Tag Archives: Perowne Charles Communications

Controversial Eat Out 2012 judge Bruce Palling tells SA chefs to simplify their dishes!

Given that the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Awards were presented two months ago, and that its controversial international judge Bruce Palling tasted his way around the country five months ago, it was a surprise to see the article he has written about South African cuisine for British Airways Highlife, published yesterday, now claiming to be an expert about our country’s cuisine, wines, and even its accommodation!

The magazine article, which was sent as a scan from London, differs somewhat from the internet version of it, and has some text, but the most interesting part is the restaurants which Palling praised, and those that he slated. The article bills him as an expert on South African cuisine, given that he ate 200 dishes and drank 60 wines at 30 restaurants in Cape Town, the Winelands, Johannesburg, and KwaZulu-Natal in a period of 15 days, to score Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly’s Top 20 restaurant shortlist.

What Palling neglected to write in the article was that some of the restaurants he went to were for his private dining, and were not evaluated for Eat Out (e.g. Biesmiellah and Continue reading →

Whale Cottage Blog: Restaurant Specials tops in 2012!

Before the new working year kicks in tomorrow, when most return to work, we have taken stock of our blog.  Last year we had just over 401000 unique pageviews, and the winter Restaurant Specials blogpost was by far the most popular. Most traffic came via Google searches, and interestingly Facebook generated three times the volume of traffic to the blog compared to Twitter.  More than 2000 subscribers receive the latest blogpost daily on RSS feed subscription.

We cannot always predict what drives traffic to the blog.  The three best read Blog days, with over 2800 unique pageviews each, were 11 January (Cruise liners mean ‘The World’ to the V&A Waterfront: Cape cruise crisis), 23 April (Chef Bruce Robertson returns to Cape Town, plain sailing at The Boat House), and 9 November (Spier Sweet Service and City of Cape Town Sour Service Awards).  Interesting is that the blogpost we wrote on 18 April in 2011 about the unfortunate passing of the President of Ferrero Rocher in Cape Town still achieves daily readership, and was the second best read blogpost last year.  The top ten Continue reading →

New Year kicks off with Twitter bullying, bashing, and blackmail!

The past twenty four hours have seen bullying, bashing, and blackmail on Twitter, kick started by an abusive Tweet by über Tweeter Jane-Anne Hobbs Rayner, who accused us of ‘cyber bullying‘ her ‘friends’ Mariette du Toit-Helmbold (CEO) and Skye Grove (Communications and PR Manager) of Cape Town Tourism, supermarket wine promoter Michael Olivier, and Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly!   Not only was her stream of Tweets disparaging, but she also blackmailed her 5000-odd Followers with the threat of being unfollowed!  One would have expected the New Year to have had a gentler start!

Hobbs is a ‘mommy food blogger‘, her Juno and now Scrumptious blogs having impressed in the past with the quality of her photographs, and portfolio of recipes.  In the time that we have known her, we have had little interaction, seeing each other at odd Franschhoek Continue reading →

2012: a year of Tourism ups and downs!

Looking back at 2012 on the last day of the year, every business will be grateful that it is still around, given that the international world is still in recession, and the impact thereof has made itself felt in South Africa too.   It is heartening that fewer hospitality businesses closed their doors this year, but it is clear that fewer restaurants have opened, and few top-end ones in particular.   So what stood out in 2012?:

*   The worst winter season ever for the hospitality industry, following a poor winter 2011, not just related to the poor economy and traditional Seasonality, but also to the exceptionally wet winter, which deterred Johannesburgers from coming to the Cape, and prevented Capetonians from taking weekends off in Western Cape towns and villages.

*   No marketing of Cape Town and the Western Cape. Cape Town Routes Unlimited was amalgamated into Wesgro in April, yet no visible marketing has been done for the Continue reading →