Back in the 70's and 80's, Mr Costa Velonis owned the best Portuguese style seafood restaurant in Pretoria, South Africa.
It was called "Toureiro - LM in Pretoria", a reference to the former Portuguese colony of Mocambique and its capital, Lourenço Marques (now named Maputo).
It was world famous north of the Boerewors Curtain, and renowned for its amazing Piri-Piri Chicken Livers (with Portuguese bread) and its prawns.
In all the years I went there, I think that's all I ate, other than a Portuguese Salad and excessive amounts of alcohol (including litres of Graça, the best-selling white corked wine in South Africa, constantly selling more than 2 million litres per annum).
Toureiro was at 314 Church Street West in Pretoria West and, over the decades, that part of town deteriorated, succumbed to urban decay and was not the kind of place you'd really want to go drinking late at night! Nevertheless, as students at the University of Pretoria between 1982 and 1988, it served us well as one of the best value for money seafood meals you could find, and the drinks were comparatively cheap. So a group of us went there regularly and indulged in copious consumption. Drink drive enforcement in South Africa was a joke in those days!
This particular group of five mates and their partners dubbed themselves "HPLK", an acronym that will remain undefined, to protect innocent people involved ;-) It was May 2, 1987 and most of us were working and in the second year of our Masters of Commerce degrees. On this particular evening, one of our ranks had declared "LM in Pretoria" as being too dangerous and/or below his status, and decided not to join us. The other four couples had a great time, racking up a monstrous bill of ZAR213.64. At the exchange rates of the day, that was approximately £37.67 or $58.62 or €44.99 for eight people, wining and dining. But considering that my gross salary at the time was about ZAR450.00 (£79.31 or $123.48 or €94.76), my slice of the tab cost me 12% of my salary!
As cash was scarce, we each paid our share, and made the calculations on the back of a paper napkin, that we duly signed and dated. A nice little memento of our life in LaLa Land, living under the Apartheid regime's State of Emergency. I finished my Masters degree in 1988, graduated in 1989 and left the country later that year. But the good friends remain...as does the Toureiro. Costa Velonis's son, Anthony, has reincarnated it in the leafy surroundings of Pretoria East, spitting distance from we all used to (or in some cases, still) live. It's now called "LM in the East" and still does killer chicken livers and prawns. Although the portions are half what they used to be, and prices are up by almost a factor of ten, I still eat there at least once every trip I make to South Africa. It remains a tangible and sensual link to a time long, long ago when lifelong friendships were forged.
Also see my folder on Flickr.
