Thursday, March 21, 2019

This Week's MENU. Panama Jack, Goloso, Boston Brewery, Rotis & Samoosas, Moroccan Lamb shanks

Looking for a brighter future? Two young men looking out toward the Atlantic Ocean

Electricity, or the absence of it, is our biggest talking point. We are losing five hours from each day, half in the daytime and half in the evening. There is another 2½ hour blackout in the early hours of the morning which is also a nuisance, as we often record our favourite TV programmes at those times. Everyone is suffering; businesses’ survival is threatened and all because we are governed by a gang of crooks who have stolen the money which was meant to be used for building new power stations and maintaining the old ones. We have sent out requests for quotes and  are very close to installing photovoltaic electricity which will make us independent of Eskom. We expect that many people and businesses will soon do the same. This, of course, will deprive the electricity generator of much needed income. To quote Hamlet, they are “hoist on their own petard”. Self-inflicted punishment; we’re two months away from an election…
There is not much activity at the moment in the wine PR world as most farms are harvesting in between bouts of bad weather. So, this week, it’s all about food and some beer

 We check on-line sites for specials and Hyperli does come up with a few good things. Panama Jack's has been a legendary restaurant in the Cape Town docks for many years, especially for business lunches, but the restaurant was tired, the building owners gave them notice and we all thought that was that. But no, they have had a renaissance in the new Cruise Ship Terminal on the Foreshore
Another restaurant that came highly recommended on Restaurants, The Good, the Bad and the Nasty was Goloso in Regent Road, Sea Point. Unashamedly Italian in cuisine, they have an early bird special which, because of the power cuts, we decided would be a good distraction
We love beer, almost as much as wine. We both drank beer with our dads when we were very, very small. Lynne had an arrangement with hers: The beer was his, the foam was hers. And John had his own small beer mug. Most wine farms are busy harvesting and making wine; there is very little activity out there for us to write about – everyone is too busy to talk to us - so we decided to go and taste some good beer. You can do a tasting at Boston Brewery in Paarden Eiland for R100 each and you get a choice of 8 beers from their selection of 12
Our beer tasting at Boston Breweries in Paarden Eiland left us very hungry, so we headed to Café Zorina, an old lunchtime haunt of John’s when he worked at AGFA, to which he was introduced by his colleague Omar Abdurahman. Zorina's is extremely popular in the area and it is just a take away business. Short queues and efficient service mean that your lunch comes quickly. You will need cash, they don’t take cards
A substantial and impressive dinner dish, possibly great for serving at Easter or Passover. This is a new way of cooking cous cous for Lynne and she found it very successful. We found Ras al Hanout in Pick n Pay, but we have given you a recipe to make enough for the dish from spices in your cupboard
We have not tasted much wine this week and the recipe above was difficult with wine, so we reckoned it would go well with beer. Tomatoes can be very hard to pair with wine. We tried a Pinotage and a Shiraz and they both turned metallic. So we have suggested beer as a good refreshing match, given that the dish also has a nice buzz from the chilli. We enjoyed this beer at a tasting we had at Boston Beer in Paarden Island – see the article


21st March 2019


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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 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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Posted by MENU at 8:49 pm 0 comments

MENU's Wine of the Week is... a beer. Boston Rockhoppa IPA

We have not tasted much wine this week and this week's recipe was difficult with wine, so we think it might go with beer. Tomatoes are very hard to pair with wine. We tried a Pinotage and a Shiraz and they both turned metallic. So we have suggested beer as a good refreshing match, given that the dish also has a nice buzz from the chilli.  We enjoyed this beer at a tasting we had at Boston Beer in Paarden Island – see the article
IPA beers are very popular and frequently have an underlying citrus note, often orange. This beer,  clear and pale gold, is perfumed and mildly malty with quite complex flavours: lots of granadilla with grapefruit and lemony citrus. It is lightly bready from the barley, and finishes with a nice bitterness from the hops, refreshing , delicious and satisfying alone or with a dish like this.  As it is named for the Rock Hopper Penguin, R1 from the price of every bottle is donated to SANCCOB to support their work with penguins and other sea birds. It won Gold at the SA Beer Awards 2017
Posted by MENU at 3:54 pm 0 comments

Craft beer on the hop. A brewery visit and tasting at Boston Brewery

We love beer, almost as much as wine. We both drank beer with our dads when we were very, very small. Lynne had an arrangement with hers: The beer was his, the foam was hers. And John had his own small beer mug. Most wine farms are busy harvesting and making wine; there is very little activity out there for us to write about – everyone is too busy to talk to us - so we decided to go and taste some good beer. You can do a tasting at Boston Brewery in Paarden Eiland for R100 each and you get a choice of 8 beers from their selection of 12. https://bostonbreweries.co.za Booking is essential and tours can be booked Monday to Saturday tastingroom@bostonbreweries.co.za / 021 300 0625
All their beers are made with just four ingredients: malted barley, water, yeast and hops, as, indeed, they should be
In the tasting room with Operations Manager Jason Wiltshire, who took us on a tour
and then gave us a great tasting in their roomy tasting room - which can be hired for corporate functions
He poured us these two Naked Mexicans to take with us to drink on our tour
It is their most popular beer, made in the style of the light lager Mexican beers
No this is not a winery, it’s a brewery. The tanks with pointy ends are where they do the fermenting and when the process is finished and all the sugar has been turned into alcohol, the dead yeast cells, the lees, drop to the bottom, so are easy to get out
Most of the beers they make go to pubs, restaurants, hotels and specialist retail outlets
These are the pressurised casks they are delivered in, so that they can be poured "on tap"
We said "hello", briefly, to a very busy man, the owner and brewer Chris Barnard. He started small, at the time of the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, with a home brewing kit and it took over his life - and his bathroom. He owned a plastics factory and his wife made him take his brewing to work. He began by making beer for his own consumption and friends in a corner of the factory. He used to give beer to his workers and they stole his Boston Plastics stickers to put on the beers so they could sell, illicitly, it to shebeens in the townships. Then, one day, he received an order from one for Boston Beer and he realised it was time to go commercial. Then, bit by bit, it encroached on the plastics until it took over and now he has this successful brewery in the same building. It’s quite a success story
Decanting the wort from the mash tun before fermentation; you can see the unfermented new beer running through the pipe
Jason took us into the malted barley store
They order all their barley from Malterie du Chateau in Belgium. It is consistent and gives them exactly what they want
Beside their own beers, they also brew for several other popular craft labels
Some of the malted barley used for lighter beers
And this is the dark roasted barley used for stouts and dark beers
Lynne tried a little and it is intense with flavours of coffee mocha
The tasting room and bar
Their bottled beers are for sale, packed in fours
The tasting glasses
You look down at the brewery, which is kept sparkling clean
We began with the Premium Lager, bready on the nose with a good foam and bitter hops with a hint of fennel seed
and the popular, refreshing Naked Mexican, light yeasty. a little citrus in flavour and very quaffable. 4½% alcohol
Jason explains all the beers while we have the chore of tasting them
A shot of the beer casks in the cellar
IPA beers are very popular and frequently have an underlying citrus note, often orange. This beer, clear and pale gold, is perfumed and mildly malty with quite complex flavours: lots of granadilla with grapefruit and lemony citrus. It is lightly bready from the barley, and finishes with a nice bitterness from the hops, refreshing , delicious and satisfying alone or with a dish like this.  As it is named for the Rock Hopper Penguin, R1 from the price of every bottle is donated to SANCCOB to support their work with penguins and other sea birds. It won Gold at the SA Beer Awards 2017. We made it our Beer of the Week

We tasted the two Weiss beers, so different from each other. They are made with wheat rather than barley. The Johnny Gold has smoky bacon on the nose, ripe banana and yeast with some coriander. It is very popular, many women like it best. The Wild Honey Blonde Crystal Weiss has real fynbos honey added at fermentation - 60 litres of it to a tank. It is the brewery’s second biggest seller. A crisp, almost champagne, sparkle with citrus herbs and some honey notes on the end, and not as lactic as the Johnny Gold. The Whale Tale Ale was made for international visitors looking for a familiar style of beer, like the British and Belgians. It has gentle hops, blended with darker malts and is enjoyable for us who have lived overseas. Perfumed, light citrus, long and slightly sweeter flavours, it slips down very well. The Van Hunks Pumpkin Ale was an experiment and they do use pumpkin and spices in the brewing. Lots of coriander seed and cinnamon on the nose and palate, we immediately thought of it with spicy food and you could definitely cook with this - we were imagining slow cooked mutton or beef in beer. And finally, and nearly also our Beer of the Week, was the Black River Coffee stout. Made originally for winter drinking, it has become very popular all year round. They do add 6 kg of Ethiopian cold-brewed espresso coffee to the tank – liquid, not the grounds. It has lots of coffee mocha chocolate and vanilla flavours, sweetness and then suddenly it tastes like a good wine on the palate
Of course we bought some of these, the Premium Lager (this version is gluten free), the Black River Coffee Stout and the Rock Hoppa IPA, seen here with John’s original beer mug
We so recommend that you do this tasting; it’s a great experience. And take your friends along for the ride
Thank you Jason for being so friendly, hospitable and helpful
Posted by MENU at 3:50 pm 0 comments

On the MENU this Week. Moroccan Lamb Shanks

A substantial and impressive dinner dish, possibly great for serving at Easter or Passover. This is a new way of cooking cous cous for Lynne and she found it very successful. We found Ras al Hanout in Pick n Pay, but we have given you a recipe to make enough for the dish from spices in your cupboard
Lynne has also found an almost foolproof way of cooking baby aubergines without frying them. After salting them and drying them, cook them in a dish in the microwave for about 3 to 4 minutes and then add to your dish, they will then not be tough and under-cooked. Larger aubergines may take take a little longer
4 Tablespoons canola oil - 4 lamb shanks - Salt and freshly ground black pepper - 1 large onion, finely chopped - 2 carrots, finely chopped - 2 large garlic cloves, minced – 2.5 teaspoons of Ras al Hanout spice mix - 1 tablespoon tomato paste - 1 teaspoon Harissa or other chilli paste - 1 cup dry red wine - A tin of chopped tomatoes - 2 cups chicken stock – a tin of chickpeas - 10 whole de-pipped dates – five baby aubergines, quartered – 1 red pepper, seeds removed and sliced
For the cous cous
1/4 cup slivered almonds, chopped - 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint - 2 tablespoons chopped coriander or parsley - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil - 1 half an onion, finely chopped - 2 cups instant couscous - 1 cup of chicken stock - 1 cup water - 1/4 cup dried sultanas – 6 Turkish dried apricots, quartered
Preheat the oven to 170°. In a large enamel cast-iron casserole, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil. Season the shanks with salt and pepper. Add them to the casserole, 2 at a time, and cook over moderately high heat until browned all over, about 12 minutes. Transfer to a plate
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in the casserole.  Add the onion and fry till it is soft then add the carrots and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes.  Add the Ras al Hanout and cook, stirring until lightly toasted, about 1 minute.  Add the tomato paste and Harissa and cook over moderate heat, stirring , about 2 minutes. Stir in the wine and boil until reduced to a thick syrup, about 4 minutes
Add the tomatoes and 1 cup of the chicken stock to the casserole. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Nestle the lamb shanks in the liquid. Cover tightly and braise in the oven for about an hour, basting occasionally. Taste the sauce and add seasoning if needed. Now stir in the chickpeas and bake for another hour, then add the dates , aubergines and peppers and cook until the meat is almost falling off the bone. If the sauce is dry at any point, add a little water. Taste and adjust seasoning. Tomatoes can be very acidic, add a little sugar if you feel the sauce needs it
Put the almonds in small pan in an even layer, with a ½ teaspoon of oil and carefully toast until golden, stirring to prevent them burning. Be careful not to break up the almonds
Cous Cous
Mix the chopped herbs and almonds and season lightly with salt and pepper
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the onion and cook over moderately high heat until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the couscous and cook until coated, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining 1 cup of chicken stock, the water and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the sultanas and apricots. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and stir in the herb-almond mixture
You can serve the lamb on top of the cous cous in an attractive tagine dish or serve separately. With large shanks, this dish will serve more than 4 people
Ras al Hanout
1 teaspoon ground cumin - 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander - 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon - 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice - 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Posted by MENU at 3:50 pm 0 comments

Rotis and samoosas on Milnerton Beach

Our beer tasting at Boston Breweries in Paarden Eiland left us very hungry, so we headed to Café Zorina, an old lunchtime haunt of John’s when he worked at AGFA 
They are extremely popular in the area and it is just a take away business. Short queues and efficient service mean that your lunch comes quickly. You do need cash, they don’t take cards
They sell a selection of traditional Cape Malay delicacies from Samoosas, to Koeksisters and other delights
They do have superb Rotis, which are so large some of us could not finish one in one session (Lynne)
And the best crisp samoosas in Cape Town. Not layers and layers of limp dough, just enough to cover the filling and superbly crunchy.  Our order was 6 meat samosas - quite spicy with green chilly, a mince roti (John) and a beef roti (Lynne).  The lamb is so popular it had run out by 1.30.  You can have chutney as an extra. Our order cost R125, a very reasonable lunch and very filling
And where better to enjoy our lunch, but where the sea enters the lagoon at Milnerton beach, just minutes away
There is a nice walkway alongside
Some lads enjoying the view
It is school holiday time and some children were playing in the water. Not to be recommended as the lagoon can be quite polluted as it is filled with a river that runs through settlements.
A plaque telling of the wreck of the Commodore II with some of the huge ship's timbers behind the sign where she beached. Table Bay is littered with shipwrecks due to the violent Cape storms. On one such occasion in another century, nearly 40 sailing ships were sunk in the bay
The ship’s story
Posted by MENU at 3:36 pm 0 comments

Dinner with La Gioconda at Goloso, Sea Point

Another restaurant which came highly recommended on Restaurants The Good the Bad and the Nasty was Goloso in Regent Road Sea Point. Unashamedly Italian in cuisine, they have an early bird special which, because of the power cuts, we decided would be a good distraction
Touches of red in the restaurant. The special is R295 for two, the options being a traditional pasta or pizza or a slow-cooked stew chosen from their menu and including a bottle of red or white wine of their choice. In by 5 out by 7. When we booked, we were advised that we could come as late as 6.30, as last orders had to be in before 7. Which meant that we didn't have to eat too early and could have a leisurely evening, dodging the power cut which was expected at 8 pm
Quite a few of the tables were reserved and there is one long table for a larger party
This was early; the restaurant filled up as the evening advanced
We decided that red might go better with the dishes we chose; the wine supplied was another Lord Somerset: their 'Soft Smooth Red'. As a sommelier said in a famous Playboy cartoon: "Guaranteed not to f**k up flavour of your hamburger". It won’t win awards, is quite ordinary, but does slip down quite easily. This rep does get around! The corkage charge is quite reasonable….
Nice table settings and comfortable chairs
This arrived with our food: extra garlic, chilli and grated Parmesan
John ordered the Puttanesca tagliatelle. The pasta, which is made fresh in the restaurant, was nicely al dente. The sauce has olives, anchovies, chilli, garlic and capers added to a Neapolitan tomato sauce. John enjoyed it but Lynne had a taste and found the anchovies rather strong for her
She ordered the Baby Beef Osso buco, topped with fresh garlicky gremolata. Slow cooked with carrots, onion, tomato and white wine, the meat falls off the bone and it was delicious. Hidden under all that sauce was more freshly made tagliatelle, which meant that John got to finish this dish
Alan, the waiter, coped so well with the filling restaurant on his own.
A classically beautiful face across the room – a contemporary La Gioconda, The Mona Lisa
Our bill. We think it is very good value and definitely plan to return. We did order two special desserts which require a 20 minute wait, which we were happy to do as the large portions needed some resting and digesting. The baked chocolate fondant was superb and full of warm, dark oozing chocolate. Lynne could not resist trying the baked banana flambé with Cape Brandy, which the owner, Jono, does at the table and it lived up to her expectations. Topped with vanilla ice cream to cool down the hot bananas. Sadly, we were too greedy to remember to take photographs. Next time... and then came the power cut. Goloso has a generator, so they could carry on regardless and no customers were affected
This is what we returned to: Pitch black darkness, so we resorted to books, Kindles, an LED lamp and head torches. We have had a 2½ hour power cut every day this week between 12 and 2.30 pm. The evening one between 8 and 10.30 pm means that we have missed the Sunday movie, half of the T20 cricket and the PVR has failed to record our favourite programmes. As Lynne's god daughter says, “luxury problems”. We know so many other people and businesses are being hard hit and it is devastating our economy. Load Shedding power cuts, we now hear, may have to go on for 2 years.... We are seriously looking at going totally solar. Requests for quotes have gone to suppliers. It appears that financing an installation should be competitive with the price we pay for unreliable electricity, before the inevitable price increases and it’s a one-time purchase
Well at least you can see the night sky better with all the lights in Sea Point turned off.... Even Orion in the North Western sky
Posted by MENU at 2:44 pm 1 comments
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