2009-09-29 – tasty tasty Tasting Room

We know that this blog entry is absolutely worthless without the pics. This entry will probably be edited a bit, once the photos come. Read now, and then return for more. Much more!

While doing the research for this trip, Ms. Penguin learned about the Tasting Room. It is ranked as one of the 50 best restaurants in the world (don't remember who does this particular ranking but check back later as we'll update the information). A booking was made well before leaving for South Africa...

The Tasting Room is a part of the famous Le Quartier Francais. We arrived early, which was just as well because we both were in very bad need of coffee. So we sat at the bar and had some of the tastiest coffee we've had in a long time. It was fair trade coffee too! We both felt a lot better after that, and were ready for a night of RoF indulgence!

While at the bar, we were met by our hostess Adele, who discussed the menu with us. Ms. Penguin had pre-booked the eight course tasting menu, but one of the courses included gorgonzola, and Ms. Penguin is allergic to blue cheese. She was given a list of items from an a la carte tasting menu to find a replacement for the gorgonzola, and picked the cheese dish from that menu. So everything was set, and soon after that, were were taken to our table...

The dining room itself was nice, spacious, and intimate – and a little bit on the dark side, so it was difficult to see the color of our wines properly. Not that it was that much of a big deal. Our main waitress was Pauline; she brought us water and some homemade bread, and things were really getting started!

We started with an amuse bouche – tuna with lime foam and cucumber sorbet. The sorbet was very nice, with an intense sweet cucumber flavor and an intense green color. It went nicely with the flavorful tuna, and the lime foam gave extra flavor and texture.

First course: “warm gingered oyster, carrot, bacon crumbs” paired with Monis pale dry sherry. The sherry was very nice; Ms. Penguin usually does not like sherry at all but she liked this one. It had a nice subtle sweetness and fruitiness. The dish itself was interesting. The oyster was served with a carrot foam and a gingery gelatinous substance (don't remember the proper name for it).

Second course: “lemon poached crayfish tail, prawn wafer, marshmallow” paired with Graham Beck Brut. The prawn wafer was similar to those Chinese prawn snacks in taste, although more prawny and slightly sweeter. It was filled with a pleasant prawn cream. As for the presentation, it looked like one of those wafer cookies filled with cream. The crayfish tail was perfectly cooked – barely seared and very succulent. It was served with a lemon butter foam. The marshmallow was the most amusing part of all; it was a marshmallow made with squid ink and lemon, and pretty much looked like what you would expect from something made with squid ink – a gray marshmallow. The flavor was an interesting blend of sweetness and lemony squid. This was Ms. Penguin's favorite dish for the whole evening.

Third course: “foie gras, prosciutto, cranberry and smoked whisky dressing” paired with Cederberg bukettraubbe 2009. The wine was very Riesling-like, with a pleasant sweetness in the background and a wonderful aroma. The dish was served as a foie gras parfait, a French brioche, and a terrine of foie gras with prosciutto. The plate was decorated with smoked whisky-infused cranberries, which were fried and sliced in two. The foie gras parfait was very different from what we expected. It had a very mild and pleasant flavor, and lacked that nasty fattiness that you get from the foie gras you typically get in Europe. The terrine was also very pleasant.

Fourth course: “celeriac and buchu risotto” paired with Glenwood Semillion 2007. Buchu is a local herb. We were given a glass filled with dried buchu to look at and smell; it smells like peppermint with some sage or thyme. It is used for making tea as a medicine for colds and the flu. We were quite excited about how this would work in food, and we were most certainly not disappointed. The dish was served in a small bowl, decorated with buchu powder on the edge of the bowl. We tasted the powder first and found it quite interesting. And then we tasted the risotto and... wow! What a lovely herb for that dish! The rice was also perfectly al dente. This was Mr. Penguin's favorite dish for the whole evening. Oh, and as an extra bonus, we were given a small vacuum-sealed packet of the buchu to take home with us, because we asked where we could buy it but were told it was difficult to find.

Fifth course: “sous vide quail breast, truffled quail egg, asparagus” paired with Vergelegen vin de Florence 2008 (a blend of sauvignon blanc, semillon, chenin blanc). The dish was served as roast quail breast with asparagus salad and the deep-fried truffled quail egg. Despite how the egg was actually prepared, the yolk was still runny. The quail itself had crispy skin and tender, juicy meat. The salad was also very nice. As for the wine, we would have never thought a wine like that would work with quail, but it was a beautiful match.

Sixth course: “rabbit ballotine, leek, and rooibos gel” paired with Raats Cabernet Franc 2007. The wine had a lot of prune and raisins in both the nose and flavor. The dish was served as the rabbit ballotine with a fennel salad, rooibos gel, and a potato and leek gratin. There was a thin layer of leek around the rabbit ballotine, which gave it a nice extra, pleasant bite. The gratin had a long aftertaste. The salad was refreshing, with a nice “bite.”

Seventh course: the cheese course – for Ms. Penguin (who is allergic to blue cheese), the cheddar fritters with cumin flatbread and spiced apples (don't know what it was actually called on the menu) paired with the Monis fino extra dry sherry. She wasn't too crazy about the sherry, but really enjoyed the puffy mild cheddar fritters; the apples gave a nice tang to the dish.

For Mr. Penguin: “whipped gorgonzola, mustard pear, pistachio sable” paired with Simonsig Gewürztraminer 2009. He really enjoyed the gorgonzola and pear combination, but wasn't too crazy about the biscuit it came with.

Pre-dessert: Before our dessert, we got a small dish of caramel apple with honeycomb and espresso ice. There was a lot of cardemom in this little dessert. Very nice!

Eighth course: “naartjie and buttermilk cannelloni, raw jersey milk sherbet, fennel” paired with Rickety Ridge natural sweet Chenin blanc 2007. The wine was delicious, with a pleasant sweetness that wasn't syrupy. The cannelloni seemed to be a combination of the naartjie (orange), buttermilk, and raw milk, made into a nice ice creamy roll; there were some chocolate biscuit crumbs there to add flavor and texture. It was served with a very nice fennel sorbet, which was served on top of some gold foil.

After our dessert, we both ordered some Rooibos chai tea; it was very nice and spicy, and had a lovely orange-red color. We were given a plate of cookies (petits fours if you must) to go with the tea – strawberry macrons, coffee truffle filled chocolates, apricot biscotti, and a sort of fruit tart cookie. Yummy.

While dining, we had fun watching (and eavesdropping on) some of the other diners. There was a group that sat at a table close to us that was apparently more there for the food than the food-wine pairings or wine at all, as one of them proclaimed loudly that she liked her wine “sweet, sweet, sweet!”

Oh, and Ms. Penguin just has to report that the walls of the women's toilet are bright pink :-P

In general, we were quite impressed with the effort made to match the wine and food so perfectly. We were also quite pleased with the creativity of the dishes. All in all, this was a great night, well worth everything!