Slow day today, here in Cape Town. The weather wasn’t the most cooperative, but that’s OK. Winter is trying to roll in here, and the weather has been charming throughout the trip. Seldom do we take a trip, in fact, where the weather doesn’t accommodate the day’s plans. We got rained on one day in Switzerland a few years ago. Two years ago we had some weather happen some diving in Mexico. It’s just going to happen that you get a day that invites you to stay inside.
This is what we did.
We attended a bit more conference. My lovely bride had a meeting at the conference. I sat and read, which was delightful. The rains came in. We went to the spa and got massages. They were quite nice. Not as good as my last one, but also I didn’t feel beaten up after this one, either. There are always trade offs in the muscle moving game. Also, I think I’m getting a bit better at learning to relax somewhere closer to the beginning of a massage than the end. Progress!
We went to dinner at a place everyone who has been to Cape Town told us about, Codfather, in Camps Bay. They say they have an extravagant menu. They do. Their website asks, “Why eat when you can feast?” and, friends, this is the sort of gastronomical rhetoric to which we can all abide.
This is how it works. You make a reservation. You rent an Uber. The Uber drives us over a small mountain pass and into the appropriate place. He tells you to enjoy your dinner. You go inside and upstairs. It’s crowded and every space is filled with tables and chairs and people. It is loud. The few places that aren’t filled with guests are packed full of employees. There is a great hustle to the place, which we haven’t seen a lot of lately and it’s really quite off-putting.
We were stuffed into a little corner besides some guys all pretending for one another that they’d been in special forces. (One of them might have been in the artillery. He yelled loud enough.) The staff comes to tell you what dinner is like. Every table gets the same sides. You can order your drinks at the table, but you must go up to the counter to order your fish. There are a handful of guys standing there, waiting for you. They’re going to guide you through the selection. They tell you about everything they have available.
They tell you about the waters were the fish were caught, local and farther away. They tell you how the waters were there this afternoon, when your dinner was hoisted from the sea. They tell you about the personality of the mother of the man who brought the fish to the shore.
You go through all of the cases like this. It takes several minutes, because they have an extravagant menu. And if you aren’t perfectly attuned to the guy, or if you are somehow distracted by the din of the place, you’ll miss something important, like what was playing on the radio in the truck that brought this food to the store. Once you’ve gone through all of the cases you tell the guy what you want. He repeats this to a man behind the counters. And he’s smiling in an overly friendly way. It’s loud enough that some things need to be repeated, and this new guy is smiling all the way. And then you get to pick the particular pieces you want, and that man is now smiling like a maniac.
We ordered what seemed like enough food, and then got what seemed like a little bit more. Something about the entire process makes you forget yourself, your inhibitions, your idea about what’s right for two people, and the entire notion of what anything costs, because you have no idea.
But food here is either reasonable or entirely inexpensive. And tonight’s meal, which turned out to be both a lot of food and precisely the right amount, somehow, was inexpensive. Also, it was delicious. Go to the Codfather. I’d go again.
After dinner we walked down the hill and around the corner because it was time for …
Caught an Uber back to the hotel to address our things. Tomorrow is our last day here, but we still have a lot to do.
