Lunch at Ocean Jewels, Woodstock

If you love fresh fish, you will know how lamentably difficult it can be to find in this huge seaside city. And if you care about sustainable resources, you will want to buy and eat only green rated SASSI fish. Julie Carter sells her fish in the market at the Biscuit Mill on Saturdays, where she also cooks up some great seafood delights. But you don’t have to wait till Saturday, because Julie has a shop, Ocean Jewels in The Woodstock Exchange on Albert Road, where you can buy fish to take home and also enjoy a great lunch, as we did this week. Julie’s father and husband are also local fishermen, so you know the fish is fresh

There are lots of trendy shops and businesses in this building. Parking is a small challenge

Ocean Jewels, on the ground floor of the Woodstock Exchange. For warmer weather, Julie has some outside benches. And some decorative seagulls

As many people in the area eat here regularly, Julie has quite a varied selection on the menus and she does change them often. This is one

Julie Carter, proprietor of Ocean Jewels, behind the order counter

Another chalk board menu. There are Banting options. Sweet potato chips instead of the usual wedges

The fresh fish price list and the SASSI board

Julie invited us to lunch and then produced some lovely food. One look at those crispy wedges and Banting was forgotten. This was John’s choice of the fresh angelfish with calamari combo – R50. It came with avocado slices, a spicy tartar sauce and a wedge of lemon. There are other condiments on the table

Lynne’s choice was the Salmon and Calamari combo – R70

A taster of the smoked snoek samoosas; the lightest samoosas we have had in many years, with great flavour. They are not huge parcels of doughy pastry - R5 each

The light and bright restaurant. They do not have a licence, so you could take your own wine. They sell other non alcoholic beverages, but each table has a jug of water, with slices of lemon, and glasses

This is the Angelfish taco, served with a good salad - R50

The Tuna and Calamari Combo with a salad – R60

People are very happy to share tables. We were happy to share with Linda Harding of Squashed Tomato media consultancy, whom we know, and she was having lunch with a friend, Leila Badsha, who was introducing her to Ocean Jewels

Julie with two of her staff

and the others who help to make the magic. We will definitely be back

We left with a large piece of beautiful fresh salmon

The centre is full of interesting artworks

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014