The Sweet Service Award goes to Twitter, which sent a celebratory message for our 5th Tweetversary earlier this week. In our five years we have Tweeted more than 41000 Tweets, and have enjoyed the ability to share short bytes of information. Whilst I was fascinated with the medium in early days, and felt an obsession to read every Tweet in the feed, and enjoyed the informative role and the humour of many of them, this is no longer possible due to greater work pressure and greater boredom with the repetitiveness of Tweets, the hard sell of some of them, and the abuse many of them contain. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Tweets
Vegetarian Pizza wins SA leg of Global Pizza Challenge 2014/15!
For the first time a vegetarian pizza has won the South African leg of the Global Pizza Challenge, Colin du Plessis from the Lady Grey restaurant in McGregor having been named as the local winner at Hostex at the Cape Town International Convention Centre last week. He has won cash, as well as a trip to Melbourne in March next year, to participate in the Global Pizza Challenge, being one of 16 international finalists from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Namibia, Italy, UAE, and Thailand.
Pizza makers from around the country, working in restaurants, stand-alone pizzerias, takeaway outlets, and hotels sent in their pizza recipes. A panel of internationally-recognised chefs evaluated the entries, and judged them on originality, balance, creativity, as well as their ‘excitement factor’. The finalists were selected on the basis of their recipes, and the top 30 were invited to prepare their pizzas in a three-day cook-off held on the Global Pizza Challenge stand at Hostex. Pizza lovers could enter in one of five categories: poultry or meat, seafood, vegetarian, speciality, and dessert. Colin’s winning pizza is named ‘Mary Queen of Scots’, reflecting the Scottish theme of his Lord’s Guest Lodge, Continue reading →
WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 20 May
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* The influential Huffington Post has published a fantastic article about Cape Town, entitled ‘15 Reasons Cape Town should be No. 1 on your travel agenda’, and has already achieved 749 Facebook likes, 211 Facebook shares, and 473 Tweets in the past 24 hours. The list of reasons includes its location; ‘some of the most picturesque beach communities you’ll ever see’, featuring a photograph of Clifton; beachfront bars, showing a photograph of the view onto Camps Bay beach from the now closed-down St Yves; 3000 penguins at Boulders Beach; the Sea Point swimming pool; the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden; the V&A Waterfront ‘tourist trap‘ but meaning it in a positive way; ‘the weather is almost too perfect’, with a photograph of the Twelve Apostles with a heavy South-Easter cloud!; Long Street not being as over-crowded or over-priced as Bourbon Street; the Royale Eatery, well-known for its burgers and thick milkshakes; colourful Bo-Kaap; the Neighbourgoods Market; ‘breathtaking universities‘; and braai’s, at Mzoli’s in Gugulethu in particular. The Stellenbosch Winelands and shark cage diving in Gansbaai are also recommended.
* TripAdvisor has found that user searches for South Africa are increasingly terms such as ‘museums‘, ‘luxury’, and ‘wifi’, while ‘safety’, wildlife, and ‘animals’ are less often searched than before.
* The 2014 World Cup, due to kick-off in Brazil on 12 June, could be headed for chaos if the threatened strike by staff of the LATAM airline group servicing most of South America is not dealt with before then. It is estimated that 300 international and 750 regional flights could be affected if the strike takes place.
* Century City is to complete a new Conference Centre by the end of next year. The CCCC will have 20 venues which Continue reading →
World Travel Market Africa: Day 2 very disappointing and unprofessional, focus on Mobile Marketing!
I was so impressed with the talks in the Event programme of World Travel Market Africa on Friday that I returned yesterday to the Cape Town International Convention Centre to listen to some more. It was a much more disappointing and unprofessional experience than on Friday.
It was a shame that the afternoon session was very quiet for all at the exhibition, having to compete with the Stormers playing Highlanders. It did make finding parking outside the Convention Centre easy though. In between two talks I went into the Media Centre, and was horrified at how rude the security person was, questioning my presence there, after I had used it the day before as well without question, annoying too as I had blogged about the first day yesterday! It is disappointing that the quality of the food at the Convention Centre, which had improved greatly after the arrival of Chef Warwick Thomas almost a year ago, was uninspiring in the Media Centre, with some pieces of feta, lots of olives, cherry tomatoes, green leaves, and cucumber slices (the day before they came with mini pita bread), baby potatoes and slices of roast beef with stir fry vegetables (the day before much better rice and tender chicken breasts), and fruit and a mini milktart, which leaked all its content the minute one used the spoon (compared to the excellent fruit tarts and 
chocolate mousse served the day before). At 15h00 the content of the small bar fridge, consisting of cold drinks and water, had been cleared out, and they were not refilling it for the next three hours until closing time, because the budget limit for drinks had been reached! The day before a Convention Centre staff member announced that no more drinks could be had by the writers using the Centre, despite the fridge still being three quarters full! This all happened despite Natalia Thomson, the PR consultant for the exhibition being in the Media Centre, but she did nothing about the drinks shortage, despite the feedback to her. Continue reading →