Well, hello again. What a wonderful break I had, although I must admit that the sea spray did burn my eyes and cake my skin! I’m back and looking forward to continuing my quest to get to all the eateries before I depart for shores a-yonder.
That will be a sad day as I have, to date, thoroughly enjoyed my stay in this town. I hope that you missed me in the last edition – I did get some ‘stick’ from the Editor.
So, now onto matters at hand – I decided to go a little alternative and ventured off to “The Venue Sports and Wine Bar” at the Rotique Centre in Huilboerboom Street – work hub by day, bar by night. I thought that to be quite a nice mixture of activity. Free WiFi and charging points, solar power, and the pizza oven, rounds off a comprehensive service offering – and all under the watchful eye of Matt Poole and team.
I immediately liked the fact that we could watch the pizzas being cooked, and as it happened the warmth from the pizza oven did serve as a small respite from the early chill in the air. The space is somewhat minimalistic but comfy – I did like sitting around the barrels on the outside, reminded me of my tapas days in Seville, but you can also sit comfortably inside if you wish. I did think that the lighting might have been a little bright – but that’s a constructive comment.
The menu was thankfully not excessive (such a fault in so many restaurants). Pizzas are the name of the game. As it happened, I was quite keen on testing the pizzas on this particular occasion – not something that I would normally have.
First, we had to have a drink – what a surprise! For once in your little town, here was a restaurant that served value-for-money alcohol. We homed in on the suggested ‘Hedgehog’ brand of wines – great suggestion and very quaffable.
The choices we made for the evening were a couple of focaccias, pizza with bacon, feta and avocado, a Mexicana pizza, and some salads. Everything was presented together, and the salads were fresh and jolly delicious. The pizzas ….. well, this was an experience. They were off the charts – without doubt the best pizzas tasted in Hoedspruit so far! Beautiful, crispy thin bases with the exact amount of topping – I don’t know how they did that (maybe measured), but just fantastic!
And then came the service – the waitron was superb. She was very attentive, got the order spot on and ensured the wine was cold, with lots of ice. She really was ‘ahead of the game’.
Congratulations to the new management team of The Venue – its heading in the right direction and can be easily recommended for a good, value-for-money, evening out!
