Saturday, 28 November 2009
Food heaven
There are few better pastimes than enjoying good food in good company. Yesterday's lunch was such a lovely event. One of my oldest friends was visiting, and I decided to treat her to something nice. Something very nice. Something two Michelin star nice. My first ever two star experience. And oh, the joys of living in London.....a three course lunch at Hibiscus sets you back £29 and a bit more with wine, coffee and tip. Exquisite service. And the food.... Oh. My starter was a terrine of mutton and pate, with black raddish salad and curry oil. Amazing. As a main we had the roast partridge with caper and raisin sauce, some veg and smoked beurre blanc. Desert was dark chocolate tart with white fig ice cream and yuzu. Nice small portions and all so delicious. Our coffees came with little chocolate thingies and smoked fudge. My lord.... Food heaven. What a treat. And just like both of us still often think of the meal we had at China Tang together last year, I bet this one won't easily be forgotten either.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Wine, anyone?
Three Eaglevlei Viognier 2009, of which only six barrels were produced.
Two Eaglevlei Cap Sauv 2007
Two Eaglevlei Muscat d'Alexandrie 2008
One Tokara Chardonnay
One Ken Forrester T 2007
One De Trafford Cabernet Franc 2008
No wonder I had five pieces of luggage coming home. But all the wine survived the travel. Very chuffed.
Now I need to pop down to the concierge where my 12 bottles of Hartenberg wine were delivered yesterday. Man, I sound like a dipso...
Two Eaglevlei Cap Sauv 2007
Two Eaglevlei Muscat d'Alexandrie 2008
One Tokara Chardonnay
One Ken Forrester T 2007
One De Trafford Cabernet Franc 2008
No wonder I had five pieces of luggage coming home. But all the wine survived the travel. Very chuffed.
Now I need to pop down to the concierge where my 12 bottles of Hartenberg wine were delivered yesterday. Man, I sound like a dipso...
Sunday, 15 November 2009
A million dollar day trip
Cape Point, Cape of Good Hope, Muizenberg (picture), coastal routes and sundowners at the Radisson. What a fantastic day and a fantastic weekend. Hopefully sufficiently recharged for the next five days before flying back to Old Blighty.
Boot full of wine...
...and this excludes the stuff that's being sent to our homes. An amazing day in Stellenbosch ended in the manager of Eaglevlei coming over to thank us for our purchases and walk us to our cars with the bottles. The mission for today is to buy extra luggage.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Back in CT
Sitting in an internet cafe, feeling remarkably well. The former as there is no internet connection in my apartment (that is pretty crap altogether so trying to move to hotel asap), the latter as the weekend has been fairly alcoholic so far.
The week had been tough, really tough. Work wise that is. So Nick and I decided to visit the Whiskey Festival in the CTICC (their RAI). Tasting tasting tasting until we were both whiskeyed out.
Then yesterday Patricia and I decided to go to Stellenbosch for wine tasting. After one boutique winery (an amazing one that took us forever to get to via dodgy dirt roads), it was time for lunch. The Lonely Planet had recommended a resto called 96 Winery Road so off we went to...indeed....Winery Road. They had a six course lunch on offer with wines. Trish was the DD but I had the wines. Didn't drink all of them, but defo half. And the food portions were small (they better be with six courses). Anyhow....it was 3.45pm by the time we were done. Enough time to visit Vergelegen, the reason we went to Stellenbosch to begin with. But it started raining. Pouring. And it was nowhere near as close as the map suggested. So plans canned. New try next week.
Just when I was sobered up again it was time to meet some colleagues in a wine bar down town. Our new director is a local, and it was very sweet of him to abandon his family for a Saturday night and come out with us. G&T to kick off with, more wine, some tapas, a cheese platter, desert wine. And back to the Westin's cigar lounge for a whiskey. In bed by 1.15am and as I said, slightly surprised I feel so good.
Tomorrow my team will be complete for the first time so hopefully work will get a bit better. Hopefully the weather will get better too, this is a pretty poor effort by the Capetonian weather gods.
The week had been tough, really tough. Work wise that is. So Nick and I decided to visit the Whiskey Festival in the CTICC (their RAI). Tasting tasting tasting until we were both whiskeyed out.
Then yesterday Patricia and I decided to go to Stellenbosch for wine tasting. After one boutique winery (an amazing one that took us forever to get to via dodgy dirt roads), it was time for lunch. The Lonely Planet had recommended a resto called 96 Winery Road so off we went to...indeed....Winery Road. They had a six course lunch on offer with wines. Trish was the DD but I had the wines. Didn't drink all of them, but defo half. And the food portions were small (they better be with six courses). Anyhow....it was 3.45pm by the time we were done. Enough time to visit Vergelegen, the reason we went to Stellenbosch to begin with. But it started raining. Pouring. And it was nowhere near as close as the map suggested. So plans canned. New try next week.
Just when I was sobered up again it was time to meet some colleagues in a wine bar down town. Our new director is a local, and it was very sweet of him to abandon his family for a Saturday night and come out with us. G&T to kick off with, more wine, some tapas, a cheese platter, desert wine. And back to the Westin's cigar lounge for a whiskey. In bed by 1.15am and as I said, slightly surprised I feel so good.
Tomorrow my team will be complete for the first time so hopefully work will get a bit better. Hopefully the weather will get better too, this is a pretty poor effort by the Capetonian weather gods.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Hoooooooome
After a lovely last night out in Cape Town, I flew home yesterday. Thursday night we spent at the patio of the mozambiquan resto on Kloof Street where we'd been before. Amazing calamari heads, chicken piri piri and a dirt cheap very decent pinotage. Colleague David and I decided to finish things off with a wee drink by the pool of my hotel. A good end to the first tour. I have never been so excited to go home from anywhere. Southafrican Airways business class was fab. Nice wine (a blend I'd never heard of before and have forgotten the name of), very nice port, a lovely stewart and the best of all....a big mug of tea when you wake up in the morning. 6.20 am I landed, and by 8am I was home. Drowsy from lack of sleep (note to self: take those sleeping pills I have next time). Yucky from sleeping in clothes. And happy to see London wake up, to drive past all the sights, and to realise how lucky I am to live here. A whole week of Londenness before my second tour starts. Nice nice.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Food heaven
A three course lunch menu at one of the 50 best resto's in the world, for 20 quid. Or so I thought. But there must have been some sort of small print that I missed. Had I read it, it would have informed me of the fact that the deal is Mon-Thu only. Luckily, my company consisted of four foodies and an easy going guy happy to discover the finer things in life with us.
So off the normal menu we ate. And we ate well. We ate ridiculously well. We ate the best food any of us had had in a long time. Half my starter was rabbit with some chicken liver and other stuff, wrapped in black something ham (forgive me my lack of details, we also had some wine). The other half was scallop wrapped in said ham. The joys of sharing (gosh I wonder why we fall ill one after another). As a main I had lamb with some tomato chickpea courgette type ratatouille and a beautiful potatoey dish. The food porn is on the other girls' cameras so I can't show any dishes, but trust me... they looked to die for and so they were. Choosing deserts turned out to be almost impossible so we ordered the whole menu (four of them) to share. Lemoncake, chocolate ganache, an eton mess type dish and cashew creme. All with little bits and bobs that kept us very quiet for quite a while.
Needless to say the expense allowance the client gave us doesn't cover these type of lunches so it'll probably be the Cape Town equivalent of beans on toast the rest of the week. But it was so worth it.
The photo at the top left I took on the way to the wine shop on the estate. Bought a bottle or port that I am dying to open in London. The last time I had saffa port was in 1997. I won't easily forget Madelon and I, sitting by the fire a friendly Zimbabwean made for us, dining on raw carrots and beautiful port. Not many drinks bring up fonder memories.
So off the normal menu we ate. And we ate well. We ate ridiculously well. We ate the best food any of us had had in a long time. Half my starter was rabbit with some chicken liver and other stuff, wrapped in black something ham (forgive me my lack of details, we also had some wine). The other half was scallop wrapped in said ham. The joys of sharing (gosh I wonder why we fall ill one after another). As a main I had lamb with some tomato chickpea courgette type ratatouille and a beautiful potatoey dish. The food porn is on the other girls' cameras so I can't show any dishes, but trust me... they looked to die for and so they were. Choosing deserts turned out to be almost impossible so we ordered the whole menu (four of them) to share. Lemoncake, chocolate ganache, an eton mess type dish and cashew creme. All with little bits and bobs that kept us very quiet for quite a while.
Needless to say the expense allowance the client gave us doesn't cover these type of lunches so it'll probably be the Cape Town equivalent of beans on toast the rest of the week. But it was so worth it.
The photo at the top left I took on the way to the wine shop on the estate. Bought a bottle or port that I am dying to open in London. The last time I had saffa port was in 1997. I won't easily forget Madelon and I, sitting by the fire a friendly Zimbabwean made for us, dining on raw carrots and beautiful port. Not many drinks bring up fonder memories.
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