A Deliciously Spontaneous Date Night At Bistro 1682

Forgive me for sounding tedious as it feels like I begin every review of a date night with ‘I was exhausted and could have stayed at home’ but to be honest, this is how I feel nearly every time we go out. I liken it to exercise and, well…sex as it’s those things that you often don’t feel like doing but once you do you’re always glad you did and often end up saying, ‘That was great! We must do this more often!’ 😉 So, most date nights I don’t feel like going out because I’m tired but once we’re out I’m always glad we did it.

For this date night we hadn’t actually planned anything besides the baby sitter. So we had no idea what we were going to do. I quite like this as it gives you that feeling of being spontaneous which, as parents, we tend to seriously lack. It can back fire as well if places are booked and you’re stuck in the car not knowing what to do but mostly it tends to work out. We felt like doing something different as we’ve been doing a lot of restaurants lately but couldn’t find anything that appealed to us. I actually even looked at my own blog to see what I had written! (My memory is not what it used to be) But there was nothing happening that week. ( It did give me an idea of something to add on my blog to make it easier to find things to do but I’l let you know when that happens).

I then had the idea of Bistro Sixteen82 as we’ve never been just the 2 of us and went there many years ago. So we quickly called, booked a table and off we went.

Unfortunately it was a windy Cape Town evening as we would have loved to sit outside but it was still good sitting inside. I wouldn’t classify it as a romantic restaurant as it’s quite noisy but at the same time quite vibey. Personally, for date nights we’re not always after romantic. Sometimes vibey and happening also go down very well and is definitely what I’m tending towards at the moment.

We ordered the Angelfish Wantons, Sticky Chicken Wings, Gambas (Prawns:chilli garlic, lemon butter) and crispy patagonian calamari to start off with. All of them were delicious particularly the prawns, chicken wings and calamari (and the amazing sauces that accompanied them). They bring you bread to dip into the sauces and it is was just heavenly. When the bread was all done, we threw all etiquette out the window and had no qualms about licking our plates clean with our fingers. The calamari was also so tender and just divine. We then ordered the Arancini (panko crusted risotto fritter) and the Courgette and Gruyere Fritter which although were nice enough, didn’t quite touch our first choices.

calamari…YUM!

The prawns…delish!

The service was good, the food was delicious and this is definitely a place I would return to, especially on a beautiful summer’s evening sitting outside.

My only complaint is that they didn’t tell us about the tapas special they had running as this would have influenced our choices differently and saved us a bit of cash. Other than that though, it was a fantastic evening as we laughed a lot (I think I embarrassed the waiter by asking him what cologne he was wearing as he smelt nice), had a lovely time together and would definitely recommend it as a great summer date night spot.

***Update: Since writing this post, The Sushi Box no longer operates at Beau Constantia. Chefs Warehouse are now there and I have heard very good things although I have not been myself.