The Sweet Service Award goes to Bread at The Bromwell in Woodstock, and its manager Ivan da Silva, for his service recovery when I had lunch there last Saturday. I arrived in the deli and bakery section without any staff present, and when a waiter did arrive, he called another colleague who was upstairs at the time, but was meant to man the section. Ivan listened to my complaint about the unnecessary waiting time. He also took immediate action when I challenged him on the menu description of the buttermilk pancake with ‘fresh seasonal fruit‘, which was hidden away inside the pancake instead of being on top, and was not fresh at all, being cooked pears and apples. He accepted that the description of the dish was misleading, saying that the fruit was fresh when it was cooked! His staff made a new portion, topped with a beautiful selection of fresh berries, strawberries, apples, and pears! Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Grande Roche
WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 2/3 November
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Mark Shuttleworth may be the large Moyo investor who has forced the restaurant group to be placed under business review.
* The 17th Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa, with 10000 delegates, will be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 7 – 10 December.
* Warwick Wines has added its Twitter handle @WarwickWine to its corks, in anticipation of the New York Stock Exchange listing of Twitter. (received via media release from Hazell PR and Wine Consultants)
* Nick Compton, editor of design magazine Wallpaper, is running a Twitter competition, requesting photographs of the best of South African art and design, to tie in with World Travel Market (WTM) this week.
* The Kimberley Diamond Cup world skateboarding championships have just been held in Kimberley.
* Cape Town has been named Africa’s Leading Meetings and Conference Destination, and its The Westin Cape Town the continent’s Continue reading →
WOSA Sommelier World Cup clever way to market South African wines!
Yesterday I spent a most entertaining afternoon at the Grande Roche hotel in Paarl, to observe the last phase of the Wines of South Africa (WOSA) Sommelier World Cup competition, the announcement and evaluation of the Top 3, and the awarding of the prize to the winning sommelier Will Predhomme.
The invited guests were the twelve finalists for the Sommelier World Cup, media representatives from the USA (I sat next to Rebecca Canan from the Terroirist Blog), Sweden, and Belgium, local writers, the local and international sommelier judges, and WOSA staff from its international offices as well as from its head office in Stellenbosch. After a welcome glass of wine, we sat down for lunch at Bosman’s, and it was clear to see why this Continue reading →
Eat Out Top 20 Restaurant Awards 2014 shortlist: a prediction!
It’s that time of the year again, and this week Eat Out will announce its shortlisted Top 20 Restaurants for the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Awards 2014. The judges have been furiously eating their way around the country, and top restaurants are licking their lips in the hope of cracking the Top 20 list, from which the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurants will be announced at the gala dinner in the V&A Waterfront on 10 November.
Given the turmoil in the judging of our country’s Top 10 restaurants in the past two years, Eat Out publisher New Media Publishing communicated with the industry, and invited past Top 20 chefs and some restaurant owners to chat about what they want in restaurant awards. The overwhelming majority of respondents requested a panel of South African judges (British blogger ‘judge’ Bruce Palling used last Continue reading →