Saturday 12 March 2022, Day 163 of Level 1 😷
Corona Lockdown Gratitude 🙏
#grateful for a smooth flowing day; for a good breakfast at Botlierskop, with a beautiful yellow free range egg cheese omelet; for a careful drive to Knysna, with so many speed cameras and traps; for checking in at Turbine Hotel on Thesen Hotel, but our rooms taking another two hours to become available, so we went on a little walk on the island, the shops not much different to what I remember from a last visit at least 5 years ago; for bumping into Markus Färbinger, former owner of Ile de Pain Continue reading →
The Sweet Service Award goes to Camps Bay Hardware, and its owner Jared Stein, a real Community-oriented business, in which customers are recognised and greeted by name, and are offered discounts. Should Jared not stock an item, he offers to obtain it from elsewhere, and has even dropped off some of my orders to my home! 
After a big fanfare about taking over the former HQ on Shortmarket Street, adjacent to his Chefs Warehouse Pinchos and Winebar in the same building, and turning it into a Local market of mini restaurants, an Italian restaurant La Cantina, and a Lebanese restaurant Mazza on the mezzanine level of the building in 2020, Chef Liam Tomlin has admitted defeat and walked away from all three restaurant projects, all in Heritage Square in town, he announced on his Social Media accounts last month! 
The Sweet Service Award goes to The Green Goddess and its owner Rosy Krämer-Schrott, producers and distributors of quality herbs and vegetables, for delivering the most sumptuous box of organic vegetables, herbs, and eggs. The box included Happy Eggs, spinach, kale, carrots, baby beetroot, a pumpkin, a butternut, cucumber, green/black peppers, black potatoes, tomatoes, baby marrow, cherry tomatoes, chives, rocket, parsley, and thyme, a gift delivered to me to try. 
Friday 29 January 2021, Day 34 of Level 3 Adjusted, Day 310 of Lockdown 😷
Sunday 11 October 2020, Day 21 of Level 1, Day 199 of Lockdown 😷
Slowly the Lockdown has become the new norm, and there is little reason for Restaurants to not be open and trading, despite the lack of tourists from overseas. The opening of the country’s International borders, albeit only as of 1 October, appears to have had little impact on the Restaurant industry to date.
I saw an article by Post & Courier recently, randomly as I do not follow this publication, and was attracted to its topic, being the impact of restaurant reviews and their power to close a restaurant down. Being our country’s harshest restaurant reviewer, this got me thinking about why the top chefs in our country, including Giorgio Nava, Bertus Basson, Peter Tempelhoff, Liam Tomlin, and Scott Kirton & Co are so sensitive to constructive criticism by banning (or attempting to) me from their restaurants, yet new (to our country) chef Wunderkind Rikku O’Donnchü of Gåte Restaurant welcomes it so! 