This Week's MENU - Aegean Odyssey Part 5, Japanese whisky tasting, Graciale at Peddlar's, Winter Fennel and Orange Salad

Blue hills of a late afternoon in Mycenae. A sort of Trompe de l’oeil, certainly an optical illusion

In this week’s MENU:

 Aegean Odyssey. Day 15: Ancient Corinth, Mycenae

 Aegean Odyssey. Day 16: Epidavros

 Japanese Whisky       

 Graciales at Peddlars

 Winter Fennel and Orange Salad

 Coming events

 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.

We continue our Greek Odyssey this week with our trip to ancient Corinth, Mycenae. We stay in a lovely hotel, eat lots of good Greek home-cooked food, made by Mama, and see the more of wonders of the ancient Greek world in the Peloponnese Read on.....

On the next day we ventured to Epidavros to see the grand amphitheatre. Read On.....

Japanese Whisky     We had tasted Japanese whisky before, at a trade tasting but, as fans of the spirit, we were very excited when we received an invitation to a tutored tasting of Nikka, one of the early Japanese whiskies, first produced in 1934. It was held last week in the presence of The Japanese Consulate Head of Mission, His Excellency Mr Mitsuru Murase, at Kyoto Gardens restaurant at 11 Kloof Nek Road in Gardens. Read on.....

Graciales at Peddlars     When last we were invited to the Italian restaurant, Volare, at Peddlars & Co on the Spaanschemat River Road in Constantia, Chef Brad Ball told us that they had plans to open other restaurants in the complex. Just a month ago, they opened Graciales - the name is a blend of Gracias and Sociales and it's a tapas bar. We were free on Friday, and could accept their invitation. Generously, they set a cab to fetch us and we had a lovely evening with great food. Read on.....

This week's recipe is a Winter Fennel and Orange Salad       Deep in the middle of winter with lots of sustaining stews, soups and rib sticking food, we find that we start to long for something fresh. Fennel is in season, so are oranges and this makes a wonderful combination.

The zest of one orange - 1 T white wine vinegar - 2 T olive oil - salt and freshly ground black pepper - 2 oranges - 2 Fennel bulbs - a packet of rocket or mixed salad leaves, well washed

Finely zest one of the oranges into a large bowl and add the white wine vinegar and the olive oil. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Beat well till it emulsifies. Cut the peel and all the pith off the oranges and, taking a sharp knife, cut out segments from the oranges, leaving all the pith between the segments behind. Do this over the dressing bowl, so that any orange juice drips into the dressing. Add the orange segments from both oranges. Trim the ends off the fennel bulbs; take out the root core, quarter and thinly slice them crosswise into the salad bowl. Stir well. Put in the fridge to meld for at least an hour or two. Just before serving, put the rocket on a serving plate and top with the salad.

COMING EVENTS:

Saturday, 11th July at 11:30 am "Old oak vs new oak" Tasting & Barrel Lunch at Beaumont, Bot River. An informal tasting and discussion with Sebastian on the influence of old & new oak on wine. Taste some of Beaumont's finest wines from barrel. Zest will be firing up the Oak Barrel Smoker for their delicious hot smoked salmon starter. A selection of special wines from the cellar will pair with this delicious seasonal menu. Menu & Wines @ R415 per head. Book online at http://www.beaumont.co.za/shop/beaumont-barrel-lunch-11th-july-2015/ or email nici@zestcatering.co.za

Saturday, 11th & Sunday, 12th July  Franschhoek Bastille Festival Food & Wine Hall, situated at the Town Hall. Entry is R120 per person, which includes a complimentary tasting glass, a booklet of tasting coupons as well as a R20 wine voucher to be used on the day. Additional coupons can be purchased on the day. Live entertainment will add extra flare and fun Children under 18 enter for free. Visit the website at www.franschhoekbastille.co.za for more info. Terms and Conditions apply

Saturday, 11th & Sunday, 12th July  Franschhoek Bastille Festival, Food & Wine Marquee, situated at the Huguenot Monument. Entrance tickets to the Franschhoek Bastille Festival Food & Wine Marquee cost R200 per person, which includes a complimentary tasting glass, a booklet of tasting coupons as well as a R20 wine voucher to be used on the day. Additional coupons can be purchased on the day. Live entertainment will add extra flare and fun. Visit the website at www.franschhoekbastille.co.za for more info. Terms and Conditions apply

Sunday, 12th July  Long Sunday Lunch with Bertus Basson at Vondeling, Voor-Paardeberg. R245 per person. Booking is essential. Contact Mariaan Harris on 021 869 8595, or email info@vondelingwines.co.za

Thursday, 16th July: Italy’s Langhe at Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar.  Caroline will present ten wines: Sarotto Gavi ‘Bric Sassi’ 2014 (R165),  Antoniotti  Bramaterra 2011 (R379), Borgogno Dolcetto d’Alba 2014 (R195), Brezza Barbera d’Alba 2011 (R315), Giovanni Rosso Barolo Serralunga d’Alba 2011 (R515),  Punset  Barbaresco ‘Basarin’ 2010 (R580), Cascina Luisin Barbaresco ‘Rabaja’ 2011 (R680), Fr. Alessandria Barolo San Lorenzo 2011 (R635), Borgogno Barolo Cannubi Riserva 2009 (R595), Cerutti Moscato d’Asti ‘Suri Sandrinet’ 2014  (R235). R300 p/p to be held at Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar, 62 Strand Street, Cape Town and start at 18h15 for 18h30 prompt. To book, please fill in the booking form.

Friday, 24th July at 19h00  Italian Dinner at Ottimo Cibo. Nikki Booth spends many weeks a year at her home in Orvieto, understands Italian cooking deeply and passionately, and put Caroline Rillema and her together at one table and you have a veritable feast of food and wine. A 4-course meal served with (all top end single-vineyard) Gavi, Barbaresco, Barolo; then Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and Moscato d’Asti. R900 p/p all included. At 15 Winchester Avenue, Kirstenbosch, Cape Town. To book, please fill in the booking form.

Wednesday, 29th July, 17h00 to 21h00     Caroline's Annual Red Wine Review  at the Table Bay Hotel. R200 p/p which includes a crystal tasting glass & programme. Bookings open at Computicket now (no bookings through shop)

Click here for details of more exciting events

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

8th July 2015

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.

If you like the photographs you see in our publications, please look at our Adamastor Photo website for our rate card and samples from our portfolio

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

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Graciales restaurant in the Peddlar's complex

When last we were invited to the Italian restaurant, Volare, at Peddlars & Co on the Spaanschemat River Road in Constantia, Chef Brad Ball told us that they had plans to open other restaurants in the complex. Just a month ago, they opened Graciales - the name is a blend of Gracias and Sociales and it's a tapas bar. On Friday, having accepted the invitation, we visited. Generously, they set a cab to fetch us and we had a lovely evening with great food

Peddlars by night

Graciales philosophy

Bright tiles and jam jar lights add a touch of difference

No frills on the tables, easy to clean and the cutlery comes in a tin can with paper serviettes

The sign on the wall near the bar

Craft beers on tap, wine specials, winter Glühwein and daily specials

We like the idea of the Peddlars winter specials! Especially if you finish early on a Friday

We started with a Steenberg Sauvignon Blanc, crisp and tropical

The restaurant starts filling up. We had just arrived, at 7 pm

The Tapas menu

With Tapas, you share all the dishes.Our first dish was one of the platters. Apparently it is one of Brad Ball’s specialities and customers insist it that it should be on the menu. Slow cooked lamb, accompanied by aubergine crisps, tzatziki, humus, a tomato relish with hot harissa paste and mini pita breads. You eat any combination you like, but we found everything together to be the best. De-lish-ous.

Next to share were the very tender, deep fried Calamari strips with a lemon mayo and the Asian Beef Tataki - very tender seared beef cut thin with an Asian dressing, black and white sesame seeds, spring onions and hot chillies. Basically a beef Carpaccio with Asian flavours

And finally, (sadly rather fatty) belly of pork and nicely salty edamame beans cooked in their pods. Edamame are green soya beans. We had this with some red wine. Lynne had Beau Constantia Pas de Nom and John Steenberg merlot. Someone needs to render some of that fat out, please

We shared the Petit Fours plate and had it with double espressos. One chocolate truffle and one rose turkish delight each and we halved the gooey mini lemon meringue tart. That meringue went everywhere

They have some superb aged wines in their vinoteque at quite reasonable prices for these vintages 
and these particular wines

Seating for the bar outside has a winter blind to keep out the weather

or you can enjoy bar snacks in the bar

It looks like a great place to meet friends

Cleaned down for the night as we left, having enjoyed our evening very much. The staff were great, especially our waiter, JP van Eeden. We were sad that Chef Brad was not there, but delighted to hear why. He was on his honeymoon!

The cab was waiting to take us home

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

Japanese Whisky tasting at Kyoto Garden restaurant

We have tasted Japanese whisky before, at a trade tasting, but we were very excited when we received an invitation to a tutored tasting of Nikka, the first whisky to be produced in Japan. It was held last week in the presence of The Japanese Consulate Head of Mission, His Excellency, Mr Mitsuru Murase, at Kyoto Gardens restaurant at 11 Kloof Nek Road

 In 1918, Masataka Taketsuru, whose family had been making fine sake since 1733, went to visit whisky refineries in Scotland to learn the secret of making Scotch whisky, which had captivated him. He studied at The university of Glasgow, the first Japanese ever to study the art of making whisky. He continued to work in the industry as an apprentice. He married his Scottish wife Jessie Roberta (Rita) and returned to Japan in 1920. In 1934 Masataka established Nikka Whisky, and built its first distillery in Yoichi, Hokkaido, and he eventually became a master blender

No one wants to do a whisky tasting and then drive, so we took the MyCiti Bus. The stop is at the bottom of our road. The trip, with one quick platform change in Adderley Street, took less than half an hour and it was in rush hour traffic

A pleasant street view of the far mountain from outside the restaurant; we arrived quite early

The whiskies laid out for the tasting

Kyoto Garden has whiskies from Suntory, who made the first Japanese whisky in 1924, but we didn't get to taste these

The tasting sheet for the 6 whiskies

Here they are, poured, with an accompanying glass of water to add after the first taste

Taygan Govinden with whisky presenter and writer Bernard Gutman

The amber light of whisky

Japanese beers

The line up. We started with the 2 single malts: Miyagikyo full of caramel, apricots and smoke with a soft vanilla honey perfume, pears and some salt. And the Yoichi NAS - Peat moss, herbaceous with red apple and caramel notes, a hot chilli tingle on the tongue and then toffee with cream. Both extremely pleasant and worth drinking. But not with too much water

The Japanese Consulate Head of Mission is His Excellency, Mr Mitsuru Murase, who gave the opening address

Whisky fundi Hector McBeth, a South African of Scottish descent, took us through the tasting and explained the whiskies to us, and showed us how to taste them, and how the Japanese, who are very fond of Scotch whisky, prefer to drink them. They add water and ice from a glacier, which sings in the glass. Sadly, we found that this seems to soften it a lot and, for us, it takes a lot of the flavour out of the whisky and it loses its alcohol heat, but that is the way they prefer it. The next was the Nikki Pure Malt Black - a blend of malts. Floral peaches and apricots with smoke and expensive wood notes. An oily glycerol mouthful , smoky bacon and tangerine fruit tingle that softens, with water, to peach juice. Then Nikka Coffey Grain, made with corn like a Bourbon had drum and burnt caramel and raisin on the nose, and Christmas pudding and caramel toffee on the palate. With water it turns to caramel milk chocolate like a Curly Whirly with whiffs of smoke

Japanese liqueurs and sake behind the sushi counter

Malu Copeland enjoying the tasting. The fifth whisky was the Nikka Coffey Malt; coconut and lime with herbs on the nose, silky and peaty with vanilla toffee and creamy milk chocolate on the palate . with water lactic caramel cream with a background of grapes and fruit

The final whisky was the Nikka from the Barrel, a blended whisky with 51.4% alcohol. This needed the glacial ice. Its nose was like prunes wrapped in bacon with smoky caramel. On the palate, red hot chilli caramel toffee and more prunes and bacon. With water, softer & more prunes and caramel

The sushi chef, Koshi Koyama, who has been with Scott Wood for 20 years, is a consummate expert at what he does

Saidi and his team in the kitchen, very important people

Some sashimi to cleanse our palates after the tasting, served with a clear sake, which had anise notes, rather like a pastis

and some sushi

The outside of the restaurant

The tasting notes. We enjoyed the tasting very much indeed and urge you all to try Japanese whisky when you have the opportunity. We did not find it to be like Scotch, but it is an excellent product in its own right. The water debate is up to you, it's entirely personal. Disclosure: We both have Scottish ancestry and have become familiar with it throughout our lives

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015