sitting by the side of the road, begging.

Sadly, this isn’t an unusual sight in South Africa, but I have seen this lady here before. She has two daughters – almost exactly the same ages as our two kids (3¾ & 1½, for new readers). And that kind of makes it a bit more personal.
As it happened, I had a small packet of sweets with me which I had planned to share with Alex, but given his gastronomic exploits throughout the afternoon, I had thought better of that idea. Thus, the kids by the side of the road became the grateful beneficiaries of a packet of candy polar bears. Seeing the young girls’ delight at the quickly opened packet and its contents brought a lump to my throat. So I probably wasn’t ideally prepared for what followed.

As the lights changed and we headed home, Alex piped up.

“Why did you give the lady some sweets?”
“Because the lady and her children were hungry.”
“Where do those children live, Daddy?”
“I don’t think they have a home, Alex.”
“So where do they sleep then?”
“I think they sleep wherever they can find some shelter.”
“And where do they eat breakfast?”
“I don’t think they have breakfast, Alex. That’s why they are hungry.”

There was a brief pause in the inquisition from the back seat.
Then:

“I’ve got an idea, Daddy. We can take them breakfast.”

And despite the much deeper issues that lie behind their situation, Alex was right: We can take them breakfast.
And because I’m a great believer in actions speaking louder than words, this Saturday, we’re going to take that mother and her kids some breakfast. Yes, I recognise that this isn’t a solution; I know that it won’t solve anything other than their hunger that day, but it will at least solve that.  

And when u-turn finally get back to me (hello?!?), we’ll maybe be able to help them out a little more.

Short-sighted Idiots

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As FIFA announced that 2 million tickets had been sold for the 2010 World Cup in June and took a well-justified pot shot at the idiots in the German and English media and “football family” (Uli Hoeness and Phil “Sphincter Face” Brown, they mean you) who keep taking unjustified pot shots at South Africa, [a regular reader] got in touch about the Ashanti Lodge in Gardens, Cape Town.

I actually know the place quite well – friends have stayed there (before we had a house big enough to put them up) and it’s a decent backpackers lodge like you’d find in any city across the world. Not spectacular, but then you don’t want spectacular when you’re backpacking – you want clean, comfy, basic and reasonably priced accommodation.
And that’s what you’ll get – well, until World Cup time.

See – Ashanti Lodge is one of those short-sighted businesses which has spied a quick buck ahead and is desperate to make cold hard cash as soon as possible. And it’s people like them who are putting tourists and fans off from coming to the World Cup. This short-sighted, greedy, money-grabbing behaviour also helps in discouraging those who do come out for the tournament from coming back. It is, if you’ll pardon the pun, a huge own goal.

Ashanti Rates – note that special conditions apply to the World Cup bookings as well

I’m familiar with the wonderful Capitalist ideology of Supply and Demand, and I’m also aware that a lot of people want to make Cape Town their base for the World Cup. However, in my humble opinion these two facts can not justify a 309% increase in the price of a room for the duration.

Take the En-Suite (woo!) QUAD: R3,600 is $480 or £300 – that’s R900, $120 or £75 per person to sleep in a room with 3 others.
Usually in June (remember – that’s winter here!), R900 would get you a pretty decent room in a 3 or 4 star hotel. Not a shared bed at a backpackers lodge with your wife, Farty Terry from Scunthorpe and his obnoxious brother, Jim.

I’m sure there are many other establishments out there who are going to try and rip World Cup fans off as much as possible – this one was just brought to my attention. I don’t expect any of them to change their behaviour based on this post.  But there’s still value for me in pointing out their greed, their short-sightedness and their apparent lack of business acumen.

These are fine examples of local people who are going to ruin the legacy of the World Cup for South Africa.

Don’t miss out

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It’s getting close to closing date for the third sales phase of World Cup 2010 tickets and you’d be silly to chance it and hope that you can buy them over the counter a bit later. Even though FIFA have promised to make it easy for South Africans to do just that, there’s a good chance that many of the more popular games will have sold out by the time that opportunity comes around.

The easiest way (assuming you have access to the internet) (and how are you reading this if you don’t) is via FIFA.com

You can apply for a maximum of 7 games and a maximum of four tickets per game. That’s 28 tickets. Plenty to go around, although it’s worth knowing that you will need the passport or ID number for each person you want to take along. (You will be given the opportunity to swap these people around a little later). 

Tickets for SA residents start at R140 for the first round games, although you could spend up to R6,300 per ticket if you want a posh seat for the final (that’s R25,200 if you want four). But your chances of getting them are pretty low. Which is gonna be a bummer when you’re sat at home watching England beat whoever on July 11th, but which will mean that at least you can eat in the intervening period.

If you need any further pushing as to why you shouldn’t miss out – Carlos Amato is here to help.

Sushi at The Square?

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Having eaten our way through through the entire sushi menu several times at Wasabi in Constantia Village – and being in the mood for some sushi – we were on the search for a different location with decent sushi in the Southern Suburbs for dinner this evening.
Having been recently told to avoid the Cape Town Fish Market in Steenberg, things were looking rather bleak, but then Mrs 6k found The Square at The Vineyard Hotel.

The Vineyard holds some special memories for us as we spent our wedding night there way back in 2005. However, having seen the prices there (R65 for 4 Fashion Sandwiches) (simply outrageous – my rage was blowing gauges), we decided to leave it for one of their Monday-Thursday half-price hours, when hopefully the sushi will be just as special, the logo just as annoyingly pretentious, but the prices a bit more reasonable. 

In the meantime, it’s back to Wasabi. And I have no problem with that.

EDIT: Wasabi – understaffed, poorly air-conned, slow service, average sushi. Worst meal I’ve ever had there.
At least the company was good – although my wife didn’t even have that luxury.