Imibala Restaurant & Deli, Somerset West

We ate some lovely food this week at a new restaurant/deli in Somerset West called Imibala. The Imibala Trust, a Gaynor Rupert philanthropic initiative started 15 years ago, is a charity that provides scholarships, uniforms and supplementary educational training to children in financial need. They ask donors to give a child R1000 and every penny of this is spent on the child and is accounted for. The Imibala Restaurant and Arts (Pty) Ltd is a company that runs a restaurant, shop and gallery and this company's activities are separate from the activities conducted by the Imibala Trust. It is the income from these businesses that supports the charity by donating funds from time to time and by hosting events for the charity

We were invited by Ian Downie, who is a member of the trust and who runs the restaurant, to join him for a delightful lunch this week with other members of the media

The outside of the Imibala Restaurant and Deli. Imibala means colours in Zulu

Inside the restaurant, the Deli is on one side. They sell local produce and have a link with a company called Terra Madre who make products for the Deli. We saw some very nice looking take home meals and some good pickles and preserves

Comfortable seats, light and airy and lots of outside space for good days

Ian Downie, Restaurant manager par excellence. We know Ian from the International Wine and Food Society

The media table

Everyone was encouraged to order both a starter and a main course. These are prawn and fish cakes with tartar source

The very crisp deep fried calamari were envied by all

The simple country salad for a vegetarian guest was well dressed

Steak, chips and a garlic aioli

A quinoa, corn and cheese salad looked delicious

Lynne had the avo, smoked trout tian, topped with chopped egg and onion and salmon caviar, Very light and fresh, just what she wanted. You can have this as a main course as well.

Thinly sliced lamb on fried aubergine slices

Beer battered fish and chips

A classic steak sandwich, the French bread was lined with toasted cheese

Stuffed chicken with a chick pea salad

John’s main was a springbok shank pie, so enormous even he struggled to finish it

Great pastry

The deli also has a good selection of freshly made cakes and bread and other treats, like fudge

So much to choose from

Pickles, preserves, sauces and biscuits

A selection of desserts was ordered for the table and we all tried them. This was a rose panna cotta topped with Turkish delight, raspberries , pistachio nuts and crisp tuille biscuits

A classic crème brulée

The cheese platter

A Dacquoise: hazelnuts, meringue and cream in layers, served with raspberries and a crème Anglaise

The booze trolley. This can provide almost any drink you desire

Loud applause for chef Nicole Dupper and the restaurant manageress

Catching up and waiting for coffee. A lovely experience, thank you all at Imibala

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

PR-Net Trade’s Tourism and Hospitality exhibition at the Cape Sun

This was held at the Cape Sun this week and we had a chance to listen to a presentation by Enver Duminy, Head of Cape Town Tourism, with his innovative strategy for tourism in our great city. We also met several new tourism people on their stands and did a lot of networking. We hope to visit some of these areas and places soon and write about them

A very friendly Anika de Goede of Hermanuspietersfontein Winery told us all about the new winemaker and the wines and their cottages in Stanford

An old friend, Martina Barth, who represents the Vineyard Hotel and the Oude Werf Hotel in Stellenbosch, with Chantelle Philander and Crystal Hendricks

Brian Berkman, organiser of the event, gets proceedings going

GM of Cape Sun Jacques Moolman making the announcement that Tsogo Sun have agreed to spend R200 million on a complete refurbishment of the Cape Sun. It so needs it

Tony Romer-Lee, head of PMR Hospitality reminisced about Liz McGrath, the recently deceased, well-respected owner of The Collection hotel group for whom he worked for several years

A large audience

Cape Town Tourism CEO, Enver Duminy telling us about his 10 point strategy for publicising our beautiful city

We try to practice many of these strategies when we write about the Cape and what it has to offer

The Cape Whale Coast - destination marketing for the Overstrand: Hangklip, Kleinmond, Hermanus, Stanford & Gansbaai. Joanne Kunz was charming and amusing, and gave us lots of information about an area we know well and visit often. She told us of a beach walk in the Gansbaai area with a marine expert and, as we plan to be there at the end of April, we certainly will get more information on this. We absolutely love beachcombing

We learnt about De Zeekoe Guest Farm, Reserve and venue in Oudtshoorn from Adri, who had us in stitches - a huge personality and very enjoyable. It is on our list of places to visit one day soon

Nice to meet you!

Lynne with the girls from Around About Car Hire

Newmark Hotels’ stand was ably manned by Waleed Taliep and Angelique Engelbrecht. They have the V&A hotel, The Victoria and the Dock House Private Hotel in the V&A Waterfront as well as Motswari Private Game Reserve in Limpopo

The surfer girl from Stoked School of Surf, Claudia Hopkins – should you wish to learn how to surf. They take you to the beach with the best waves on the day of your lesson. And they have weekend surf camps

Brian and the team saying goodbye. It was a good evening. Some of the posher foreign venues were not very forthcoming with information, or welcoming, but the "locals" certainly were full of advice, information and friendliness. Others tables we visited that we can’t wait to contact are the West Coast National Park and the Cape West Coast Way, who offered to plan a road trip. Also Oudtshoorn Tourism, when we do another trip via Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn and Knysna

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

SAA Voyager redemption launch at Le Franschhoek

Do you travel a lot? Do you accumulate Air Miles? Are you a South African Airways Voyager member? Do you never redeem your miles earned on travel? Miles for Style is another innovative way to use them. They offer luxury goods, travel, experiences and so much more in exchange for your miles. Investigate and register here: https://milesforstyle.com/ We were at the official launch at Le Franschhoek last week

The weather gave us all four seasons in one day, producing some lovely light

Le Franschhoek was known to us years ago as the Swiss Farm Excelsior and Lynne’s parents used to take her there for Sunday lunch. It has been fully refurbished

A welcome glass of Genevieve MCC

Lynne chatting with old friends, Judy Brower of Wine.co.za, Tamsin Snyman and wine producer Charles Withington of The Darling Wine Shop

A tinkling piano and lots of networking

Doreen and Teddy Hall and Elizabeth Brandt, with Director of Miles for Style, Yegas Naidoo

Eddie Turner of Meerlust, Margie Hoffe and Emil Kanstinger of Anura

Miles for Style Director Sonja Delport

Suretha Cruse of the SAA Voyager programme

Presenting a flower basket

Rose Jordaan of Bartinney Wines with Yegas Naidoo

Friendly staff behind the drinks stand

Nice to chat to Debbie Millner again

Rose chatting to Jonathan Snashall

Jenni Button won the raffle prize

This young lady won the prize we all wanted so desperately, a trip on the Blue Train

A deep and meaningful discussion between Rose Jordaan, Jonathan Snashall and Georgie Prout of Glen Carlou

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

150324 Main Ingredient's MENU - Casa Labia and Kalk Bay, Solms Delta Oesfees, Nitida Cellarbake

A black backed gull in the evening light

In this week’s MENU:

 Kalk Bay fish and an elegant Casa Labia tea

 Oesfees at Solms Delta

 Nitida Cellarbake

 Melktert

 Learn about wine and cooking

We write about our experiences in MENU, not only to entertain you, but to encourage you to visit the places and events that we do. We know you will enjoy them and we try to make each write up as graphic as we can, so you get a good picture of what is on offer at each place, restaurant, wine farm, festival we visit.

To get the whole story with photographs, please click on “READ ON.....” at the end of each paragraph, which will lead you to the related blog, with pictures and more words. At the end of each blog, click on RETURN TO MENU to come back to the blog version of MENU.

It’s a quick, early MENU this week. John has a two day photographic job at a winery and sending out later in the week will be a challenge too far. So you will get this early.. on Tuesday instead.

Off in search of fish and an elegant tea     We couldn’t resist taking our Dutch visitors for a day by the sea at Kalk Bay, so that they could experience some of the magic. After a great lunch, the ladies shopped in the high street for a while and the lads went off to see Casa Labia in Muizenberg, where the girls joined them later for a good tea and scones or coffee and “death by chocolate” cake. Read On

Oesfees – The Real Deal     We love this festival, which Solms Delta hold at the end of Harvest every year for their staff, the staff of surrounding wine farms, and the public. The music is very local and lekker and the atmosphere laid back and so friendly. Read on

Cellarbake at Nitida     Now in its second year, Cellarbake pairs local bakers and their wares with Nitida Wines. You buy some tokens and exchange them for mini tastes of each baker’s art with a taste of one specifically matched wine. It was extremely popular this year, they sold over 700 tickets and the place was pumping. Read On

Because of our time constraint, there is no recipe this week

Learn about wine and cooking We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here

The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become professional chefs, has a variety of courses. See the details here

In addition to his Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. Details here

Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here

Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia

Nicolette van Niekerk runs baking courses at La Petite Patisserie in Montague Gardens

George Jardine will be running a series of winter cooking courses and other activities at Jordan. Details here

24th March 2015

Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our online shop for details and prices.

PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information

Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005

Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian and standard or Dutch-flavoured Afrikaans.

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. Our Avast! ^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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