Would you like sauce with that? At this restaurant it's R2 'per squirt'

Would you pay R16 for some mayo on your sandwich?

A customer‚ Ayesha Abrahams Abdurahman‚ ordered take-aways over the phone from Mariam's‚ a popular joint on the Foreshore in Cape Town.

When she asked for a mixture of mayonnaise and peri-peri sauce‚ known as "perinaise"‚ on her vienna gatsby‚ she was charged R16‚ which she hadn't expected. She posted her receipt on Facebook and the post has been shared a few hundred times.

The R16 charged for sauce was on top of the R120 already paid for the gatsby‚ a popular sandwich in Cape Town consisting of a long roll filled with meat‚ such as polony‚ sauces and fried chips.

Abdurahman wrote on her public Facebook post: "Got a shock of our lives when we saw this phone order slip. We questioned the staff and apparently they charge R2 for every squirt of sauce from the bottle and they decide on amount of squirts lol" Asked for perinaise and this BS was charged #ripoff #R16forsauce#klaarmetmariams #couldhaveboughtabottleofsauceforR16 #bewarned". [ sic]

A manager who only gave his name as Rafiq told Times Media that tomato sauce is free‚ but the restaurant charges R8 rand per sauce for a full-size gatsby.

The hashtag: #couldhaveboughtabottleofsauceforR16 had people laughing.

Arno Els wrote: "I'm more worried about the people who search the hashtag #couldhaveboughtabottleofsauceforR16."

Some people said R16 for sauce on a gatsby was the same as buying a bottle of sauce and urged Abdurahman to eat at home and avoid takeout.

Another customer asked if she had enjoyed the gatbsy‚ because the one he bought had cost R170 and he hadn't enjoyed it.

Other restaurants that charge extra for sauce include McDonalds‚ which charges R3.50 for a small bowl of extra-chilli sauce and Spur‚ which charges extra for sauces for steaks and hamburgers.