In a Speech following his Adjusted Level 3 Speech a mere 13 days ago, President Ramaphosa announced hard-hitting new measures to curb the ravaging Wave 3 of the Corona Pandemic in our country, with effect from tomorrow.
The President announced an Adjusted Level 4 Lockdown as of tomorrow, with Curfew starting at 21h00. Restaurants may only offer Food Delivery and Collection. No alcohol sales are allowed at all.
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Sir David Graaff, owner of De Grendel wine estate and farm, passed away this past weekend.
* SAA claims to be the first airline to offer a credit card payment system in the sky, with its new locally-developed Satellite Authorisation System. The system also will offer an airline tracking service. It will be implemented on all its international flights over time.
* Statistics South Africa has promised to have 2014 tourism arrival statistics available by the end of March. It Continue reading →
After two disastrous years, New Media Publishing was brave enough to take stock earlier this year, and asked the industry what it wanted in the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Awards. Last night that hard work paid off, with a new venue for the event, a slick and short presentation, new Awards introduced, and three new restaurants making the Top 10 Restaurant list. The surprise was the emotion which the chefs expressed when receiving their plaques, challenging MasterChef SA Season 2 on tears!
We were one of the interviewees, meeting with Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly, its GM Aileen Lamb, MD Bridget McCarney, and Director Irna van Zyl. We were forthright in our feedback and suggestions, including that a team of judges would be needed again (we suggested Garth Stroebel, and have yet to meet him!). We fed back that the preferential relationship with Luke Dale-Roberts in TASTE magazine (also published by New Media Publishing, and of which Abigail is the Food Editor) was unfair towards all other chefs, by featuring him every month – we were told that Woolworths had a contract with him, and therefore he received the coverage in the magazine. This contract was terminated earlier this year, which is excellent news. Other recommendations can be read here. Flowing from the interviews and discussions with previous Top 20 chefs and restaurant managers, owners, and suppliers, as well as media representatives and bloggers, New Media Publishing allowed restaurants to apply to be included in the Eat Out Top 500 Restaurant List, which was selected by a Continue reading →
Ten days ago we wrote about the unethical reviews of wines by Michael Olivier, without acknowledging that most of his ‘Winery Partners’ have paid for the coverage on his blog, on his Twitter account, and in his FMR wine slot. We also wrote about the unethical restaurant reviews done on IntertwEAT/TweetCritique by Lionel Lelyveld, without disclosing that every three course meal for two persons he has written about is received free of charge.
Interesting is how differently the two writers have reacted to our blogpost:
Lelyveld has not responded to the blogpost at all, but we have noticed in the past week that he has started simultaneously Tweeting restaurant reviews from the UK and the Cape. We have also noticed that he has added a hint of criticism to some of his ‘review’ Tweets, which we have not seen before. What is funny, but probably not visible to most of our Followers, is that Lelyveld has been particularly generous with his Retweets of our Restaurant-related Tweets, Continue reading →