Jakes on Summerley — a review

Jakes on Summerley

A friend from Durban was in town on busi­ness yes­ter­day and we booked a table for five at Jakes to have a catch up din­ner.  I hadn’t been to Jakes for close on three years (why I don’t know; its always such a pleas­ure to dine there) but it was as I'd remembered it … and those deli­cious flat breads are still on the menu!

Jakes on Summerley is a styl­ish res­taur­ant that wraps itself around a Brazilian Pepper Tree – very clever design indeed giv­ing a quaint al fresco din­ing area between the bar area and res­taur­ant.  We were seated indoors and our waiter Tendai saw to our drink order. Continued

Reuben’s at the One&Only Cape Town

We had friends from the Lowveld stay with us for the week­end and they very kindly took us to Reuben’s at the One&Only for din­ner on Friday night.  I’ve eaten at Reuben’s in Franschhoek and the Cape Town oper­a­tion (which opened on October 1^st) is just as good.

Occupying the area where Gordon Ramsay’s maze used to be, the res­taur­ant was full with people still linger­ing at tables when we left at about 11.30pm.  The space is soph­ist­ic­ated and Reuben serves simple, whole­some, deli­cious food with fresh fla­vours and more than gen­er­ous pro­por­tions. Continued

moyo opens new venue in Durban

moyo uSh­aka Pier

A brand new venue has opened at moyo Ushaka Pier. Situated right at the very end of the pier, the new venue is a new double storey glass build­ing that offers 360 degree pan­or­amic ocean views, as well as glimpses of the beau­ti­ful Moses Mabhida Stadium in the distance.

Already a firm favour­ite with local and inter­na­tional guests, moyo uSh­aka Pier is com­pletely unique in Durban and South Africa – as it’s the only venue to suc­cess­fully com­bine the balmy beach with authen­tic African cuisine and enter­tain­ment. And it is the closest guests can get to a cruise liner exper­i­ence, without leav­ing shore. Continued

Mezbaan — an evening to celebrate

Mezbaan

It was an even­ing to cel­eb­rate, a Masters degree from the University of Cape Town was the cause for cel­eb­ra­tion and the venue Mezbaan a North Indian res­taur­ant at the Coral International Hotel in the Cape Town City Bowl. The pat­rons a group of friends who are as thick as thieves – so con­ver­sa­tion and laughter were sure to be on the menu.

We’d all been sent a link to the menu a few weeks before­hand but I had for­got­ten about it and on the morn­ing of the din­ner I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check out what was on offer. You see I like to have a def­in­ite idea of what I’m going to eat before even step­ping into the res­taur­ant, I prefer this method because oth­er­wise I could spend hours decid­ing what to eat and heaven help me if there are spe­cials for the day. So I usu­ally browse through the menu at my leis­ure and select one or two dishes that I will order – mak­ing the order­ing pro­cess far less stress­ful later on. Continued

Myoga Restaurant at The Vineyard

Myoga Restaurant

We arrived at Myoga Restaurant at The Vineyard Hotel in Newlands to much fan-fare on Friday night; road clos­ures, an obvi­ous police pres­ence, paparazzi and a film crew.  Goodness I thought, they shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just for us!  What it was how­ever was the immin­ent arrival of Team Argentina ahead of their quarter final clash with Germany in Cape Town.  I how­ever had abso­lutely no interest in spot­ting Diego ‘Hand of God’ Maradona ... I was at The Vineyard to dine at Myoga Restaurant!

Cape Town and the Western Cape are known for inclement winter weather and to entice people out of doors dur­ing these months, res­taur­ants come up with some very attract­ive winter spe­cials and the spe­cial at Myoga is spe­cial indeed ... Continued

The Grill Room in Franschhoek (a review)

The Grill Room in Franschhoek has been open for close on two months now and we gave it a try last Saturday night.  I’m so pleased we did — we enjoyed it so much that I think I should plan ahead now and book a table for lunch for the Saturday of Bastille Day weekend!

Located on the main street, the L shaped build­ing is invit­ing; I loved the seat­ing area out­side (with heat­ers of course for winter even­ings) and I espe­cially loved the black and white ‘pho­tos’ trans­ferred to wall­pa­per.  Very clever indeed.  The red brick walls, wood shuttered win­dows and red lan­terns all add to the aes­thet­ics.  The main res­taur­ant has about ten tables while the butchery sec­tion is smal­ler and a private din­ing area is avail­able for hire upstairs. Continued

Perfect weekend fare — breakfast at Caveau and picnics in Kommetjie

Kommetjie

My Saturday was, as per usual a day of eat­ing.  I didn’t feel too guilty about it though because Knysna Half Marathon train­ing has com­menced so I did my sched­uled 3kms on Friday night and wrapped up a quick 5kms on Saturday morn­ing (the views from Boyes Drive make it all worth while)!

Breakfast had been organ­ised for 10am and I met my girl­friends at Caveau in Newlands.  Housed next door to the well known Josephine Mill, Caveau serves break­fast, lunch, din­ner and a deli­cious range of tapas (try the lamb sam­oo­sas or beef cubes with béarnaise sauce — to die for!).  We were there for break­fast though so I had to pass on the lamb Continued

Bread and wine in the presence of lemons

Môreson Wine Estate

The Franschhoek val­ley is a ver­it­able patch­work quilt of wine estates. Well, obvi­ously you might say, but really, there is a smor­gas­bord from which to choose, and mak­ing a selec­tion for a lunch­eon is some­thing of an under­tak­ing. I am in no way com­plain­ing, you understand...

Franschhoek is without doubt one of the most gor­geous des­tin­a­tions in the coun­try. Poets, writers and crit­ics have all waxed lyr­ical about the valley's charms. It is the food and wine Mecca of the Western Cape and attracts people from all over the world for this reason, that and the beauty of the val­ley, which never fails to move me. The com­bin­a­tion of loom­ing moun­tains, fields of lav­ender, grapev­ines and quaint, freshly painted Cape Dutch homes com­bine to make it exquis­ite. And on an autumn day, as the vine leaves turn from green through brown to bur­gundy, make no mis­take, Franschhoek is close to heaven. Continued

The Cape Farm House — a review

The Cape Farmhouse

People from the UK are fond of South African sun. Perhaps a little too fond. In fact most of the time you can tell how long a Brit has been in the coun­try purely by the shade of magenta his skin has gone. The prob­lem is of course that most vis­it­ors often only have a couple of weeks to pack in as much UV radi­ation in as pos­sible, so often warn­ings about sun cream and shade often go unheeded.

The Sowing the Seeds party at The Cape Farm House was a per­fect oppor­tun­ity for our British fam­ily to indulge in the sun­shine while listen­ing to some of best bands in Cape Town.  They hap­pily bopped to the sounds of The Dirty Skirts, their magenta skin shin­ing in the sun­light. Later they would curse and regret their frugal use of sun­block, but right there and then they were hav­ing the time of their lives ... Continued

Bo Kaap Kombuis — warm hospitality and the best Bobotie ever

Bo Kaap Kombuis

The only com­plaint I have with The Bo Kaap Kombuis is that we went for din­ner and because it was dark we could not appre­ci­ate what must be an incred­ible view of Table Mountain and the City Bowl below it.

Bo-Kaap is the old­est set­tle­ment of the South African Malay com­munity.  The hall­mark of the Cape Malay people is the warm hos­pit­al­ity they extend to vis­it­ors and we def­in­itely exper­i­enced this first hand when we dined at The Bo-Kaap Kombuis on Friday even­ing.  Yusuf, the owner met us on the street and his wife, Nazli was just as wel­com­ing as we entered the res­taur­ant ... Continued

Breakfast at The Meeting Place in Simons Town

The view ...

What is bet­ter than break­fast out on a Monday pub­lic hol­i­day?  Although my brother had been before, it was my first visit to The Meeting Place in Simon’s Town and I just love the place.  Located oppos­ite the Quayside Hotel on St George’s Street, The Meeting Place is double storey and we made our way upstairs and settled down at a table for four on the bal­cony.  Furnished with garden style tables and chairs and with retract­able blinds to give res­pite from the sun the bal­cony is the per­fect spot to con­tem­plate life while watch­ing the yachts bob­bing in the har­bour ... Continued

Dinner at Belthazar Restaurant & Wine Bar at the V&A Waterfront

Belthazar Restaurant

It was all sys­tems go when the screech of my alarm clock resoun­ded in my ears at 06h00 wak­ing me up far earlier than my body, mind or eyes were will­ing to on Sunday morn­ing. I reluct­antly got out of bed and dressed and was soon out­side in the blustery wind of Cape Town driv­ing my cousin and his friend to the start­ing point of the Argus Cycle Tour for their 08h00 start time. After I dropped them off I rushed home to try to catch a glimpse of them start­ing — of course I couldn’t spot them, with over 35000 cyc­lists and me still half asleep — how­ever, it was the thought that counts. I spent the morn­ing catch­ing up on the pile of wash­ing that needed to be done and try­ing to revive my tired plants.

Around lunch­time I got the call that the ath­letes were tri­umphant and tired and ready to be col­lec­ted at the fin­ish point (the new Cape Town Stadium), a 4hr 15min time was indeed some­thing to be proud of espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the crazy wind that had been blow­ing all morn­ing ... Continued

Bistro 1682 at Steenberg

Bistro 1682

Cape Town is renowned for it's res­taur­ants and eat­er­ies — from deli’s to 5-star cuisine, little café’s, cof­fee shops, wine estates and more, and often places open up faster than you can keep track of. A place that has been much spoken about over the last few months, and one that I have been eagerly wait­ing to try out, is the new Bistro-style res­taur­ant at Steenberg Golf Estate in Constantia, which is already quite pop­u­lar for their fine din­ing res­taur­ant Catharina’s.

Bistro 1682 is an innov­at­ive concept with an extremely unique wine tast­ing bar and cool, com­fort­able res­taur­ant. Where does the name come from? 1682 is the year Steenberg was first estab­lished and so seems quite a fit­ting name. The res­taur­ant has a com­pletely formal yet relaxed atmo­sphere, it is dif­fi­cult to explain but it exudes eleg­ance and cas­u­al­ness at the same time ... Continued

Lunch at Zevenwacht – simply heavenly

Zevenwacht Estate

It is more than a little fit­ting that Zevenwacht Wine Estate should lie on Langverwacht Road in Kuils River. We found ourselves on Bottelary Road in Bellville, a road we were not famil­iar with — some­thing we enjoy doing on a week­end; see­ing where the road takes us — and as we headed into and past Brackenfell, our hopes (a long time wait­ing) at find­ing a lunch venue extraordin­aire dimin­ished some­what — Brackenfell hardly equates with sprawl­ing vine­yards and moun­tain views.

Fortunately for us, Zevenwacht was sign-posted left off Van Riebeek Road towards wine coun­try on Strand Road, and we found ourselves head­ing up the hill to one of the lesser known wine farms in this part of the world ... Continued

Bird's Boutique Café – on its way to becoming iconic in the city bowl

Bird’s Boutique Café

A meal at Bird's Boutique is some­thing of an exper­i­ence, and if you haven't already stopped off to taste Mathilde Stegmann and her daughter's delect­able dishes, then I would advise that you do.

Set on the corner of Bree and Church Street in a build­ing that is most un-restaurant-like, there isn't any­thing quite like this café in Cape Town. The concept defies cat­egor­isa­tion, and yet the food is simple, home-cooking. Described as a 'unique, artistic refuge' the café, des­pite sound­ing such, is not pre­ten­tious and doesn't work hard at just being what it is — a kit­chen that feeds its pat­rons ser­i­ously yummy and dis­tinct­ive food, with none of the gloss, glam­our and self-indulgent osten­ta­tion that some other res­taur­ants man­age. Continued