On Wednesday I attended the Standard Bank Chenin Blanc Association Top 10 Challenge award presentation at Delaire Graff wine estate in Stellenbosch, at the invitation of Waterford Communications. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Tabasco
Restaurant Review: TRUFFLE first ‘5 star 100% Halaal Fine Dining Bistro’ in Cape Town not yet ‘5 star’!
The bottom end of Chiappini Street has housed two of my favourite restaurants in their time – Bruce Robertson’s The Showroom and Cormac Keane’s Portofino, both the talking point of Cape Town in their time. After a surprisingly long tenancy by low class Leaf, a smart ‘5 star 100% Halaal Fine Dining Bistro‘ has opened, called TRUFFLE. The restaurant was opened to offer top-end Halaal cuisine, which has not been available in Cape Town before. The name was chosen for its association with indulgence, which is echoed throughout the restaurant.
I had seen the exterior branding whilst driving down Buitengracht Street a week ago, but could not find any website via Google. Yesterday I stopped by, and was astounded how the restaurant interior has changed since Leaf occupied the space until about a year ago. Mohammed Adam was kind enough to spend time with me, to share information about the restaurant. 
He and Nisreen Ebrahim are joint owners, Nisreen and her husband Rafiq being previous owners of four fast food outlets they would not reveal the names of (LinkedIn revealed that they were Nando’s outlets), and took over the space in January. Mohammed did all the interior design, after some building work was done, half of the upstairs being closed off by means of a wall now, to give the kitchen double volume space. Almost everything has been changed, other than the wooden floor in the outside section, with a new wooden floor upstairs; new wooden steps for the staircase to match the tops of the tables and the Continue reading →
Global Pizza Challenge 2014: top SA passionate pizza makers sought!
On 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 as
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 →
Cape Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates centenary at ‘Valentine under the Stars’ concert!
A perfectly organised ‘Valentine under the Stars’ concert, held last night at The Castle, our country’s oldest building, paid tribute to the 100 year anniversary of the establishment of the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, which performed a programme of music related to love and romance.
With not a breath of wind, and a sky lit with stars and a full moon, the open-air concert in The Castle astounded the attendees, for its excellent quality music, not only by the orchestra conducted by Brandon Phillips, but also by the three soloists Colin Lee, Nash Reed, and Selim Kagee, as well as striking teenage violinist Donné de Kock. The sound quality was perfect, with no wind noise on the microphones, nor music notes flying away when there was the slightest breeze.
The concert was organised by Barbara Lenhard, powerhouse driver of publishing company Opulent Living with her partner Florian Gast, which recently opened Opulent Living Experiences events company. Orchestra CEO Louis Heyneman gave Barbara the green light to participate in the special concert. Comfortable chairs were set out in the courtyard of The Castle, decorated with hearts on red ribbons, and most of the 600 attendees would have had a perfect view of the stage and would have heard the music perfectly. Songs performed included ‘Dein ist mein ganzes Herz’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘The first time ever I saw your face’, the ‘Blue Danube’ waltz, ‘Granada’, and ‘Something Stupid’.
The first concert of the then-named Cape Town Municipal Orchestra took place in the City Hall on 28 Continue reading →