.: Dinner with La Gioconda at Goloso, Sea Point

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Dinner with La Gioconda at Goloso, Sea Point

Another restaurant which came highly recommended on Restaurants The Good the Bad and the Nasty was Goloso in Regent Road Sea Point. Unashamedly Italian in cuisine, they have an early bird special which, because of the power cuts, we decided would be a good distraction

Touches of red in the restaurant. The special is R295 for two, the options being a traditional pasta or pizza or a slow-cooked stew chosen from their menu and including a bottle of red or white wine of their choice. In by 5 out by 7. When we booked, we were advised that we could come as late as 6.30, as last orders had to be in before 7. Which meant that we didn't have to eat too early and could have a leisurely evening, dodging the power cut which was expected at 8 pm

Quite a few of the tables were reserved and there is one long table for a larger party

This was early; the restaurant filled up as the evening advanced

We decided that red might go better with the dishes we chose; the wine supplied was another Lord Somerset: their 'Soft Smooth Red'. As a sommelier said in a famous Playboy cartoon: "Guaranteed not to f**k up flavour of your hamburger". It won’t win awards, is quite ordinary, but does slip down quite easily. This rep does get around! The corkage charge is quite reasonable….

Nice table settings and comfortable chairs

This arrived with our food: extra garlic, chilli and grated Parmesan

John ordered the Puttanesca tagliatelle. The pasta, which is made fresh in the restaurant, was nicely al dente. The sauce has olives, anchovies, chilli, garlic and capers added to a Neapolitan tomato sauce. John enjoyed it but Lynne had a taste and found the anchovies rather strong for her

She ordered the Baby Beef Osso buco, topped with fresh garlicky gremolata. Slow cooked with carrots, onion, tomato and white wine, the meat falls off the bone and it was delicious. Hidden under all that sauce was more freshly made tagliatelle, which meant that John got to finish this dish

Alan, the waiter, coped so well with the filling restaurant on his own.

A classically beautiful face across the room – a contemporary La Gioconda, The Mona Lisa

Our bill. We think it is very good value and definitely plan to return. We did order two special desserts which require a 20 minute wait, which we were happy to do as the large portions needed some resting and digesting. The baked chocolate fondant was superb and full of warm, dark oozing chocolate. Lynne could not resist trying the baked banana flambé with Cape Brandy, which the owner, Jono, does at the table and it lived up to her expectations. Topped with vanilla ice cream to cool down the hot bananas. Sadly, we were too greedy to remember to take photographs. Next time... and then came the power cut. Goloso has a generator, so they could carry on regardless and no customers were affected

This is what we returned to: Pitch black darkness, so we resorted to books, Kindles, an LED lamp and head torches. We have had a 2½ hour power cut every day this week between 12 and 2.30 pm. The evening one between 8 and 10.30 pm means that we have missed the Sunday movie, half of the T20 cricket and the PVR has failed to record our favourite programmes. As Lynne's god daughter says, “luxury problems”. We know so many other people and businesses are being hard hit and it is devastating our economy. Load Shedding power cuts, we now hear, may have to go on for 2 years.... We are seriously looking at going totally solar. Requests for quotes have gone to suppliers. It appears that financing an installation should be competitive with the price we pay for unreliable electricity, before the inevitable price increases and it’s a one-time purchase