13. Sparkling Cape Town

After our musical evening last night, we decided to sleep in this morning.

It meant foregoing our trip in the cable car to the top of Table Mountain, but here's a photo of sparkling Cape Town by my Noosa bridge partner John who very kindly emailed it to me so that you don't feel deprived! Both Helen and I felt we needed a little time to regroup. Lying in bed felt totally wicked and simply delicious.

We caught sight yesterday of the flower markets at Adderley Street, so that was our first stop this morning. It's an alleyway filled with flower sellers - just to make your heart sing!

I'll let the flowers do the talking....

I spied an Aussie flower among the perfumed stocks.

The vendors were happy to pose for photos.

As I made my way in behind some flowers towards this man, I heard a stall holder yelling at some vagrants who were just behind Helen. I didn't realise it, but Helen said that while the woman was begging from her, there were a couple of other quite bad-looking men eyeing off my phone. I was totally unaware of the situation, and they'd been hunted away before I turned back.

Before I did, though, this darling man holding the yellow roses put them down, motioned for me to wait, took his false teeth out of his pocket, and posed again. Very handsome! -:)

By now it was nearly lunch time, so we were off to the Neighbourgoods Market in an old biscuit mill in Woodstock, a stylish local meeting place on Saturdays. The stalls were all selling good quality products, from leather to clothing to curios, so we spent a little time browsing.

The local print shop has huge print capabilities, colourful murals on the walls. We both bought postcards and frig magnets here.

I didn't buy this poster, but liked the thought.

I fancied these scalloped ceramics but resisted temptation....

Don't you love the great hairdo?

We found our way to the lift which took us three storeys up to the Pot Luck Club and our lunch reservation, with sweeping views of the harbour and Table Mountain. It's owned by one of South Africa's most famous chefs, Luke Dale-Roberts. He also runs the more upmarket fine-dining Test Kitchen nearby.

We pondered the menu over a glass of the Graham Beck méthode Capclassique sparkling pinot noir chardonnay. It's really quite a yummy bubble!

Our waiter kindly wrote down three words for cheers!

The plate-sharing menu here is divided into salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami (said to be the flavour of monsodium glutamate!).

It's recommended to choose 6-8 dishes, but we'd eaten a late breakfast. We chose these 4:

salty:

marinated olives

seafood tagine, saffron rouille, cauliflower and almond cous cous (it went down without a photo!)

sweet:

beef tataki with Hoisin dressing, coriander pesto and ponzu mayo

umami:

crispy calamari with yuzu compressed apples, black sesame emulsion with fermented peanut-chilli dressing

All simply wonderful and not too filling.