Yes! Friday was the official start of my week-long leave and also happened to be Chantelle’s weekend off, meaning that it was destined to be a weekend jam-packed full of wholesome activity goodness!
Now we don’t see Claire and Riley as much as we probably should do and thanks to their ever busy-as-heck schedule, we need to book their time far in advance if we ever want to hang out with these CA celebs, meaning that the booking for Friday night’s supper out in Cape Town had been made well over a month ago already!
The original plan had been for us to reunite at Panchos, a charming Mexican eatery out in Observatory that had been the venue for our last supper foray out to that side of the Boerewors curtain, but unfortunately the fates had conspired against us (much as they had been doing the whole week already damnit!) and it turned out that Panchos have closed their doors for their annual leave, leaving our plan more than a little in the lurch.
Never fear though, CA Celeb Claire had a back up plan hiding in the recesses of her noggin and soon our table for five was booked and waiting for us at the not so aptly named Fat Cactus. Now as per usual the Crimson Twosome of Chantelle and Craig were running a little late and it was already a bit after schedule that we slammed the front door shut, stuffed our kitten-loaded baskets into the Getz and ambled off down the road (I who drive like a Grandpa was behind the wheel, a strange decision when you consider that we were already a little late – that said, my turtle-like driving did at least save us from garnering a speeding ticket that we would have snagged for sure had Speed Racer Chantelle been behind the wheel).
First stop on the trip was a quick stop-and-drop by the Montgomerys who had kindly offered to take us and our kitties in for the weekend. We unloaded the car, tricked the kittens into staying behind (who had been such absolute darlings in the car on the way there – hardly a peep out of either one of them!), bid our hosts hello and goodbye and then speedily headed up the N1, Chantelle putting pedal to the metal while I clung on for dear life, whimpering like a little baby and wishing that I had gone to pee before we’d left.
In 10 minutes flat, Chantelle covered the distance from her parent’s place in Ridgeworth, Bellville to Retha’s place in Observatory, Cape Town.
Enough said.
Anyway, we picked Retha up (who was still confused by my ‘sorry we’re late SMS’ when clearly we were now very much on time) and with our dodgy little map printed off the Internet we set about trying to locate the Fat Cactus situated in the heart of Mowbray and thus an area which none of us are at all familiar with.
Despite a confusing chat with Riley to try and establish where we had gone wrong, we did actually manage to locate the Cactus without too many difficulties – in fact our timing was so awesomely good thanks to ‘Faster than a speeding Bullet’ Chantelle that we reversed into a parking bay exactly as Claire and Riley came strolling past on their way to the venue! Impressive I tell you! :)
Anyway, while I do admit to being a little disappointed by the lack of a fat, juicy cactus standing out by the door, the venue is pretty nice, very homely and Mexicany I guess, making it an instant hit with us all and we gladly took our seats in the rather bustling atmosphere that always makes for such an enjoyable restaurant experience.
Now while I’ve never been much of a exotic food lover, I must admit to enjoying my food that I ate back at Panchos when we last ate there, meaning that The Fat Cactus’ cuisine never really stood a fair chance of competing, especially when they delivered my burrito that looked nothing like what I had expected, complete with that oh so despised food of mine, sweet corn, sprinkled all around it.
Hot, but admittedly quite tasty, I did actually enjoy the food and it seems like everyone else enjoyed theirs as well, including Chantelle with her ‘make your own meal’ thingie, so I guess I need to give Fat Cactus a good rating when it comes to their cuisine then.
We actually spent quite a bit of time in the restaurant catching up, talking crime and making cringe worthy supposed to be humorous comments (well actually only I was responsible for that – guess Riley’s current shoulder injury kept him on the straight and narrow) and a good time was had by all – though it might have been the copious amounts of alcohol that my companions were putting away that was doing the trick.
A pleasant supper behind us, it was then out in the heavy rain and off to Retha’s flat where we finished off the late night with coffee and movie discussions, before bidding our yawnful farewell and driving off on the considerably shorter route to Bellville than the normal trip through to GB which we were both more than a little grateful for not having to make.
Ah, what a great way to kick the weekend off – Ta Claire, Riley and Retha for such a nice night out! :)