Wednesday, June 05, 2019

Lunch at Bellevue, Stellenbosch

We haven't visited our friends at Bellevue for a while and wanted to see what wines they were releasing and find out about their winter specials. We began in the tasting room where had a quick tasting of some new wines with winemaker Wilhelm Kritzinger
And said hello to Chef Eddie Enslin. The first special on their programme will be a LIVE MUSIC EVENT on Friday, 7th June 
To book, call 021 865 2054 or email restaurant@bellevue.co.za. No extra cost, only pay for your food and beverages
We really like the new very elegant labels on the Bellevue wines. The just released 2018 wooded Chardonnay has had 12 months in 100% new French oak but is not over wooded. It has a typical bready Chardonnay nose, with elegance, minerality, golden fruit notes and whiff of smoke on the end. Round on the enjoyable palate, nectarines and peach, limes, citrus and golden oak on the finish. R180 on the farm. Its our Wine of the Week this week. 
Wilhelm also gave us tasting of two new wines just bottled and soon to be released. The 2019 Eselgraaf (Donkey Grave) Single Vineyard Chenin Blanc R75 Perfumed with hints of Hanepoot fruit, peach and elderflower (no cats pee!). Also round on the palate with salty minerality, white pear and blossoms with good balanced grape acidity. Nice use of wood, just shows at the end. The 2019 Sauvignon Blanc R80 - bottled 3 weeks ago - has classic Sauvignon Blanc notes on the nose, green leaf pyrazines & herbs. Crisp acidity, buzz tingle on the tongue, grapes, figs, granadilla. Good minerality and length unwooded, just lees stirring in tank. Bellevue is of course famous for growing the first Pinotage grapes and still produce wonderful Pinotages and other good red wines
We also tasted the Reserve Pinotage 2016 with rich red and black berry fruit, whiffs of steel, wood and vanilla oak. Plums, dark damsons, sweet cherry and some savoury umami licorice on the end. We exited to the stoep while Wilhelm went back to work
An old work bench becomes a plant table
The very good Winter Pensioners' Special lunch menu
Their normal menu
The choice of Pizzas
Or you can order platters
They are very child friendly and, besides the good Kiddies Menu, they have a climbing frame in the garden
More importantly, the wine list
The stoep is covered
And it is nice long stoep. They are planning to extend the roof to cover the whole area
They hold numerous functions and the restaurant is also very popular
Lynne ordered the Cinsault Pizza which has a very good crisp, thin crust. On the normal Margarita base, it is topped with caramelised onions, bacon bits, corn, brie cheese and thyme oil. She tasted the Classic Cinsault with her pizza. It is spicy on the nose with dusty smoke and red berry notes that remind one of Pinot Noir. It had been well chilled so, initially, was rather shy, then dark bitter wood, wild mulberry, rhubarb flavours appeared; even some savouriness, then more notes of ripe, light Pinot fruit as it warmed up with wood on the end. Good with food
John had the burger which comes with a small salad and crisp chips
The talented Pizza chef. A great place to drop in to taste good wines and have some lunch
They also host functions and weddings
Our bill
All content ©  John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus
Posted by MENU at 5:12 pm 1 comments

Thursday, May 30, 2019

This Week’s MENU. Middelvlei Centenary, La Mouette Winter menu, Beau Constantia, Beef Casserole, Middelvlei Shiraz

Watching the winter waves, between Clifton and Camps Bay

Sometime, years ago, someone said that winter is a time to slow down, to hibernate, to pause and reflect on life. That may be true in another life, but it is certainly not true in this little corner of our world. This week, we celebrate old and new, the centenary of a family’s farm and new developments on another, newer estate; and a family birthday, celebrated with a special meal. A fairly quiet week, while we brace ourselves for an acceleration of events. Watch, as they say, this space…. As we are all going to do with our new Government
In 1919 two brothers, Tinnie and Niels Momberg, bought Middelvlei, just outside Stellenbosch, and moved their families onto the farm and now, 100 years later, they are celebrating their centenary and nearly ten generations of Momberg family farmers. We were invited to join them, to taste some of their wines, older and new vintages and to experience their 'egte Boerebraai' (real farmers' barbecue). Middelvlei is in the beautiful Devon Valley in Stellenbosch. It was a very special day of great wines, good food and superb hospitality…
A family birthday always means a food celebration in our house and this weekend we went to try out the Winter Special at La Mouette for daughter Clare's birthday. We would thoroughly recommend this! It was indeed a feast and rather good value…
An invitation to visit Beau Constantia last Monday evening to learn about new developments there was gratefully accepted. Darkness is falling at 6 pm in Cape Town at the moment, but John's camera still finds enough light to show another Constantia farm along the valley...
This was our favourite wine of the Vintage tasting held at Middelvlei. Rich cherry, raspberry, strawberry fruit, like a summer pudding, with some spice and black pepper on the nose. Rounded and deep on the palate, full of cherry berry summer pudding or fruit jelly flavours initially, then the kick of alcohol gives almost Romtopf complexity. Delicious. It finishes with some cumin and cinnamon spice. Drinking beautifully now and undoubtedly will age well. A great Shiraz for complex food, including game, meat and dishes from foreign shores like Morocco, Mexico and India
Lynne wanted to try and recapture the wonderful flavours of the casserole we had at Bones restaurant when we went there a couple of months ago. This is her attempt. Getting a huge piece of shin of beef on the bone is not easy so she used cut rounds of shin…








30th May 2019

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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 our website and ancillary works are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are often 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.

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All content ©  John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus
Posted by MENU at 10:27 pm 0 comments

New developments at Beau Constantia

An invitation to visit Beau Constantia last Monday evening to learn about new developments there was gratefully accepted. Darkness is falling at 6 pm in Cape Town at the moment, but John's camera still finds enough light to show another Constantia farm along the valley
This is neighbour farm Constantia Glen, where the wines of Beau Constantia have been made by winemaker Justin van Wyk
We entered through the Beau Constantia tasting room. The function was beneath it at the Chef's Warehouse Restaurant 
Welcomed with a glass of Beau Constantia Pas de Nom MCC Bubbly
We could also enjoy glasses of the other Beau Constantia Wines. We certainly enjoyed the Aiden very much,
it is a satisfying and complex full of berry fruit blend of 49% Shiraz, 20% Petit Verdot, 18% Malbec and 13% Cabernet Sauvignon

being poured in precise measures
Early birds, we chat to Tasting Room Manager Johann Olivier
who is leaving this week to take up a new job at Diemersfontein wine estate in Wellington
Chef Patron of Chef's Warehouse at Beau Constantia, Ivor Jones
produced some really excellent canapés later on in the evening
His staff ably served the 80 invited guests
Some kale for one of the canapés 
The guests begin to arrive. The restaurant does convert very well into a function venue
A guitarist who played good jazz and popular music
Not sure the amp was needed, sometimes it is difficult to hear conversation above loud music in an enclosed space like this
Pierre du Preez, owner of Beau Constantia, welcomed us and told us about some of the changes happening
and thanked winemaker Justin van Wyk for the work he has done for Beau Constantia over the years
He said a fond farewell to Wine Tasting General Manager Johann Olivier
Constantia Glen CEO Horst Prader, listening to the announcements
and Pierre du Preez announced that Megan van der Merwe is now their winemaker
She was previously Assistant Winemaker with Justin van Wyk and made her first vintage of Beau Constantia this harvest
Johann made a short speech of thanks and talked about how much he had enjoyed his time at Beau Constantia
The new Tasting Room Manageress will take over this week
Listening intently
And then Megan made her speech and told us how excited she was to be making the wines for the farm
After the announcements, the canapés started to circulate
This was our favourite dish. Seared tender strips of venison, topped with a chicken liver parfait, crisp croutons,
truffle oil and some beads of a balsamic fruit vinegar with a nice acid bite which completed a rich dish
Crisp breadcrumbed fried squares of belly of lamb on a smooth as silk celeriac purée,
a mustard sauce and topped with crisp kale
Flakes of dried bonito on top of a seared Tuna Tataki
Johann, Megan, and owners Pierre and Cecily du Preez
Canapés coming thick and fast please a happy owner
Roasted cauliflower topped with a parmesan cream, raisins and toasted pine nuts - rather Sicilian in style
Yellowtail sashimi in a Vietnamese Nuoc Cham, sauce topped with Shiso leaves and other fresh green herbs. Superb
We did not need supper after this tour de force. Chef Ivor Jones is very talented indeed
We were here for Lynne’s Birthday last year and may well repeat the process this year. This is the sort of food we love to eat
and, in a corner, some cheese platters with a selection of breads and crackers

Posted by MENU at 9:02 pm 0 comments
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