Tag: Review

Guess Who’s Back…Again

Wow, it has been a minute (more like a few years) since my last blog post and honestly, I really miss it. SO many things have changed in the time I have been absent from this side of my life. I got married, we bought a house (which is currently being painted as the photo shows) and I (okay we) have two more dogs and I have made several career shifts.

house covered in white paint can see garage kitchen window and drain
two dogs Zoe beautiful brinjal puppy on the left and Zorba handsome brinjal puppy with white paws on the right
menu for date night at the beach hotel


The special has changed slightly since January of this year (2023 in case you’re reading this in like 5 years or something), it costs R385 per couple for a three-course meal and a bottle of wine or a non-alcoholic drink.
When we went in January the menu consisted of a salad as a starter, the main course was either chicken schnitzel, steak, or hake and dessert was either homemade cheesecake or red velvet cake.
Now before I tell you about our experience and what our taste buds thought about everything there’s something you need to understand. My husband and I are not salad people (if you knew our weights you would have been able to guess that). Our favorite salad would be potato salad and lately, I make couscous salad although I’m not sure the way I make it really counts as salad. My point though is that the salad we had that night, a butternut, beetroot, and pumpkin seed salad still haunts me but in the absolute best way.

delicious salad with feta pumpkin seeds lettuce and beetroot

I intend to remake that salad as it is absolutely divine and inspired me to want to try out-of-the-ordinary salads (so please spam me with ideas). The salad we had that night made me realize it’s not that we’re not salad people, it’s that we’re not typical green salad people especially since neither of us can or should eat tomatoes.
The main course, we both had the steak and as I am writing this article I’m going through the photographs and wishing in my heart of hearts that time travel actually existed. I would love to be transported back in time through the photograph of that dish and eat it again… it was that good, my compliments to the chef, soft juicy steak, yum!

juicy steak with sauce


The dessert oh my goodness! I am not actually the biggest cake person; I would prefer a mousse or a tart as I find most cakes can be quite dry. I must admit 8 months is a long time ago to remember if the cake was moist enough for my liking. Still, since I don’t have a distinct memory of disdain for the cake and judging by the photographs, I am going to say that the cakes were divine, one of them had an edible flower on which I absolutely loved! It makes me feel adventurous and so la di da when I get to eat flowers.

gorgeous cheese cake smothered in a red sauce with a strawberry on top
lovely red velvet cake with a red edible flower on top

Jo’s Take Aways
If you’re in a relationship make date night a priority
Expand your taste bud’s horizons
If you enjoy something and it doesn’t harm anyone keep doing it no matter what others think or say.

Until next time


Jo XO

The Final Flavours and my Personal Favourite

I hope you’ve been waiting in anguish since my last post to find out which one of the final three came out on top as my personal favourite flavour of Beanies coffee.

I wish this upon you only for the reason that I had to wait almost two weeks to try the Creamy Caramel flavour, which I assumed would arise as my number one.

Sadly, this was not the case. The caramel smelt amazing but to my disappointment it tasted very generic. It smelt a lot more like the yummy caramel that I was expecting than it tasted.

So sadly my taste buds and heart were let down by the Creamy Caramel coffee which I waited two weeks to enjoy.

All hope was not lost however, I found two real gems in-between. I was so shocked at one of the two that I so much enjoyed since I don’t even like this taste in general.

Ginger Bread!!! I am so completely shocked, I don’t like ginger at all. Except maybe a bit with my sushi. I don’t eat ginger cookies, I don’t drink ginger ale- nothing!

Yet the ginger bread flavoured coffee made it to my top two, I actually ended up not only drinking mine but my boyfriend’s ginger flavoured coffee too!

My favourite however, was the…wait for it…

 

Cookie dough flavour! I was very impressed with this flavour! It was so good, creamy and yummy. A friend of mine who also tried the Beanies coffee was asking me about my flavour journey and mentioned that he didn’t like the cookie dough so I guess it’s not for everyone.

 

I really enjoyed this adventure through the flavours especially since it was the only kind of adventure I could have while our country is on lockdown!

I’m looking forward to the day I can go to a restaurant again, and buy some wine!

Please Stay Safe!

Jo xo

 

Jo’s Take Away’s

  1. When you buy a low calorie coffee expect it to taste as such
  2. Be a little open minded
  3. Always make the best of tough situations

The Flavoured Coffee Journey Continues

My apologies, I intended this to be a daily post but realised one flavour to review at a time would be a very short post!

I currently have a favourite flavour, which I’ll share shortly, and a very close second which even surprised me.

At this point there are four that I haven’t had yet, three of them I will never have the privilege to try due to a sensitivity to nuts. I won’t be able to try the following flavours

  1. Amaretto Almond
  2. Nutty Hazelnut
  3. Cinnamon Hazelnut

If you try any of those please feel free to share your experience in the comments.

The fourth one I haven’t tried yet is the creamy caramel- I am waiting in suspense to try this one tomorrow morning, hoping that I have saved the best for last.

The day after I had tried the double chocolate flavour, I was a bit sceptical about trying the rest of the flavours and didn’t go in with an open mind.

The second one I tried was the Irish Cream, OH. MY. GOODNESS. I was pleasantly surprised, I accidentally let it get cold, but I still drank it. You don’t understand the magnitude of this, I don’t even drink Nescafé if it’s too cold.

The only thing though about the Irish Cream is that I am not sure if it actually tasted like Irish Cream. It tasted good yes, but did it taste like what it was supposed to? That – I can’t answer.

Next, we had the Choc Mint, I guess Beanies haven’t quite gotten the formula right for flavours containing chocolate. It really wasn’t great, was a bit like having coffee after brushing your teeth.

Then there was the Very Vanilla, I had a sip of my boyfriend’s one a few days prior to having mine since we didn’t always do the same flavour. I was not impressed, it made my toothpaste combo seem like it tasted good. However, when I had mine, it wasn’t half bad- I really enjoyed it. It had a light coffee taste with slight undertones of vanilla. I think the difference between my boyfriend’s Very Vanilla and mine was that he used sweetener and I used refined sugar which we used for a few days.

The next one was the Coconut Delight- not actually that memorable, it wasn’t bad but wasn’t amazing either. I do remember the slight aftertaste of coconut though. You know after you’ve eaten a lamington and that last bit of coconut is stuck to the underside of your teeth without you knowing? You might gnaw your teeth a little and have that crunchy coconut taste in your mouth. That’s what it’s like after having a sip of the Coconut Delight!

The last one which I am going to tell you about in this particular post is the Chocolate Orange. You know that I said they haven’t mastered the chocolate flavour’s formula yet, right? Well they should use the this one’s ratios. It’s perfect! It reminded me of the KitKat citrus chocolate, which I quite enjoy. Still this wasn’t the best one I’ve had so far though.

Want to know which one was best? Look out for my next blog post on these coffees which will reveal my favourite flavour so far and if the creamy caramel could knock it off it’s throne.

To be continued.

Jo xo

a Series of Flavoured Coffee Reviews part 1

So, the boyfriend and I went on an essential shopping trip, you know for the normal things.

Trash bags, lemon juice, distilled water and so forth. We have a tendency for trying new things, and of course, as a true theology student, I have an intense love for good coffee.

Years ago, there used to be caramel instant coffee which I can’t seem to put out of my head- the search for its equivalent is ever present in the back of my head.

We went to one of the supermarkets in our area which is open during lockdown, and kind of dwelled around hoping the items in the aisles would spark our memory of what is lacking at home.

Of course, we would end up in the coffee aisle and find a box of Beanies flavoured coffee with 12 sachets of coffee in! This we had to try, so we decided to get each of us a box, sadly not the box with the salted caramel flavour though (which is one of my favourite flavours for anything).

So, with dinner we decided to try out the first one, ‘double chocolate’. I must say at first, I was underwhelmed, it seemed to have a bit of an identity crisis. Not enough coffee to be a coffee, not enough chocolate to be hot chocolate and not enough of both to be a mochaccino.

I will admit some error on our part as the kettle had recently been boiled and we did not re boil it and I am not a fan of cold coffee. Also, we only added 2 sweetener which is the equivalent of what we add to Hug in a Mug.

So I did warm my coffee and add another sweetener and then it was actually quite nice, still not as flavourful as I had hoped though. It smelled amazing but the taste did not quite live up to the smell.

That might well be because I am more accustomed to a stronger blend of coffee though, so if you are fond of the less intense coffees and in the mood for something exotic I would definitely suggest you try these!

Jo’s Take Away’s

  1. Make a shopping list
  2. Make sure you aren’t allergic to any of the flavours before you buy the box
  3. Use smaller mugs for stronger coffee

The next flavour I will be reviewing is the Irish Cream, really hoping that it will impress me more than this one.

 

Hope you are surviving lockdown and staying safe.

Jo xo

 

 

Sushi Search Part 2 (long awaited)

IMG_20190726_164850So if you’re a frequent follower of my blog you’ll know that I tend to be slightly more budget conscious than most.

Sadly there is not a single place that sells sushi in the town where I stay- we used to have an Ocean Basket but sadly they closed down. I have a feeling my superior consumption of their delicious bread may have contributed to their closing.

Whenever I wish to consume sushi there is always other costs like the travel costs to get to whichever establishment I intend on consuming sushi at. Therefore for this review I went to the closest sushi place only one town over.

Despatch SuperSpar – yes they are a supermarket but they have an amazing sushi chef on staff.

Friday afternoon I decided to treat my friend and myself to some delicious sushi. I was very surprised when I walked into Spar at about 14:30 that the sushi chef was on lunch. Strange timing – month end weekend, just as the schools have come out. I don’t pretend to know how their scheduling works though- just found it odd.

Luckily there was some sushi in the fridge! I ended up getting two trays of salmon packed sushi! I have always wanted to try Graca wine with sushi (I think this might have been inspired by the John Dory’s ad) and decided this was the day! The wine was amazing with and without the sushi – tasted similar to champagne but better.

To my surprise the wine was on special for R38.99 at TOPS so I was over the moon. I ended up buying R160 worth of sushi and R40 of wine. So the food and drink cost me R200 and the fuel R50. So sushi for two people worked out to be R250.

When I finally got to my friend’s house later that afternoon I realised that I had forgotten to take chopsticks. This made for a very interesting finger food experience, I don’t like getting my hands dirty so luckily my friend did offer me a set of chopsticks she had at home.

The sushi itself was delicious! I would have preferred more mayonnaise on some of the items, like the salmon roses but sadly since the chef was on lunch I wasn’t able to get extra mayo. I must say only one of my pieces of sushi broke and that was more my error than anything else. I would also have loved to get some sashimi but once again could only get what was available on the shelf.

There is a definite level of convenience being able to get some take away sushi just one town over, but also has its drawbacks like the chef being on lunch.

I would buy sushi there again, as it’s the closest sushi place to me and is really affordable. Sometimes it pays to stay home.

May you find delicious & affordable take away places in your life!

Love Jo xo

Jo’s Take Aways

  1. Know when the chef goes on lunch
  2. You don’t need to spend a boat load of money for something great
  3. When wine goes on special buy lots!

 

The Pizza that had too much to live up to

IMG_20190707_182043So if you’ve been following my recent blog posts you would know that I now have someone in my life. So my boyfriend (yes I love saying that) had for weeks been telling me about this Nachos pizza at San Fernando’s since he knows that I love avocado!

He has been telling me how amazing this pizza is, and I really couldn’t wait to taste it. Finally the day came when we decided to go out for dinner to have this nachos pizza that he has been bragging about.

I must say the service at San Fernando’s at Sunridge Village is amazing, very friendly and very quick as well.

I had the most amazing bar-one hot chocolate and that I would recommend to absolutely everyone. IMG_20190707_180946

The pizza came (quite quickly may I add) and it looked amazing, except when you bear in mind that my boyfriend thought I would enjoy this pizza because I love avo and you notice that here is only a small dollop of guacamole on every slice. I ignored this though and dived into what mostly looked like an amazing pizza.

My boyfriend’s brother joined us for the pizza and to my happiness didn’t eat avo so most of his gaucamole came to me…yay!

The first bite of the pizza was delicious, but on the next bite something tasted a little floury or doughy maybe. At first I couldn’t place it but later realized some spots of the pizza’s base didn’t completely cook through.

I’m not a large fan of tomato flavoured things so I think I’m slightly biased on this next point, but as the nacho base on top of the pizza base they use tomato flavoured corn chips. The taste is also a bit dry which might have added to the floury taste and also the tomato taste kind of overpowered the rest of the pizza.

We opted for the plain pizza as I am asthmatic and need to be very careful of things that are too spicy, but the pizza came across a bit bland. I would have enjoyed it if the pizza was slightly tangy. I mean yes, when I eat spicy things I get to a point where I would just as well sell my birth right for a glass of water but with this pizza I thought I would sell my birth right for a little bit of spice.

They only have the plain option and the spicy option on the menu- I would definitely recommend that they add a mild version of the nachos pizza on the menu and if they do I would give it a try for sure!

I think at some point during consuming the pizza my facial expression must have changed since my boyfriend felt it necessary to express that he forgot that I critique food.

I would just like to say that I might not have enjoyed the dish but I did enjoy the place! They have some amazing specials and are worth checking out!

Love Jo, xo

 

Jo’s Takeaways:

  1. There is no such thing as too much avo
  2. Plain doesn’t have to mean tasteless
  3. Don’t oversell a dish

Sushi Search – Part One of Many

IMG_20190515_215636I have decided to take the challenge upon myself to check out all the (affordable) sushi places in P.E. and surrounding areas and review them on my blog; so that you my dear friends and followers can avoid a bad sushi experience. (This definitely has nothing at all to do with the fact that I love sushi myself). The first place I decided to try out was TORO Sushi, Teppanyaki & Seafood.

A friend of mine and I decided we were in the mood to go out- sushi sounded like a great idea and I had been dying to try out the buffet at TORO. Their sushi buffet is really well priced at R169.00 for all you can eat sushi (there are some restrictions but we’ll get to those in a bit), and you also get 4 salmon roses and 4 small pieces of sashimi.

They were running a contest at the time (and I think they still are) where if you do the buffet and stack your different coloured plates, you need to take a selfie with your stacked plates and tag TORO on Instagram or Facebook to win a voucher. However when we got there we were told that when doing the buffet you are only allowed to take white plates off the conveyer belt at the sushi bar, so this was quite confusing. We didn’t enquire further though because at the end of the day we didn’t really care that much about the contest but more about the fact that we could finally enjoy this experience together.

So we were 4 friends who decided to go to TORO and 3 of us did the buffet. You can’t share with someone not doing the buffet though (let’s just say we learned this through experience)  just so you know for when you go try them out! You have two options, you can either take sushi off the conveyer belt (white plates only though) or you can order off the menu on your table (you can do both if you want as well).

I opted for ordering off the menu as we were sitting far away from the sushi bar and I would find it awkward to constantly walk through the rest of the patrons. I had avocado & cream cheese California rolls as well as salmon & cream cheese California rolls which were absolutely divine and decadent! I did however realise that both the choices of ordering off the menu and ordering sushi with cream cheese in were big mistakes – how so, you may ask?

When you order off the menu, your sushi takes a while to get to the table hence giving the sushi you already ate time to digest. This causes you to fill up a lot quicker than you would want to at an ALL YOU CAN EAT sushi buffet, and the cream cheese being so rich also had a hand in me eating a lot less than I would have anticipated!

I was slightly disappointed by the amount of mayonnaise on my salmon roses, but luckily we had a very hard working waiter and he went to get extra mayo for my salmon roses. Thank you, Jacques!

All in all, it was an amazing experience! The food was great even though I ate less than I would have hoped, and the company was amazing.

You know that table at the restaurant that makes everyone else uncomfortable with the amount of fun they’re having? Yeah, we were that table! There was a man sitting at a table adjacent to ours and he enjoyed eavesdropping on our silly conversations so much that he bought a round of shooters for our table.

Sometimes when you look forward to an experience for a long time it doesn’t live up to your expectations, but my time at TORO really did. The food was good but the company was better, and I’m pretty sure we made our waiter blush a few times as well.

Definitely go give TORO Sushi, Teppanyaki & Seafood a try!

Love Jo xo

 

Jo’s Take Aways

  1. Take good company with
  2. Sit at the sushi bar to consume more food
  3. Have extra mayo for the table
  4. Be nice to your waiter – give a decent tip

For photos of the evening check out my instagram @imjoxo