The first restaurants are sending out their Winter Specials information, summarised below. The list is updated continuously. Please do not copy and paste our list. We welcome information about new specials:
Cape Town
* Umi in Camps Bay: 2 course set menu R200, 3 courses R240. Beef shortrib R120, fish & fries R80, Tataki Beef R75, sweet potato parcels R50, pork belly R130, and sticky chicken wings Tebaski R65. Half price sushi. Cocktails R40 Tel (021) 437-1802 (added 14/5/16) Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Passengers traveling by plane may be faced with hand luggage size reductions by up to 40%, it was announced last week. The new dimensions have not yet been announced, but 50 airlines have agreed in principle, reported German TV channel ZDF. Should the hand luggage not meet the new size guidelines, a charge of $25 may be levied.
* Do hotel star ratings still matter, when TripAdvisor has become the Continue reading →
The Diners Club Winelist Awards for the Western Cape were held at Shimmy Beach Club yesterday, saluting the restaurants in the province, and the standard of their winelist content and presentation. Bushman’s Kloof won best Winelist in the Western Cape. During the course of this week the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal awards will also be presented.
A judging panel, led by wine judge Dave Hughes, and consisting of Winnie Bowman, Nikki Dumas, Fiona McDonald, and Christine Rudman, evaluated 208 winelists nationally, and 100 from the ‘Cape‘, a province which has not existed for years! Diners Club threw the Western Cape and Eastern Cape into one ‘Cape’ pot in reporting on the results and in handing out the awards yesterday! A substantial number of Western Cape restaurants did not enter the competition this year, down from 96 entries last year to 80 this year.
Odd was the choice of venue, being the Bar section of Shimmy Beach Club, which did not have 
enough parking for the attendees, some walking for more than 1 km to get to the venue. We were welcomed with a glass of Pongracz, and the food was very meagre, being macaroni cheese croquettes and sushi! There was not enough seating for everyone, in a room which had some round tables, a few chairs and couches, but had no presence in making this function special for the award winners, compared to the venue used at the Vineyard Hotel last year. It also was not a finalist for the Winelist Awards! Very odd was using Anna Trapido as the MC, not generally known to the local restaurant wine stewards and sommeliers, in being the editor of the 2015 ‘Diners Club Rossouws Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* South Africa welcomed close to 10 million international tourists in 2013, a 5% increase between 2012 and 2013. The following paragraph from eTurboNews makes no sense at all, appearing to be copy and pasted directly from a SA Tourism media release: ‘The latest release from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) indicates that international foreign arrivals to South Africa reached its highest levels ever, namely 14,860,216 in 2013. This 10.5% increase in international foreign arrivals (over 13,451,565 in 2012) translated to 9.6 million international tourist arrivals. All international tourist arrivals combined increased by 4.7%, while the overseas tourist arrivals sub-category increased by 7.1%‘! Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said: ‘South Africa’s tourism industry continues to show good growth and we remain confident in the ongoing performance and sustainability of the sector‘. Visitors from Europe grew by 7%, especially from Germany (14% growth), France (10%), and Italy (10%). The growth from the UK was a mere 1%, while the USA grew by 7%, and China by 15%, now our 4th largest source market. Tourist growth from Brazil was 6%, while that from Africa was 12%. The growth in Tourism’s contribution to the GDP was 3% in the past year. The Tourism industry accounted for 5% of the country’s employment. The Minister announced the development of a ‘dashboard‘, enhancing our country’s collection of ‘insights and market intelligence’, which is to be launched in September.
* SA Tourism has criticised the restricted visa issuing service by our embassies in India and China, Continue reading →