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WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 11 November

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The ban on taking liquids on board flights is said to be lifted in the European Union from January. Special scanners at airports will be able to test liquids.

*   ‘Silver Surfers’ are an important tourist segment, the 50+ year olds estimated to represent 30% of travelers in the UK, USA, and South East Asia by 2018. Almost half of all Apple product purchasers are members of this segment, 35% of them travel in Europe, 42 % book travel online, and 68% use Facebook.

*   The ABSA Cape Epic has been nominated for the Discovery Sport Industry Awards in the Sport Participation Event of the Year category.

*   The T20 Tourism Ministers of the G20 countries have agreed to push for better visa facilitation, to stimulate tourism, and the employment of staff in the industry.

*   Bistro Sixteen82 has returned to its summer Tapas dinner menu. ‘The Tapas: Summer 2013‘ menu is a combination of classic Spanish tapas Patatas Bravas and Empandillas; Mexican Albondigas and a spicy black Beans dish; Fish Balls, No Lettuce salad, Anti Pasti platter, Profiteroles, and Chocolate Whities. (received via Communications Services Africa)

*   Aerolineas Argentinas has not denied that it may take over Continue reading →

Blaauwklippen celebrates 30th anniversary of its popular Blending Competition!

Blaauwklippen Blending Competition Bottle and FrameYesterday Blaauwklippen celebrated the 30th anniversary of its popular Blending Competition, and it was a day filled with celebratory balloons and nostalgic reflections of the heritage of the Blaauwklippen Blending Competition on the 331 year old wine estate in Stellenbosch.  The competition has helped to demystify wine and make it more accessible to wine drinkers.

I have attended the Blaauwklippen Blending Competition (which they refer to as BBC) for a number of years, but had never seen so many guests before, 70 guests seated in the Barouche restaurant, many of whom having links to 1984, the first year of the blending competition.  Blaauwklippen MD and Cellarmaster Rolf Zeitvogel reflected on the world 30 years ago, Apple having launched its Macintosh PC, Archbishop Tutu receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Mrs Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister of the UK, and Nelson Mandela seeing his wife Winnie for the first time in 22 years.  Through a number of speakers, we heard about the history of the blending competition, having been the idea of Angela Continue reading →

Taste of Cape Town dishes up a feast of Cape restaurants and chefs!

The sixth Taste of Cape Town, to be held at the Green Point Cricket Club from today until Sunday, promises to be a feast of food and beverages, prepared by some of the Cape’s leading chefs, and offered for tasting by top wine estates and beverage houses.

A pop-up restaurant will feature some of our region’s best chefs, hosted by a different chef each day:

*   Chef Luke Dale-Roberts, representing The Pot Luck Club, offering Miso-glazed short rib with kimchi, pork belly with XO and red cabbage slaw, and Thai-style prawns with Tom Yum butter on Friday.

*   Chef Bruce Robertson, past owner of award-winning The Showroom, and now running The Boathouse from his home in Scarborough, will dish up snot vis (photograph) and sea cucumber, ‘Viss ‘n Tjips’, and Lucky Star pie on Saturday.

*   Chef Scot Kirton of La Colombe will offer Lemon verbena cured trout, ostrich tataki, and rose and coconut pannacotta on Thursday.

*   Chef Tanja Kruger of Makaron Restaurant, and member of the SA Culinary team, will serve Nigiri sustainable fish, smoked lamb belly, and a rum, caramel and banana dessert on Sunday.

Eleven restaurant stands will offer food to taste, in exchange for crowns (R5 per crown, and dish prices range from 4 – 8 crowns each, as a means of payment:

*   Azure Restaurant at the Twelve Apostles hotel, with Chef Henrico Grobbelaar at the helm, serving duck liver cream, Chalmar beef fillet, and Bea Tollman’s rice pudding

*   96 Winery Road in Stellenbosch, led by Chef Natasha Wray, serving crispy pork belly strips, line fish Nobu style, and parmesan and chorizo risotto

*   De Grendel Restaurant, which opened a year ago, with Chef Ian Bergh, serving duck and risotto, braised beef, and quail.

*   Fyndraai Restaurant at Solms-Delta, with Chef Shaun Schoeman, offering Tiger prwan and calamari breyani, Karoo ‘lamsoutribbetjie‘, and venison wild rosemary pie

*   Signal Restaurant at the Cape Grace, with Chef Malika van Reenen, serving prawn salad, beef short rib, and pear dessert

*   Savour at 15 on Orange, headed by Chef Sanel Esterhuyse, offering Norwegian salmon and avocado tartare (photograph), quail curry, and seared scallops

*   Jewel of India, now located in Bo-Kaap, with Chef Dayanand Shankar Poojary, serving Chicken Tikka, Paneer Makhani, and Madras fish curry

*   Beefcakes Burger Bar, based in Green Point, with Chef Wonderful Ndhlovu offering poppers, gourmet ostrich burge, and chocolate brownie.

*   Dash Restaurant at the Queen Victoria Hotel in the V&A Waterfront, with Chef Craig Paterson, serving fish rillettes, braised lamb breast, and ‘Go Bananas’ dessert

*   The Brasserie (sister restaurant to Societi Bistro) with Chef Stefan Marais, offering West Coast mussels, Brasserie Scotch egg, and French onion soup

*   Il Leone Mastrantonio with Chef Daniel Toledo, serving Linguine ai Gamberetti (prawns), flash-fried calamari, and coffee-flavoured panacotta.

Top chefs will do demonstrations in the Pick ‘n Pay Chef’s Theatre, while the Pick ‘n Pay Wine and Canapé Experience will teach Festival goers how to pair wines and canapés. Lindt’s Master Chocolatiers will demonstrate making Lindor truffles and pralines and chocolate sculpturing, with their Excellence and Creation ranges available for sale.   A special focus on Thai foods will be offered via cooking demonstrations by Thai chefs, organised by the Royal Thai Embassy.  A Food Market will not only offer artisanal foods for sale, but also beverages such as the new award-winning Bains Cape Mountain whisky from Wellington, the best single grain whisky in the world, as well as Fairtrade wines.

The Taste of Cape Town is one of 18 Taste festivals hosted around the world.  Taste of Durban will be held in July and Taste of Joburg in September.  Taste of Cape Town is environmentally friendly, with Interwaste recycling at the festival, and biodegradable eating utensils and bowls made by Green Home Products will be used.

POSTSCRIPT 12/4: Parking is in short supply, and traffic cops are all around the venue, to frighten anyone off parking anywhere else except inside the Cape Town Stadium, at a reasonable charge of R20.  The evening was wonderful, mild weather wise, lots of attendees but it never felt crowded.  The pop-up restaurant (Pot Luck Club this evening, but without Luke Dale-Roberts, as advertised on the program) had the longest queue, so one should go there first.  Tweeting is difficult, almost impossible from the festival, given the network overload.  Signal Restaurant of the Cape Grace hotel was the ‘best dressed’ restaurant, in giving one a feel of its real counterpart.  It is difficult to present one’s dishes under such trying conditions, and there can be little talk of ‘plating’ on a small recycled plate, but the best looking dish was Savour’s Norwegian salmon and avocado tartare with parmesan galette, Ikura caviar, soy-lime broth (this detracted from the dish) and micro-herbs (right).  The best tasting dish was the Twelve Apostles’ Azure starter of Duck liver cream, pickled red apple, and lentil leek mignonette (left).  I enjoyed sitting at the tables spread around the grounds, just chatting about the dishes and the restaurants they came from.  There are a lot of Capetonians interested in our Cape Town restaurants.  I heard a lot of Afrikaans spoken, and the PR representative Errieda du Toit told me that Afrikaans media had covered the festival for the first time. Lindt impressed with its shop and demonstration area, the making of pralines and Lindor being demonstrated. One should go here at the beginning or end, as it became very full.

Taste of Cape Town, 11 and 12 April 18h30 – 22h30, 13 April 13h00 – 17h00 and 18h30 – 22h30, 14 April 12h00 – 17h00,  www.tasteofcapetown.com Twitter: @Taste  Taste Fest app available for free for Apple, Blackberry, and Android devices.  R80 entrance and tasting glass, R180 includes R100 tasting crowns.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

SA Tourism strikes AFCON 2013 soccer fans via Shopping Tourism!

On Saturday The Guardian Nigeria published an article ‘Shopping Experience for South African Orange AFCON Visitors’, focusing on the work SA Tourism has done to get shopping malls in Confederation of Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2013 Host Cities to offer sales to make their tenants’ products attractive to the flood of African visitors expected in the country for the AFCON 2013 kick-off on Saturday. It wrote: ‘South African Tourism has formed a partnership with VISA and hundreds of malls across the length and breadth of the country to bring fantastic special offers to all visiting AFCON fans’. The pay-off line for AFCON 2013, developed by SA Tourism, is the ‘Beat at Africa’s Feet’!

Using quotation marks (at the beginning but not at the end!), one can assume that the bulk of the content of the article came from a SA Tourism media release sent to the Nigerian newspaper. It is amusing to read what SA Tourism believes the soccer fans will be attracted to, including clothing retailers, Woolworths and Clicks, as well as international fashion brand stores such as Zara, Louis Vuitton and Gucci, and ‘IT brands like Apple and Vodacom (sic)’! Street vendors selling vegetables also receive an honourable mention, but they hardly would see any increase in business during AFCON!  Ladies fashion stores would be unlikely to attract much male soccer fan custom, if the soccer World Cup 2010 is anything to go by, which was largely attended by male soccer fans.

This is how SA Tourism romanticised the retail treats for the visiting soccer fans: “… from big, bright air-conditioned shopping malls to street vendors selling home-grown vegetables, visitors can buy anything and everything in our cities and towns, which each have landmark shopping hubs where all the major retail chains, and many others, are trading.  Goods range from imported furniture, designer clothes, kitchenware, computers, techno gadgets, audiovisual equipment, jewellery and more. Edgars, Clicks, Mr Price, Foschini, Stuttafords, Truworths and Woolworths are some of the popular retail chains in the rainbow country including top-end international stores like Zara, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and The Body Shop, and IT brands like Apple and Vodacom. There are also smaller businesses that are big on choice, personalised service and variety in everything from designer baby gear to bathroom accessories, footwear, books, kitchen gadgets, high-end computers and smart phones; including hand-crafted chocolates, diamond, gold and other precious trinkets to adorn the body with”.

Cape Town and the Western Cape will be missing out on the soccer shopping as well as tourism extravaganza, given the bungling of the bid for Cape Town as Host City by City of Cape Town Councillor Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events and Marketing!  Ticket sales for the three week AFCON 2013 soccer schedule have been slow, due to a lack of marketing, constrained by ‘limited resources’, said the CEO of the Local Organising Committee Mvuzo Mbebe, quoted on SouthAfrica.info. Currently only two-thirds of the 500000 tickets for the tournament, to be played in Johannesburg, Rustenburg, Nelspruit, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, have been sold.  The opening match between Bafana Bafana and Cape Verde in Johannesburg on Saturday appears to be close to fully booked.  Television coverage over the three week period is expected to reach 2,3 billion viewers.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage