.

Sunday, October 02, 2016

A night at Franschhoek Boutique Hotel, supper at Allora

We had meant to go to Franschhoek Uncorked on Sunday and the Tourist board organised accommodation for us, so that we could stay for an extra day on Monday and visit more farms, while not burdened with the festival. Something important came up and we switched to Saturday but, on Sunday afternoon, after a family lunch in Tokai, we headed back to Franschhoek

The hotel has been built over a pre-existing car park, which is just off the main road

It has 8 rooms on the top floor and building continues on the first floor, where the reception and breakfast room are open

It is right next to the starting point of the Franschhoek Tram tours

We checked in at reception

where they have a lounge and where breakfast is served. Franschhoek has famously huge selection of restaurants, so they do not serve other meals

We checked into our room, which is large and nicely appointed. It is called the Palm room and is appropriately decorated

The bathroom is separated from the bedroom by a frosted glass sliding door which stops half way. It is an interesting decor device, but we are not sure if it works for us. You can't see the view from the bath. There is also a main bathroom door

There is also a large shower in one corner of the bathroom

High quality percale linen and good thick white towels are appreciated. There is also air conditioning

A small tea and coffee station has a six bottle fridge below and a mini bar. They supplied bottled water

Lynne liked the Indian bone inlaid bedside cupboards

We had met Johann van Zyl, the owner of Allora restaurant, at GlenWood on Saturday and he had invited us to join him for a drink on Sunday evening. The entrance to the restaurant complex is on the deck of the hotel. It was warm enough to sit outside. This is just off Main Road

They were nicely busy for Sunday evening. The menu is good. You can see it on line here http://allora.co.za/menu/franschhoek

We each had a carafes of the house white wine which, of course, made us hungry even though we had a large lunch. We decided to stick to starters. Lynne went for the smoked salmon and avocado stack, which came with a spicy but not hot Peppadew puree, olives, caper berries and some peppadews. It may look small; it was very filling

John chose the beef Carpaccio which came on sliced green apple. He also had a side of pickled artichoke hearts. Thank you so much Allora, we were not expecting to have a meal

The interior houses the huge pizza oven and the menu does have an Italian theme with good steaks added

The restaurant from our room's corridor, showing its summer terrace

The next morning broke damp and misty. This was the view from our room

Down to a sunny themed breakfast. Yoghurts, fruit, cereals, juices and pastries on the buffet table

The inclusive breakfast menu

Lynne chose the Eggs Onassis, ordered without the spring onion, but the citrus tapioca seemed to be missing. The eggs were not runny, sadly, and the hollandaise was rather tart

John had the weekend Breakfast with a rather scrambled omelette. He said the rosti was very good, as was the pork banger

RETURN TO MENU

Please follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to MENU

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Franschhoek Uncorked

This annual celebration has Franschhoek's wine farms opening their doors to the public with special tastings and fun events over a weekend. The weather played along and we had a great time visiting several wine farms on Saturday. It was not as busy as we expected, but everyone we saw was having a super time. As it was the weekend after Heritage Day, there was a lot of braaiing going on

A tragic note after the weekend was hearing of the tragic loss of Jenny Prinsloo in a collision on the Helshoogte Pass. Jenny was CEO of Franschhoek Tourism and played a most important role in taking Franschhoek to its very prominent place on the South African tourism map. We mourn her loss with all of Franschhoek and her family

We began at Boschendal. It has been rather a long time since we visited. This is the Rhone Homestead now a restaurant which is next to the wine cellar, the festival was being held on the lawn here

You walk down the oak avenue, now in beautiful new spring green leaf

They had this wagon with the working horses taking people on rides up and down the farm

The tasting desk under the trees. They only had the Chardonnay and Shiraz for tasting

The Rhone Restaurant was popular

There was a buffet lunch for about R280 a person

Lots of good food and dessert treats

Roasts under the hot lamps

We thought it looked lovely, but we wanted something light

Hamburgers on the grill. They had advertised sausages, but we saw none. Sadly, the burgers we saw (which had been discarded) were very brown on the outside and very raw on the inside. They did not tempt us

There was also one of two bubblies for tasting. If you wanted the other one there was a small charge

Some lively singing and dancing on the lawn by a local group of children and drummers

It certainly livened up the afternoon

Bud break has begun on the vines

Moody weather over the mountains, but it was warm and didn't rain although it had been forecast. Perhaps that is why numbers were rather low?

Off to GlenWood where we encountered Guy Kedian of Stellenbosch Vineyards with GlenWood's cellarmaster/general manager DP Burger, both old friends

Tables were being set up for the wine blending competition

We enjoyed some fun and Chardonnay with Guy and and his partner Jackie Rabe, Sales and Marketing Director at Strandveld Wines,

Hands up or I'll shoot!

A good grey in the paddock

Hunger struck, so we had some of these kebabs. Steak or chicken? We went for the nice and tender steak with sweet barbecue sauce and a roosterbrood. Never quite sure if we trust chicken on the braai

Happy day

Spring green on the oaks

The blending competition starts. We can report that this team was the winner

Another enthusiastic team

Lots of fun and nonsense went on. Not all the blends were absolutely pristine!

Perhaps a little too much festival enthusiasm?

Then we went off to the other end of the valley to visit two farms we had not been to before. The first was Lynx, where we bumped into old Franschhoek friends whom we haven’t seen for a long time

They had a food truck

Hard to get to the tasting counter as it was busy

John peeked into the cellar

Serenaded by the Mexican duo

Down the road from Lynx, La Chataigne and Topiary had combined their celebrations on Topiary. La Chataigne is building a new tasting venue. Superb views of the Helshoogte pass to Stellenbosch and the Simonsberg Mountains across the vines

They had tables and chairs on their lawn

They had some good wines on special and a couple of boxes went home to our cellar. We bought the La Chataigne Kastanje 2013, made from Chenin blanc with a dash of Semillon, and Topiary Shiraz 2013