Tag Archives: World Cup 2010

Are ‘frikkin’ bloggers’ the bread and butter of Restaurant marketing?

Mount Nelson Rudi Liebenberg BloggersOn Sunday the Sunday Times had a lengthy article, entitled ‘Food Soldiers’, about the blood, sweat, and tears that go into the preparation of ‘fine food’ and the running of good restaurants. The article concluded with a denigration of ‘frikkin’ bloggers‘ by newly renamed Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel Chef Rudi Liebenberg, quite out of character of someone who comes across as gentle and kind.

I Tweeted the last paragraph of the article, and posted it on Facebook, and an interesting discussion arose on the latter forum, threatening to become a ‘Chefs versus Bloggers’ fight. Veteran Chef Billy Gallagher fully supported Chef Rudi, writing ‘I believe you write good stuff Chris and I follow your blog which is always interesting to say the least, having spent 40 years in the hotel business. It was hotel chefs that laid the foundation. The South African chefs Association created the platform for today’s South African chefs and this 40 years ago was a hotel chefs initiative.  Many of the top 10 restaurants are on wine estates which adds a wonderful backdrop to these very talented chefs. Let’s give Rudi his opinion right or wrong‘.   Twelve Apostles Executive Director Horst Frehse also wrote in support of Chef Rudi.   Susanna Tecklenburg of Oude Wellington wrote  ‘I eat, sleep, sitting on the loo social media between cooking and running my restaurant. It sure brings in business and you meet new people all the time and guests appreciated when you comment on their posts. Read all the blogs and specially yours Chris Von Ulmenstein and value your opinion. Thanks for all your input and info all the time. With my busy lifestyle you ‘frikkin’ bloggers help us to be in touch what’s going on out there!’.  Chef Anton Bekker of Taste Restaurant was critical of the effect of MasterChef SA on diners: ‘Social media keep my restaurant afloat! I do have problem when people watch masterchef and then think they know everything. Lol. Or when a food writer comments that the hollandaise needed some more cream. … haha’. Sarie Kos Food Editor Herman Lensing was the first to react to the Facebook post, stating that all diners have the right to express an opinion, and that chefs should cook for their customers and not for critics.  Amanda Brinkmann was very vocal about the subject, saying that due to the politics in food writing, she believes in and supports ‘citizen journalism‘.  Deon Schutte clearly wrote from a chef’s perspective: ‘I think that Continue reading →

MyCiTi Bus strike poor PR for City of Cape Town!

My CiTi Bus imagesThe City of Cape Town’s MyCiTi Bus service has received mainly praise since it was introduced in 2010, just in time for the World Cup (although not meeting its deadline for the event for its original transport plans), and has praised itself recently for how many passengers its has transported, and how it is expanding the routes.  All of a sudden it is facing a PR nightmare, which it seems inexperienced to handle!

Two months ago the MyCiTi Bus service was criticised by Professor Deon Knobel, who wrote an open letter to Mayor Patricia de Lille and to Brett Herron, City Councillor for Transport, in the Cape Times.   Professor Knobel observed how wasteful the route in Oranjezicht/Tamboerskloof as well as Camps Bay is, asking some hard-hitting questions about the costs of running the service.   In the past week, the City has had to deal with two further problems, the most recent being the most debilitating in terms of the impact of its image.  It also informed Capetonians that the bulk of staff operating the MyCiTi Bus system are not employed by the City of Cape Town, but by third party contractors: Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 26 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Durbanville Hills Rhinofields Chardonnay 2012 has been selected as one of the world’s Top 10 wines in the 2014 Chardonnay du Monde, achieving this accolade against 794 wines from forty countries.  Cellarmaster Martin Moore attributes the rolling of the barrels to the complexity and success of the wine.   He also says that he does not allow the wine to be overpowered by wood.  Minimal rain during the 2012 summer season also contributed to the wine’s success. (received via media release from De Kock Communications)

*   Düsseldorf is the new international wine capital of the world, after its successful hosting of ProWein 2014, which was attended by 48000 delegates from Sunday until yesterday.   ProWine China will be held for the second time, in Shanghai, from 12 – 14 November.

*   SAA has warned passengers to ignore any e-mails purporting to come from the airline and seeking personal and/or banking details via links, requesting passengers to delete any such e-mails.

*   Helena Rizzo from Mani in São Paulo in Brazil has been named the Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef in the Continue reading →

Restaurants, MasterChef SA, and Social Media dominated Whale Cottage Blog in 2013!

Whale CottageWe used Google Analytics to identify the top ten blogposts on our WhaleTales Blog in 2013. The most read blogposts related to restaurants, MasterChef SA Season 2, and Social Media drama.  The top 10 most read blogposts in 2013 were the following:

1.  Autumn and Winter Cape Town and Winelands Restaurant Specials 2013 tops the list of most read, achieving almost three times as many unique readers compared to the other top 10 blogposts.  In winter restaurant specials are extremely important to Capetonians, as their wallets and purses are more bare.

2.   The year started off with a Social Media explosion, when ‘Mother Superior’ Blogger Jane-Anne Hobbs attacked us on Twitter,  protecting her ‘chicks’ Michael copy-and-paste Oliver, mommy Tweeter and then occasional CEO of Cape Town Tourism Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, former political poor-spelling-grammar ‘PR’ and Communications Consultant Skye Grove at Cape Town Tourism, and Eat Out editor Abigail I-love-Giorgio-and-Luke Donnelly.  We retaliated with a blogpost (‘New Year kicks off with Twitter bullying, bashing, and blackmail’) which attracted so much attention that Hobbs must have regretted her Tweet, as all ‘sins’ of the four ‘chicks’ were laid bare! Continue reading →