Thursday, September 29, 2011

110922 Main Ingredient's MENU - Vineyard Wine Concepts dinner, wine tastings, Cape Point wine, roast pork, things to do, affordable places to eat

MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
Click on anything underlined and Green to open a link to pictures or more information
TW3*   Sometimes you take a deep breath and say “What a week!”. We have not stopped. There have been four wine events this week so far, and one dinner paired with wine. Plus two markets.
A grey heron taking off from a treetop
Last Friday night we were invited to Wine Concepts’ Food and wine pairing dinner in The Square restaurant at the Vineyard Hotel. Late in August, we joined Mike Bampfield Duggan and Corlien Morris of Wine Concepts, the hotel management team and of course the chef, Alex Jenkinson, to taste the food and choose from the selection of wines Mike recommended to go with the dinner. Normally at these tastings, the wine comes first and the chef then has to come up with food to match. This time they gave the chef his head and let him choose the food for a wonderful four course menu, which Mike had to find wines to match. Mike chose so well that we had no problem at all in choosing the four that were served. No arguments at all. At the dinner, last Friday, we were welcomed with a glass of Genevieve bubbly, met lots of people attending the dinner and then went in to the feast. Our first course was a goat’s cheese panacotta with cucumber gazpacho, pine nuts and salad leaves matched with Adi Badenhorst’s Secateurs 2010 Chenin blanc.
Second course was pan fried Norwegian salmon, confit beetroot, with a hollandaise sauce and accompanied by a confit duck egg – cooked in a water bath at 51degrees for one hour, which is very soft and jellylike and acts as a very rich sauce to the salmon. This was served with a wine we were not familiar with: Beau Constantia’s Cicely 2010 Viognier. Main course was a very good Springbok loin Wellington which accompanied Gabrielskloof Red Blend. And the dessert was an American baked cheesecake with honey and lavender ice cream, served with Ridgeback’s lovely Natural sweet Viognier. The good news for all of you who missed this wonderful evening and menu is that most of these dishes or something very similar are currently on the à la carte menu at The Square, so you can rush off and taste them yourselves. And you can book for the next food and wine Gourmet events in October. See the Vineyard’s  web site.
SMOKING HADDOCK!      Lynne made a classic Fish pie last week and was delighted to find that Julie of Ocean Jewels fish at the Biscuit Mill is producing her own lightly smoked haddock. It is not coloured, something we are absolutely delighted about – who wants to eat unnecessary chemicals which add nothing to the flavour? The fish was wonderfully moist and flaky, with a good traditional smoked flavour. We should point out that haddock in South Africa is also hake but not the same species of hake as found in north Atlantic waters. We can detect very little difference.
HOW NOT TO     On Monday night, we were invited to a different sort of wine trade show and we conclude that, in future, we might need a head torch to see our wine and read labels in the pitch dark, ear plugs to prevent damage from very loud music, and an ear trumpet to point in the direction of the wine makers or their staff, so that we can hear what they are saying. We think if you want to have a party, go ahead and have a party in a nightclub. But if you want the trade and the media to be serious about meeting the wine makers and taste their wine, a trade show in a nightclub is definitely not the way to do it, unless you organise a tasting with proper lighting and follow it with a party, flashing lights and ear splitting music. And it’s not the “old fogeys” speaking – most of the complaints (and there were plenty, then and afterwards) we heard came from people in the 25-35 age group. Enough said.
Shiraz showcase     On Tuesday night, we attended the Shiraz Showcase at the Vineyard Hotel. Seventy mostly glorious examples of this very popular wine varietal were on show on two floors. It was so great to be able to taste through the different styles and origins of these lovely wines in a classy environment, with a string duet quietly playing in the background. Some of the wines have now won serious international recognition. Driehoek, made by David Nieuwoudt of Cederberg for his neighbours, has just received a 93 in Parker. It was John’s (and many others) favourite wine. Lynne’s favourite of the evening was an old favourite, Kalkveld Shiraz from Zandvliet, with soft spicy flavours but still holding good acidity and with lots still to come. This was very closely followed by Waterford’s Kevin Arnold Shiraz and she also liked the Antonij Rupert. John loved the Driehoek, Kalkveld and Guy Webber’s deliciously fruity but well-structured Stellenzicht Rhapsody Pinotage Shiraz blend, .
As usual, really good canapés were circulated during the evening – quite essential if you are tasting this amount of wine over a four hour period. Delicious seafood and fish cakes, Asian chicken spring rolls with a nice sweet but not hot dip, porcini mushroom and soft cheese spanakopita, a really clever aubergine bruschetta which so went with the shiraz and a small ramekin of lamb tagine, spicy but also not hot.
Cape Point Vineyards   Cape Point Sauvignons blanc have collected many accolades since their beginning in the late 1990s. Their Splattered Toad second label contributes a portion of the money from the sale of each bottle to the conservation of the endangered Western Leopard Toad, which is endemic to the area round the vineyards. We visited the farm on a media event organised by Tracy van Maaren and Sue Anderson, who distribute the wines. Tractors and trailers took us high up the hill above Noordhoek beach to the Sauvignon blanc vineyard, carved out of the stony hillside, where Cape Point Vineyards winemaker Duncan Savage told us about the farm and the way he grows the wines. Then we were taken back down the hill to the tasting room, where Duncan led us through a tasting of his wines. We started the tasting with the palate and wallet-friendly Splattered Toad, and moved through the Cape Point Sauvignon blanc and Sauvignon blanc Reserve to the lean and well-balanced barrel-fermented flagship Isliedh 2010 white blend (75% Sauvignon blanc and 25% Semillon). These were followed by the excellent, elegant Chablis-like Chardonnay and the only red, Splattered Toad, a blend of Cabernet sauvignon and Shiraz. The tasting was followed by an excellent light lunch prepared by his wife. She made one of the best quiches most of us have ever eaten. The fillings (spinach & cheese and cheese & ham) were light and fluffy, the pastry crisp, thin and melt in the mouth. She does cater (Something Savage) so if you live in the area you can order from her. Pictures here.
Caroline’s White Wine Review is one of those not-to-miss wine shows each year. Caroline Rillema waits until most of the farms have released their wines for the year before making her selection of what she thinks are the most interesting. There were some seriously wonderful wines on show last night and it was difficult to know where to start and then where to stop. David Trafford’s Malagas Wine Company Sijnn white (57% Chenin & 43% Viognier), proved you can use large amounts of Viognier with another grape, not have it take over and still let both express themselves in a wonderful integrated wine. Howard Booysen’s and Groote Post’s Rieslings were different and sensational and showed no turpene flavours, thankfully. David Niewoudt’s Ghost Corner Semillon was the wine that blew Lynne away for the evening. John was very happy to see the number of Chenin blancs on show, all exhibiting different characteristics – something which this chameleon grape does so well. Jean Daneel’s Signature Chenin is a delight as are Beaumont’s Hope Marguerite and Cederberg’s Five Generations Chenin Blanc. Chardonnays which impressed most were Ataraxia and Dewetshof’s The Site. There is not enough space here to list all the wines we liked.
We have written an article on wine availability in the Durban area for wine.co.za. It should be published soon.
ALLAN MULLINS TRIBUTE     Many people in the wine industry in this country – and, indeed, many round the world - know and respect Allan Mullins. For many of us, he has been a really special friend. Allan, a Cape Wine Master, has directed the wine department of Woolworths for many years and will soon be retiring from that position. He lost the use of his lower body in an accident many years ago and a dinner was held in his honour a few weeks ago at Spier to raise funds to help with his increasingly expensive medical treatment. As part of the fund-raising drive, a silent auction is being held in which some wonderful bottles of wine can be purchased. These have been donated by producers and collectors and you might be lucky enough to pick up some wonderful bargains and, at the same time, contribute to a very worthwhile cause. Allan says that many people have made incredibly generous donations and heI will feel very bad if they are not suitably acknowledged. You can find the list of wines under Silent Auction on the website www.allanmullinstribute.com.
How do you like your meat cooked?     Lynne did a small pork leg roast just for the two of us at the weekend which was very successful. We like our Pork cooked long and slow, so Lynne either uses the River Café method or Reuben’s great recipe from his cookbook. This time she used both of them, covering the pork with the River Café mix of garlic, fresh chilli and fennel seeds, pounded to a paste then rubbed in all over. The pork is given 25 minutes at full blast in the oven then Reuben’s mix of 2 cups of stock, 1 of soya sauce, grated rind of one orange, a star anise, a cinnamon stick and half a cup of sugar is added to the pan, covered with heavy foil and the pork cooked in a long and slow braise for at least 5 to 6 hours at only 150°C. We had duck fat baby potatoes and lots of freshly steamed broccoli and beans with it. The crackling was very soft so Lynne peeled it off and put in a pyrex dish in the microwave, salted it, covered with kitchen paper and zapped for about 2 minutes on full power but at 30 second intervals. Perfect crisp crackling and because it was well covered with paper, no damage to the inside of the microwave. We served it with a Buitenverwachting Shiraz 2006 (occasionally available from the tasting room, but not a commercially available wine) We prefer our lamb pink, roast beef too, and our chicken just cooked and falling apart but moist and flavourful. What everyone wants to know at the moment is why is lamb so impossibly expensive (about R90 a kilo plus) compared to say fillet steak (R90 to R120) while good pork for roasting is selling this week for about R33 a kilo.
Our products. The Spanish paella rice (500g boxes) continues to find friends and we also have the top quality Bomba rice which is in 1Kg cloth bags, ideal for use in haute cuisine. This select variety comes only from the Ebro Delta. Tender and gentle on the palate once cooked, the great absorption capacity of its short, rounded grains allows it to fully soak up the flavour of the other ingredients. It stands out for its capacity to resist overcooking. Also from Spain, we have more stock of the popular Spanish smoked paprika and sherry vinegar. We have also replenished our stock of the brilliant Nielsen Massey extracts, French patés, goose and duck fat and vinegars and the excellent Protea Hill farm vinegars, especially the 7 year old barrel-matured balsamic raspberry, which is very popular, especially with American tourists. Fans of Masterchef Australia will love our Carnaroli risotto rice and truffles, amongst lots of other strange and difficult things to find that they use.
We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. So, please have a look at our Product List and see what you need. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa.
Our market activities We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. You will find us at The Place at Cavendish (Woolworths underground entrance to Cavendish Square), next Friday, 23rd September, from 10h00 to 17h00, and we will have our great selection of delicious treats and ingredients there for you.
Good food and wine continues to grow as a focal point for many people in the Western Cape and, to an extent, in other parts of the country. As a result, our list of Interesting Food and Wine Events has grown so much that it was making MENU too long for some of our readers. So we’ve taken it online. Click here to access it. You will need to be connected to the internet.
Our  list of Winter restaurant special offers continues to grow. Click here to access it. These 2011 Winter Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. we’ve been sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants.
* Fans of British television will remember that the 1960s programme “That Was The Week, That Was”, which brought to prominence names like John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, was referred to as “TW3)
22nd September 2011
Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our product list for details and prices.
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters are ©John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.
This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please send us a message, inserting "subscribe" in the subject line. If you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please send us a message, inserting "remove" in the subject line.

Zevenwacht



We visited Zevenwacht wine estate to sample the new menu and stayed overnight in their boutique hotel
Zevenwacht manor house - the restaurant

We were welcomed by an African choir

The Menu

The dishes
Chef, Justin Pillay




















The restaurant interior - several rooms decorated in
traditional style

The deli with picnic foods

A room in the hotel

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Wine Concepts dinner in The Square at The Vineyard Hotel

Dinners are held monthly at The Square restaurant in the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands where wines from a particular producer are paired with dishes prepared by the chefs in the kitchen at The Square. The wines usually come from a specific wine estate. For the dinner this month, the wines were chosen by Michael Bampfield-Duggan of Wine Concepts in Newlands from a selection of wine farms.
Several weeks before the dinner, a meeting is held at which a panel tastes prospective wines with the dishes proposed by the chef and makes the final selection.
The Vineyard Hotel
Michael Bampfield-Duggan pondering his list
glasses and discussion

Claire Watt and Afke van Dreunen
Pan fried Norwegian salmon, slow cooked duck egg confit, beetroot,
roast asparagus spears with vermouth sabayon










Wellington of Springbok loin, paprika spiced potato fondants.
creamed leeks. roast parsnip puree with
cherry jus
 
Buchu infused cheesecake, cassis and cranberry jelly,
warm Cape gooseberry compote with honey
and lavender i
ce
cream
















Then, a few weeks later, came the dinner, introduced by Stewart Banner, Mike Bampfield Duggan and chef Alex Jenkinson


Hennie Coetzee and Maggie Mostert
Corlien Morris

The Menu

Salad of Provençal vegetables, goats cheese pannacotta, cucumber gazpacho, toasted pine nuts, herb salad, with Adi Badenhorst's Secateurs Chenin Blanc 2011
Pan fried Norwegian salmon, slow-cooked duck egg, confit beetroot, roast asparagus spears with vermouth sabayon, with Beau Constantia Cecily Viognier 2010
Wellington of springbok loin, paprika spiced potato fondants, creamed leeks, roast parsnip puree with cherry jus, with Gabrielskloof The Blend 2009
Buchu infused cheesecake, cassis and cranberry jelly, warm Cape gooseberry compote with honey and lavender ice cream, and Ridgeback natural Sweet viognier 2010
Beau Constantia winemaker, Justin van Wyk and his wife Tracy







Thursday, September 22, 2011

110915 Main Ingredient's MENU - Winex, Foodbarn, Chilli con carne, things to do, affordable places to eat

MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
Click on anything underlined and Green to open a link to pictures or more information
Joe’s Corner Shop in Durban’s Victoria Street Market
The Best Chilli con Carne recipe
We are currently in the grip of more cold wintry weather so it is back to the kitchen for spicy warming food. Lynne’s favourite Chilli recipe is also probably the oldest cookbook recipe she uses – The International Cookbook bought in W H Smith in 1967. This is a Tex Mex chilli not a true Mexican one. We do use tinned beans as they are so cheap and they save so much time and energy. If you don’t do pork you can leave out the bacon but it is the secret ingredient, bringing out lots of flavour.
350g dried or 2 tins red kidney beans -2 large onions, finely chopped – 2 cloves of garlic, crushed - 2 tablespoons olive oil - 450g lean minced beef – 30g chopped streaky bacon or pancetta 1 bottle of tomato passata or 1 tin of whole tomatoes, roughly chopped - 2 fresh red chillies– 1 t powdered Cumin - Freshly ground black pepper – Salt
If you are using dried kidney beans, soak them overnight in cold water. The following day, bring the beans to a boil in plain water, then discard that water. Cover the beans with more water and boil until they are soft.
Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and fry the onions until soft. Stir in the garlic, meat and the bacon and continue frying, stirring occasionally, until the meat has browned. Blend in the drained kidney beans, add the passata or tomatoes with their juice, and season to taste with chilli, pepper and cumin.
Cover the pan with a lid and cook on a low heat for at least an hour and a half, (the meat must be getting soft the onions and tomato melting and all the flavours must be coming together) stirring occasionally and checking that it doesn’t dry out. Add a little water if it begins to. You can bury it in a slow oven as well. Taste and if it is not hot enough, add some more chilli or a little hot chilli sauce. Only add salt at the end as the bacon usually adds enough.
Serve with guacamole, a chopped tomato, spring onion and coriander salsa, rice or crusty bread and a tossed green salad. Serves 6.
Tip: If you want a darker flavour, add one or two squares of good dark chocolate.
Winex   We timed our flight back from KZN to get back in time for Winex on Friday night. Lynne’s mission is always to explore new labels and farms, and new wines with different grapes or blends. There were very few farms new to us, some not terribly notable and a couple of people who are buying in all their grapes and marketing them under a farm label – is this what we want to see? Not at all, if the wines are badly made and some were shocking – she tasted a Chenin with a 1950’s style, tropical, hot, oxidised and far too sweet and flat for today’s market – remember Lieberstein? We suspect very hot and over-ripe bought-in grapes from a very hot area which now bear a Stellenbosch label. Hmmm. It was fun to taste the Checkers Oddbins range – we think they should do regular tastings of these in-store of an evening. We went straight off and bought a case of their 330 Chardonnay and their 203 Sauvignon Blanc, very good value for everyday quaffing. Clive Torr is obviously sourcing very good wines indeed for them. Vuurberg from the Helshoogte Pass have produced a very interesting white blend containing Chenin, Viognier, Petit Verdot. John tasted all the Rieslings on offer at the Just Riesling stand and Lynne only one, so not at all to her taste, far too full of petroleum esters that she doesn’t like to find in wine. There are some very good Rieslings from the Cape – Buitenverwachting (now, sadly, discontinued), Paul Cluver and Jordan (which has just won the aromatic section of the Five Nations Challenge). Then back to chat to our winemaker friends and sales managers and taste some really special wines. We met Takuan von Arnim pouring out his range of Pinot Noirs for the guided tasting he was about to do and he very generously allowed us to do a quick tasting of them all. From the 1996 to the current release they were all, without exception drinking well and were all good, if different in style. Without a doubt our favourite was the elegant and gently fruity 2001. Soft Strawberry and cherry fruits supported by good minerality, soft tannins and holding acidity, it was a wine to charm the pants off you. Runs in the family! As we have said before, we applaud the unwooded Pinot they have recently released. It will introduce a much wider market to this lovely grape which is often too expensive for people just entering the wine market to try. Lynne had a chat to Kevin Grant at Ataraxia and voted his Serenity her favourite red of the evening (again). We also tasted all of Jeff Grier’s Domaine Grier wines which he makes in France. A lovely selection – we just wish there was a better market for foreign wines here. The Glenelly wines impressed as did the Cape Points.
At home tasting     A very kind reader (and long-standing customer) was kind enough to invite us to his home this week for a tasting of wines (click here for pictures) he had brought back from the USA, with some interesting local and imported wines. We started with two Swartland wines, Adi Badenhorst’s Secateurs White, a blend of Rousanne, Grenache blanc, Viognier, Chenin and Sauvignon, and Lammershoek Roulette blanc which was a delicious way to get our palates in tune for the wines which followed. Our host then opened three most unusual wines: a Neil Rosenthal import, Coenobium 2009 from the hills round Rome – 45% trebbiano 35% malvasia, 20% verdiccio, priced at $22. This was a rich, mellow and deep white wine, quite unlike any we have tasted here. This was followed byBressan Venezia Giulia, 100% pinot grigio 2004, a very deep gold/amber perdrix colour. It was quite oxidised, almost like a pinot noir in flavour. Then we were given Sophia fruit wine 2008 (from Louis Dressner). It tasted rather like a good English West country cider, but was not as dry. It was made in an amphora from oranges and developed Naartjie & yeast flavours followed by a herbal finish of basil and oregano. An interesting local wine, with a very humorous label was Testalonga El Bandito 2009, made by Lammershoek winemaker Craig Hawkins, a 100% chenin blanc, intense, rich, and a little oxidised, honeyed, but dry with good acidity and a big mouthfeel. This was followed by Silwervis Egg wine, a tank sample under screwcap with a huge stink of sulphur on nose. It will be bottled next February and it will be interesting to see how it develops. Silwervis is slang for silver plastic wine bag in a box.
We then had De Trafford Chenin blanc 2001, a good demonstration that South African whites can last. Flavour was lemons at first with a chalky minerality, which was followed by caramel, marmalade, and, after a while, toffee apple flavours. La Vierge Pinot noir 2010 was far too young. The colour has a purple tinge and the flavour is fresh strawberry jam. It is a bit too thin and lacks structure. From here, everything became quite magnificent with a Boekenhoutskloof Cabernet 2006, a Premier Cru Chambolle Musigny (Burgundy) and a magnum of 1991 Vina Tondonia Rioja. It was a wonderful opportunity to taste some amazing wines and we are very grateful to Michael, who was our host.


John had a tour with four American clients on Monday, really great people with a lively interest and good knowledge of food and wine and photography, who hail from Hawaii and who used our service on a previous tour. We visited High Constantia, where we tasted David van Niekerk’s range of wines and then moved up to Eagles’ Nest to taste their Shiraz (which has just kicked ass in the Five Nations Challenge in Australia), Viognier and Sauvignon blanc before driving round Chapman’s Peak to the Foodbarn, where four of us chose to eat from the special menu, which is written on the blackboard, an absolute bargain with three courses for R165, four courses for R185 and five courses for R215. All starters and main courses are paired with Nitida wines, which are included in the price, making this menu exceptionally good value. One wishes that photographs could convey flavour, but the beautiful presentation is a good sign of the wonderful flavours. John and Scott started with the fish tartare, in a delicious balsamic based sauce and John followed this with the kingklip and calamari dish, which was in a delicious saffron flavoured broth. Scott had the kidneys and was full of praise for the delicious flavour. Martin and Diane started with the salad and followed with the quail, while Debbie chose to have just one dish, a beautifully prepared rare sirloin. The pictures tell the story. We all finished with the Pear and apple galette. Each visit to the Foodbarn is a delight and we salue Franck Dangereux, Pete de Bruin and their team for the consistently excellent standard they maintain.
After lunch we went next door for a tasting of Cape Point Wines and a bracing uphill stroll through the high altitude vineyards with winemaker Duncan Savage - just what we needed.
Our products. The Spanish paella rice (500g boxes) is in stock and is moving out and we also have the top quality Bomba rice which is in 1Kg cloth bags, ideal for use in haute cuisine. This select variety comes only from the Ebro Delta. Tender and gentle on the palate once cooked, the great absorption capacity of its short, rounded grains allows it to fully soak up the flavour of the other ingredients. It stands out for its capacity to resist overcooking. We have also replenished our stock of the brilliant Nielsen Massey extracts and French and Spanish vinegars.
We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. So, please have a look at our Product List and see what you need. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. If you are following Masterchef Australia we have Carnaroli risotto rice and truffles, amongst lots of other strange and difficult things to find that they use.
Our market activities  We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Next Wednesday, we will be back at the Dean St Arcade in Newlands from 09h30 to 14h30. You will find us at The Place at Cavendish (Woolworths underground entrance to Cavendish Square), nest Friday, 16th September, from 10h00 to 17h00, and we will have our great selection of delicious treats and ingredients there for you.
Good food and wine continues to grow as a focal point for many people in the Western Cape and, to an extent, in other parts of the country. As a result, our list of Interesting Food and Wine Events has grown so much that it was making MENU too long for some of our readers. So we’ve taken it online. Click here to access it. You will need to be connected to the internet.
Our  list of Winter restaurant special offers continues to grow. Click here to access it. These 2011 Winter Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. we’ve been sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants.

15th September 2011
Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our product list for details and prices.
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters are ©John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.
This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please send us a message, inserting "subscribe" in the subject line. If you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please send us a message, inserting "remove" in the subject line.