A fairly sizable group of us descended upon the Circle Café to celebrate a friend’s birthday. I had never been and was keen to give it a try, having heard about the bagels, a lot.

For those who haven’t been, it’s positioned inside (and round the back of) the Durban Holocaust Centre. To find it, head to Durban CBD, and swing in the direction of the beachfront. It’s on the corner of K.E. Masinga and Playfair roads. It opens up onto a beautifully landscaped commemorative garden, aptly named the Gardens of Remembrance. It’s one of, if not the only Kosher restaurant in Durban, with a Milchik kitchen (seperate kitchen for dairy prep).

The interior is bright and airy, with lots of lovely, purty goodies to paw through. Loved the range of ceramics. Oh, and then there’s food. I’m wary of kosher food – I may have been scarred by bad cooking but a lot of my experience of it has been a smelly or bland one at best. Well, their meals put paid to that.

I had the potato latkes (fritter) with salmon and a thick a slathering of guacamole, topped with crème fraîche and resting on some crispy salad. The other half had a cream cheese and salmon bagel and chips. I am compelled to point out that there was no skimping on the salmon or the avo. I pretty much got what weighed like an entire avocado and a full pack of smoked salmon (no insipid ribbons here). It was wonderful. I engulfed it like the whale Im becoming.

Dessert was a creamy baked cheesecake (the underlying theme here, folks, seems to be a creamy, cheesy one and I see nothing wrong with it). The cake was made on the premises. And it was eliminated within minutes. Screw the overfussy, overdecorated larny birthday cakes currently favoured, gimme a rich, fattening (or not, depending which diet you currently subscribe to) cheesecake any day. Happy birthday, Miss K!