.: Lunch at Faber on Avondale Wine Estate during Restaurant Week

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Lunch at Faber on Avondale Wine Estate during Restaurant Week

We decided to repeat our visit of last year when we saw Faber was on the Restaurant Week list and did not regret it. Chef Eric Bulpitt was not there as he was taking part in a four chef event in Franschhoek but his wife, Celeste, was in charge and his chefs are well trained, so we had a very good meal indeed

The Avondale farmhouse with the tasting room on the left and the restaurant on the right

The gardens are superb, a proper country herbaceous border garden with old roses, many indigenous plants and many in flower at the moment

They have an environmentally optimised water recycling system on the farm and we are very envious that they are able to keep the plants alive in our bad drought

Across the garden you can see the terrace with the clever pergola, which can be adjusted to allow more or less sunshine, where we prefer to eat lunch

and the views of Paarl and the mountain from here are lovely. It is cool and very relaxing

Our friendly waiter was good but service was very patchy, especially when we needed our glasses refilling! We ordered a bottle of Avondale Anima 2015, a wood fermented Chenin Blanc that is a good food pairing wine, full of minerality with stewed apples, lemon, lime and grapefruit on the end

And there is a view of the Simonsberg

The Restaurant Week Menu: two courses cost R200, three R300. Bread was charged separately, as were chips and braised white cabbage and mustard, all at R35. There are two choices for each course, one is a vegetarian

Neither of us enjoys sous vide eggs, so we both went for the tongue starter. Thinly sliced and served with a garlic velouté for John

They had taken note of Lynne's “no dairy request” and made hers with a good parsley pesto, greatly appreciated. Dressed with vetch, herbs and garden flowers.

We could not resist the offer of the Mondial Fries, and shared a portion. They were nicely crisp, we think having been twice or even thrice cooked

The other choice of main was roasted Cauliflower, again not a favourite of either of us, so we went for the very tender Fillet of pork loin with roasted wholegrain mustard, fried apple slices, a dab of celeriac puree, and rather salty mustard greens , more scatterings of vetch and a good jus. The dish is a poem to mustard. The greens were rather chewy, in the style of kale. We did not need dessert and, after two double espressos, were replete