Tag Archives: Season 3

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 7: Service and food preparation judged in Durban in boring Team Challenge!

MasterChef 7 Red and Blue TeamsLast night’s episode 7 of MasterChef SA was a Team Challenge, the ten remaining contestants divided into two groups of five, the Red team led by Philippa Robinson and the Blue Team by Penny Fitchet.  It was the most boring episode ever in the three seasons of MasterChef SA.

The ten contestants were flown to Durban (very wasteful, as the Team Challenge could just as easily have been done at Tsogo Sun hotels in Cape Town).  The contestant teams were seen walking along the Golden Mile, with many tourist hotels.  They arrived at the Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharani Hotel, having to cook in their The Grill Jichana restaurant kitchen. The hotel serves the largest number of guests of all hotels in the country, Chef Benny Masekwameng told the contestants.  The judges of their meal were invited guests, being the most long-standing waiters at the hotel, as well as at some other restaurants, their collective experience exceeding 400 years, with a consultant who does staff training. Some of the waiter guests had served Queen Elizabeth and other members of the Royal Family. Each team had to choose the best person to prepare the meat, fish, the chips, onion rings and sides, to manage the pass, to play waitress, and to prepare the sauces at the table, using a Flambé and Gueridon trolley, with a gas hob, chopping board, and cutlery drawer.

Penny’sMasterChef 7 Guest judges Blue Team consisted of Roxi Wardman, Refilwe Tselanyane, Francois Zietsman, and Sipho Mdlankomo, while Philippa’s Red Team was Ian Young, Claire Allen, Mel Sutherland, and Abigail Mbalo.  Penny was praised for being a teacher, standing her in good stead to lead her team. Chef Pete Goffe-Wood explained the use of the trolley, likening it to a ‘theatrical production‘: ‘Gueridon Service is a celebration of the theatre of food. You’re right at the table making food in front of your guests. It’s going to test you to your limits today’. Continue reading →

Sustainability not (yet) guiding South Africans in the seafood they buy!

Sustainable SeafoodDespite good publicity for the WWF-SASSI classification of seafood available in restaurants, and for sale in supermarkets on MasterChef (Seasons 1 and 3), and on ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa‘, a study has found that many consumers do not question the sustainability of the fish they buy!

A survey, conducted by Added Value for the World Wild Fund (WWF) campaign for its South Africa Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) communication, concluded that most South African consumers do not consider sustainability when buying seafood, and almost half do not ask Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 6: Meeting ‘Karoo Kitchen’ writer Syddah Essop; Ndumiso Mncwabe fired out of Pressure Test!

MasterChef 3 5 Eleven finalistsLast night’s MasterChef consisted of two parts – a happy team of eight Finalists driven to the home in the Karoo of cookbook writer Syddah Essop, and a nervous looking team of three Finalists who had to cook in the Pressure Test without electricity, which saw Ndumiso Mncwabe leaving the MasterChef SA kitchen.

The team met Syddah Essop, writer of ‘Karoo Kitchen‘, and she shared her knowledge about Karoo Cuisine with the Finalists.  Syddah grew up in Beaufort West, in the heart of the Karoo.  She traveled from farm to farm in the area with her father, who sought to protect the rights of farmers.  In this way she learnt a lot about the Karoo locals and their food.   It took her three years to compile ‘Karoo Kitchen’, as a salute to the culture and heritage of the Karoo.   The cookbook contains a diversity of local dishes, including standards such as melktert, rusks, Karoo lamb, and even sheep’s head!  The cookbook has received acclaim for documenting the Karoo cooking culture and heritage.  Syddah prepared a table full of Karoo delights for the Finalists. Continue reading →

Open Letter to Sarah Khan: Strange Selection of Travel + Leisure ‘Top Chefs in Cape Town’!

The Test KitchenDear Sarah

We are extremely proud to have you living in your newly adopted home city Cape Town, and that you are such a fantastic tourism ambassador for our country in general, and for Cape Town in particular.  You put Cape Town on the world tourist map with your article earlier this year in the New York Times about Cape Town being the number one  ’52 places to go in 2014′, the best free publicity our city has ever had.

I was therefore shocked to see your article about ‘Top Chefs in Cape Town’ in Travel + Leisure, and the choices you made in selecting what you have listed as the top five chefs in Cape Town: Luke Dale-Roberts of The Test Kitchen, Peter Tempelhoff of The Greenhouse, Reuben Robertsons Riffel of Reuben’s x 4 (in Franschhoek, Cape Town, Robertson, and Paternoster) plus Racine, Bruce Robertson of The Flagship, and Franck Dangereux of The Food Barn, in that order. You did not define your guidelines for selecting the five chefs, nor did you appear to use the same criteria in selecting the chefs that are on your list – the justification for inclusion appears more anecdotal and random.  Equally, I am surprised about the chefs you excluded from the list!

You seem to praise Chef Franck for his ‘foreign pedigree, but why single him out when Chefs Luke and Peter also have foreign roots?  Does that make them better chefs?  All of the chefs on your list have worked overseas, so they deserve equal mention in this regard.  You ‘warn’ Travel + Leisure readers to ‘watch out for these five Cape Town chefs and memorize their names now – they’re poised to break through to the global stage any day now‘!

Let me comment on each of your Top Chef choices: Continue reading →