Pronto Italian Restaurant ****
The Colony Shopping Centre
345 Jan Smuts Avenue Craighall Park
Tel: (011) 447-4346
Thuli Madonsela *****
Excellent ****
Good ***
Poor **
Jacob Zuma *
— FOOD FOR THOUGHT
I have been giving my mother the evil eye lately. I do love her, but I think she could have done better. She should have married into royalty. Then I would be very rich and living the life of Riley.
I have been reading about the Venda king, Toni Mphephu Ramabulana, and I have to say there is something sweet about this royalty gig. He wasn’t just chowing from the public purse like most royals. He was going big-time on the private sector moola, too.
Like other deluded souls such as the English, we pay our royals here in SA. Yes, we do. King Goodwill Zwelithini’s annual budget was increased by R7m this year — to a whopping R65.8m.
The Venda king is different. He was drawing serious benefits from VBS Mutual Bank. City Press found bank statements that show how Ramabulana and others "allegedly dipped into hundreds of millions of rands belonging to depositors to finance their lifestyles".
This is where you realise why my mother messed up. Ramabulana received a monthly salary of R310,000 from Vele Investments, the bank’s shareholder. And the bank financed the king’s five cars, worth more than R6.5m. The statements also show that Ramabulana in one day spent R26,000 on designer clothing from a Giorgio Armani store in Sandton and R12,000 at La Martina, a boutique sports and leisure clothing store in Sandton.
Having your mother-in-law come to visit is like having royalty around. You bow and curtsey and pull out all the stops
I can’t stop whistling. I think there is a term for it: living the life. And as with Markus Jooste at Steinhoff, there will be no consequences for the bank’s executives. None, zero, zilch.
Thankfully there are places where ordinary, hardworking, non-royals like me can get amazing food and good wine, and spend time with family. One such place is Pronto, a restaurant that in the past seven years has given me joy because it is consistently good, and consistently offers great service and atmosphere, and its prices remain reasonable.
A few weeks ago my mother-in-law was in town and I needed to impress. Having your mother-in-law come to visit is a bit like having royalty around. You bow and curtsey and pull out all the stops. Your marriage depends on this. At such times you need a place that will not disappoint. Pronto it was.
My lovely wife went for pasta vongole. She tucked in, smacked her lips: "Delicioso!"
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I almost always have the fiery spaghetti with prawns when I go to Pronto. It’s a delicious old favourite: chilli prawns and pasta in a delicious white wine sauce. There are many pleasures in life, but none beats a spaghetti like this with a glass of chilled dry white wine. I was in heaven. We had four of our daughters with us; one went off the beaten track and had a penne with chorizo infusion. That dish can cause a riot, it’s so good.
One of the best things about Pronto is the service. It’s consistently top-notch, the waiters and waitresses are knowledgeable and you are always attended to. Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t great on the night we went. Our table was sort of shoved in and the co-ordination with the lighting was a bit off.
You ask about my mother-in-law? Well, I took her to Pronto because I needed a fail-safe solution. And it worked. She ordered a bouillabaisse (a fish stew) and it was wonderful.
By the time we left, she wasn’t the royal one. She thought I was royalty for taking her there! What a lovely place.
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