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 …
For a bargain price of R150 per person, the dinner menu is six courses, with a choice of three dishes for each meal. The first course is a ‘mouth tickler’ with a choice of either a salt and pepper prawn served in a tot glass with a sweet chilli and coriander spuma, an iced oyster or a roasted garlic flaky pastry tart. We both had the salt and pepper prawn and declared it very tasty indeed.
The 2nd course is a soup with choices between slow cooked leek and potato, garden pea and pancetta (I had this one and it was very good) or a cape seafood bouillabaisse.
Pasta makes up the third course. I went for the ricotta and spinach dumplings, my husband for the lamb and lemon cannelloni and the third choice was semolina potato gnocchi. After this a ‘refresher’ is served to cleanse the palate. My husband loves the concept of having a ‘pudding’ in the middle of the meal!
Mains is the fifth course. I decided to try something different and instead of choosing the sous vide beef fillet served with dauphinoise potato went for the roasted pork belly with creamed swiss chard and sweet potato. I’m not a huge pork fan but this was cooked to perfection. The third mains choice was a herb and mustard crusted whitefish.
Last but not least, the sixth course was something sweet. My husband, who had decided at the start of the meal that we couldn’t both have the same thing ordered the milk chocolate pot de crème and I had the hot apple and pear brulee tart. Utterly divine and an excellent recommendation from our waitress Jade. Im sure the vanilla panna cotta would have been just as tasty.
It was a perfect meal and the waiting staff at Myoga deserve a pat on the back – faultless service with good recommendations for both food and wine.
The special runs until the end of August and if you are a ‘lady who lunches’, you are in luck because there is a lunch special too! A two course lunch is R95 and a three course lunch R125 with the menu changing weekly. I can also confirm that Myoga makes a devilishly good cocktail!
So when the next cold front rolls in do what one is meant to do in winter and take advantage of a winter special!
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Contact Details
Myoga Restaurant at The Vineyard Hotel, Newlands, Cape Town; Telephone +27 (0)21 657-4545
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