Tag Archives: halaal

Restaurant Review: Borage Bistro offers refreshing German fusion cuisine and service!

Borage Bistro Interior 2 Whale CottageBorage Bistro has been on my list to try since it opened in May, and on Friday last week my friend Judy and I chose it for our lunch destination.  After a hesitant welcome by the waitress, we were well-attended to by front of house manager and co-owner Dennis Molewa, and found a sophisticated haven of German fusion cuisine and service standard.

Dennis told us that three co-owners opened the restaurant in the new Portside Building at the bottom of Bree Street, none of them having any experience in running a restaurant. Major shareholder is Christian Vaatz, a Cape Town based investment manager who loves outdoor eating.  He connected with Dennis, who has lived in Cape Town for four years, having worked for Amazon locally, and originally is from Frankfurt.  Chef Frank Marks is a German Namibian who studied at Silwood Kitchen, and joined Chef Luke Dale-Roberts when he was still at La Colombe, and then followed him when he set up The Test Kitchen. As if that wasn’t enough rubbing of shoulders with our country’s official best restaurant chef, Frank left his local job, and was accepted to do a stageBorage Bistro Dennis and Chef Frank Whale Cottage at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in Bray in the UK, before becoming full-time employed by him at Dinner by Heston in London, spending two years there. working with Chef Heston’s head chef Ashley Palmer-Watts, before returning to Chef Luke at The Pot Luck Club.  He likes to study the scientific aspects of food, experimenting with foams and gels, and to Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 11: Some Finalists bite off more than the judges can chew, Karen Els transforms into a butterfly!

MasterChef 2 11 Meat Whale Cottage PortfolioLast night’s episode 11 of MasterChef SA was a very meaty one, with the full range of Woolworths meat cuts being available to the 13 Finalists for a spectacular dish they had to make, with beef as the hero. Some dishes were highly praised, others were mis-steaks mainly related to the amount of time needed for the cooking, and others did not meet the challenge brief, in playing it safe.

Chef Benny Masekwameng introduced the challenge, and described the cultural tradition of slaughtering a cow for special occasions and celebration.  On the first day, one would serve the innards as a welcome dish.  On day 2 the whole carcass would be prepared for the main feast, while on day 3 the head and trotters would be served, he explained,   The Woolworths range of meats included fillet, sirloin, pickled tongue, boerewors, biltong, mince, shin, oxtail, and sausages.  The Finalists had ten minutes to grab their ingredients from the Pantry,  and were given 90 minutes within which to prepare their dishes.  The creator of the best dish would win a personalised MasterClass, while the bottom three Finalists would have to go into the Pressure Test. Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 10: Spicy Test, Blatant Branding, Beulah Bashing, SASSI Slating, fishy end to Neil Lowe!

MasterChef 2 10 Pressure Test team Whale Cottage PortfolioWhat a diverse and controversial episode 10 was last night, generating many emotions at different levels, as well as criticism of M-Net and MasterChef SA on Twitter for the first time since the commencement of Season 2.  There was little that was judged to be favourable in the episode:

‘Spice’ Test

The losing Red Team (Joani Mitchell, Karen Els, Khumo Twala, Jason Steel, Leandri van der Wat, and Neil Lowe) from Tuesday evening had to go into the ‘Spice’ Test when they lost the Pizza Challenge by two points.  Robertsons ‘Spices’ were the focus point of the Test, annoying viewers for such strong blatant branding of the sponsors’ products, in addition to being subjected to so many TV commercials, especially relative to Season 1.  MasterChef 2 10 Robertsons Whale Cottage PortfolioThe criticism was two-fold:

*   Herbs and spices are two different things, yet the contestants had to guess which combination of Robertsons ‘spices’ had been used in a number of dishes they could smell and taste (the company advertises spice and herb combinations), according to the judges’ brief, yet they had both herbs and spices to evaluate, including in a tomato dish, and in caramelised butternut.  Chef Andrew Atkinson said that one’s tastebuds must be attuned to seasoning, so thatMasterChef 2 10 Tomato Whale Cottage Portfolio one can change or enhance a dish’s flavour profile.

*   No serious chefs would use Robertsons spices in their kitchens (except Chef Reuben Riffel of course, who endorses the brand and appears in its advertisements!), as ‘fresh is best’, the trend in restaurant and home cooking! Continue reading →

Cookbook writers ‘Cooking up a storm’ at the Franschhoek Literary Festival!

Yesterday was the first day of the 2013 Franschhoek Literary Festival, and was an action-packed day with good attendance.  ‘Cooking up a storm‘ was the only food-related session of the Festival, and was chaired by Taste Food editor and Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly (left), with a panel of ‘Scrumptious’ writer Jane-Anne Hobbs-Rayner (second from right), ‘Karoo Kitchen”s Sydda Essop (second on left), and Hilary Biller (right), editor of the Sunday Times Food Weekly insert, and of a book with a collection of its recipes.  The panelists were unanimous in heaping praise on ‘Karoo Kitchen’.

Sydda Essop grew up in the Great Karoo, and used to travel with her father to farmworkers in the region, as his job was to fight for their rights. This allowed her to enter the Continue reading →