Tag Archives: Reuben Robertsons Riffel

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 1: Bootcamp 1 shows angelfish no angel; beautiful Cape Town on the table!

MasterChef SA 3 ep 1 Table Mountain and contestantsI had forgotten how hard it is to stay on top of a new series of MasterChef SA, and last night’s first episode of Season 3 was disappointing in being mainly an hour long tasting of 36 angelfish dishes, for the first day of Bootcamp.  But the tough elimination challenge could not have been held against a more beautiful backdrop than that of Table Mountain, great marketing for Cape Town.  The dominance of Reuben Robertsons Riffel was disappointing, being the new judge.

In the previous two MasterChef SA Seasons, more time was spent in getting to know the contestants, when they had to do basic tests such as peeling  and cutting potatoes, and peeling and slicing onions.  Last night the hot auditions in Cape Town (with Chef Pete Goffe-Wood and guest chef Henry Vigar of La Mouette), in Durban (Riffel with Chef Jackie Cameron, who has just left Hartford House to open her Jackie Cameron School of Food & Wine) and in Johannesburg (Chef Bennie Masekwameng was joined by Chef Andrea Burgener, Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 12 June

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Google does not only have a Google Doodle in honour of the 2014 World Cup, but it also has a YouTube video in honour of the kick-off date of the soccer tournament in Brazil today.

*   Load shedding appears to be rearing its ugly head again, with freezing conditions throughout the country this week, with snowfalls spread between the Helderberg in Somerset West to the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal.  Last night a sms warned of load-shedding in Hermanus, Gansbaai, and Stanford, 15 minutes before it was due to commence at 20h00, but its commencement was delayed later into the evening.   The City of Cape Town has posted possible scheduled times for load-shedding, but seems confident that it will not happen any time soon.  Camps Bay is not marked as a load-shedding area, nor is the airport understandably, and the townships and residential areas to the east of the airport also appear load-shedding-free!

*   The Two Oceans Aquarium in the V&A Waterfront is adding a multi-million Rand development in the previous parking area Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 23 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   South Africa welcomed close to 10 million international tourists in 2013, a 5% increase between 2012 and 2013.  The following paragraph from eTurboNews makes no sense at all, appearing to be copy and pasted directly from a SA Tourism media release: ‘The latest release from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) indicates that international foreign arrivals to South Africa reached its highest levels ever, namely 14,860,216 in 2013. This 10.5% increase in international foreign arrivals (over 13,451,565 in 2012) translated to 9.6 million international tourist arrivals. All international tourist arrivals combined increased by 4.7%, while the overseas tourist arrivals sub-category increased by 7.1%‘!  Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said: ‘South Africa’s tourism industry continues to show good growth and we remain confident in the ongoing performance and sustainability of the sector‘.  Visitors from Europe grew by 7%, especially from Germany (14% growth), France (10%), and Italy (10%).  The growth from the UK was a mere 1%, while the USA grew by 7%, and China by 15%, now our 4th largest source market. Tourist growth from Brazil was 6%, while that from Africa was 12%. The growth in Tourism’s contribution to the GDP was 3% in the past year. The Tourism industry accounted for 5% of the country’s employment.  The Minister announced the development of a ‘dashboard‘, enhancing our country’s collection of ‘insights and market intelligence’, which is to be launched in September.

*   SA Tourism has criticised the restricted visa issuing service by our embassies in India and China, Continue reading →

Global Pizza Challenge 2014: top SA passionate pizza makers sought!

Burrata Fig and pancetta Whale Cottage PortfolioOn Thursday evening I attended the launch of the South African leg of the Global Pizza Challenge, a project which belongs to Chef Arnold Tanzer from Johannesburg and  Martin Kobald from Australia.  South African pizza makers have done well in the past seven years of the competition.

I almost did not make the function, which was held at the offices of Dish Food & Social,  giving us a street address of 423 Main Road in Observatory. A building marked 423a on one side of a Shell garage was visible, but not the street number on Main Road that we were searching for in the near dark, which turned out to be on the other side of the petrol station.   To complicate matters the entrance gate is in a side road off Main Road!  Having survived the panic of finding the venue, it was great to catch up with Chef Arnold, whom I had met last year on a Media Day for MasterChef SA Season 2 at Nederburg.

Before we got into pizzas, we caught up about Season 3 of MasterChef SA, which is being filmed at the moment and will continue until June. The series will be broadcast from August onwards.  Chef Arnold did not answer all my questions, such asGlobal Pizza Challenge Arnold Tanzer Whale Cottage Portfolio if there would be two broadcasts per week again as in Season 2.  He would not discuss how strict new MasterChef SA judge Reuben Robertsons Riffel is with the contestants, given that he may not want to rock the boat!  We talked about the very honest and harsh review by Chef Arnold of Aarya, the Montecasino restaurant, the use of which Deena Naidoo won for a two year period in winning MasterChef SA Season 1.    We chatted about how low key Season 2 winner Kamini Pather is, not being visible,and not (yet) having created her planned food communication channel, as she announced when she won.   As before, there will be guest chefs. Continue reading →