On Point Waterfront
Where: 1 Mahatma Gandhi (Point) Road
Open: Sunday to Monday 7am-7pm, Tuesday to Thursday 7am-8pm, Friday-Saturday 7am-9pm.
Call: 031 350 3599
The Glass Guy and I were looking for the new Durban Underwater Club when we stumbled across On Point Waterfront.
It has taken over the club’s previous temporary venue and turned it into a pub and party venue, with several eateries contributing to a wide range of food options. It had been a while since I had been down here.
A large venue that’s funkily painted out, this has The Durban Brewing Company bar on one side and several exciting eateries down the other.
There’s an outlet of the famed Bike and Bean, for coffees and things like bacon and egg rolls, plus several cake options. The Rolling Pin, which serves gourmet pizzas and Turkish pide at Morningside’s Food Box, is here too, and then there’s Reel Sushi, which aside from a full selection of sushi options, takes in the bounty of the sea. Fish, sole, prawns and calamari are the thing here. VBs offers breakfasts and toasties and burgers and loaded fries. They also make snack baskets suitable for nibbling on at the bar ‒ think chicken wings, nachos, samoosa platters and haloumi. The Kung Thai too has an outlet here.
The building spills out onto a grassy bank with tables overlooking the harbour mouth. You feel like you could almost touch ships coming in and out of the harbour. It’s a lovely setting. On a perfect night, we would sit out here but tonight the wind is blowing
We started with a good blonde laager from Durban Brewing. We felt like something spicy, so we quickly eyed the offerings from the Kung Thai. A selection of tapas plates (all R49) looked interesting – from duck samosas with a chilli tomato chutney to prawn tails wrapped in crispy rice paper. There are crispy or steamed prawn wontons, or Jalapeno poppers stuffed with chicken and spring onion.
We opted for the fish and prawn cakes, which were tasty with a nice crisp crumb, the chicken spring rolls which were again nice and crisp, and the Puu Cha. These were crab-and-prawn-stuffed doughnuts and something I hadn’t tried before. They’re worth it.
For mains there’s a full selection of curries ‒ green, red, angry and massaman ‒ as well as wok dishes with offerings like mushroom and ginger, roasted cashew nuts and sundried chilli, or bok choy, mushrooms and oyster sauce. And stir frys can be done on either rice or noodles, with options for protein of duck, chicken, beef, prawns, mixed seafood and veg.
Specialities include a whole linefish, either served crispy or steamed and platters of prawns or calamari.
We had to try the crispy duck (R199) which can be done in a honey and soy sauce, or with sundried tomato and chilli, or with peanut sauce or garlic spring onion, chilli and lemon juice. We opted for the Chu Chee sauce of red curry paste, lime leaves, basil, chilli and coconut cream on a bed of fried rice. The crispy duck really hit the sweet spot and the mild slightly sweet sauce complemented it well. We mopped it all up quickly.
It’s worth a visit just for the duck.
We relaxed outside and finished our beers looking over the harbour entrance. On a Saturday night such a venue should be pumping, but the whole Point area was quiet. I suspect on beautiful sunny days, lunchtime will be busy here, and on weekends there is live entertainment.
Food: 4
Service: 3 ½
Ambience: 3
The Bill: R346
The Independent on Saturday