Thursday, March 28, 2019

MENU’s Wines of the Week. Kleinood 2018 Viognier, Ken Forrester 2007 Old Vines Chenin

The Kleinood Viognier, we think, is one of the top three wines from that varietal produced in South Africa at the moment. It is hand-picked on different dates to ensure that the wine reflects the full flavour spectrum of the grape. It is wood fermented and now has 11% Roussane added
It is full of peaches and apricots, with perfume and incense from the wood on the nose. Crisp and fruity with some complexity, the Roussanne shows as an added component and is discernible. There is just a golden touch of oak; peaches and cream remain on the palate. Delicious. Definitely a wine for spicy, complex food and with seafood


R156 per bottle or R936 per case of 6 from the estate

At Ken Forrester, we had a huge treat, a bottle of the 2007 Old Vine Reserve Chenin blanc was opened to see how well it ages. It was very impressive; we were encouraging Shawn Mathyse, the Cellar Controller, to enter this into major competitions that have vintage awards
We wish you could taste it. It was so good. A nose of golden fruit and golden oak with hints of Riesling and some of Chardonnay. On the palate, richness in spades, truly amazing deep flavours of cooked apple and quince, long and in balance, it is so memorable. We predict it will win new awards and demonstrates how well our white wines can age

On the MENU This Week. Banoffee Pie

It is frustrating when, after a good restaurant meal, you simply have no room for dessert and you see one of your favourites on the menu. This happened to Lynne recently and it doesn’t happen often, as she rarely orders dessert, unless it’s an old favourite like this. We know you all do a lot of entertaining in summer, despite the hot weather. Lynne thought she would give you a simple but delicious recipe which takes very little time or effort to make, as many of the ingredients could come from your store cupboard or a quick trip to a local supermarket. Might work well during the coming public holidays. And NO, it is not slimming or Banting
Photograph courtesy of Blog do Sidnei Coelho
1 packet of plain digestive biscuits – 120g melted butter – 3 bananas – half a lemon - 1 tin of Caramel condensed milk, Nestles Treat – 250 ml of whipping cream – optional: 1 or 2 t of whisky – chocolate curls – pecan nuts
Put the biscuits into a food processor and break them up to a rough crumb. Or put into a plastic bag and beat with a rolling pin. Put into a bowl and pour over the melted butter and mix well. Take a loose-bottomed cake tin, approx 20 cm, and line with a disc of baking paper. This makes it much easier to cut later. Press the biscuit crumbs firmly onto the base. Then slice the bananas and make two layers of them at the bottom of the pie. Squeeze over a little lemon juice to keep the banana white and to add a little contrast to the very sweet caramel. Pour or spoon on the caramel and cover the bananas. Put it into the fridge to set. Just before serving, whip the cream and top the pie. You can add a little whisky to the cream if you like and you can sprinkle over some chocolate curls. Some people like to add some nuts to this pie, but these are all optional extras and are not traditional
For a dinner party, you could make individual pies. Make them in soufflĂ© dishes so that they don’t have to be turned out and sliced
You can make your own caramel by boiling tins of condensed milk for hours, but save the planet's resources and just buy the ready-made one

Active Sushi supper

The need for regular intake of Sushi is compelling, so this week we tried a new place in town called Active Sushi. They must have the worst signage we have ever seen - or not seen as you can see from this photo. Yes that white haze is the name in neon. It is in a cursive script that is almost impossible to read from the street when you are driving slowly past. They are in the Portside Building, 4 Bree Street. The wind was howling and we found parking very easily at 7 pm
We had reserved a table and the restaurant was busy; 
we suspect from office workers eating before going home at this time of day
We like the quirky decor of modern and old mix. A 'mural' of old decorated plates and a Persian carpet, good chairs,
a plush sofa bench and very plain but serviceable tables. And bamboo plants on the tables and in the windows
We took along this wine which we had been sent by Groote Post to sample. It’s the new vintage of a wine we had already made our Wine of the Week in a previous year. SeaSalter is another superb Sauvignon blanc from Darling (with about 10% Semillon) and, if you want the perfect wine to pair with sushi, this is it. We enquired if they charged corkage and it is R60 a bottle. We were not very impressed with the wine list and, as they charge R45 for a glass of quite ordinary white and R55 for a glass of red wine, we were happy to pay it. One very nice touch is the frozen grapes to cool down your wine instead of putting ice blocks in it and suffering the dilution, not that we would. The staff were fairly friendly and efficient but anonymous. We really like it when they introduce themselves. They were busy so we didn’t get a chance to ask them. We discovered, from the bill that our waitress was called Sanele
The drinks menu. We'd not heard of many of the wines, but the selection of Bubblies is very good!
Tablecloths are sheets of white butcher’s paper, so you can have fun doodling while you wait. Service was reasonably quick.
We had a Hyperli special, a platter of 32 mixed sushi for R165. If you count, you can see we were treated to an extra piece. We asked for no cucumber and they were happy to oblige. The salmon was very fresh on the sashimi and roses. We liked the modern sushi with the drizzle of a warm chilli sauce, which was filled with what tasted like pork loin. Perhaps chicken? And the prawn inside/outside rolls were fine. However, they really let themselves down with the rice. Some of it seemed like it was hours, if not a day, old and was a sticky mush that felt as though it would glue our teeth together. It so spoils things like salmon roses and other pieces. We always look for nice fresh pearly rice with sushi
Our bill for the corkage and service for the total with the voucher