{"id":3043,"date":"2009-07-10T00:31:20","date_gmt":"2009-07-09T22:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=3043"},"modified":"2009-07-10T00:36:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-09T22:36:48","slug":"stellenbosch-university-sweet-and-sevruga-sour-service-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/stellenbosch-university-sweet-and-sevruga-sour-service-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Stellenbosch University Sweet and Sevruga Sour Service Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Sweet Service Award <\/strong>goes to the Conservatoire at the University of Stellenbosch, for organising the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival at the Endler Hall, from 3 – 12 July, bringing the best classical music talent from South Africa and overseas to Stellenbosch.\u00a0\u00a0 Every night a top class concert is offered.\u00a0 The highlights so far have been the most thrilling marriage between the Four Seasons of Vivaldi and ‘The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires’ by Argentinian tango composer Astor Piazolla, under the inspirational leadership of Daniel Rowland, a dynamic violinist who performs in the UK, Holland, in Europe, Australia, the Far East and South Africa.\u00a0\u00a0 The launch of the ‘Seasons’ CD co-incided with the Rowland concert.\u00a0 A further highlight was the narration of Prokovief’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ by Nataniel, who was given free reign of the text, and turned the scary fable into an hilarious modern-day fable, consisting of the characters Peter, his wife and Mrs Ecksteen!\u00a0\u00a0 The Wolf becomes a weedeater, which Peter uses to mow his lawn and that of his neighbour.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The audience could barely contain its laughter, with the modern-day tale supported by the classical music of the children’s story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Sour Service Award <\/strong>goes to Sevruga in the V & A Waterfront, for the poor service and poor value-for-money at the Cape Times\/Wordsworth launch lunch of Penny Vincenzi’s ‘The Best of Times’.\u00a0\u00a0 On arrival, the Sevruga manager seemed surprised to be requested to show the guest the table at which she was to be seated.\u00a0\u00a0 The welcome drink was not offered, and had to be\u00a0requested.\u00a0 The restaurant was taken over by the launch, and the restaurant\u00a0kept it really simple by offering a choice of two options per course. There was no excuse for them to get it so badly wrong.\u00a0\u00a0 The waiter taking the\u00a0order got every choice wrong when he read it back to the customer.\u00a0\u00a0 The duck consomme tasted like a very watered down tomato broth, without a taste of duck.\u00a0\u00a0 The waitress offered to “pepper grinder”\u00a0the starters.\u00a0 The “soup” spoon appeared to be inappropriate for the soup, but the customer was assured that it was a soup spoon.\u00a0\u00a0 The chicken breast was good, but was near to cold and was served with four chip “bricks”, hardly appropriate for a predominantly ladies’ lunch!\u00a0\u00a0The dessert was good and well matched with the Boschendal Brut Rose served with it.\u00a0 Interestingly, the same “soup” spoon did service as a dessert spoon as well!\u00a0A cappuccino was ordered, and before it was brought to the table the General Manager\u00a0made sure to tell the table\u00a0that it would be for the guests’ own account.\u00a0 It arrived close to cold, and a fellow attendee complained. The Manager offered to replace the coffees.\u00a0 When\u00a0the customers\u00a0wanted to pay for the coffee,\u00a0a waitress\u00a0said that there had been a mistake, and that the coffees should not have been charged.\u00a0\u00a0 Sevruga clearly was unable to handle such a large group of Penny Vincenzi fans!<\/p>\n

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards<\/strong>\u00a0are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.\u00a0 Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at <\/span>info@whalecottage.com<\/span><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales <\/span><\/strong>newsletters on the <\/span>www.whalecottage.com<\/span><\/a> website.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sweet Service Award goes to the Conservatoire at the University of Stellenbosch, for organising the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival at the Endler Hall, from 3 – 12 July, bringing the best classical music talent from South Africa and overseas to Stellenbosch.\u00a0\u00a0 Every night a top class concert is offered.\u00a0 The highlights so far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,20,248,21],"tags":[1658,1648,182,1655,32378,1645,1642,1649,1644,1647,1456,1657,1651,1660,1650,1654,1643,1641,862,32393,1646,32373,10,1653,1656],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t