The Good Food & Wine Show
Friday, May 25: I tasted plenty of yummy treats today, including different cheeses, decadent chilli chocolate brownies from Red Moon (great after dinner with red wine apparently) and creamy feta cheese sprinkled with Jenny Morriss smoked paprika (one of my favourites!)

I marvelled at Nomu’s ‘powdered pesto’, which when mixed with water and oil, comes to life beautifully. I was thoroughly impressed and it tasted yum. Strolling down ‘Wine Walk’, I noted Glen Carlou’s Pinot Noir winking at me and thought I’d come back later with my tasting glass.

The bread made using Eureka Mills Stone Ground flour was delicious, tasting like real farm bread, the presence of which made Eat Out editor Abigail very excited.

It was all high energy at the Kahlua Coffee Theatre where the National Barista Championships were taking place and then on to the Afrox Best South African Restaurant Chefs Theatre where I watched the lads from Forty Ate, Yngve Muldal and Phillip Myburgh, preparing a delicately simple dish which had me yearning for sushi (which I hunted down afterwards along with a spot of Spier Chardonnay).

The dish consisted of fresh, raw Norwegian salmon roses with spicy cucumber salad, Wasabi icecream, microherbs and drizzled with reduced soya sauce (cooked with a large chilli, plop, in the middle of the pan).

Eat Out editor, Abigail, called it ‘simple, fresh and clean on the palate’. The combination of flavours seemed almost mathematical in its precise taste explosion.

Only two days left!

We cornered the chefs in the Gourmet Lounge…check back on the website next week to see what they had to say. 

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Grand Gourmet Gallivant
Wednesday, May 23: I started off my foodie pilgrimage at the Grand Gourmet Gallivant which kicked off the Cape Gourmet Festival on Wednesday night at GrandWest Casino. I loved arriving in a vibey jazz-fuelled bar – Jackson Hall – and all the top international chefs including Reza Mahammad, Brian Turner and Ed Baines were there to socialise with, which was a great surprise.

We were then divided up into groups and off we went to taste five different types of food at five different restaurants in the very hyperreal eatery hub of GrandWest. After a little while, my foodie partner and I started to ignore the fake sky and faux-Italian washing and get on with the very serious task of eating a lot.

We noshed on Indian at Bukhara, where the Naan bread, Cobra lite beer, rich colours and wonderfully talented Henna handpainter made us very happy. Then off to Squires for fab Spanokopita, which my veggie friend and I devoured wholeheartedly, although the rest of the ‘grills’ didn’t quite make it on to our plate.

On to Wang Thai where our hands were washed in fragrant water strewn with petals in order to cleanse the soul and a prayer bracelet placed around our wrists. Just what we needed after a busy day. The food was yummy, especially the duck springrolls in peanut-something sauce and the spicy fish, although I have to say the white wine they offered smelt a bit like petrol…a little oversight?

By this time of course, we were full, so the lovely Teppenyaki Bar from the Cape Town Fish Market wasn’t fully appreciated. The chefs propel high energy and passion, as they whip up wonderful-smelling goodies in front of you, ready for washing down with Chinese or Japanese beer. The sushi downstairs was a bit ransacked by the time we got there, and maybe a little dry, but the rest of the seafood offerings looked quite tasty.

Last stop, ‘Italy’. The best thing about Bella Gina was the wonderful musical duo greeting us at the door, with a booming voice bellowing out romantic Italian classics.

Our tour guides gave out a lovely, exuberant energy which really influenced my evening – without them, our group might have seemed a bit dozy. My advice? Wear comfy shoes, not heels like I did, and go extremely hungry! Its fun for a change, if you’re in the mood to taste many different cuisine-types.

Tickets cost R200 per person and places are limited. To book call Computicket on 083 915 8000 or for more information, call 021 797 4500.

More info on the Grand Gourmet Gallivant

The Good Food & Wine Show
Thursday, May 24: Wow! It is so great this year. The convention centre was packed today with passionate foodies and eager tasters. The first day was so popular that parking in the whole convention centre started to run out at about 11.30am. Madness…but for a reason – so much to see, do and taste.

I started off watching Justine Drake MC’ing “On Your Marks, Get Set, Cook!!” in the AEG Chefs in Action Theatre. Based on the British BBC series, two teams of chefs had 20 minutes to cook wonderful things from a mystery box, received only a few minutes before they started.

Since it was sponsored by Savanna, they tried to incorporate this into many of their dishes, the most interesting one being wow-chef Rudolph van Veen injecting chicken breasts with Savanna using a syringe – much to the derision of smooth-talking Essex-born chef Steven Walpole, who teamed up with Cellars-Hohenort chef Lionel Labat.

Van Veen was definately the left-field thinking chef of the session and concluded with creating gigantic apple lollipops on the floor, giving the impression that Alice in Wonderland was coming for dinner.

The other chefs cooked more ‘whole’ meals, and very impressively too since they were under constant pressure from the eagle-eyed Justine!

I’ll be back for more, even if I only go to the Pesto Princess and the delish handcrafted chocolate stall again.

Don’t miss Eat Out Editor Abigail Donnelly introducing chefs at the Afrox Best South African Restaurant Chefs Theatre – click here for the full schedule; or the celeb chef book signings and demonstrations.

Click here for more on The Good Food and Wine Show.