Breakfast Review - "Die Volksmond"

If you have read some of my other posts, you might've picked up that English is not my first language. I have a friend that likes to point out my grammar mistakes in my posts, but I try. I am actually Afrikaans speaking, which in the current South Africa is not really that great to be. The ruling party always associate Afrikaans with the apartheid era and try their best to kill the language. Just last week they proclaimed that three official languages used in state departments have to at least contain two African languages. That means that English, which is understood by most South Africans will be used, along with two other African languages. Where does that leave Afrikaans? Well, the ANC hopes it will disappear like they want the whites to disappear. But my blog is not on politics and the last thing I want to have is a debate on language issues. The reason however why I mentioned this language issue is because of my breakfast which I had at the Afrikaans Language Monument situated on the Paarl Mountain. 

We were on our way from Bain's Kloof back to Cape Town when I remembered that I previously stopped at this restaurant close to those huge "stalagmites" which obviously  represents something of the Afrikaans language. You have to enter the gate to the monument if you want to get to the Volksmond Restaurant where we were planning on doing a quick meal, but it is not free. Some way we have to finance our own language I guess. The entrance fee is R15 per person, but if you only want to go to the restaurant, you have to pay R5. The reason for this is that people say they are going to the restaurant and then walk up to the monument. Although I feel very tempted to say that even Afrikaans people seems to take liberties in this country, I have to admit that every time I've been there I have actually heard more foreign languages than Afrikaans. I guess we all take liberties then. But because of that everyone has to pay to go to the restaurant, which for me is not really fair if you want to support the restaurant. At least I knew the money was going for a "good cause".

But if paying was OK because of the "good cause", then I cannot really complain at the prices of the meals either. The menu is rather limited, but nothing less than what you would find at any average coffee shop. It was also nice to see that the menu was in Afrikaans as well as English, but I guess that you would also find at any average coffee shop in South Africa. I went for the "Afrikaans Breakfast" at R42. Not very different than what you would find on other menus under the title "English Breakfast". I wondered why they would call it an Afrikaans breakfast, because what do Afrikaners really eat for breakfast? Mieliepap? I think more Africans eat mieliepap than Afrikaners to be honest. Anyway, the food tasted good and even though R42 was a bit steep for that breakfast I told myself it was for a good cause. 

One thing that I can say about the place was that the view over the Franschkoek valley is spectacular. After the noise at Tweede Tol I really appreciated the tranquillity up on the hill.  If you ever want to go up there, do it for the view at least. The food is not bad either, just in my opinion a bit expensive. But like I said...it's for a good cause.