There are not that many public places where I can spend a leisurely 5 hours relaxing and not start twitching to leave or move around. Polana in Kalk Bay is one of the few places where I have spent many an entire afternoon quite happily.

It was a stunning sunny warm day on Sunday so we spent the morning pottering round the garden and then decided to get out and enjoy a social afternoon. We decided to take the scenic route there. We drove over Chapman’s Peak Drive, one of the world’s most scenic drives. And it starts in our village! I’m such a lucky girl.

We have a friend who is leaving this week to be away until October so we met him in Kalk Bay for 4 pm. Polana close their dining room and only do tapas in the lounge from 4-6. We grabbed a seat by the window with a stunning view from both directions.

I ordered my usual strawberry daiquiri yum.

We snuggled into the comfy couches.

I wasn’t really expecting too much of the tapas, even though their restaurant menu is always delicious but I was so pleasantly surprised! We chose the calamari tubes stuffed with rice in a tomatoey chorizo sauce. It was so tender and full of exotic flavour. We also had the line fish bites which was rather surprisingly in a curry corn meal type batter and such stunning fish! The final dish was pan fried crispy slices of chorizo and fat garlicky black olives. Really divine. It all was a nice blend of flavours.

We discovered they have a brilliant little duo of fellas singing blues and Cuban soul type music and we really enjoyed them. They even played a wee bit of Ry Cooder at our request.

We stayed until the sun went down – it is such an amazingly beautiful venue. If ever in Cape Town it’s a must!

We had such a lovely day and toddled home late that night, Norm had been a good boy as he was designated driver but I had 5 of those cocktails over a 4 hour period. It was a yummy afternoon.
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