Breakfast at the Kimberley Hotel, Cape Town

Digging deep at the Kimberley

Friends in the media had told us that this old Victorian Hotel in Buitenkant Street did a mean breakfast, so we decided to try it. It is no longer one of those old Commercial Travellers’ hotels, but has turned into a successful Back Packers Hotel

So the breakfasts are taken in a downstairs area which is open to the street; it looks just like a separate restaurant. It’s called The Kitchen. We arrived at 9.30 and there was only one person there. That soon changed

You can sit outside and eat at the pavement tables. The menus are on the doors

We chose to sit inside as it was a little chilly that morning

The menu. They do have specials, but those are early bird specials for travellers leaving before 8. The restaurant started to fill up with residents who seemed to get a fixed breakfast, possibly included in their room rate. We saw many of them eating the Full House, scrambled egg seemed to be the favourite

The menu for lunch and supper time. We watched and waited for our breakfast while the residents were served first. The restaurant filled up with them. The room rates we saw on line are from R150 in an 8 bedded dorm to R650 in a double room. Seems very popular with back packers. Very central

Beverages. Lynne had an orange juice from a box, John had an Americano. Acceptable but not great

The Americano looks like an Espresso which is, in fact as it should be, as it is officially a double Espresso topped up with hot water. R20. (If you want milk in it, ask for a White Coffee. Yes, they still make them...)

One cook with one helper in the kitchen, doing lots of short orders. The waitresses have to watch the pass to see if food is there; they aren’t told which customer placed the order. But they took the orders, so they probably know. At this stage, we were becoming a little anxious that they had actually put our order in the computer. We had been there nearly 45 minutes

Lynne's order of The Kitchen Breakfast at R39. The mushrooms were very overcooked and some tasted a bit musty. The eggs were fresh, but so under-cooked that she had to scrape off the uncooked slimy albumen which was inedible. They might have cooked a bit more under the pass lights. The smoked bacon was tasty, but tough and hard to cut. The thin toast was spread with Rama type margarine and we were not offered jam or marmalade. The juice was served with lots of ice and tasted vaguely of orange squash

John ordered the bacon and cheese 3 egg omelette - R55. It came with a token tomato slice and two slices of soggy brown toast with margarine. It didn't look great, a bit thrown down on the plate, made in a bit of haste, after our long wait. Tasted OK

That looks like good value with the beer included, but it depends so much on the quality of the meat in the burger

Our bill. Our waitress Laiza was lovely. We just wish that we had been served with a bit more sense of urgency. We are used to Spur and their 10 minute service when we are away travelling on business. They give better value and quality (the Spur bacon & very fresh eggs with toast, marmalade and butter for R40 is consistently good wherever we go) but then Spur does have about 10 times the number of customers and can tailor their prices accordingly

RETURN TO MENU

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

See John's photographs and follow us on Instagram

and on Pinterest

Please add me to the MENU subscriber list