Welcome!

Welcome to my blog, these are the ramblings and musings of an (upper) middle aged biker and if you enjoy braais, (barbeques) beers and motorbikes then hopefully you will enjoy what Janet and I do; we do lots of braais, we drink lots of beer and we tour South Africa on our motorbike, which at the moment is a BMW R1200RT. Join us, read about what we do and please leave us your comments.



Sunday, May 24, 2015

Eye candy at the BMW showroom and a disappointing visit to an iconic retaurant

We went down to Capetown yesterday, Saturday and called in at the new Donford BMW shop to collect my repaired side pannier. To keep a long story short the latch broke at the last rally I went to and none of the local bike guys was able to repair it, it had to go to the agents who imported a new latch set from Germany, this ended up costing me just over R1,100. Oh well that's BMW for you!
I had to have it done, no good riding around with only one suitcase, whilst there I fell in love!
 Isn't that a thing of beauty? The new R1200RT, I have already chosen the body part that I would give to own that bike, it's on the left side. As you can see in the bottom picture there are several RTs on the showroom floor but that blue one is the one for me. Ah well it doesn't hurt to dream does it?
From there we went off for lunch to a restaurant that we last visited in 1984 on our longest "Around the country" bike trip, I have no idea why we haven't been back since, but this was the time to check it out; Panama Jack's in the harbour.
 I must admit that the place looked a bit seedy but we were there and the place is known for seafood, my favourite so we went inside.
The wines were expensive, we selected a Dimmersdal Sauvignon Blanc at R127, I asked for a Two Oceans wine but was told that they stopped selling that a long time ago even though the name is emblazonned all over the outside awnings.
I chose the "Crustacean platter for one" which was way too expensive but it was good!
Scallops, prawns, langostine and crayfish on a bed of rice, by the time I got down to the rice it was mixed with garlic butter and all of the juices from the various animals, I ate every single morsel and really enjoyed it but I am a seafood fanatic. 
Janet's meal on the other hand was a complete disappointment, it looked good when it arrived, hake and chips, but the chips were dry and tasteless, powdery inside like they were re-fried left-overs and the hake was bland with an aftertaste of old cooking oil. 
Oh well, been there - done that, it'll probably be another thirty-one years before we go there again.
Lunch at Pearly's restaurant in Langebaan on the way home today was a delight, fresh (really fresh) Yellowtail. Little wonder that we often eat at Pearly's.
Saturday next sees the first Western Cape Motorcycle Association's inaugural mini-rally/day jol at the Wingerd Dance hall in Vredenburg, the guys are going all out on this one and it looks like it's going to be a good one. It would be a good one for you Cape bikers to attend, see you there.

5 comments:

Trobairitz said...

Oooh that BMW sure looks pretty. Bet it costs a pretty penny too.

Bummer Janets's lunch wasn't as expected. I hate it when that happens especially when it is a bit expensive.

Michael said...

I watched a you tube video of your BMW dealership and it looked great. We don't have anything like that here in the USA.

the rider said...

Hi guys, thanks for the comments - Brandy that BMW costs R205,000 I think that's just under 20,000 in USD - pretty expensive! But beautiful.

Michael it is a really nice place, good coffee shop/restaurant which seems to have become a popular meeting place.

Sarina Ness said...

Great outlook BMW. May be i falling love with it after watching it. Thank You @the rider.

the rider said...

Thank you for your comment Sarina Ness, I'm glad that you are reading my blog and that you took the time to comment, stay with me.