View towards the Banhoek valley from the terrace, Delaire Graff Estate
Domaine s Ott wines at Delaire Wine dinners at The Taj Dinner party picnic Dairy challenge Crustless Quiche à la Lynne Products Our market activities, events and restaurants In addition to a hosting one off events such as St. Patrick’s Day Guinness & Oyster Festival on Saturday 17th March (join us after the Neighbourgoods Market for a pint of the black stuff!!), the Taj will host a series of monthly events to showcase the incredible diversity of the wine, food and people of the Cape winelands through their Expressions of … series. The journey through the world’s most beautiful winelands will begin by presenting Expressions of Wellington and Paarl on Thursday 1st March with Guest Chef Simone from Babel restaurant at Babylonstoren. Her dishes will be paired with regional wines which express the inherent character of the variety and their place of origin. Her menu will then be incorporated into MINT Restaurant’s Table d’hôte menu for the entire month of March with selected paired regional wines (Wellington & Paarl) as an option. Two of the Taj chefs will have spent time with Chef Simone, to ensure that her dishes are replicated correctly! More information, the full story, can be seen if you click here
Everything comes to s/he who waits This week, finally, we got to visit Delaire. The occasion was a dinner to showcase the wines of Domaines Ott – three estates in Provence, in the South of France. We were welcomed on the terrace with a glass (or two for some!) of Louis Roederer champagne (Domaines Ott is part of the Louis Roederer Group), and we were served salmon and oyster canapés while we all got to know each other or caught up with old friends. As you see from the photo above, the Estate has possibly the best view of any wine farm in the area; watching the light on the valley and mountains change as the sun set was a magnificent sight. Click here to see the whole pictorial story. Ushered into the elegant and spacious restaurant, which can seat up to 120, we began with Clos Mirelle Blanc de Blanc 2010 (AOC Côte de Provence) made not from Chardonnay, but from Semillon and Rolle. It was introduced by Christophe Renard, Domaines Ott export sales director. Tasting somewhat like lean champagne sans bubbles, this very elegant wine could not have come from any other country but France. White peaches, slightly salty, crisp, cool and delicious with a faint herb ending, it went perfectly with the first course, Ceviche of Farmed Cob with poached pear, hazelnut, honeyed blossom. There was a quite sweet foam on the Ceviche; the wine coped very well with it and really showcased the fish, as did the scattering of caramelised nuts which added great texture to a soft dish and complimented the wine – all in all, a very successful dish. The next course was Roasted Chicken with lobster bisque, west coast mussels, hints of orange and served with Domaines Ott Chateau de Selle Rosé 2010 (also AOC Provence). This is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsaut and, very unusually for Provence, Cabernet Sauvignon. The chicken was, we suspect, cooked sous vide and was incredibly tender and moist. Who would have thought that lobster bisque would go with chicken? It really was amazing. We were not so entranced by the nearly cooked mussels or the stringy spring onion/leek but the dish was a lovely match to the pale “eye of partridge” rosé, which tasted of fresh, fruity, spritzy rhubarb with a spicy end rather like ginger ale.
The main course of Roast Duck, beef shin, smoked marrow fritters, plum and blue berries was rather overwhelming in its rich meatiness and cried out for some other ingredient on the plate. One of the fruit sauces, possibly the plum, was a little savage towards the wine, the Domaines Ott Bandol Rouge 2007 (AOC Bandol) which is a blend , chiefly, of Mourvedre with some Grenache, Syrah and Sauvignon. It began with rich full fruit flavours and aromas of cassis, cherries and other berries. The wine had a sweet and sour character with black pepper notes and capsicum on the end and did age quite a lot in the glass.
With the dessert of Compressed Chocolate Brownie, hazelnut praline, white chocolate sorbet and chocolate air, we were served the smooth fruity and nutty Delaire Port, a perfect match for chocolate. A wonderful plate of delights to end a super meal
WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THE TAJ
Competition! If you want to win a pair of tickets to the opening event, answer the following question: Where is Babel restaurant? We want not only the name of the farm, but the name of the wine region in which it is situated. The name of the winner of two tickets to the Expressions dinner at the Taj on March 1st (and to a wine tasting which may be held before the dinner) will be drawn on Tuesday 28th February. The prize is specifically for that event and cannot be transferred to another occasion. We will give the appropriate times to the winner, once the winners name has been drawn.
Dinner parties We had planned to have dinner on the rocks with two good friends who have birthdays this week and their spouses, but sadly, Monday was cold, rainy and chilly, so the picnic happened on our dining table instead. Lynne had made the prawn and fennel recipe we gave you last week, baked a gammon, made stuffed eggs, a huge salad and quinoa all of which were going to be portable. There were green olives and, yes, bread for those who do and chips for nibbles but mostly it was low carbs except for the dessert. She made a wicked flourless chocolate cake with almonds and covered it with a ganache of Lindt milk chocolate and cream. We had a blast and drank some really good wines from our cellar, starting with a Laborie Blanc de blancs and progressing to Gabriëlskloof Sauvignon blanc 2010. The best wine of the evening was a 2002 Mike Dobrovic Sanctum shiraz. Pure fruit, wonderful depth and length John served it in huge burgundy glasses which absolutely showcased a beautiful and almost perfect wine made by a very talented winemaker. We also had one of our last bottles of KC Shiraz 2007, still elegant and full, but if you have any this is the year to drink it. Dairy a problem? We don’t like recommending medicines, but Lynne, who has a severe intolerance, if not an allergy to dairy products, was recommended to try Lactase recently – it contains an enzyme that assists those who are lactose intolerant to digest dairy products. Chew a couple just before you eat dairy. It does seem to work and when we go to dinners like this and need to taste everything, it certainly is making a difference. As they say on the pack, check with your doctor. This week’s recipe is, again, what we had for dinner this evening.
Crustless Quiche à la Lynne
2 large onions, sliced – 1 T olive oil - 4 eggs – 150 ml cream – 50g cooked gammon, sliced – 2 grated courgettes (half a cup) – 100g grated cheddar cheese – 1T chopped parsley – salt and freshly ground black pepper – cayenne pepper or a spicy chilli mix
Grease the dish well in which you want to cook this. We recommend a pie dish or any oven proof quiche dish. Fry the onions in the oil and allow to sweat down till golden brown. Beat the eggs with the cream and then stir in all the other ingredients except the cheese; season, then pour into your dish; top with the cheese and a sprinkle of cayenne. Bake in a moderate 180˚C oven for 30 minutes, or until it is just setting in the middle. Slice and serve with a simple salad. You can, of course, put this filling into a savoury pastry case should you wish to.
Products We have sourced Italian beef, chicken and vegetable stock cubes and Spanish Knorr fish stock cubes. We’ve also added two Italian balsamic reductions to our list: pear and walnut and white truffle. Carnaroli rice, the best, according to many of the chefs we know, for risotto, is also back on the list. Prego sauce, which sold out last week is back, with plenty of stock, for now. They are all in our product list. Check it here. Rick Stein’s new series about Spain has started on the BBC Food channel. It brought back wonderful memories for John of a slow passage he made through Spain in 1971, starting in San Sebastian and ending weeks later in Andorra, when he crossed into France. The first episode featured Spanish saffron, smoked paprika and sherry vinegar. We have them all - as well as authentic Spanish Bomba paella rice. You can’t fake the real thing!
If you are looking for anything, Spanish or otherwise, have a look at our product list and tell us what you want. You will be able to access it through our website. If you can’t find what you need, let us know and we will try to find it for you. Until our online shop is ready, drop us an email and we will help you. The financial year end has but a stop to work on on-line developments, but we intend to concentrate on them in March, once this task has been completed. We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Our market activities We will be back at Long Beach Mall tomorrow, Friday, 24th February. We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00 and every Saturday. There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To help you choose an event to visit, click on our lists for February and March/April. All the events are listed in date order and we already have exciting events to entertain you through into the new year. Click here to access the list. You will need to be connected to the internet. Some restaurants have responded to our request for an update of their special offers and we have, therefore, updated our list of restaurant special offers. Click here to access it. These Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. If they don’t update us, we can’t be responsible for any inaccuracies in the list. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. that so many have sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants. Summer time is picnic time and several wine farms offer picnic facilities. We have put together a list of wine farms who can provide you with a picnic, We haven’t put in much detail, just where it is, phone number, email address and a link to the website. The latter is where you will find all the important information. Go and check it out.
23rd February 2012
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 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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The queues for "facilities" at the interval were mercifully short, because we were well catered for. 
