Monday, April 16, 2012

Main Ingredient’s MENU - Expressions dinner at the Taj, Vanilla, La Mouette, A night at the Chapmans Peak Hotel, Wine courses, Products, Our market activities, Events and Restaurants

MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
Click on underlined and Bold words to open links to pictures, blogs, websites or more information
The Sentinel & Hout Bay from the pool deck, Chapman’s Peak hotel
In this week’s MENU:
*     Products
*     Our market activities
*     Expressions dinner at the Taj
*     Vanilla
*     La Mouette
*     A night at the Chapmans Peak Hotel
Products     We have had numerous enquiries from people who read this newsletter, asking which markets we attend and what products we sell. To make this information, which has always been near the end, more easily accessible, we have moved these paragraphs to the top. New this week is a range of Spanish sherry vinegars, solera aged for four and eight years, in addition to the less expensive sherry vinegars we have stocked before. These are still available, as are the real Spanish paella rice and smoked paprika. For those and any other products you need, you can access our product list and see pictures in 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. We are very happy to see that traffic on our website is increasing and more orders are coming from it.
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. Do contact us if there is something you cant find, we may be able to help.
Our market activities    We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday (Easter) and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00, and we will be back at Long Beach Mall on lucky Friday, 13th April for our South Peninsula friends.
Another of the Expressions of... regional wine and food tastings with dinner was held last Thursday at the Taj hotel’s Mint restaurant, this time featuring the wines of Elgin, Lamberts Bay & Cederberg, cooler climate areas, with the food of Gordon Manuel from The Venue at South Hill wine estate in Elgin. We had a fairly rapid tasting of the wines before dinner and especially liked the Elgin Vintners new release Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blend, The Century 2011 – the perfect wine for celebrations. Paul Cluver’s Riesling Close Encounter 2011 was very Germanic in style, attractive and full of light honey and low in turpene flavours. South Hill’s very reasonable Cabernet rosé is one we will be ordering this year and the Radford Dale Pinot Noir was knockout; completely fruit driven and very Burgundian in style and not at all heavy and dark. Then welcomed into dinner with a glass of Elgin Ridge Sauvignon blanc with great company as the winemakers and markets join you, we ate very well. Pictures can be seen here.
Our first course of poached pears and gorgonzola, walnuts and candid beetroot puree was served with Iona Viognier 09. The next course was truly magnificent and very delicious. We don’t often eat chicken at restaurants but this Elgin free range chicken cooked en Papillote was served on a wild mushroom and truffle risotto and had been perfectly cooked: crisp skin on the outside and falling off the bone. We had two wines paired with the lovely dish and there was much debate about which of them best matched. We voted for the Thelema Sutherland Viognier Roussanne 09 but the Radford Dale Freedom Pinot Noir 2010 was a very, very close second. The next course was Beef fillet poached in red wine on a rather sweet smoked potato puree with vanilla infused baby vegetables and a port wine jus. Well matched with Cederberg’s Shiraz 2008 but a rather large helping after the chicken. The vanilla was intended as a component in the baby vegetables, but a little too much had leached into the meat and the potato puree, which rather overpowered the other flavours.
Dessert was a tiny apple mousse tart with strawberry compote, very good cardamom ice cream with ginger and this was paired with the South Hill Rosé which picked up the strawberry well. You can try these dishes on the Mint Restaurant menu for the whole month of April, paired with the same wines.
The next Expressions of ... Greater Simonsberg, Stellenbosch Valley and Bottelary Hills will be held on Thursday, 26th April with guest chef Christiaan Campbell of Delaire Graff, so be sure to book soon; these dinners are becoming very popular. And remember the Taj also has free regional wine tastings on from 5 to 8 pm on Wednesday evenings in the hotel lobby.
Vanilla     There is quite a debate about vanilla. It is quite a sophisticated flavour. One first encounters it in vanilla ice cream and then in your mother’s or others’ baking. And of course it is a prominent flavour in wines, as good oak often imparts this to wines like Chardonnays and Chenins. Vanilla essence is a chemical compound that tries to capture the flavours of the real vanilla bean, the fruit of a tropical orchid, but never quite succeeds; extracts are the real thing. We think the difference is extreme and won’t use anything else but real vanilla. But do you want vanilla in savoury food? We have been offered truffle oil which contains vanilla and it appears fairly regularly on top restaurants’ menus in sauces for fish, seafood, meat and even vegetables. We find the sweet, rather cloying flavour does nothing for us on savoury dishes, but we are open to being persuaded. What do you think? You will, of course, find vanilla pods and the excellent Nielsen Massey vanilla extract and paste in our product list.
Flying with Seagulls     Before putting our Dutch friends on the plane on Saturday night, they treated us to dinner at La Mouette, who have just introduced their very reasonably priced Autumn six course menu. The portion sizes are, thankfully, not gargantuan but you do feel you have had a substantial meal at the end of the evening. Chef Henry Vigar has, you will be delighted to know, left the truffle and cheese croquettes on the menu as the first course; these come with a bowl of smoked tomato aioli. Next was a rather chewy round ravioli filled with butternut and covered with a brown butter and crisply fried sage leaves, which much complimented the dish. Then came a fresh piece of roasted yellowtail on a chickpea, tomato and spinach ragout. Do whole chickpeas go with fish? The jury is out on that one. The next course was a Confit shoulder of beef – tender and gentle; the beef was almost like something out of a stew and, surprisingly for us as we are not usually fans, the sweet corn polenta was soft and smooth with distinct notes of corn rather than the hard rubber-like starch you get in other restaurants. A tomato gremolata and pea shoots accompanied it. Pictures here.
Then appeared a tiny treasure, a warm and airily light choux pastry doughnut with lemon curd and filled with coffee Chantilly cream. Served on a Chinese spoon, it was far too little – we all wanted a bowlful of them. Dessert was a gooey Chocolate orange macaroon, a chocolate financier, an orange puree, a very good marmalade ice cream with some lovely crusty scrapings of what tasted like Ovaltine around it and Cointreau syrup. This menu costs a very reasonable R165 per person and R330 if you have the wine pairings they suggest with each course. We had a bottle of Springfield Life from Stone, and took a very special bottle from our cellar of Cordoba Cabernet Merlot 2002. Sadly the Cordoba wine estate is no longer in production, but Christopher Keet, who made the wines, is now producing under his own name.
La Mouette also has a 7 course Gourmand menu on offer at R395, R560 with the wine pairings.
The perfect weekend away and only a few miles from home     We were spoilt rotten on Sunday night by Lydia Nobrega, who invited us to come and stay at the Chapman’s Peak Hotel, which her family has owned for many years. Many of us have lovely memories of the old hotel, which is still there, and the great calamari they serve on the terrace, but they have built on a super modern addition and the rooms are very tasteful and cleanly luxurious, all with wonderful views across Hout Bay beach and bay towards the Sentinel and the harbour. Glass doors to the balcony completely block off any traffic noise and you sleep in great comfort. First we treated ourselves to a great dinner on the terrace. Fiery hot Peri peri chicken livers and calamari & chorizo were our starters, followed by 5 fat sardines with very crisp chips for John and prawns and calamari and a salad for Lynne. The food is freshly cooked and has always been of a very high standard. We ordered a bottle of Adi Badenhorst’s lovely rich, fruity and crisp Secateurs Chenin Blanc 2011, very reasonably priced at R99, and then opened a very special bottle of Cape Point Semillon 2006 which we had brought with us in case Lydia appeared. This wine just gets better and better in its fullness of flavour, depth and elegance. We had the rest the following night and it was possibly even better. As we were not going far, we were tempted by the chocolate tart and the crème brulée before tottering off to bed for a reasonably early night. Dinner came to R530 including a contribution for our great waiter Jethro. Breakfast in the dining room the next morning was a sumptuous spread of everything you could possibly want - you can order a full English breakfast or variations - which is freshly cooked for you. If the weather is great, you can have it on the terrace. John stuck to his usual fruit and muesli, Lynne had a cheese omelette and we both could not resist the freshly baked Belgian croissants with our good black coffees. Many of you will remember them; we sold them frozen, ready-to-bake from our shop. If you want to spoil your partner, book here for a very special night away. Lydia gave us a tour of one the two amazing penthouse suites on the top floor and took us to see the superb swimming pool built into the rocks above the road. We then had a short walk on the beach after which it was home and back to mounds of work for us. Pictures here
Felicitations. Most of our readers will be celebrating Easter or Passover. We wish you and all who fill the important spaces in your lives happy Easter and Chag Sameach. May you travel safely and enjoy a wonderful long weekend with people you love.
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 list for and beyond. 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.
We have had a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details here.
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.






5th April 2012

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 product list 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 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 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.
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.
This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Taste of Cape Town 2012

Over four days, this unique festival will once again bring together the city’s most acclaimed restaurants and carefully selected exhibitors to attract Cape Town’s most dedicated and sophisticated foodies. Taste of Cape Town brings together the city’s finest restaurants, award- winning wineries, premium drink brands, artisan producers, boutique exhibitors and fantastic entertainment.
A line-up of 14 elite restaurants will delight and tantalise all of your senses. Enjoy this unique chance to sample 3 signature dishes from the very best of Cape Town’s restaurants, served up by their finest culinary talent. Meet star chefs, sample top local food and drink, learn something new from one of these top chefs and have an all round great day.

Restaurants

Restaurants will fashion special menus of starter sized dishes for the occasion, including signature dishes created by chefs to specially reflect their philosophy and showcase seasonal and premium ingredients.
Ticket Prices:
R80 Standard
Entrance to the festival and includes a tasting glass
R200 Premium
Entrance to the festival and includes a tasting glass and R120 worth of Crowns (The official currency of Taste of Cape Town)
R685 Taste Clubhouse Experience presented by DStv
Entrance to the festival including a tasting glass, 3 premium drinks, R180 worth of Crowns, private clubhouse with a cash bar
R750 ex Vat Corporate Hospitality ticket
Includes an exclusive area which serves as your base for the show – your branding may be placed in the area upon request*. R180 worth of Crowns per person (The official festival currency) Fast track entry. A tasting glass Complimentary premium bar Taste of Cape Town gift
As part of the package, spend an exclusive 30 minute wine and whisky tasting with the inimitable and highly respected Wade Bales. Well-known wine connoisseur, Wade, and a top SA wine maker will take you on a tantalising journey where you will get to sample  a selection of iconic South African wines and a wee dram or two of internationally acclaimed single malt whiskies.
* Subject to the number of guests
Taste of Cape Town Crowns – How they work:
CROWNS are the festival currency used at Taste Festivals to purchase food and drinks from the restaurants, bars and exhibitors. CROWNS can be pre-purchased with Premium or Taste Club House tickets. CROWNS can also be purchased using cash or credit card at the event from the Taste Bank or from roaming Crown sellers dressed in pink. Each CROWN is worth R5 and prices range from 4 to 8 CROWNS per dish. Change is offered in CROWNS only.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Taste of Cape Town, retrospective

The first Taste of Cape Town, in 2008, was on the playing fields of Camps Bay High School,

with beautiful views over the Atlantic Ocean.
We joined some of our friends for a wonderful evening of fun and good food.
Some of the chefs enjoyed it too.
Italian cars go well with gourmet food.
2009's show was in the shadow of Lion's Head,
with a selection of the best chefs showing their talents.
Jenny Morris and Clive Torr showed that it's fun to pair good food and wine

We took Lynne's English cousins, who were suitably impressed.

2010 was on the fields of two neighboring schools in Mowbray. Good fun, wonderful food, great wines, but no pictures! Never think a cell phone can do as well as your Nikon!

In 2011 the show moved to Green Point, in the shadow of the Cape Town Stadium

which is where we believe that it  belongs. More pictures later from this year's event

 

Sunday, April 08, 2012

120329 Main Ingredient’s MENU - Jordan restaurant, Heaven & Earth & Babylon, Products, Our market activities, Wine courses, Events and Restaurants

MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
Click on underlined and Bold words to open links to pictures, blogs, websites or more information
Night fishing in the new harbour, Hermanus

In this week’s MENU:
*     Jardine at Jordan
*     Heaven & Earth & Babylon
*     Products
*     Our market activities
*     Wine courses, Events and Restaurants
Jordan     We know we have written about eating at Jordan several times, but it is our favourite winelands restaurant. George Jardine’s food is delicious, local and fresh. His presentation is fantastic and we love the relaxed atmosphere of the restaurant, the views and Jordan’s great wines to accompany the food. We took our Dutch friends and their Aunt Maureen there for lunch last Thursday and we had a superb time.
It was an end of summer day with a heat haze across the valley, but the temperature at this time of year is very comfortable. The dams in all the areas we have visited are very low and we are all hoping for a wet winter this year. But it has been a fantastic harvest for many of the areas and we are already hearing great reports of superb wine. Some may produce quite low alcohol wines, as ripening has been slow and steady with good phenolic ripeness but lower sugars than usual, not a bad thing. READ MORE HERE
Searching Heaven and Earth and Babylon
We took our friends to the Hemel and Aarde valley for three days this week, for some country air. We stay in a cottage owned by friends which faces the other Cape Babylonstoren mountains. It is peaceful and so quiet. The plan is always to do as little as possible but taste lots of wines in the valley so we have been to four vineyards this trip: Bouchard Finlayson, Newton Johnson, Ataraxia and Creation all of whom treated us like royalty. We bought wine at each farm and even had some sent to Holland. We had one meal out at Harbour Rock in Hermanus’ new harbour, which we expected to be busy as the school holidays have begun, but it wasn’t. See pictures by clicking here
We ate fish and seafood, with very fresh kabeljou, West coast oysters, small starters of calamari, sushi and some not quite perfect prawns - some were a little raw and others overcooked. Some crisp chips but, sadly, lots of slap chips and minimal salads. Carolyn Martin at Creation had given us a bottle of the just released 2011 Sauvignon blanc to drink with dinner and we also had a bottle of Jordan Nine Yards 2003 Chardonnay, which Lynne gave John for his 60th birthday, and needed drinking. It was a golden yellow and still full of fruit and good flavours, but on the edge of maderisation, so we did drink it just in time.
This evening, we will be at the launch of the Expressions of … April menu at Mint Restaurant at the Taj. You can see more about it here.
AVGOLEMONO GREEK SOUP
With the weather starting to get a little more autumnal we thought a soup might be in order. This is a classic Greek recipe and really lovely whatever the weather. It is often served at holidays or celebrations in Greece. You can do the whole recipe or you can start with ready-made stock and some cooked chicken, depending on how much time you have. If you are doing this, start from ## with hot stock. This makes  6 - 8 Servings
1 whole chicken, 1.5 kg approx -  water – 2 carrots, roughly chopped – 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped – 1 onion, roughly chopped – 2 bay leaves – 5 black peppercorns – 1 t salt – half a cup rice or orzo rice shaped pasta (optional) – 3 fresh eggs, at room temperature – juice of 2 lemons, strained – zest of one lemon – salt and freshly ground black pepper - parsley
Trim all the excess fat off the chicken, put it into a large pot with the vegetables and add enough water to cover the chicken by 5 cm.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 1½ hours. Take out the chicken, remove the meat and set aside for use later. Strain the stock and skim off any fat.
## Add the rice or orzo pasta, if using, and cook until tender.  While the rice is cooking, whisk the eggs until very frothy then add the lemon juice in a thin stream while you continue whisking. Put 2 ladlefuls of the hot soup stock into a separate bowl then slowly add the egg and lemon mixture.  This will help to prevent the soup curdling. Put this back into the rest of the soup and heat gently. Do not boil once the egg has been added or you will get scrambled egg. Taste and adjust seasoning to your own taste, then sprinkle on the lemon zest and a little chopped parsley before you serve.  You can add back some of the chicken meat if you want a more substantial soup and you can, if you must, add a couple of spoonfuls of corn flour to thicken, but this is not encouraged.
While the pasta is cooking, prepare the egg-lemon mixture. Using a whisk beat the eggs until nice and frothy. Add the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a steady stream while continuing to whisk.
When the pasta has finished cooking, turn off the heat. Ladle about two cups of broth into a bowl or large measuring cup. Slowly add the hot broth to the egg-lemon mixture while continuing to whisk. This will temper the eggs and prevent them from curdling once they are added to the hot broth.
Stir the egg-lemon mixture into the pot and heat over very low heat for approximately 5 to 10 minutes until heated through. Be careful not to boil the soup once the eggs have been added.
Adjust your seasoning for salt and pepper and add more as desired.
Traditionally, this soup is served without the chicken meat or vegetables. You can add them back or serve on the side as you prefer.
Products     The Mexicorn products flew out last week, the most popular being the Chipotles in adobo and black bean and green salsas. We have ordered more, but have not yet received our stock. We hope it will arrive for Saturday. For those and any other things you want, you can access our product list and see pictures in 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. We are very happy to see that traffic on our website is increasing and more orders are coming from it.
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, 30th March for our South Peninsula friends and we will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00.
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 list for March, April and beyond. 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.
We have had a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details here.
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.
29th March 2012
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 product list 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 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 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.
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.
This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

120322 Main Ingredient’s MENU - Babel, St Patrick’s Day at the Twankey, Wellington & Durbanville harvest festivals, Products, Our market activities, Wine courses, Events and restaurants

ain Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
MENU
M
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
Click on underlined and Bold words to open links to pictures, blogs, websites or more information

A Hartlaub’s gull at the V&A Waterfront
In this week’s MENU:
     Mexicorn salsas
     Babel
Mexicorn salsas      We have very exciting news for some of you, especially those from the Americas who have been asking for these for years. We have just put into stock Mexicorn’s jars of Chipotles in adobo sauce, Chunky tomato salsa, Jalapeno cheddar salsa, Mexican green salsa, Black bean salsa and Chipotle salsa. We only have a few jars of each till next week and you can taste them all at both of our markets this week, Long Beach Mall tomorrow (Friday) and at the Biscuit Mill on Saturday.
Babel’s Amazing Gardens and Food      It can often be disappointing when you finally get to a restaurant which everyone has been talking about. Other than missing the garden tour (mea culpa, says Lynne who got the start time wrong), Babel absolutely lived up to expectations. Babylonstoren farm is officially in Paarl, but it is on the other side of the N1, on the same apparently unnamed road near Simondium as Backsberg and Glen Carlou, on the way to Franschhoek. We could not find a name for the road on the many maps we consulted, including Google Earth.
Someone brilliant planned and planted these amazing gardens and a huge staff of friendly, well trained people manicures and tends them, producing the most amazing looking fruit and vegetables. There are also chickens and ducks and, soon, there will be mushrooms. The tour of the gardens starts at 10, so you need an early start from Cape Town and the tour takes about an hour and a half, which then leaves one rather tired and hungry, with quite a long gap before lunch unless, of course, you have a snack  at the small Conservatory café or book lunch for 12 o’clock. We wandered through the gardens unguided and had lots to admire, as the mixed plantings are done sympathetically and in a very orderly manner. We sat down for a cup of coffee in the café and, finally, it was time for lunch.
All the food is sourced from the garden or locally and the menu is seasonal. (see here for details and photos). Some of our friends had been before, so they knew the drill of ordering each of the three coloured salads, a Green (R50), a Yellow (R60) and a Red (R55) as starters. These are a mix of fruit and vegetable, raw and cooked in the appropriate colours, fairly plainly seasoned and they are a great meal option for vegetarians. The eight of us all had large main courses, which were also accompanied by huge platter of roasted aubergines topped with basil pesto, roasted pears and rather chewy raw fennel and with another platter of the most delicious crisp (duck fat?) chunky chips. Yes, Lynne succumbed to a couple. There were huge lamb cutlets, perfectly pink (R140) in a gooseberry, lemon, caper & mint pesto, Franschhoek Trout with a Kei apple (a miniature indigenous apple tree) sauce. Lynne had a huge portion of rather fatty and rich belly of pork in a superb Vygie (local sour fruit from a succulent) liquor, with fresh figs and crackling. John’s choice was  a huge sirloin steak with an olive and shiraz sauce. This was ordered medium rare, but arrived close to bleu, so it was a tiny bit chewy. The portion was so large that he could not finish it. Saucing is very good, but sometimes a little sparse. None of us could cope with dessert so we ended on good coffees. The bill was R415 per couple including 3 bottles of Anura Sauvignon Blanc (at a very fair R70) and service, which we think is very reasonable for this level of cuisine. You do have to book well in advance to get a table.
St Patrick’s Day     Being of partly Celtic extraction, we enjoyed a brilliant Guinness after the market on Saturday at the Twankey bar at the Taj and were given our free drink for wearing green – ungratefully, we were not too keen on flavoured Jameson’s whisky, they put ginger in it! We bumped into good friends there, and as James is Irish, we had great craik and also some lovely food. Pamela demolished some amazing looking Namibian oysters, John and James had Irish sausages on rolls and Lynne very good crisp and spicy chilli crusted calamari. What a nice way to chill on a Saturday afternoon. We will be back, even without an excuse. Wait a minute, St Georges day is 23rd April.... We’ve missed St David’s day (1st March) and we have to wait till November for St Andrew. Does SA have a patron Saint? All suggestions gratefully received but St Julius is not acceptable. St Desmond might be.
Harvest festival binge     On Sunday, we hied off to Wellington for their festival, saw some lovely people and drank some lovely wines. First stop was  Diemersfontein, where we were welcomed by a very trim David Sonnenberg, enjoyed the full tasting, ate a little sushi and left with a couple of bottles of Carpe Diem Chenin blanc, quite glorious. Then, off to Bovlei where Bubbly and Oysters were on offer – our friends and John demolished 12 each (at a bargain R7 each) in very short order, while we tasted some of the wines and bought a box of their inexpensive Gewürztraminer to serve with winter curries and some of their good white grape juice for our teetotal friends. We left with a wicked packet of slap chips, BAD. Down the valley to Dunstone, where we had a quick tasting and ate nothing. Then to gorgeous Nabygelegen to admire their restored ancient tasting room, which was a ruin when we were last there. James McKenzie has done a great and sympathetic restoration. We tasted the wines and Lynne bought a case of their really good Merlot, which doesn’t show any green stalkiness or mint and is full of sweet ripe fruit and some chalky tannins, pointing to a short life in our cellar before drinking. We could also not resist the prawns, calamari and mussels they were serving, so had plates of those, well-matched with a bottle of the Lady Anna chenin sauvignon blend for the three passengers. The problem with the grazing on each farm is that you spend quite a lot of money, but in this case it was really good value and worth it. Yes, they came with more chips. Not a vegetable in sight in Wellington... Our final stop was at Welbedacht where we chatted with Rob Gower who is working there at the moment and also Schalk Burger senior , his winemaker son Tiaan and, of course, Mugabe the shar pei (Schalk says he is planning to take over the farm) while we tasted through the wines. John bought a box of the barrel matured Chenin. Schalk junior, who is recovering from an injury sustained in the first Super 15 match of the season, had the afternoon off. What a friendly place Wellington is.
Durbanville, sensibly, decided to have their Feast of the Grape Harvest festival on our Freedom Day public holiday on Wednesday, so off we went with John’s daughter Clare and all our Dutch visitors in tow. First to Durbanville Hills, where there was lots going on, including tots crushing grapes by foot in a paddling pool and having a whale of a time. We did a quick tasting, especially loved the Biesjes Craal Sauvignon Blanc and the Rhinofields Shiraz. The girls had a mid morning coffee and then off we pushed to see Oliver Parker at Altydgedacht. This year we were able to taste and buy the Ollo white blend and the lovely light Tygervalley Rosé, made from Cabernet franc, and loved the Gewürztraminer and the 2011 Sauvignon Blanc. We had our first taste of a 2012 Sauvignon, but it needs time to learn good manners, which it will undoubtedly do. Sadly the Gamay and the Cabernet franc are sold out, but we are sure Oliver is very happy about that. We turned back to Nitida and after our expensive snacking at Wellington we decided to have a sit down meal in Cassia and were fortunate to get a table. Most had the huge burgers with potato wedges, Yvonne had a fig, ham and cheese salad and Lynne had a great duck salad. We drank a bottle or two of Nitida Sauvignon Blanc and one person succumbed to the mini Pavlova. Then off for the late afternoon view from De Grendel’s terrace, a sight of their new restaurant, and a taste of their lovely wines before heading home.
This was Lynne’s second duck salad of the week , different but also special, because we went to Dynasty in Sea Point, where it is currently one of the chefs specials, for a quick supper, before doing an airport collection on Monday. We had dumplings as starters, the two lads had beef dishes and Yvonne also had the duck salad . There has not been much cooking happening in our house this week, except for one dinner party for another Swallow visiting from Germany, when Lynne used the Aubergines we were gifted at Babylon to make a melanzane: layers of dry fried sliced aubergine, mozzarella cheese and a good herbed tomato sauce – also quite low carb. She served this with pork chops for the non-vegetarians and tagliatelle for the carb eaters. And we tried out the Mexicorn products as our starters, with nachos, crudités and tortilla wraps. A friend brought a wicked chocolate torte. Having visitors from overseas is great, but if does fill up all the moments in between work. We love being busy. Today we took our friends’ lively 87 year old Aunt Maureen for lunch at Jardine on Jordan; you will read all about it next week, because this must go out tonight.
Happy eating and drinking. The diet was only followed marginally this week but is being kept up where possible. Weight is not coming off but the inches are.
Products     Besides the Mexicorn products, we have added pistachio oil to our list. If you are looking for anything, check the products in our list here and tell us what you want. You will also be able to access the list and see pictures in 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. We are very happy to see that traffic on our website is increasing and more orders are coming from it.
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, 23rd March for our South Peninsula friends and 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 list for March, April and beyond. 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.
We have had a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details here.
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.





22nd March 2012

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 product list 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 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 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.
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.
This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.
     Events and restaurants
     Wine courses
     Our market activities
     Products
     Wellington & Durbanville harvest festivals
     St Patrick’s Day at the Twankey