.: July 2018

Friday, July 27, 2018

This Week’s MENU. Kyoto Garden Winter Special, Breakfast at Coco Safar, The Trade Show 2018, Portuguese Duck Rice, Migliarina 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay

A Sea Point winter sunset

This almost didn’t make the deadline. We planned to try and leave early from Caroline’s wonderful Red Wine Review, more about which next week. A collection of the country’s best Reds – who could leave early from that - and we still had to finalise a couple of this week’s stories. We didn’t think we’d make it before we collapsed, but here it is, accompanied by the wonderful sound of gentle rain falling outside. We hope you’ll like it

Winter Special menu at Kyoto Garden

Cape Town seems to be going through an Asian experience at the moment with so many new Asian and Asian-inspired restaurants opening and being enjoyed. It has taken a while for SA to get there and we are loving it, as we so enjoy eating this style of food. Some of the successful Asian restaurants that have been around for a while are enjoying this revival and should never be ignored, as the reason they are still here is that they produce authentic Asian food. It is the season when we are invited to taste winter specials and Kyoto in Kloofnek Road invited us to visit and sample their Japanese offering

Breakfast at Coco Safar, Sea Point

The Adelphi Centre in Sea Point has had an ongoing refurbishment, a name change (that we don’t think will work for Sea Pointers), and many of the old shops have departed. As you enter the centre, you cannot fail to see Coco Safar restaurant, which has taken up space on the left and right of the main entrance and some at the back for their Rooibos brewery. We were invited to go for breakfast this week…

The Trade Show 2018. Trade wine tasting at Welgemeend

Another trade wine show this week, held at Welgemeend in Gardens. Five wine representatives grouped together to show their wines at one event: Sam Brown, Michelle Stewart, Hein de Jager, Miranda Rieker and Bev Murray. Hence there were a lot of wines to taste. We can mention just a few…

On This Week's MENU: Portuguese Duck Rice

This classic Portuguese dish originated in one of their Asian colonies many years ago and was adapted for the local taste. It has become a special dish that they eat at celebrations and high holidays like Christmas and New Year. Here is the recipe using a whole duck, very luxurious….

MENU’s Wine of the Week Migliarina 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay from Elgin grapes. There were two white wines that most impressed us this week, both from the same winemaker. First, the Migliarina 2016 Chardonnay made with Elgin grapes

The other is our Wine of the Week; it is the 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay, also from Elgin, which has soft incense wood and citrus fruit on the nose. Complex on the palate, it is full with caramel, pineapple followed by a creamy lemon posset on the palate, and finishing with elegant minerality. This wonderful creaminess…

26th July 2018

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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

On This Week's MENU: Portuguese Duck Rice

This is the recipe using a whole duck, very luxurious, OR what you can also do is use a duck carcass that still has plenty of meat on it and less rice. We go to our local Chinese restaurant for special occasions and often order the Peking duck. You have paid for the whole duck, so ask for the carcass to take home – don’t let them chop it up. Put it into the freezer, whole, until you want to make this dish. Use just one cup of rice

If using a whole duck, this serves 6 - 8 people. If using a duck carcass, just 2 or 3, but you do end up with lots of extra duck stock which you can freeze till you are ready to make soup from it

A 2 kilo whole duck, cut up into 8 pieces - 2½ cups rice - 5 cups duck stock (from cooking the duck) - half of a Chorizo - 2 medium onions, quartered - 1 peeled carrot - 1 leek – 1 celery stalk, trimmed - 2 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole - 2 bay leaves - 4 cloves - 6 stalks of fresh parsley - 4 sprigs fresh thyme - 1 teaspoon whole Black peppercorns – 1 star anise – 1 T duck fat - salt- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Method: Push the cloves into pieces of the onion. Wash the leek very well and roughly chop it. Peel the carrot. Trim and wash the celery. Roughly chop both. Rinse the parsley and the fresh thyme

Wash the whole duck and cut into 8 pieces

In a big pot, add the duck, onion with cloves, leek, celery stalk, carrot, garlic, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, star anise, peppercorns and cover with water. Season with salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered with a lid, for 1 hour. Remove the lid and allow to cook for a further 45 minutes until the duck is very tender and almost falling of the bones. This will slightly reduce and concentrate the stock. Do not overcook it or you will have a pot full of small bones. If using a carcass, leave it whole and cook until it is easy to take the meat off the bones, no more than an hour and a half

Remove the duck from the stock and let it cool. Remove the flesh, shred it into big pieces. Discard the skin and all the bones – be very thorough, because the duck has some very small bones

Pour the duck stock through a sieve– you will need 5 cups for the recipe. The stock will be very rich and have a lot of fat from the duck, which will give the rice its special flavour. If the duck was very fatty and SA ducks often are, there will be a very thick layer of fat. You can let the stock go cold in the fridge and take off some of the excess duck fat. Keep this for roasting potatoes, they are the best

In a big pan with a tight fitting lid, over medium heat, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of duck fat and sauté the rice for a minute or two until it is well coated in the fat and almost sticking to the pan

Add the duck stock, stir and scrape off any rice attached to the pan. Check the salt, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, tightly covered, for 17 minutes. During this time DO NOT uncover or stir the rice

Remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes without uncovering the pan or stirring the rice

Fluff up the rice, so you don’t have any lumps

Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C / 375°F

In a deep oven-proof serving dish, spread half of the fluffed-up rice and add some of the chopped garlic. Spread the shredded duck on top. Cover with the remaining rice and the rest of the chopped garlic. Or you can just mix in the duck and garlic with the rice if layering doesn’t work for you

Slice the chorizo and scatter the slices on top of the rice

Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes or until the top layer of the rice is lightly golden and beginning to crisp at the edges. The chorizo should be crispy too. Sprinkle with some parsley or chopped chives and serve immediately. Great with a green salad and a good Chenin Blanc to cut through the richness and the spicy chorizo

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MENU’s Wine of the Week. Migliarina 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay from Elgin grapes

There were two white wines that most impressed us this week, both from the same winemaker. First, the Migliarina 2016 Chardonnay made with Elgin grapes

This wine will last and improve. It was scored highly by some of the British wine writers like Jamie Good and Greg Sherwood at 93/100. Boutique vintner Carsten Migliarina, who is a trained sommelier, says "I do not own a wine farm, I am not unhappy about this as it allows me the freedom to source the best grapes from the best vineyards I can find”. He buys in all his grapes each year and has many interesting and noteworthy wines. From R190 a bottle. We liked several of his other wines on show, so he is someone to watch

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The Trade Show 2018. Trade wine tasting at Welgemeend

Karen and Danie Steytler of Kaapzicht had their Kliprug Chenin Blanc and we kept being asked by other trade tasters if we had yet tasted this superb wine, as they recommended that we did; it was very popular and very good. A rich Chenin nose, soft wood on the palate with limes and cream, sappig and very much a food wine; so, so enjoyable

Madison Nixon, Zelda Fox and Nicolas Follet on the Charles Fox stand. We tasted all the wines, including the vintage 2013 Brut MCC, sweeter than we remember it, and the Vintage 2012 Brut Rosé which has a lovely prickle and good red fruit with a dry finish; very good. The 2013 Blanc de blancs was especially good, Granny Smith apple and a leesy, buttery base with a richness from the base wine’s partial barrel maturation

The space is large; they had wines in two rooms with the bar in the middle room for beers and spirits. There were tables with cheese, biscuits and fruit; canapés circulated

Mushrooms in filo pasty parcels

The Charles Fox bubblies on ice

Ian Corder had his Yellow Lorry and Red Lorry wines for tasting with their striking new labels. Lynne really enjoyed his Pinot Noir, perfumed with rose petals; full of gentle raspberries and soft wood with lots of elegance

Best canapés; smoked salmon on cream cheese and a good dark, malty brown bread

Chicken skewers. We hope no one's palate suffered after a bite of those extremely hot chillies?

and wraps

In one of the other rooms, people were busy working out what to taste and then what to buy for their wine lists or shops

The Strandveld sauvignons, from the southernmost vineyards in South Africa; they always produce excellent Sauvignons Blanc. Adamastor, their Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend wins many awards. The 2017 First Sighting sauvignon blanc was awarded 97 points in this year’s Decanter wine awards in London, the highest mark they have ever given to a white wine

Jorika Dreyer of Raka with their wines. We plan to visit both these farms in the next few weeks

Their selection

Truter wines are made from bought in grapes. The Blokhuis Grenache Blanc from Piekenierskloof was rather full of terpenes, not something one often finds on Grenache. The Agaat Christina is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Nouvelle, Chenin and 2% Viognier. It has a bit of a dip in the middle but time may sort that out. You may not have heard of the Nouvelle grape.It’s a local hybrid; it was thought that Crouchen blanc and Semillon were the parents. A paternity test in 2007, however, revealed that Ugni blanc was the father. A grape not much used in the industry

Vriesenhof winemaker Nicky Claasens and Delight Aitken sharing amusement. Lynne only had time to taste the excellent and typical Pinot Noir, darker berries than most but still typically Pinot - fruity with good wood, elegance and aging potential

John tasted the Chardonnay and really enjoyed its subtle balance of citrus fruit and light oak structure

Morgenhof was there with some of the farm's older vintages

Tasting at the bar. They had water: Aqua V and Swig; Hermanus Beers, a lager and a pale ale and Lanique, a liqueur tasting of Attar of Roses, which we could not be persuaded to taste, as wine was the source of enough alcohol for the evening

These were the two white wines that most impressed on the evening: first, Migliarina 2016 Chardonnay made with Elgin grapes. The fruit climbs above the wood, it does not go through malolactic fermentation, so it is so lovely and balanced, with lemon and citrus fruit. Then the 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay, also from Elgin. It has incense wood and citrus fruit on the nose, caramel pineapple and a finish of a creamy lemon posset followed by elegant minerality. This wonderful creaminess comes from the fermentation on the lees. This wine will last. It is our wine of the week this week. The boutique vintner, Carsten Migliarina who is a trained sommelier, says "I do not own a wine farm. I am not unhappy about this, as it allows me the freedom to source the best grapes from the best vineyards I can find”. He buys in all his grapes each year and has many interesting and noteworthy wines, of which the Piekenierskoof Grenache (4 star Platter) deserves mention with its almost Pinot noir nose; pretty and floral with slightly wild red berry fruit. It is herbal and savoury with a dark toasted end. He says his aim is to make wines with freshness, elegance and personality, wines he enjoys drinking. They certainly have those characteristics

Nicolas Follet and Madison Nixon

Winemaker Danie Steytler with his Kaapzicht wines

Hein de Jager with Karen Steytler of Kaapzicht

Danie Steytler of Kaapzicht and David Wibberley of Oldenburg chatting about the wine industry. We really enjoyed the Oldenburg Viognier; herbal with white peach fruit on the nose. This food wine is fruit forward on the palate but dry and has been made with restraint, necessary on this grape which can be blowsy and sweet. We liked this restraint and careful wooding

A very special wine of the evening was the Ondine Malbec from Ormonde in Darling. We often buy this wine by the case, it is so good. It is full of violets on the nose, dark but ripe berry fruit on the palate with salt and licorice on the end. A great wine with food. An essential in the cellar

Kirsten Stewart, Miranda Rieker, Bev Murray, Hein de Jager, Michelle Stewart and Sam Brown - the team who put the tasting together, representing all their wineries

The team from the Victoria and Alfred Hotel

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Thursday, July 26, 2018

Breakfast at Coco Safar, Sea Point

Breakfast is held in the Coffee and Patisserie section of the restaurant. Quoting from their website: "Conceived in New York, designed in Toronto and made in Cape Town – Coco Safar has been a 10-year global journey to bring you a luxury coffee café experience that is extraordinary in every way"

This is the Bar in front of their micro brewery, where you can taste their Rooibos fermented beers, which have zero alcohol, and the rooibos teas. Coco Safar seems to be moving into all sorts of different aspects. We chatted briefly with the owner Will Liebenberg and he says they think that there is such a move to healthy eating, vegan and vegetarian food, gluten free, and food without additives that they see this as their market

The owners are Wilhelm Liebenberg and Caroline Sirois, who is French Canadian. Will is originally from South Africa and has lived in Canada for many years. It says on their website that they are passionate food and coffee specialists, having spent the best part of 20 years travelling the world in search of the finest coffee and culinary experiences. They told us that their Spanish chef Carmen Hernandez has worked for Ferran Adrià in Spain, and was head chef for Heston Blumenthal. Wow, to see someone as experienced as this working in Sea Point is fantastic

The restaurant, where we had breakfast

The coffee shop, where you can buy their pods

The breakfast menu. Note that there are only two dishes with meat, and those contain lamb pancetta, cured in house, something we have not tried before. There is chicken with waffles from down South USA too. One of the baked goods is a Lamb bobotie. There are some interesting dishes like Pain Perdu (French toast) made as a bread pudding from croissant with basil infused pineapple; Clafoutis with multiseed biscotti and Granola with Turmeric cashew cream, so we assume savoury?

We had ordered two large black coffees before we saw this menu

This explains the micro brewery

Nice to see a Prix Fixe lunch in Cape Town

And those pastries, so hard to resist

so we didn’t!

Some interesting chocolate bonbons, made with Valrhona chocolate

and the best French style buttery flaky croissants we have had for a very long time

The coffee bar, They use Spirit Idrocompresso machines to make their extraordinary and strong espresso coffees. Dutch designer of coffee machines Kees van der Westen designed these

Small trays already laid with small water glasses, spoons and a little iced madeleine, just waiting for cups of coffee

and then our strong black coffees were served with the iced baby madeleine and a glass of sparkling water. They are very strong; we both had a caffeine overload. And John had a second one. The flavour is good, rather like Dutch coffee, with the slight sourness that Lynne loves

Interesting decor in the pod shop and a window into the kitchen. The staff were friendly, lovely and helpful. Service was a bit slow. The manager Rozalind Agnew was very helpful indeed, answering all our questions and taking us to see all the sections of Coco Safar. The restaurant will open in the evenings in August

Breakfast arrives. They don’t do omelettes, only a frittata (which incorporates mushrooms, with no exceptions) so John asked if he could have scrambled egg. It needed salt and some more butter, but he enjoyed it with the sliced avocado on salad greens and bread, dressed with a berry sauce

Lynne had the incredible buttery croissant with some eggs Benedict nestled inside, and a twirl or two of the lamb pancetta, which tastes of.... lamb! with some salt and some maple syrup. It is a bit chewy but nice. One egg was perfectly cooked, the other a bit over; the Hollandaise was classic and creamy and coated well. Not sure why the tomatoes were there, as they didn’t add anything to the dish, but if you enjoy tomatoes you would have liked them

The scrambled eggs

They have a chocolate factory across from the restaurant

And then it was time to indulge in some of the pastry. We chose this Passion and Thyme pastry covered in a pink gel glaze. It is a fruit bombe! Filled with a passion fruit curd and a mascarpone mousse flavoured with thyme, on a crisp almond base of two or even three thin layers, one of which is a jacond sponge

This is the Chocolate and caramel tart. It is topped with raw chocolate nibs in a caramel, set on a disk of dark chocolate which is floating on a liquid chocolate ganache and below that is a layer of thick caramel toffee. The pastry was crisp, but a bit unyielding to the ice cream spoon which came with it, and you do need a very sweet tooth for this pastry. We suggested to the manager that a cake knife and fork would make it easier to cut and eat

We each had half of each pastry and Lynne ordered some green tea to go with hers. One strong coffee was enough. Another of those lovely iced mini Madeleines. Love the orange centered cup and matching tea pot, which is fitted with an infuser. They bring you a timer, so you don't pour the tea until it has infused for the correct 5 minutes. It was a good green tea

With the tart, you get a disc of melted caramel and a scoop of Balsamic Dulce de Leche (condensed milk) ice cream on a crumb base. You definitely taste the balsamic vinegar with its slight sourness

The tart plate comes decorated with a passion fruit sauce and a Lemon and Thyme ice cream, also on crumbs

Makes a pretty setting!

Inside the bombe

and inside the Chocolate caramel tart

Then it was time to visit the Rooibos tasting bar, a bit of a nightmare for both of us, as we do not enjoy Rooibos. But we put on brave faces and tasted just for you. These are the four flavours of the sparkling fermented Rooibos non alcoholic drinks. If you like Rooibos you will love these, go and do the free tasting. Enough said

The Brewery. Being in the wine and spirit industry, we are mystified as to why they are fermenting Rooibos and then producing an alcohol free beverage. Well, it is a point of difference

The drinks are served from a familiar bar counter appliance

The bar is in front

This was the tasting we shared

The barman is Carlton Zulu, quite a fun character, who told us he is The Boss of the Bar! He can make you mocktails. He began here in January after two months training, and here he is, a success

We were delighted to meet the chef, Carmen Hernandez, and she clearly has a passion for food and what she does. Her English is perfect. We have been invited back for dinner in August so watch this space for the report

Then we had an ice cream tasting. Vanilla lime sorbet, nice lime and vanilla flavours as expected, refreshing

Lemon and thyme gelato was good. SO nice to experience thyme in dessert, it does work. We had in in Toledo and loved it

Chef working in the kitchen with some of her staff

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About us

MENU, our weekly email newsletter, started as an advertising medium for Main Ingredient, our specialist retail grocery business. We opened our Sea Point shop in December 2002 because realised that there was a place in South Africa for a grocer catering to people with sophisticated tastes and needs. We moved the shop on line in 2010, but discontinued it in 2015, having decided that it is time to “retire” and concentrate on our writing, photography and tour guiding. MENU has a wide circulation and is read nationally and internationally.

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