Bite size treats

A few wees ago I wrote about the The Grazing Room, the restaurant that won, for us, the prize for the most tasty bite sized sample at the Taste of Jo'burg. I was therefore excited when my family, who are my blog's greatest fans, decided to take me to The Grazing Room for my birthday. And oh boy, was it a treat to write home about!

The Grazing room is a tapas restaurant. Tapas, a Spanish tradition, is a series of appetizers one typically has before dinner. Dinner-time in Spain is 9pm or later, and tapas are eaten earlier, while bar hopping to carry you through to dinner.

An interesting legend about the origin of Tapas has it that it started when  the eighteenth-century King Alfonso XIII once ordered wine in a tavern in the windy city of Cadiz, and the waiter covered his wine glass with a piece of cured ham to protect it from sand carried by the wind. 'Tapas' refers to this edible lid that covered his glass.

Tapas is about, sharing, tasting, discussing and enjoying food and it was exactly what we did. It was a taste celebration, no bite went unsavoured!

The tapas that came out of Chef de Cuisine Damian Pentelo's kitchen were all artworks - every dish was presented with care. All the plates carrying the tapas looked different, accentuating the different taste experience awaiting you.

The overall number one favourite of the eight dishes we 'grazed' through was the prawn and risotto balls, coloured black with squid ink. It melted my mouth and the accompanying lemon aioli worked well with it. I felt though that they'd forgotten to add something green, perhaps a few  micro-herbs would have rounded off the taste and look.

Number two was the the marinated veg tapas  - charred brinjal, baby marrow, red pepper, confit cherry tomatoes and artichoke hearts. The taste transported me to the mediterranean and was yummy, with just the right amount of lemon. The artichokes was surprisingly soft but still al dente.

Number three, the paella with the surprise of the small squares of lemon jelly. It tasted fine, but lacked something to make it outstanding.

Number four - Smoked olives. I could smell the smokey olives on their way to the table. It was soft and tasty.

Number five was the duck liver patè, with a green fig jelly and green figs poached in rooibos and vanilla with mini melba toast. The figs and jelly were the highlight of the dish, but it unfortunately overpowered the patè, even though the latter had a lovely smoothness. This plate was visually the most attractive of all the dishes.

The other dishes that we had was bbq pork, fish tacos and mushroom on toast - a truly varied meal! 

The ambiance was very relaxing even though the restaurant was full. The service was excellent and I felt spoilt.

The wine list is good but a but pricey, starting at R150 per bottle. We had the Waterford Pecan Stream Chenin Blanc that worked well with the tapas. 

The prices for the tapas courses were very reasonable for the quality and serving sizes. Our total bill was R170 per person for the eight tapas plates, a bottle of wine and four soft drinks. 

Everyone around the table agreed without hesitation that they will come back again. Our overall score for food and ambiance was 7.5/10.

The Grazing Room is a tapas bar at the award winning DW eleven -13 restaurant in the Dunkeld West Shopping Centre, c/o Jan Smuts & Bompas street, Dunkeld west, Johannesburg.

To 'graze' book at (011) 341 0663 or email: info@dw11-13.co.za.

Website: www.dw11-13.co.za

Taste of Joburg Festival - Part two

By now we'd tasted samples from three restaurants, and two out of three were winners. Our R100 tasting budget was running out fast, but we still had a few coupons left for a titbit or two.

We continued on, wandering among the many stands and looking at the samples on offer.The restaurant that attracted the most attention - especially among females - was Beefcakes...probably because of the beefcakes working there. It's amazing how naked flesh sells anything, even food.

The beefcake hunks

We almost hugged the lady at the Coach House Nougat stand when we walked past it. The luxury Coach House hotel, set high up in the Magoebaskloof mountains near Tzaneen used to be our favourite country hotel getaway but unfortunately the owner passed away a few years ago, and with him went the personalised service and care that made the hotel special. A side business of the hotel was a nougat factory that makes the most amazing macadamia and honey nougat. We thought they'd stopped making nougat, so were delighted to see they are still in business. It's a bit sad that the recognisable, classic branding had changed  from the gold coach and horses to something a little more modern, but the taste is still unmistakably Coach House. I highly recommend their nougat - you'll find it at most Spar and Dischem outlets.

Coach House Nougat 

Fry's new curry offering

Fry's, the popular vegetarian frozen food range also had a stand.  We are big fans of Fry's time-saving and tasty schnitzels and pepper steak pies, and here they were, introducing a new Durban range of curries (Durban, really?), and we tried their new 'mutton' curry (why do manufacturer's insist on imitating meat??) served in a bunny chow. It tasted good - not as good as Fordsburg curry, but quite fine for a quick meal.

Fry's Mutton Curry Bunny Chow

The Taste of Joburg outing was a fun way to spend the day, and it was good to see so many people that love and appreciate good food. 

Yummy Things At The Taste Of  Joburg

However, I still find the prices hard to swallow. Entry cost R80  per person, or R40 if you have a Pick n Pay shopper card.  And then there were the aforementioned per-tasting prices, which were quite steep I thought. I feel the restaurants have an opportunity to advertise here, and that the tasters should cost either very little or be free. It felt like I was paying a lot of money for a branded T-shirt, when they should be paying me instead for wearing the T shirt.

More Yummy Things

Tips for next time

Will I go again? O yes! But for the next Taste of Joburg I will go better prepared. Firstly, I will take a hat and lots of sunblock since the festival is held outdoors. I will allow the whole day to explore - don't think you can taste everything on offer in an hour or two. Importantly, I will book the food preparation workshops in advance - they were all sold out. And lastly, before spending anything I'll take a walk around and look for specials. For instance,I could have subscribed to Pick n Pay's Fresh Living Magazine and received one hundred Rand's worth of vouchers thrown into the deal! 

Taste of Joburg Festival Part One - tasty, but pricey

The Taste of Joburg Festival is a foodie event that has been held here for the past seven years. Exhibitors include local restaurants, wineries, beer makers and food producers. The main purpose of the festival is to introduce Johannesburg restaurants to the public by offering them a sampling from their menus, thus the 'taste' in the name. And if you like what you taste, you follow it up with a meal at the restaurant. You get the idea.

We attended the very first Taste of Joburg Festival years ago at Wanderers. At the time we found it to be crowded and expensive, and more importantly, didn't find a single restaurant that grabbed our attention. But we did see one of those classic Stella Artois advertisement videos that convinced us to taste it - our first time ever - and today it's still our preferred beer. 

So, unimpressed at the time, we gave Taste of Joburg a miss for the next six years. But last Sunday we decided to give the Taste of Joburg another chance.

There were  a good selection of restaurants represented at the festival, varying from hotel restaurants, bistros, tapas bars, Indian, Thai and gourmet burgers. Each restaurant had three taste options - a starter, a main course and a dessert. Each portion is the size of about two to three bites, really small. 

We worked out that at the prices the tasters were going for - anything between R15 and R40 - there were enough tasting choices to set us back just under a R1000! That was way above our budget, so we decided that the tasters that we'd try must be from restaurants we haven't eaten at before, it must be a food combination that was new to us, and it should all fit into oursmall R100 tasting budget. 

On top of that we still wanted to go visit the Joburg Art Fair at Sandton in the afternoon, we set off to explore right away.

Lacuna

Our first taster was from Lacuna, a bistro at the new Maslow hotel in Sandton. It was a starter of roasted baby beetroot, ash goat's cheese brûlée and walnut pesto served with micro herbs. Sure, beetroot and goat's cheese is old news but combined with the walnut pesto it was a taste sensation that worked, it was well balanced and refreshing. I didn't quite understand the 'brulee' part of the goat's cheese though. It was delicious enough to make a date to eat at Lacuna in the near future and try more of Chef Dallas Orr's creations. 

Roasted baby beetroot,
ash goat's cheese brûlée and walnut pesto

The Grazing Room

Our next tasting was at The Grazing Room, a tapas bar located at the DW eleven-13 restaurant in Dunkeld West. And it won the day for us! We tasted the prawn risotto balls served with a lemon aioli, a combination that was a tastebud treat. The risotto was black, coloured by squid ink and just the right consistency. It almost melts away in your mouth. 

I'm a big tapas fan. I love the small portions packed with flavour. I struggle to make choices when it comes to restaurant menus, so tapas work for me - I can have a little bit of this and a little bit of that all in one sitting. So the Grazing Room was a winner - In fact I think that this is the restaurant we'll go eat at weekend.

Prawn risotto balls

Vivace

Our taster from Vivace, the restaurant at the Raddison Blu in Sandton was a dessert. Chef Jaques Venter created a Hugenot baked cheese tart with jasmine syrup, micro herbs and a passion fruit gel on the side. According to him Hugenot is a South African award winning cheese and taste like a strong cheddar. 

The tart was surprisingly not too sweet,  I didn't taste any jasmine syrup but the passion fruit gel worked well. 

Hugenot baked cheese tart 

Would we visit Vivace for a meal? Hmm… not sure. The dessert was good, but not outstanding.

Next time: our Taste of Joburg adventure continues!

My Day at IFEA

I lost this post twice already. So this is my third rewrite. Initially it started with  "today..." then "yesterday... " and finally the present version. Let's hope It doesn't disappear into cyberspace again. I don't think "6 months ago I spend the morning..." will sound quite OK.

Last week I spend the morning at the Sandton Convention Centre exploring the IFEA exhibition, billed as  Africa's International Food and Drink Event.

I went to the exhibition to get some insights into what's new in the food industry. Five things drew my attention. They might be old hat to you, but here they are anyway.

#1 Things that looks like ice cream aren't always ice cream.

Yes, you get cake on a stick. No, not your standard, so-last-season cake pops;  these are cake pops that look like a Magnum ice cream. But when you bite into it, it's cake! Wonderful for cake lovers, but not so wonderful for ice cream lovers.




I overhead the stand lady saying it will be available in one of our large supermarkets soon. Sorry, but in my book 'supermarket cake' don't sound like angels singing in my ears. So I decided I have to try make them myself.... I'll keep you posted.

 #2 There is salt, and then there is salt from the Kalahari.

A week or two ago I was saying to a friend that I don't understand this specialized salt craze. Salt is salt...And anyway is it really ethical to import salt from the Himalayas? What about local is "lekker"! 

I'm not a salt guru. I've never used any other salt than your normal bag of running table salt. 
Oryx dessert salt had a stand at the exhibition. Their salts are harvested at the beautiful, unpolluted Kalahari salt pans.

It might be the fact that I have a soft spot for the Kalahari desert, or the picturesque Gemsbok photo they had on display, but their salt did indeed taste different. It was pure, not as, well, 'salty' as our normal salts and the crystals were brilliant white.

They also have flavoured salts such as a smoked variation that will give a smoky aroma to your meals, and a wine flavoured salt that will go well with red meat. I can imagine where this idea came from - someone sitting at the dinner table spilled some wine, sprinkled salt on the stain and then started tasting the salt sprinkled over the wine stain.  And now there's someone making money out of this idea!

These salts are only available in selected stores and delicatessens, so have a look on their website to find out were you can get it.

#3 Wine ice cream does exist.

I couldn't taste any but made a mental note to try my hand at making it.

My husband Charl, is an ice cream lover and I long found out that home made ice cream is the way to his heart. Close your eyes and try to imagine a red wine ice cream - with a berry note, served with mixed berries and pouring cream - it works, doesn't it?  

#4 There are more craft beers from Italy than I could ever imagine.

I counted 30! One of them is from Venice...didn't know they have enough space for a brewery in Venice let alone spring water. But I love Venice and will not analyse that thought for too long. I made a mental note to have a taste of this beer, called Birra Serenissima when next I'm in Venice.




Craft beers are beers made from small, traditional, independent breweries.  I am so excited that the craft beer fashion has hit South Africa. We can do with good beer made with love and not heaps of sugar.

#5 Event organising and technology has finally met.

I registered online and received a barcode via email. When I got to the exhibition the attendant scanned the barcode and before he put the scanner down my entry card was printed,  Wow, I was impressed,  I  love technology that works!


 


 

Shakshouka Twist

For years I've been making a swiss chard, fried egg dish for brunch, only to be told by my sister this week that it is a twist on a Shakshouka.  

A what? You probably ask, that was my reaction too.

A Shakshouka is a dish that originates from Tunisia  It's made with eggs, poached or fried in a sauce of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices, served with white bread.

After hearing that I realised with new-found respect that there is nothing new under the sun, food-wise. People have been preparing food with care and love for centuries. The only 'new' is the twist that put into it, your own signature.

Well, here is my Shakshouka-with-a-twist. It is an easy- to-make, satisfying dish that'll keep the hunger pangs away 'till dinner time. 

Try it for brunch this weekend. How can you not, with such a tongue-twister name - no pun intended!

Serves 2 people.

The twister in progress.

The result - yum!

Ingredients

A "glug" of olive oil, just enough to saute the onions

1/2 Brown onion, finely sliced

5 Swiss chard leaves

2 Ripe tomatoes, chopped

Thyme, about 10 sprigs

1 Clove of garlic, crushed

Salt

Black Pepper

2 Eggs ( depending on the number of eggs per person)

Directions

Cut the leafy bits from the swiss chard stalks, and cut the stalks in small pieces

Pour the oil into a non=stick frying pan and saute the onions and chopped swiss chard pieces 'till soft and translucent.

Add the chopped swiss chard leaves, tomatoes, garlic and thyme leaves to the sauteed onions.


Add 4 tablespoons of water.

Cover and simmer on a low heat untill the tomatoes and swiss chard are soft. This takes about 20-30 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste and mix everything with a spoon.

Use the spoon make spaces for each egg you have, and break an egg into each space.

Cover and simmer on a low heat, untill egg whites start setting.

Sprinkle salt and pepper on the eggs. 

Add grated parmesan over the eggs.

Cover again for a few seconds, untill the parmesan has melted.

Serve immediately on a slice of toast.


It taste best when the yolk of the eggs are still runny.