'Agree With Everything - Deny Nothing - Embellish All

Monday, January 21, 2008

SALT & Lamb

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) sits atop a plateau in the Karoo about ten miles from Sutherland. The skies are, apparently, particularly clear here, though when we hit town to celebrate the Renaissance Man's birthday with a spot of stargazing low clouds stretched across the sky. We made up for our disappointment with a stay at Jorg's Kambrokind Guest House and dinner at Perlman's Restaurant.
Sutherland really is in the middle of nowhere, a one-street, one donkey-cart town 5000 feet up in the desert and a hundred kilomteres from the next one-horse, one-donkey-cart town. The graveyard records the dead of the Boer War and there's still a palpable feeling of outrage at the English occupation of the town's church in 1901.
And they'll probably still be discussing our dinner at Perlman's a century hence. The restaurant, whose hostess appears to be Judy Dench's separated-at-birth twin, is decorated with memorabilia of Swinging London and specialises in Karoo lamb. The evening was a roaring sucess, fuelled by an endless supply of Beyerskloof Pinotage and the lamp speciality - quite simply the most powerfully delicious I have tasted outside Cumbria. And it culminated in a prolonged singalong - led by the Renaissance Woman and enthusiastically supported by fellow-diners Dave The Astronomical Chancer, a former child prodigy bassoonist, and the president of the local chapter of the Afrikaaner Hell's Angels, who broke off from extolling the virtues of Pink Floyd to show us photographs of his Kawasaki 1300. Worryingly, these were kept in the part of his wallet other men reserve for pictures of wife and children. We went home late. Very late. We're still not sure how the proprietors will react the next time we turn up for dinner . . .

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I enjoy your blog enormously. Thanks, Sandy in Florida

21/1/08 11:23 pm  
Blogger Nick said...

Sandy - thanks. Do keep on visiting.

22/1/08 8:54 am  

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