How to Throw a Kick-Ass Dinner Party in the CBD:

Step 1 – If you don’t have a rad CBD apartment, find someone who does...

A little while back, on the day of the epic Crash Course in Cape Town Taxi Driving, we found that Ethiopian restaurant in town, Addis in Cape, for lunch. While chatting to the restaurant’s owner, Senait, she happened to mention that she was thinking of throwing a dinner party for her housewarming. She’s just moved into the most insane spot in the Piazza on Church Square, and she wanted to celebrate, but she didn’t want to cook.

Well, we thought. Chris can cook like Jammy Olive Ear. Shannon believes she is Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’, which means we’ve got food AND drinks covered. We would do the dinner party! What followed was, well, a blast.

 Step 2 – If you can’t cook anything, call Chris.

Due to his prodigious culinary skills, Chris was in charge of the menu. Senait couldn’t remember whether or not she had an oven, so he decided to do things on the Weber. Eventually the menu consisted of:

With Drinks:
- Baked bree and artichoke on baguette.


Starters:

- Rocket, gorgonzola, parma ham and walnut salad with a balsamic reduction. 
- Haloumi on Ciabatta  

Mains:

- Butterflied leg of lamb cooked on a bed of rosemary with braaied lemons
- Kingklip with white wine, lemon zest, spring onions and BUTTER in a poofey foil parcel. 

A wicked chocolate Secret City Project cake from Charly’s as desert.

Step 3 – Don’t get complacent when things look delicious.

Once the several shops were done and we had all the ingredients, we rocked up at Senait’s place on Thursday afternoon and began preparations. Things went smoothly. It only got "random" when the guests arrived and requested grapefruit mojitos and vodka mules in large amounts. These are excellent cocktails to do, because they’re simple, inebriating and delicious.

The Vodka Mule:

Some vodka (how much is directly proportionate to how late dinner’s going to be)

Fresh mint

Ginger beer

Grapefruit juice

The Grapefruit Mojito:

Bacardi rum (see above for amount)

3 lime wedges

Brown sugar

Fresh mint

Crushed ice

Muddle the stuff at the bottom of the glass, add booze, add ice, top up with the juice. Delicious.

Rad as these apartments are, the kitchen tend to be rather small, about the size and volume of a large animal, making cooking rather tricky. Chris is a champ. Check out Chris juggling food below. 

Step 4 – If you make pancakes for a living, and you once owned a discoteque, you are awesome.

Among the guests at Senait’s dinner party was an extremely interesting man call Jean-Luc. He is from France, and he accidently landed in Cape Town one day. He has never left. Jean-Luc once owned a number of discos. He sold them all and retired. Bored, he decided to buy a trailer and sell pancakes on the Camps Bay strip. Just for fun. Now he’s a feature. He promised us as many free pancakes as we want, so we’re definitely going to make a turn soon.

Check out the final dinner party video below.

Thanks to Senait for letting us commandeer her kitchen, and to Charly’s Bakery for making us an amazing Secret City Project cake. It was incredible.