Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Lynne's birthday dinner at Societi Bistro

Where to celebrate Lynne’s Birthday? We knew after our busy week that we were going to be extra busy on Thursday, writing and editing MENU and processing photographs. So we couldn’t go out of town. We attended a function at Societi recently and were extremely impressed with the food. It had been rather a long time since we last ate there. They had a table and off we went.  It was buzzing and is obviously one of Cape Town’s most popular restaurants. They run monthly specials featuring French regional food and you can mix these in with courses off the blackboard menu. It turned out to be a very funny and enjoyable evening, with a surprise ending.
It is in a lovely old Cape house on Orange Street
Despite the slight chill, people were happy to sit outside and eat, wait for tables to become free inside or just have a drink
Our table for two. Next to us was a party of French tourists loving Cape Town and the food at Societi
How we prefer our water, from a tap. And this is how it is served in the restaurant, endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund
A special bottle of Cape Point Isleidh 2007 “Birthday” wine from our cellar, commanded by the birthday girl
And it turned out to be very special as it had been signed by the winemaker, Duncan Savage. It was delicious, as always. Who says our white wines can't age well. This was still beautifully fresh
A surprise gift from the kitchen, a small amuse of some of the starters on that nights menu. From the left: lemon pickled courgette slices with creamy goats cheese on seed load – one to try at home, a delicious slightly smoked oyster soup and tangy black olives with a hot harissa on a parmesan crisp base, topped with flaked parmesan. Very clever and a lovely taste sensation.
The current menu
The ‘Tour through France’ menu of the week and the area was Normandy. Who can resist Tarte Tatin?
Lynne’s starter of marrow bones with crisp ciabatta. They were sensational, very good on a Banting diet but it did need one of the slices of bread to assist the path to one’s mouth. In fact all she could manage were two marrow bones as they were lovely and big. There is a nice sharp caper, parsley and red onion relish to contrast the fattiness
John had the succulent Moules (mussels) in cider from the Normandy menu
We had been sent a case of some of the new Perdeberg wines to taste and we took this one, Joseph's Legacy, a blend of  Shiraz, Cabernet, Petite Verdot and Mourvedre along to go with supper. Thank you Peter for letting us do so. We need all the opportunities we can get to taste wines with good food. We can heartily recommend this good value selection, particularly the Reserve Barrel Fermented Chenin, which delivers so much class that you could imagine you were paying R210 a bottle from the Helderberg rather than approximately R70 from the Perdeberg. Their MCC sparkler, made from Chenin, is also worthy of a purchase. Check out their website http://www.perdeberg.co.za where you can order on line. They are also definitely worth a visit as the area is close to Cape Town and very beautiful and very unexplored by us Capetonians
Lynne wanted seafood for her birthday. How perfect is a platter of huge prawns cooked in garlic, butter, lemon and a little chilli?
That came with a good, well dressed salad
John went for a very traditional but excellent Steak au Poivre, with green peppercorns, a brandy cream sauce, wilted spinach and good crisp chips
Dessert for Lynne came with two surprises. John managed to capture one, the sparkler which was on the plate but failed to notice that Peter had send the waiter ‘topless’! So sadly no photo of him. Lynne was in hysterics and thought it very amusing and quite sweet, even at her advanced age. The Tarte Tatin was more like an apple pie baked the right way up, but was very enjoyable, as was the whole evening
What was left of John’s dessert, because he enjoyed it so much he forgot to take a photograph
The kitchen sent him another sample to photograph (on its way to another customer) so he could capture the wickedness for you to see.  Thank you all for a lovely birthday experience

Most photographs were taken by candlelight, which will account for colour variations and unsharpness
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014


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