Tag Archives: Tjing Tjing

A Women’s Day salute to Women Restaurant Owners and Top Chefs in Cape Town and the Winelands, sadly only a handful!

 

Since having created a Facebook Group for Food Delivery and Collection during Lockdown, I have become aware of women restaurant owners, something I had never written about or even thought about, only being aware of female chefs in our part of the world. For Women’s Day I planned this article, to profile the female restaurant owners in Cape Town and the Winelands, sadly only finding a small handful of 12.

I have also compiled a list of the Top 13 women Head/Executive Chefs in Cape Town and the Winelands.

Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 19 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and wine news headlines

*   Wesgro, the Tourism, Trade, and Investment promotion agency for the Western Cape, has announced that it is sponsoring the inaugural African Responsible Tourism Awards in conjunction with World Travel Market Africa and the International Centre for Responsible Tourism. The Award winners will be announced during Africa Travel Week on 16 April. (received via media release from Wesgro).

*   Cape Town has the most WORLD CLASS bars in South Africa, a total of 19 out of 46. Johannesburg has 15, and Durban 12. Achieving this status reflects their expertly made cocktails and their ‘charismatic mixology stars‘.  Their bartenders automatically enter the WORLD CLASS Global Final, to be held in Cape Town later this year.   The Cape Town bars include Orphanage, Umi, Asoka, Buena Vista, Bascule, Café Caprice, HQ, One & Only Vista Bar, Tjing Continue reading →

Fine Brandy Fusion: an evening of fine flavours, Bisquit takes the cake!

Fine Brandy Fusion This Is Brandy Whale Cottage PortfolioOn Thursday evening my friend Bettie Coetzee-Lambrecht and I attended Fine Brandy Fusion at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, having been invited by Manley Communications.   Fine Brandy Fusion is a fine showcase for the local brandy industry, the Bisquit cognac with South African links being our highlight.

At the registration desk we received a goody bag, and a booklet of coupons, to allow us to taste brandy cocktails and taste some of the 50 fine brandies neat.  Immediately on entering we passed a smallish restaurant, catered by the Convention Centre kitchen.  The food quality of the Convention Centre has been poor at every exhibition attended in the past, but picked up when its new Chef Warwick Thomas arrived a year ago, reaching a new low at World Travel Market Africa last month.  I was immediately sceptical, but the food options which were displayed in a refrigerated unit looked better (just from the plating) than I have ever seen there before.   We received two food couponsFine Brandy Fusion Food Whale Cottage Portfolio each, which Bettie used for linefish and I ordered tasty calamari rings, Bettie saying that it would be important to line our tummies for the brandy tasting to come.  We both ordered a cheese platter as well.  The service was excellent and professional, and the prices very reasonable at about R50 each.  We felt severely under-dressed when a fashionista wearing fur and her partner shared our table! Continue reading →

World Design Capital 2014: Highlights design in Cape Town Townships, no Tourism benefit sought!

Cécile and Boyd FoundationOn Friday The Guardian published a very lengthy article about Cape Town’s role as host of World Design Capital 2014 (WDC), and highlighted the unusual locations of design gems in Cape Town, including the townships and previously run-down city areas, as opposed to art galleries.  Unfortunately this is the second international article about Cape Town in two days with errors!  The article highlights what a visitor to Cape Town should see during this design-centred year, and contains shocking news for the Tourism industry.

Journalist Lisa Grainger anticipated visiting upmarket galleries, style emporiums, and seeing craft art, but instead she spent most of her week in Cape Town in townships with guide Fernie, to experience real creativity born from poverty. ‘Because it is in these townships that some of the most inspiring people live: people who are incredible, positive, engaging, brave. And I want visitors to see the good there is here, the real heart of South Africa’, he explained to her.  

She was told by Priscilla Urquhart, PR and Media Manager of Cape Town Design NPC, the company responsible for implementing World Design Capital 2014 for Cape Town, that our city’s budget (supplied by the City of Cape Town) is R 40 million, compared to close to R60 million spent by Helsinki two years ago, when that city carried the honour. Budget constraints prevented the creation of City-led design projects in Cape Town, but allowed the city’s design industry to offer its design projects for consideration, and about 450 have become official World Design Capital 2014 projects, summarised in a fold-open brochure. There is no showcase for these projects, the Design Indaba and Guild design fair having been the only two exhibitions where some of the work linked to some of the projects could be seen, unfortunately having run concurrently at the very busy end of February.

A shock is reading Urquhart admit to the journalist that ‘the WDC programme wasn’t designed to attract tourists, but to try to Continue reading →