Sea Point sunset with
boats
- Dining with Friends. Old and new
- Dinner at Ninety One, an Indian Restaurant
- To Beau Constantia
- Off to lunch at Cape Point Vineyards
- What’s on the MENU this week. BROCCOLI WITH GINGER AND GARLIC
- Wine of the Week: Avondale Samsara Syrah 2009
Our year is
slowly waking up and, in between working on more water-saving strategies, we
are doing interesting things. Water, of course, is the biggest topic of
conversation, even trumping the chickens coming home to roost with politicians
and parastatal directors having to answer for their corrupt activities. Our
regional government is trying to get the central government to see that we have
a problem and take steps to help us and our local politicians are indulging in
in-fighting and blame games while they should be planning how they should avert
a catastrophe. We had a practice run at life with minimal
water this week when mains collapsed in High Level Road and we were cut off for
two days without any warning. This is going to need quite a lot of
planning. Life goes on….
We were invited last week to dinner
at Suzette and Peter James's wonderful Japanese House in Claremont. Peter
James, who was the Director of Communications, was Lynne's boss when she worked
in Safmarine’s PR department and Suzette is a renowned cook. They regularly
entertain travellers from aboard at their house and this time it was four interesting Americans
We have been coming to Indian restaurants
at this address for years and they have varied in ownership, decor, food and
service. It is at 91 Main Road, Sea Point, just around the corner from Firmount
Road, where we used to live. Some of the best ones lasted a while and we lament
their departure, the bad ones disappeared quite quickly, for which we were
thankful. The sign above the entrance still has the original Kabab Mahal sign. Sea Point is fussy
when it comes to authentic Indian food - and we don't mean local or Durban
Indian. Many locals have lived and travelled overseas and experienced authentic
Indian or Pakistani food from the subcontinent. We had not even been aware that
this latest iteration had opened, so when our friend Terry suggested we go, we went.
Terry (British) lives in an area of Greece where there are no Indian
restaurants, so he was keen to go and sample the food
We have lots of overseas and local
friends visiting at this time of the year and took our friend Terry on a trip
to Constantia last Saturday. We also took local friends along. with whom we
wanted to visit a couple of nursery and garden pot shops on the way. Beau
Constantia is a wine farm at the very top of Constantia Nek with amazing views.
We were there for a wine tasting and to check out the Chefs Warehouse
restaurant, which is in the stable of Liam Tomlin, SA's top chef this year, as
we want to eat there soon. We know and like his food and have heard such good
things about this particular restaurant. The chef running this restaurant is
Ivor Jones and it has a sophisticated tapas menu for one price and several
courses that change regularly. www.beauconstantia.com/eat/
We thought we would have an informal lunch
on the terrace but, having not been there for a while, we hadn't realised that
the restaurant has turned into something much more formal. We didn't have a
booking and they were very full, but luckily they do have lots of space and a
table on the terrace was found for us. NO-ONE wanted to eat inside on a day
like this. You can, of course, still do the picnics on the lawn. We didn't have
a wine tasting on this visit. http://cpv.co.za/restaurant-noordhoek/. Spectacular views, good wines....
What’s on the MENU this week. BROCCOLI WITH GINGER AND GARLIC We know we need to eat more broccoli, but it can get a bit boring. This is a version you may like, with a lot of added flavour. We are braaiing steak tonight and this will be one of our accompanying vegetables
Break up the broccoli into bite sized pieces then wash it. Put it into a microwave container, add the soy, the garlic and the ginger and stir. Microwave at the last minute for 2 to 3 minutes on full power (depends on your microwave) then serve.
If you don't have fresh ginger use about a tablespoon of pink sushi ginger, chopped. It works very well.
MENU’s Wine of the Week: Avondale Samsara Syrah 2009
400G Broccoli – 1 T light soya sauce – 1 t chopped garlic – 1 t chopped or grated fresh peeled ginger
Break up the broccoli into bite sized pieces then wash it. Put it into a microwave container, add the soy, the garlic and the ginger and stir. Microwave at the last minute for 2 to 3 minutes on full power (depends on your microwave) then serve.
If you don't have fresh ginger use about a tablespoon of pink sushi ginger, chopped. It works very well.
Warm and spicy on the nose at first, then
incense wood and minerality appear. Full of red plums and mulberries, soft
chalky tannins and long flavours with white pepper, cumin and a little clove. A
wine of quality, aging well and drinking well now but years to go. We had this with Sirloin steak char-grilled
on the braai
25th January 2018
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.
No comments:
Post a Comment