Matthew Gordon's winter menu launched at Harvest, Laborie

The entrance to Harvest Restaurant which is housed in an old farm building on Laborie wine estate in Paarl

Daily specials are chalked up on the board

Lots of light, lots of white, clean simple table ware, comfortable leather chairs and good art on the walls.

We met in the bar area at the end of the restaurant

A view the other way, to the large table they had set up for us.

Jeff Gradwell, KWV Brand Director, had come across to welcome us

The Menu, showing what we ate:  John had one course which varied from the starter served to the rest of us. We began with a mushroom Risotto, he had a tomato and spinach and feta cheese risotto.

The rather chewy oyster mushroom tempura on the very creamy risotto

A fresh take on a vegetarian risotto was tomato with spinach and feta cheese. Both were served with the Laborie Sauvignon Blanc 2012

One of our favourite courses.  Jambon Persillie from the Burgundy area of France, here served as a local variation called Ham hock terrine with a red pepper and onion chutney. Went well with the Lazy Days Chenin Blanc 2012

The smoked trout fishcake was very soft and gentle inside and was sheathed in a lovely crisp outside coating. Served intelligently with the Laborie Cap Classique Rose 2009 bubbly

Next came a thankfully small taster portion of the chicken and prawn curry.  A very good take on a classic Durban curry, it is nicely spiced and served with good sambals. The Laborie Limited Collection 2010 Chardonnay, which is full of flavours of butter limes and vanilla was the best match of the day

Then, as we began to groan a tiny bit at the amount of good food, came the slow cooked pork belly with a Chinese master stock glaze and served on stir fried Asian greens. The juicy fruit Laborie 2011 Merlot was a good wine to cope with the rich pork.

Could we do justice to dessert? Yes, we could.  A warm chocolate fondant, rooibos and ginger jelly and a rich peanut butter ice cream with peanut brittle. 

This was served with coffee and Laborie’s Alambic Brandy.  Lynne generally does not like brandy as she finds many of them aggressively spirity and over perfumed.  This changed her mind and outlook.   It is so, so smooth and delicious, we found ourselves really enjoying it. Lovely mellow flavours of caramel and honey, we could absolute see why it was voted the Best Brandy in the World at the IWSC 2010.

Matthew Gordon came to the table to discuss the menu

A huge thank you to the KWV for sending Jeff Samuels with their Microbus to fetch us. Jeff Gradwell said that it is now KWV's policy to provide transport to events like this, so that media representatives can sample their products without worrying about having to drive.

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013