The last flight before my annual leave was taking me to the beautiful city of Cape Town in South Africa. It had been such a long time since I was last in Cape Town, and I couldn’t wait to be back and eat a beautiful dinner with a glass of South African red. The only downside was that the timings for this layover really weren’t fantastic so I wasn’t sure how much exploring I would actually get up to.

Leaving Dubai at 09:10am it was nine and half hours south to Cape Town International Airport in South Africa. Landing just before 5pm, we made our way over to the hotel and I had arranged with two other crew to meet for dinner. On our crew layover tips page, a few people had suggested a restaurant called Utopia that was meant to have fabulous views to watch the sunset over the city.

We jumped in an Uber over to the restaurant and came out to such a wonderful view across the city and also showcasing Table Mountain too that had cloud surrounding its peak. One of the supervisors on the flight was from Cape Town and when we were walking through the airport he explained that the cloud that often sits atop the mountain is commonly referred to as the table cloth. I thought that was so cute and it was what we could see as we sat down to dinner.

We ordered a bottle of red to share, the done thing to do when in South Africa, and began to look through the menu.

After a tough decision of really wanting a steak but the seafood also appealing to me too, the waiter recommended the chef’s special of surf and turf and I was instantly sold. Opting for the side of veg, I couldn’t wait for the food to arrive, I’d been waiting all flight for this!

One of the girls went for the salmon fillet and the other the rib eye steak and everything was so beautifully cooked. I don’t know how they’d done these prawns and what they had dressed them in but it tasted heavenly. Everything worked so well together, I seriously didn’t want this dish to ever end.

We then shared a desert which was given to us complimentary with a glass of bubbles each as we were cabin crew which was nice! Before we paid the bill and thanked them so much for their service and took an Uber back to the hotel.

The next morning I wanted to hike Lion’s Head another hike I’ve been wanting to do for a while in Cape Town, but the weather wasn’t looking great and was forecast to rain and with my annual leave following this I didn’t want to get sick before the long night flight back to Dubai. If I’d have had a crystal ball to see the global events following this, I would have been straight up that mountain for the wonderful views… but more on that in another post.

So instead I had a few more hours sleep and then headed out for some breakfast as it’s always so good in South Africa. I love the food here so much! So I went down to the waterfront in search of something to eat.

Deciding on Tashas, an absolute South African favourite of mine. I began with a cappuccino and a freshly squeezed orange and ginger juice whilst looking through the menu.

I went for the creamed avo on toast which was creamed almond & avo dressing, fennel, labneh, chives, parsley, spiced pistachio, cucumber & gluten free sourdough and then I added some bacon and poached eggs. Absolutely phenomenal, the spiced pistachios are toasted in a pan and add such a wonderful crunch! Something I’m going to be adding to my homemade avocado toasts for sure!

I left feeling super full up and did a few bits of grocery shopping for my favourite South African essentials before heading back to the hotel ready for the wake up call. Not a majorly exciting layover, but the food is just so good, I can’t not blog about it!

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