I hate it when waitrons/wine waiters fiddle around me and constantly refill my wine glass.
I purrtickularily hate it when they rush over, after spotting you filling your own glass, with looks of horror on their face.
“Oh no!”, they exclaim,”That’s my job, let me do that!!”.
Well here’s a solution that should keep us all happy.
An ingenious [...]
Here’s some good news for cheese lovers.
Green Goose Organics, produced on the farm Uitkyk in the idyllic eastern Free State, is causing such a buzz in the cheese industry that they have been invited to showcase their products at the upcoming Franschhoek Cheese Festival.
Ficksburg organic cheesemakers Anneke and Reuter Sorour’s French Reblechon, aptly named the [...]
This is one that caught my eye.
A luminous table cloth.
No more drippy messy candles. But I have to say, it’s eyecatching.
Plans are afoot to introduce chair covers, curtains, even bed covers.
It’s all thanks to fibre optics.
Innovation means finding another way to use them, I suppose.
I wonder which will be the first restaurant in Cape Town [...]
El Burro was the venue.
Tequila tasting was the objective.
Our job was to taste our way through 8 tequilas and vote on the most preferred.
We had 4 white tequilas and 4 reposados to taste.
To explain; there are 5 kinds of tequilas.
Blanco, white or silver tequila, this is un-aged, and bottled after distillation.
Joven, or young, which is [...]
Posted in Taste Test 
Tags: anejo, batonage, bianca coleman, black delilah, blanco, extra anejo, foodandthefab, hennie coetzee, ishay govender, jose cuervo, jose cuervo especial, joven, maggie mostert, martin tucker, mrtuckbox, neil pendock, nic haarhoff, olmeca, olmeca supremo, olmeca tezon, reposado, reposado patron, reposados, silver patron, tequila 
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It’s Eastertime, and we’re thinking chocolate.
Not the kids stuff in supermarkets, but delicious, dark, seductive,
moreish chocolate that will transport you into choc heaven.
So we had a quiet word with our favourite foodie guru, Sam Linsell, of Drizzle and Dip fame, to see what she might come up with.
Feast your eyes on this creation and praise chocolate.
It’s [...]
Just arrived in South Africa – Pink Pigeon Rum from Mauritius.
Original? Unique? Different?
Definitely.
The rum market is awash with Caribbean and South American brands and this one is different as it comes from the original sugar cane island, Mauritius, and is made from cane from the Medine Estate, which houses its own distillery complete with a master [...]
I like pizza.
I really do. But I am picky, very picky.
My big no no’s are stodgy bases, burnt edges, sloppy ingredients, ill thought out combinations.
In my experience the best pizzas have thin bases, the right amount of ingredients and are cooked in a wood fired oven that is properly controlled by the guy cooking the pizzas.
One of [...]
Posted in Niblets. Tags: bertus basson, cavendish, col'caccio, justin bonello, merthinus ferreira, neil jewell 5 Comments read more »
From the guys who brought you Hedonist, comes their latest wine creation.
It’s a 2008 blend of red wines.
First impressions is that the packaging and label is attractive, and screams “Look, a lot of thought went into everything about this wine, and it’s good, or at least we think so, and for R75 a bottle it’s [...]
Posted in Wines of The Week Tags: &union, david cope, eric botha, great value, hedonist, luvo ntezo, one and only cape town, reuben's, shiraz, simon wibberly, swartland, syrah, the foodie 4 Comments read more »
David Higgs is to leave Rust en Vrede in mid June to move to Johannesburg and open a “new venture”.
So why is he leaving?
According to a restaurant spokesperson, David has been at Rust en Vrede since November ‘07 and he feels “it’s time to move on and try new things.”
In an unusual move the replacement for [...]
Posted in Niblets. Tags: david higgs, johannesburg, mail and guardian, neil pendock, nick dawes, rust en vrede, times live blog 4 Comments read more »
Well that’s it.
Blonde Restaurant has finally packed her bag, checked her make up one last time, and marched off into the sunset flicking her blonde mane, never to return.
Blonde was the third restaurant in the Caviar groups chain in Cape Town. The others are Beluga and Sevruga.
The building and restaurant is for sale, lock stock and barrel for [...]
Open now for nearly 9 years, Cargills in Rondebosch is a little place that you hear about a lot before you actually go and eat there.
It’s tucked away on Station Road, opposite Rondebosch Train Station.
They’ve only got 8 tables, and this lends an intimate air to proceedings, as you feel you are in someone’s front room.
The [...]
Posted in Restaurants Tags: Cargills, early bird special, joszka nagy, rondebosch, station road, ststion road rondebosch 4 Comments read more »
Who or what has had the biggest impact on you in winemaking?
I was lucky to get in to the industry via an apprenticeship. I spent 4 years at Kaapzicht with Danie Staedtler. David Finlayson taught me a lot and I remember the Platter Guide was half as thick as it is now.
Are you self taught, [...]
Will Hobson runs The Field Office cafe/ space/ boardroom/ hangout/ museum/ gallery.
He’s in partnership with furniture designers Pedersen and Lennard.
Nothing costs more than R25, and the sandwiches are great.
Winter is coming and soup will start appearing on the menu.
Minestrone will be the mainstay, but there’ll also be a daily special.
The price will be R20, for all [...]
Posted in Restaurants Tags: barrack street, cafe, furniture designers, minestrone, pedersen and lennard, soup, The field office 1 Comment read more »
R55 per 750 ml bottle. From Nederburg. Go out and stock up now.
I had the pleasure of pairing it with a veal dish in Jacques Ersamus’s Hemelhuijs the other evening.
An unusual pairing, but it worked.
Posted in Restaurants Tags: dessert wine, Jacques Erasmus, nederburg, sweet wines. 1 Comment read more »
Dash is a new restaurant opening tomorrow.
It’s part of the Queen Victoria, a new luxury 35 room boutique hotel in the Waterfront.
Spill got a preview of the food this week.
Executive Chef, Stephen Templeton, has put together an extraordinary menu.
It’s fair to say we were wowed by what we saw and tasted.
The food is innovative, creative and different for [...]
Shirley Griffiths of Vino Pronto in Gardens can sniff out a well priced wine from a distance.
She came up with a selection of wines that deliver on taste and enjoyment, and price.
Here is her selection.
I quaffed my way through all of them (a little glass from each bottle).
Sam Linsell, of Drizzle and Dip fame, helped a bit.
Conclusion; You [...]
Last year I went foraging for porcini mushrooms in Newlands Forest.
It was quite a mission; up at the crack of dawn, trudge through the undergrowth in darkness, bashing through the bushes. But I was well rewarded with a huge big fat porcini that I brought home and sliced and fried in butter and garlic.
Here’s the [...]
This really caught my eye.
Le Bonheur Winery in Stellenbosch is holding a series of movie themed food and wine evenings in their Manor House.
On the last Friday of every month you can go along and just catch a movie and enjoy a glass of Bonheur wine, or go one better and pair it with food [...]
Ina Garten is a publishing phenomenon in America.
With more than 7 cookery books and 6 million dollars in sales, she heads up a serious foodie empire.
It all started with her food store ’The Barefoot Contessa’, which she ran for 20 years in a prosperous neighbourhood on Long Island.
After she sold this she moved into publishing.
Her [...]
Woolworths are launching a white strawberry promotion for Easter.
Stocks of this hard to find and unique fruit have been sourced in Argentina.
These strawberries are unusual in that they are white, and taste of pineapples. In the US they are called Pineberries.
A Woolworths spokesperson commented,” We are proud to have the exclusive distribution of this unique [...]
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