Friday, January 31, 2014

140130 Main Ingredient's MENU - Lunch on Queen Mary 2, Mondiall, Riesling Rocks, Gourmet Boerie

MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods & Ingredients
Eat In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner
+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172
Follow us on Twitter: @mainingmenu
A paraglider descends to Clifton with Table Mountain behind him
In this week’s MENU:
* Mondiall
* Riesling Rocks Festival on Hartenberg
* Tour and lunch on the Queen Mary 2     
* Gourmet Boerie
* Light summer lunch
We have been edging toward a change in the way we present MENU to you and it will be very evident to you this week. Using our blogs enable us to give you a much better idea of our activities than just giving you the words in here and then showing you the pictures separately in the blog. So we are only giving you the introduction here and we ask you to click on the links to see the whole story in words and pictures.
We will be very grateful if you click on some of the interesting advertisements in the blog – the payments we get from the advertisers are the only payment we receive for producing MENU
This week’s Product menu Genuine Amaretti biscuits come from Italy. These crisp little biscuits are made from slightly bitter ground apricot kernels. They are perfect for desserts, trifles and for serving with coffee or Amaretto liqueur.  Dip them in dark chocolate for that ultimate friandise. And they make a really good dipping ingredient when making a chocolate fondant. The packet says they are cholesterol free, and they cost only R40 a packet. Check our online shop to see more details and prices.
Mondiall      We were able to choose a nice restaurant this week, as our friend visiting from Greece wanted to take us out somewhere good and, as we have not eaten at this Waterfront restaurant yet, it was our pick. Click here to see the pictures and read the review
Riesling Rocks Festival on Hartenberg     Some festivals really work and this was just so much fun. The wines on offer were really good, interesting and different. Who drinks Riesling nowadays? Well a lot more people than you would expect and many of them were there on Saturday to sample some of the best available in the Cape. Click here to learn about the festival and Riesling
Tour of the Queen Mary 2      We were absolutely delighted to be invited to do a media tour of this magnificent ship while she was in port and even more thrilled to hear that lunch was included. We have both done a few intercontinental trips on large liners but this ship is really something else. Read all about it here, with lots of photographs
Gourmet Boerie     Do you like Boerewors, our iconic South African sausage made with beef and pork and lots of coriander and other spices? This week we were invited to review this restaurant, which is at the bottom of Kloof Street. See what we ate and read all about it here.
Light summer lunch     We had two old friends join us for lunch yesterday and as we are both conscious of expanding waistlines, Lynne decided it was time for some old favourites. We started with humus made with lots of lemon, served with warm olive rolls and lots of vegetable crudités for those of us abstaining from bread. Then a classic Salad Niçoise followed by an Italian dessert we make at least once every summer, baked peaches stuffed with amaretti biscuits and amaretto liqueur. We have given these recipes in the past and if you want one of them, please send us an email.
Wines we enjoyed this week     One of the benefits of writing about food and wine is that we are asked to evaluate wines and tell you about them. This week, we enjoyed a 2009 Ormonde Shiraz from Darling with chicken which Lynne prepared with her own barbecue sauce, which contains allspice – the predominant flavour. The wine has rich black cherries, plums and a spiciness which was a perfect match for the dish. The Salad Niçoise mentioned above cried out for a rosé and we tried it with two. The Meerendal Pinotage Rosé is a delicious summer wine whose ripe fruit flavours matched our starter of crudités and humus very well, but Zandvliet’s My Best Friend Shiraz Rosé, which has a leaner character and is bone dry was perfect with the Salade Niçoise.
Buying from us On Line      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. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. When you make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the website to email us your order. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.
There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit our Events Calendar. All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.
Learn about wine and cooking We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here.
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who made our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed his seafood course. Check his programme here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here





23rd January 2014
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 online shop 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 and standard 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 and our blogs 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. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.



No comments:

Post a Comment