We went on the first evening this year and found it to
be a lot more fun than last year, but with less impressive food. And on
chatting to some of our hotel, restaurant, wine and cheffie friends, it seems
that they want things back the way they were to start with or their presence
might be missed next year. We can’t put our finger on what made it so much fun,
perhaps seeing so many friends in the wine and food world as well as people
attending whom we knew, but it was fun
We ate and really enjoyed food from two venues, the
rest was OK but not terribly exciting to us. It seems that the top restaurants
won’t come and do this as a purely PR exercise –would they need to? They don’t
make money, but we think they are missing out on introducing new people to
their excellent food
Tiny print on the programmes
again made for fairly random eating; we ate what we found, until we had had
enough. Planning our route would have been good
A merry crowd,
but no rowdiness or drunkenness seen on the first night
Chef George Jardine
(emulating John obviously) with Louise Starey of The Bakery at Jordan They were
one of the Pop-Up restaurants for the evening – sad if you missed them, as they
had the best food there. Yes, we are biased
The Jordan
Pop-up menu. The baked egg tart with the melt in the mouth buttery pastry
topped with truffle hollandaise was magnificent, the dish of the evening,
followed closely by that Chocolate and caramel slice
Poor Chef
David Hicks from the Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg was visiting the show and was
presented with an apron and Shanghai’ed into helping George in the kitchen. So
two great chefs together had good fun
The two
savoury dishes from The Bakery at Jordan
We had the
Crispy duck pancakes from Kitima in Hout Bay. Well, it was just one small
pancake filled with very dry, overcooked duck
These were
their three display dishes on their counter. We had a problem getting our heads
around Dutch gouda cheese wrapped around Prawns but friends who had it said
they liked it
Errieda du
Toit of Kokkedoor fame, who was one of the organisers of the show
Long queues at
one of the more popular stands
Char sui
oxtail from Azure, gloriously tender with great rich flavours. We also had
their Fisantekraal trout done two ways, Tequila cured gravadlax cut in a small round
medallion and a superb smooth mousse, baked avocado and corn succotash, second
best dish of the night. The duck pancake is from Kitima
More queues of
mostly happy people
Lynne asked
what the wine was at the Vingooo stand. The reply was White Wine. As it was not
at all drinkable, we didn’t enquire further
A new wine for
us was the 2013 Neil Joubert's Christine-Marie Blanc de Blanc MCC. We liked it very much and at
R110 a bottle, worthy of purchase
The Azure menu
– it is the restaurant at the Twelve Apostles Hotel
Old friend Gavin
Ferreira, Assistant General Manager of the Twelve Apostles, trying to tempt
Lynne into eating something. He succeeded admirably
Vaughan Walker was kept very busy with demand for sweet things on the Queen of Tarts stand
Roger
Jørgensen, with the good range of spirits he makes in Wellington, meets Lidia
and Linda Nobrega of Chapman's Peak Hotel in Hout Bay
His range with
the prices
On the Domaine
des Dieux stand tasting their Claudia MCC and new Rose of Sharon MCC Rosé
Lynne having a
laugh with the lads & lass on the oyster stand. She can only admire
One of the
richer stands, selling spirits and cocktails
Two of our
favourites from Thelema/Sutherland, Melinda Jost & Michelle van Eeden
having fun on the first night
Shall I, shan’t
I?
The Villiera Tradition
stand was very popular
Paul Kruger
and Pascal el Azzi were great fun and very good at attracting customers
A glass of
their Domaine Grier Rosé, from their French vineyard in Rousillon
And who should
we find cooking on the Big Green Egg stand but chef Arnold Tanzer, down from
Johannesburg for the show
Nearly time to
close, so we did the brandy tasting, paired with chocolate. It works very well
indeed and we all had a favourite. The chocolate is from De Villiers
Well dressed
promoters Megan Venter and Cameron Stroebel on the Black Dog whisky stand
A cider from
Sweden? We were too late to taste
There was a
good selection of goods to purchase stands , charcuterie, sausages, chocolates,
chilli sauces and preserves from The Little Herb Garden, cakes from Queen of
Tarts and many others
The Speedy
salted caramel tart from The Bakery at Jordan. Such delight
Burgers to go
from the Ultimate Braai Master stand. Necessary nourishment at the end of the evening for Silwood
students Kayleigh Wortley and Emilie Vidal
On the Paul
René MCC stand (from Wonderfontein in Robertson) we found the owners Henk and Monica van Niekerk, Chef George Jardine with Chef Pete Goffe-Wood. A great way
to end an evening.
Bottles for
recycling after some enthusiastic MCC tasting
Strolling home
in the fog
© John &
Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015
