Scrumptious Seafood at Ocean Basket in the Mediterranean Montecasino

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Doesn't this photo look like it was snapped somewhere in Europe?


It wasn't, though - it's in South Africa! In the Montecasino in Joburg, to be exact. It's an awesome indoor casino/entertainment complex that's totally designed to look like an outdoor mediterranean resort of a couple of decades ago. It even has painted ceilings that mimic the night and day sky so you sort of get the feeling that you're outdoors. Fake trees, too!


This blog is about food, though ... so let's move on to the Ocean Basket restaurant in the Montecasino! As its' name implies, this place specializes in grilled assorted seafood - somewhat similar to Fish & Co and Manhattan Fish Market. Is it as good, though? Let's find out.


After placing our orders we're soon served with some bread and butter. Nothing much to be said about it though, other than it tasted as ordinary as it looks.


The Village Salad (R30) is a dish you can add-on to any main course. It's pretty decent - for a salad. Hard to get overly excited over a bowl of vegetables.


No matter though, we're on to the main courses soon enough! I'm having the Platter for 1 (R92). This comes on a hot metal plate/pan with an assortion of grilled line fish, "prince prawns" (first time I've ever heard of this naming convention for shrimp), calamari, squid heads, mussels, and your choice of chips or rice. I found the seafood pretty fresh, and seasoned and grilled very well! It was a tad bit salty, though, and the chips were as horrid as the rest of the meal was great.


Being the awesome blogger that I am, I forgot to take down the name of the dish that my companion ate. And the price. I can tell you that he had a dozen prince prawns, a mound of calamari and some rice. Same story as what I had - the seafood was good, the rice was crap.


Aftermath of the culling of the prawn :P


There are dozens of restaurants and eateries in the Montecasino complex which I haven't tried so I don't have a frame of reference as to how good/bad Ocean Basket is in comparison; but if like me you're here for the first time, it's a restaurant you won't go wrong with!