Of the four top restaurants I ate at in Johannesburg last week, the Cube Tasting Kitchen was the one I knew least about, it not having made the Eat Out Top 20 Restaurant Finalist list ever, yet is highly regarded by Johannesburgers.
Telephonic bookings are not preferred, I sensed when I called. I had to provide email and phone details, and the booking was Continue reading →
We wrote recently how Woolworths has been misleading consumers with claims about its Ayrshire milk, deceiving food labelling, and how it tries to create an image of healthy produce via its ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa‘ series on SABC3. The group Grass Consumer Food Action has been persistent in its criticism of Woolworths, and appears to have hit a raw nerve in the Good Business Journey division at Woolworths, the retailer having launched a brand new ‘Good Food News‘ 16-page insert in the Sunday Times yesterday! It looks like a Taste magazine (the Woolworths sponsored magazine published by New Media Publishing) but printed in Tabloid format on recycled paper!
While the Tabloid has ‘headlines’ on page 1, to attract one’s attention to the content, it consists of a mix of ‘advertorials’ of its award-winning wines (since when are wines a food, as per the name of the publication?) in ‘Crowned as the best‘; ‘responsibly sourced‘ fish; braai suggestions for ‘Ready Steady Braai’; and ‘Flavours of Home‘ (prepared
foods with strong spices such as curries, and traditional foods such as koeksisters and milk tart); as well as editorial. It is obviously planned as a monthly insert, numbered ‘Issue 01′, and dated September 2014. The focus of the first issue is ‘lovelocal‘:
* ‘New on the shelf‘ (page 3) showcases new pack designs for wine boxes, braai tins, braai marinade, braai Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Gareth Cliff left 5FM today, after 10 years at the radio station. There appears to be no news about his future plans.
* Heston Blumenthal is moving The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray UK to Melbourne in February next year for six months, whereafter he will call the restaurant Dinner.
* Moyo has closed down at Spier, following the recent closure of Moyo at the V&A Waterfront, reports the Cape Times today.
* Excellent news is that the International Court of Justice in The Hague has placed an immediate stop on whaling by Continue reading →
Yesterday was the most chaotic day I have seen in Camps Bay in 20 years of living in the suburb. We know that New Year’s Day is busy, and is a stay-away zone, due to the thousands of Cape Town residents who come from other areas and take ownership of the beach in the suburb, without the City of Cape Town sending any reinforcements to secure the suburb. What was experienced in Camps Bay yesterday may be the deathknell for tourism in Camps Bay and Cape Town.
We warn our guests to stay away from the Camps Bay beach on 26 December and 1 January, but nothing could have prepared us for yesterday. One should have known that chaos was coming, when all the restaurants on the street level of the whole beachfront strip, with the exception of health food franchise Kauai, were closed for business! When I was advising my guests about alternatives of things to do and places to eat, I had to admit to them that most restaurants in Cape Town are closed on New Year’s Day, despite the city teeming with tourists! I drove down Kloof Street, and was pleasantly surprised that about half the restaurants on this popular restaurant street were open for business, a few proudly Tweeting that they would be open until about 22h00 last night, which is a whole lot better than last year, when only the franchise restaurants were operating. Manna Epicure, Da Vinci’s, Arnold’s on Kloof, Vovo Telo, Hudson on Kloof, Knead, Mozzarella Bar, and newly opened The Black Sheep are some of the restaurants that were operating, and should be commended for feeding the many tourists in Cape Town. The restaurants in the city centre were all closed.
In Camps Bay I needed Bay Response at my guest house, but they had to cut short their
service when they were called to assist Pick ‘n Pay Camps Bay, of which the front door was being broken down by unruly beachgoers! We heard sirens throughout the day, especially early afternoon, when there was a near-drowning on Camps Bay beach, despite lifeguard services offered. The beach is just too full, and often inexperienced bathers and unsafe rip tides can lead to loss of life.
I had driven to town for a quick coffee break in the early afternoon, and it took 15 minutes to travel 250 meters from Hussar Grill Continue reading →