Sunday, October 02, 2016

A night at Franschhoek Boutique Hotel, supper at Allora

We had meant to go to Franschhoek Uncorked on Sunday and the Tourist board organised accommodation for us, so that we could stay for an extra day on Monday and visit more farms, while not burdened with the festival. Something important came up and we switched to Saturday but, on Sunday afternoon, after a family lunch in Tokai, we headed back to Franschhoek
The hotel has been built over a pre-existing car park, which is just off the main road
It has 8 rooms on the top floor and building continues on the first floor, where the reception and breakfast room are open
It is right next to the starting point of the Franschhoek Tram tours
We checked in at reception
where they have a lounge and where breakfast is served. Franschhoek has famously huge selection of restaurants, so they do not serve other meals
We checked into our room, which is large and nicely appointed. It is called the Palm room and is appropriately decorated
The bathroom is separated from the bedroom by a frosted glass sliding door which stops half way. It is an interesting decor device, but we are not sure if it works for us. You can't see the view from the bath. There is also a main bathroom door
There is also a large shower in one corner of the bathroom
High quality percale linen and good thick white towels are appreciated. There is also air conditioning
A small tea and coffee station has a six bottle fridge below and a mini bar. They supplied bottled water
Lynne liked the Indian bone inlaid bedside cupboards
We had met Johann van Zyl, the owner of Allora restaurant, at GlenWood on Saturday and he had invited us to join him for a drink on Sunday evening. The entrance to the restaurant complex is on the deck of the hotel. It was warm enough to sit outside. This is just off Main Road
They were nicely busy for Sunday evening. The menu is good. You can see it on line here http://allora.co.za/menu/franschhoek
We each had a carafes of the house white wine which, of course, made us hungry even though we had a large lunch. We decided to stick to starters. Lynne went for the smoked salmon and avocado stack, which came with a spicy but not hot Peppadew puree, olives, caper berries and some peppadews. It may look small; it was very filling
John chose the beef Carpaccio which came on sliced green apple. He also had a side of pickled artichoke hearts. Thank you so much Allora, we were not expecting to have a meal
The interior houses the huge pizza oven and the menu does have an Italian theme with good steaks added
The restaurant from our room's corridor, showing its summer terrace
The next morning broke damp and misty. This was the view from our room
Down to a sunny themed breakfast. Yoghurts, fruit, cereals, juices and pastries on the buffet table
The inclusive breakfast menu
Lynne chose the Eggs Onassis, ordered without the spring onion, but the citrus tapioca seemed to be missing. The eggs were not runny, sadly, and the hollandaise was rather tart
John had the weekend Breakfast with a rather scrambled omelette. He said the rosti was very good, as was the pork banger
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

1 comment:

martin said...

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