Tag Archives: South African Chefs Academy

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 8 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Platter’s is evaluating its 5 star wines differently this year, already tasted blind by its panel of wine evaluators.  Tim James, one of the Platter’s tasters, has explained in his blog today what changes publisher JP Rossouw has introduced, the selection of the more than 200 potential 5-star wines taking place today.  The potential 5-star wines are nominated by the tasters.  For the evaluation, additional tasters will be used, who were not used for the sighted tastings due to their commercial links to some wines.  Seven panels with three tasters each will blind taste about 30 wines, scored in silence, and discussed thereafter, one by one.

*   Dame Helen Mirren was seen arriving at Cape Town International this morning, to star in a film with actors Colin Firth and Aaron Paul, in Gavin Hood’s ‘Eye in the Sky‘.

*   Chef and MasterChef SA judge Pete Goffe-Wood is a new SecretEATS chef, having recently cooked at the by-invitation- Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 7/8 December

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Thirteen venues linked to the late Nelson Mandela  in Johannesburg and Pretoria are paying homage to the great leader.  They include his house in Alexandra; his house in Soweto; Nelson Mandela Bridge; the Nelson Mandela statue in Nelson Mandela Square; the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory; Liliesleaf Farm; Constitution Hill; the Apartheid Museum; Freedom Park in Pretoria; the Union Buildings; the Workers’ Museum; the Palace of Justice in Church Square, and Chancellor House.

*   The Sydney Morning Herald lists 20 reasons to visit Cape Town today, clearly out of date as it recommends seeing whales from land (they have left for the Antarctic already), and there is no reference to Nelson Mandela’s passing!  It oddly refers to the longest wine route in the world between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth (the latter city is not associated with wines), and referring to indigenous fynbos as ‘native flowers’ is a ‘lost in translation’ reference!   It does highlight Clifton and Camps Bay as top beaches. The writer received information from SA Tourism, which makes the incorrect information unforgivable.

*   In the twenty years since the late Mr Mandela’s release and subsequent Presidency of the country tourist arrivals grew by 10 million!

*   Announced prior to the passing of Madiba, SAA and SA Tourism shared plans to tie in with the release of the movie ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom‘ in the United Kingdom, to promote our country as a tourism destination.

*   An American publication recommends three South African wines out of Continue reading →

Eat Out selects Top 500 restaurants for its 2014 Guide!

Burrata Pick me Up dessert Whale Cottage PortfolioOne of the changes New Media Publishing has introduced for Eat Out‘s 2014 edition is that its printed Restaurant Guide will only list 500 restaurants, as opposed to 1100 last year.  The method of selecting the included restaurants has changed too.

The process commenced with Eat Out announcing that it was looking for applications from restaurants to be included in the 2014 Eat Out Guide, such applications closing on 30 June.  It described the application process as follows: ‘This call to action turns up the heat and shifts the onus onto the restaurant to put themselves forward in a simple process‘.  The restaurants that wanted to be considered for inclusion had to complete a Continue reading →