invitation to taste and reminisce

howzit oakes


earlier this week a friend presented my (considerably) better half with quite an extraordinary invitation. it was the opportunity, look you see, to visit the Jet Miners, one of the most celebrated pubs of our region, and dine on some food of a distinctly South African complexity and nature.

this was a most agreeable and welcome invitation to get, and of course an exceptionally tempting one. the temptation of it all, however, was rather easy to combat with a consultation of the pricing.

quite. at the time of going to press, the exchange rate between the British Pound Sterling and the South African Rand is 1 to 20.69 for anyone fortunate enough to get a spot rate. if you like, this means £1 equates to R20.69, or if you further like the £14.00 for Bunny Chow and Vetkoek listed above comes in at R290.

i suspect, alas, that we won't be going along to taste the finest of what was once home. that's all just too damned expensive, that is. which is a pity, as i'd love a prego steak roll, assuming their "pergo" is in fact supposed to be "prego".

my friends and family in SA will, no doubt, p!ss themselves laughing at these prices, as would they if they saw the prices of Nando's here, in particular with relation to what Nando's England considers to be a decent sized chicken compared to the original SA one. it does, however, highlight a serious problem that everyone sort of skirts around here - that of how decent quality food costs too much for most.

it's all very well that Jamie Oliver goes off on one about kids eating too much sugar and salt, but the fact is that it is foods laced with both which are the only ones affordable to most. my friend Shaun, on one of his first ventures to the States, said a similar thing - that you can understand obesity levels in so-called First World countries when you see the vast and insane price difference between good quality food and cheaply produced variants.

hey ho, should i hit one of these "lottery" style pension fund pay outs in the next week, you never know, we might head off and have some of this. it would almost be cheaper, however, to simply head to SA and have some. as that would also allow me to stock up on Marlboro at a sensible price, that would be a win.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!