Those of us who didn't fry our brains in the 90's will remember Rick's Cafe Americaine previously in that spooky Kloof Street house. I remember it especially well as I was writing Club Crawl - a night-spot listing column for The Sunday Times and I think I used the words "plastic" and "attitude" to describe the people who went there. Rick's is back, this time in a spot where a number of fine restaurateurs have previously failed - most recently La Vie and Simply Salmon much before that.
I managed to park right outside and wondered if somehow I had became the kind of person previously derisive about. With my shiny Mini outside and snazzy Dell notebook ordering tappas while paging through the latest Fortune magazine did I previously confuse success with plastic and attitude? Did my psyche know then the kind of man I would become and plant jealous and cynical synapses and a tongue and pen that could jeer in anticipation thereof? Or, albeit a decade ago, was I a talented social commentator? Do the people who used to go to Rick's then, go to Antique now? Am I simply not sufficiently rich enough to be part of the Antique in group or is there a type of person who is still best described by the words plastic and attitude?
Either way, two coffees, and tappas – ricotta-stuffed calamari tubes in tomato sauce and beef carpaccio with ciabatta and tip came to R90 - the price of a Main Course at Antique. I remember writing that at The Playground - that fine alternative rock club, plastic melts. Maybe I'm just mad because my plastic was rejected at Antique after being FICAed and my card declined.