Just Back From Wining & Dining in Cape Town

Some highlights were:

La Colombe – Cape Town - La Colombe was voted the 28th best restaurant in the world in 2006, and the best in Africa and the Middle East. It was definitely my fav restaurant of them all. It’s about 20mins from downtown Cape Town in Constantia – a wine-growing area. La Colombe is on the Constantia Uitsig vineyard. There’s a choice of about 6 or 8 dishes in each course that change almost daily – with an overall French theme. The menu all in French – but the service was charming and unpretentious – and they explained each dish. There’s a sommelier on hand to guide you through matching South African wines with your dishes. Our favourite dishes were a summer salad entrée, a salmon, asparagus and truffle gruyere gratin and a delicious springbok (venison) with fennel sauce. 4 courses, coffee, 2 bottles of wine, desert wine and the tip came to less than $100pp.

Le Quartier Francais – Stellenbosch – The Tasting Room – Voted 38th best restaurant in the world 2006. The Tasting Room specialises in Degustation menus. You can choose 4, 6 or 8 courses with matching wines – many from the nearby family Vineyard, Moreson. We went for just 4 courses – the highlight undoubtedly being a ‘desert’ of goats cheese brulee. Absolutely divine! Pick of the wine was a grape we’d never even heard of – Bukettraube, a semi-sweet white. They were absolutely excellent at pairing the wines with the food. And by the glass - they’re from about AUD5.00. 4 courses, 6 generous wines, coffee and tip came to well under $90pp

Balthazar – Cape Town – With 170 wines by the glass – they boast being the largest wine bar in the world.. obviously this was my kind of place. There’s a steak restaurant that has good reviews – but frankly, we were there to prop up the bar only. We were a bit surprised to see that it wasn’t a huge winebar/lounge. It really was just a large restaurant with a fairly small bar and no lounging area down at V and A Waterfront. Unperturbed – we diligently studied the enormous wine list. All wines are served in Riedel glasses (which themselves cost a fortune – about $50 each on average) and are huge! Each serve is 250ml – or 1/3 of a bottle. Prices started from about $5 per glass for some very adequate, good value drops. But given the strength of the Aussie dollar – we though we’d splurge and treat ourselves to the best wines we could afford. The staff were very knowledgeable and helpful and they’ll often give you a taste before you decide to order the glass or bottle. Each glass came with a printed tag so we’d remember what we had. The only thing lacking was a pen so we could write down (and remember) what we liked! Some favourites included – Vergelegen Reserve Sav Blanc, Fleur du Cap Unfiltered Sav Blanc, Bouchard Finlayson - Galpin Peak and a Saxenburg Private Collection Shiraz. So it was about $150 for the evening… but we sampled 10 of the best South African wines. Highly recommended!

Ginja – So this is hyped as the ‘trendy/place to be seen’ restaurant in Cape Town. To be honest – the reason we went was that there was someone on the menu with ‘coriander perfume’. The coriander perfume was lovely (you don’t eat it… they just spritz it onto the dish to enhance something or other). But it smelt gorgeous! Coriander foam (on the other hand), you do it. This came with an entrée of prawns, langoustine and scallop and was def a highlight of the evening. The best main we tried was the duck with hoi sin, plums, pistachios, a wrap and more. The food is experimental with so many flavours it can be a little overwhelming. But it really was excellent. 3 courses with wine and coffee and tip was about $80pp. The wine list and service were both a little bit of a letdown (although not as big a letdown as the poor guy who had an entire prawn entrée spill on his back.) We may have just been unlucky with the service - but after a brilliant time everywhere else – it was well below the standards set by the others.

Fairview Vineyard and Cheese – Come here for the cheese tasting… and the goats that live in a tower on the farm. The wines are fine – but the cheeses are delicious!

Seafood something – Kleinmond – the most tender calamari I’ve ever had. Calamari and rice - $6. the restaurant is down the harbour road. I forget what it’s called. But it’s the one on the end on the right. (it’s not a big place).

Overall – it’s almost embarrassingly cheap to eat and drink exceptionally well in SA. Try everything, splurge a bit and please send me any recommendations for my next trip!