Duchess on Wisbeach | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

Today we have reached an exciting milestone on our Whale Cottage Blog, in that this is our 1000th blogpost. We thank our readers for their support in reading our blog, and for providing feedback, to help us improve as we developed over the almost three years. In numerology, 1000 symbolises multitude and perfection, we have learnt from Google, and we dedicate our next 1000 blogposts to be worthy of this definition.

Highlights have been making the Top 10 on the Most Controversial Blog category of the 2010 SA Blog Awards, achieving a cumulative unique readership of just under half a million in the last 16 months (about 30000 per month on average), and setting up the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club last year.

So what have we learnt about blogging and our blog in the close to three years:

* Restaurant news in general, and reviews and special offers specifically have attracted the greatest interest on this blog. Our most widely read restaurant reviews, since we went onto Google Analytics 16 months ago, are for Tokara DeliCATessen, Sotana by Caveau, Gaaitjie, Pierneef à La Motte, and Duchess on Wisbeach. It was the enjoyment of writing the review of Portofino restaurant, owned by Cormac Keane, that got us started with reviews, and we have written more than 100 reviews since then. We have seen negative reaction to some of these, and have been banned from the Caveau group of restaurants (including Sotano), the Caviar group of restaurants (Beluga and Sevruga), Opal Lounge, and Café des Arts as a result. Restaurants generally are poor at Social Media, and only a handful blog and/or are on Twitter. This means that a restaurant’s information most often is provided by a blog rather than by the restaurant’s own website, which can be to its advantage or diadvantage, depending on the reviews that are listed on the first page of Google. Other highly read blogposts are the Winter and Summer Restaurant Specials lists, the Table Mountain vote for the New7Wonders of the World, Prince Albert and Charlene Wittstock’s visit to Fresnaye in January 2009, and the Disney service training programme instituted just days before the World Cup.

* Tourism topics have also attracted attention, probably because there are far fewer writers on this topic.

* Word spreads quickly if a blogpost is controversial, and brings in new readers to the blog. Despite all allegations to the contrary, we have never written a blogpost to be controversial. It is the reaction to it by our readers that causes the controversy.

* Comments have become harder to manage, and increasingly cowardly commenters write anonymously to slate the writer of the blog or the subject of a blogpost. If one deletes such comments, one is criticised; if one publishes them, one is equally criticised!

* While blog readers enjoy honesty, and probably read this blog for it, those that are on the receiving end of it plus their friends do react with venom, rather than using the feedback to improve their service and quality. The nastiness in ‘unSocial Media’, our new name for it, has been shocking, especially in a campaign by David Cope on Twitter, where anything goes!

* Blogging has become very competitive, as bloggers chase readership, and want to be the first to review a new restaurant. Achieving a first page Google listing for a restaurant, for example, can attract readership over time to the blog by new users when they Google the name of a restaurant.

* Readership is disappointingly low on public holidays and weekends. Saturdays have the lowest blog reading numbers, dropping by up to half of weekday readership. Our highest readership of this blog was on 16 June 2010, during last year’s World Cup, when a tag for ‘2010’ was widely linked to this blog, attracting 9000 page views on that day alone.

* Although most readers are unknown to the writer, one carries a huge responsibility in shaping people’s opinions through what one writes. We try our best to remain objective in presenting information at all times. We have been blamed for wishing to destroy restaurants and new initiatives, yet supply news about restaurant openings and specials all the time. Attempts were made last year by Michael Olivier (Editor of Crush!), David Cope (The Foodie Blogger) and Skye Grove (Cape Town Tourism PR Manager) to have this blog closed down. We moved our blog hosting to America, to prevent this.

* Information as well as images are most likely to bring traffic via Google to the website, followed by Twitter. Facebook is far less likely to draw traffic.

* The weekly Sweet & Sour Service are enjoyed by readers, and many readers read the blog on a Friday, to check who has received the Sour Award, and then catch up in reading the blogposts of the pevious week. The Spar Sweet/Limelight Sour Service Awards attracted an unusually high readership, and still do.

Looking forward, we plan to continue being honest, no matter what the cost. We will endeavour to remain relevant, and to remain heard in the increasing Social Media ‘noise’, as more and more blogs are started, and existing ones reinvent themselves. We will try to write shorter blogposts! We will continue helping others to become better bloggers, and will endeavour to never stop learning from others too.

Thank you 1000 times for your readership and support!

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

A popular new Cape Town restaurant, which is heavily booked already despite only operating for about a month, is Duchess of Wisbeach in Sea Point.

Owner Theresa Beukes moved to Cape Town from Johannesburg, where she owned Fino’s in Parktown North, and Sam’s Cafe in Melville, and ran a cookery school (see more about Theresa’s philosopohy about running a restaurant http://www.btimes.co.za/97/0525/btmoney/money5.htm), and loves it here. “Cape Town has been good to me”, she says. She says they are fully booked most nights, and turn tables over twice most nights.

Wisbeach Road is not easy to find – from Beach Road one drives up alongside the Winchester Mansions Hotel, and turns first left. The restaurant is just before the stop street, at Main Road. The exterior already attracts interest – a British terrace house look, with striped canopy. One steps inside a large bar area, with a massive stuffed cow’s head keeping an eye on things in the bar, giving a strong masculine first impression. From the bar area one moves into the tiny but buzzing restaurant, with just 14 tables, seating just over 40 patrons at a time. The tables are very close together. The interior decor has an old-world British feel to it, and feels feminine, and one thinks of The Grand Cafe’s in Camps Bay and in Plettenberg Bay, although there are no velvet curtains. One’s first reaction is that one has stepped into an oasis, from grubby Sea Point outside.

The food preparation area is inside the restaurant, and is at a raised level, allowing Theresa and her kitchen colleagues cooking in the “galley kitchen”, as she calls it, to have a good eye over the restaurant, without the patrons seeing what is going on behind the counter. Theresa’s sense of humour is soon evident, as every table has a porcelain dog on it, rather than flowers, as one could expect. A real well-behaved dog can be seen in the restaurant too.

The waitresses are beautifully dressed in bustier-style cocktail dresses which could be made from silk, most wearing it in black, but a cream-coloured dress looks equally attractive. The menu and winelist are printed on cream coloured paper, a no-nonsense listing. The wines look well-priced. A glass of Colmant Cap Classique costs R 35, the bottle of Iona Gunnar is the most expensive at R 190, while the De Grendel Merlot and Shiraz cost R 139 each. The starters cost R 45 – R 55, and include ‘Queen Mother’s Prawn Cocktail’, a traditional shrimp and avocado cocktail, with the avocado skin removed, and the prawns being warm. It would have been nicer with cold prawns. The presentation is unexciting, served on a bed of shredded lettuce. Other starters include steak tartare, fish cakes, and fish fingers. Mains cost R 70 – R 85, and include chicken curry, prawns, fillet steak, chicken bangers, lamb knuckle, fish and chips and the line fish. Desserts cost between R 35 – R 45, and the choice includes ice cream, pannacotta and chocolate mousse.

Our waitress is charming, and is honest in telling us that it is her first night at the restaurant. One would not have thought so. Food is brought to the table quickly, and the starter and main course are served within an hour of arriving. The fillet is not special, the verdict being that the quality of the meat is not what it could be. The kingklip is excellent, with a unique lemon, orange and ginger sauce. Theresa does not use cream or butter in her cooking, so the sauce is thin and runny, but yummy! The chocolate mousse is served in a coffee cup, with a dollop of cream on top, tasting a little sour. The portion sizes are small, and this explains the good prices of the dishes on the menu.

Theresa chats with us, in between a quick smoke break, and tells us that a lot about her restaurant is tongue in cheek, especially the name, which may create an expectation of grandeur, but in reality is unpretentious and good value, she says. The food presentation certainly reflects this, with no attempt made to decorate the plates. The business card has “bord kos” written under the name of the restaurant, and that is exactly what one gets at the Duchess of Wisbeach!

The total cost of one starter, two main courses, one glass of bubbly and one dessert was R290.

Duchess of Wisbeach is in The Courtyard Building, 1 Wisbeach Road, Sea Point, tel 021 434 1525.

Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com