The Dog's Bollocks

 29 April 2022

 

The Dog’s Bollocks at YARD

6 Roodehek Street, Gardens, Cape Town  

 

I trudged up the Derry Street incline in a light drizzle,  hoping to have breakfast  at Ciao Deli, a new spot on lower Derry, about 10 minutes’ walk from my house, that looks smart and alluring but serves only sweet pastries and coffee, which was not what I desired.  I was hungry and on a cold, wet day a chocolate croissant just doesn’t cut it.

 

Mentally dented yet undaunted, I trudged downhill in a precipitation of increasing intensity and headed to The Dog’s Bollocks, relatively close by and where I knew I’d get a warm breakfast. I hadn’t eaten there for probably more than three years and it was probably also  a propitious time for a return visit.

 

It seems that YARD< if that is what one calls the building in which the Bollocks, uh, hangs, has been expanded over time, with, amongst other innovations,  a nursery next door, but the restaurant still looks pretty much the same and operates pretty much the same. 

 

 The rows of hard wooden benches are in place, you must still write your name on the blackboard, you must fetch your cutlery and condiments from the service counter and the server is still vibey and upbeat.  Apparently, in the early days, sassy rudeness by the server was encouraged by management but that was not apparent today.

 

Perhaps because of the nursery, there seems to be more plants, both on the tables and suspended from the ceiling, than I recall from my previous visit, and this considerably mitigates the mild grimness of sitting in an enclosed alley.

 

My server was so kind as to make my espresso (R26) herself, given that the barista was away on other business. The quantity was generous and it was good.

 

The breakfast options are the full English, a grill broodjie, egg butty, breakfast burrito, sausage butty, French toast, huevos rancheros, BLT sandwich and shakshuka. Most dishes are R59 and at R75 the full English is the most expensive.

 

I recall that they used to have a hubcap bread breakfast thing, consisting of, if memory serves, fried egg and bacon on the titular bread. It was a  literally a hot mess,  visually a dog’s dinner, that tasted far better than it looked. I didn’t see it on the menu today.

 

My huevos rancheros (R59) was plated like no other I’d ever seen. 

 

You get three fried egg tacos, with tomato, chilli and cheese, and a ridiculously miniscule amount of refried beans on the side. That paucity and that the eggs were rather overcooked are my only criticisms of the dish which was otherwise tasty and generous.  It’s a good bargain at the price.

 

Another niggle is that the food Is still served on a sheet of paper in a tin plate, which makes it an irksome  challenge to cut up the food without cutting into the paper too.  

 

The Dog’s Bollocks is no cosy, warm  coffee shop (it looks like a cafeteria styled like a classroom) and, from what I’ve seen, the target demography is millennials and post-millennials. I can’t see myself suggesting to the wife that we pop in for breakfast there but the nosh is good and it is value for money.

 

I had my second coffee of the morning,  with their excellent pecan tart, at Bootlegger in Gardens Centre. I think the tart was R35, and worth it, and the latté was R36.