Wednesday, August 10, 2016

A visit to Tulbagh - Supper at Readers Restaurant

We met owner Carol Collins recently at an event at Den Anker and she asked us to come to supper at Readers, her restaurant in Tulbagh. It also is a serious cat lovers gift shop and, while you eat, various charming moggies visit your feet and the fireplace. They are not allowed on the tables. The restaurant is in the oldest house on Church Street (c.1849), the famous Cape street that was destroyed in the 1969 earthquake which has been beautifully and historically restored
How charming the old building looks at night
The cat collection in the shop at the entrance
More in a farther room
There is a dining room on either side of the entrance hall
We had a table in the warm corner, next to the fire. The nights in Tulbagh are still a bit chilly
The menu for that evening
Lynne ordered the pork chops topped with slices of warmed apple and camembert. It was an enormous serving with two huge pork chops. This is country food, they don’t mess about with small portions. It was served with three roast potatoes. And we shared a dish of mixed vegetables
John chose the Lamb Strudel, which was crisp pastry filled with minced lamb. This was topped with some cream cheese and served with red cabbage and roast potatoes. Also a very generous portion
We were rather full after our main courses and asked to share a dish of ice cream. It turns out that Carol is famous for her interesting and adventurous ice creams. We were given three flavours: Balsamic vinegar, interestingly fruity and not at all vinegary; Coconut, ginger and honey with lots of coconut; and Curry and cumin - spicy rather than curried. All are creamy and rich
Then she insisted we try the Cape Brandy pudding which has ginger pieces in it and each portion had a different flavour of ice cream. We swopped to taste both. One was a lovely dark and rich Christmas pudding, a huge success and a great alternative at our warm Christmas tide to the real thing. The other flavour was lemon, honey and poppy seed with rooibos tea, ice cream with a crunch
We had a very gemütliche evening chatting to the other guests in the small room and to Carol at the end or her service. Thank you Carol
John spotted these local craft beers as we left. We will have to try them soon. We know Miss Molly as an MCC brut wine, now for the beer
Note: we do not use flash in restaurants because it can be very disturbing to other guests when we take numerous photographs. In situations like this, when light levels are very low (candles), picture quality suffers

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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