The Food Barn is situated in Noordhoek Farm Village. Coming from Cape Town, you can drive the beautiful Chapmans Peak Drive and when you’re done taking in all the breathtaking views you can stop at the bottom of Chapmans Peak Drive and have a coffee, breakfast, lunch or drinks at the Noordhoek Farm Village. It’s super child-friendly with a playground so very convenient. You can watch your kids while you’re enjoying a meal.

We had lunch at The Food Barn Restaurant but you can also have a more informal lunch or breakfast at the Food Barn Deli, both lovely places.

The Foodbarn interior

We could choose from the Autumn A la Carte menu and I was VERY delighted to see varieties of my favorite dishes: A Shitake and exotic mushroom Risotto with sautéed prawns AND a Dark Chocolate Marquise rolled in soft biscuit, served with a trio of sauces and home-made ice cream. The magic words here are: Risotto and Dark Chocolate. Hm, hm, hmmmm! Just GOT to have them when it’s offered on the menu. I was a bit flabbergasted with the speed of service. Within NO time we had our main course. None of us had Starters (I guess because we had already eyeballed the desserts…). The Risotto could have been a tiny little less liquid but for me the flavor was perfect. I really enjoyed my choice. The Marquise was delicious. I didn’t want to finish it and if licking your plate would have been good etiquette, I would have def. done that…. But I managed to behave myself. I’m very difficult when it comes to chocolate. I’m a true chocoholic and not easily pleased. Whenever a restaurant or bakery just GETS that, I’m happy right where I am.

Let me share a hidden gem of Cape Town for all you chocoholics out there: www.hmmmtasteandflavours.co.za in Clare Street for THE BEST Chocolate Cake (Sorry Charly’s..)

Anyway, let’s get back to The Food Barn. See pictures of our dishes below. All beautifully presented and everyone was happy.

Shitake & Exotic Mushroom Risotto & Prawns R127

Rack of Karoo Lamb roasted in bread crust, served with chickpea panisse, finished with harrissa mayo and Moroccan spices scented jus R125

Dark chocolate marquise rolled in soft biscuit, served with a trio of sauces and home-made ice cream R45

Provencal chestnut mousse served on a meringue disk, finished with vanilla bean ice cream and creme Anglaise R44

Poppy seed Crepes filled with lemon curd, served warm with creme anglaise and finished with condensed milk ice cream R44

Villiera has refurbished their tasting room. I have to be honest, this was my first visit, so I have nothing to compare it with. The drive way was lovely. Ah, just love how Autumn paints this beautiful landscape of red and orange leaves, blue skies and mountains in the background. Does it get more beautiful?

Villiera drive way, autumn colours

We tasted the Villiera Tradition, Villiera Brut Rose and the French Grieer Brut. The Rose was my favorite this time. I have to be honest, this afternoon was really about catching up with girlfriends so no matter what they would have served us, we would’ve enjoyed it, I am pretty sure.

3 Cape Ladies

Now that was a good start of the afternoon. Next stop: Warwick. Warwick really is a beautiful place to take your friends and family for the whole afternoon. In Summer they have lovely picnic baskets which you can enjoy in a picnic pod.

Picnic Pod @Warwick, super cozy!

In Winter they have a delicious Tapas Menu. We were the first ones to taste their new tapas menus so the staff was very concerned and interested in our feedback. Since one of us is vegetarian and the other 2 are ultimate carnivores we choose a wide range and almost tasted everything on the menu, I believe. We even went for seconds J. We started of with a selection of 3 soups: A prawn soup with Chorizo, a cauliflower blue cheese soup and a Pea/Pancetta variation. The vegetarian didn’t have a lot of choice… BUT we all agreed that the cauliflower soup was unexpectedly our favorite. So we had to taste it again.

Trio of Soups

I LOVED that they have Beef Tartare on the menu. It’s one of my favorite dishes. I love raw food as you can see..Theirs was very tastefully done with tomato blended into the mix, perfectly served with the right condiments and nice Melba Toast.

Beef & Tomato Tartare

Do I really need to explain each and every dish to you or can I just show you the pictures?? We enjoyed every dish we choose.  Other dishes we choose: Sauteed Wild Mushrooms with Simonsola (wow!!),  Simonsig Camembert with figs in phyllo Pastry (I’m not a Camembert fan so not for me..). The glass pot displayed in the picture is a beautiful solar lamp. You can buy it at the Warwick shop for R 250.

Buffalo Mozzarella, Caprese Salad, SUPER delish!

Grilled Spanish Chorizo & Tiger Prawns

The staff at Warwick was very friendly and the waitress explained the menu well to us. We just had such an awesome afternoon. Girls, we must do it soon again!

3 Cape Ladies, drinking 3 Cape Ladies, Warwick Wines

We departed EARLY and when I say early, it is VERY early. I’m a morning person but leaving at 5h30 to get to the market in Sedgefield (450 km) on time seemed a bit outrageous. Nevertheless, I know this market from a few years back and I think it’s the mother of all Saturday morning food markets in South Africa. It’s a good one. I’m a sucker for good food and wine so off we went, 5h30 in the morning. Enjoying the sunrise over the Overberg, the early wake-up call was very much appreciated. Ah, we live in a stunningly beautiful country. How privileged we are! A quick coffee & toilet stop at one of the quirky farm stalls along the N2 and at 10h15 we arrived at one busy market place just outside Sedgefield, Wild Oats Community Farmers Market. You will easily spot it from the N2 when you’re driving from Wilderness to Sedgefield. A well deserved breakfast was now more than necessary and we agreed on Eggs Benedict.

Eggs Benedict at Wild Oats

While my friend was queuing I couldn’t help myself and got a Greek Pastry, a small Prickly Pear tartlet, just lovely and just enough to fill my sweet tooth. Grocery shopping we would have to leave for later because most stalls were already sold out of all their produce. I was still craving for ‘something sweet’ but somehow never made it to the pancakes…

Off we went to check-in at Ebb & Flow in the Wilderness National Park. How exciting, we got an upgrade and now could stay in a wooden cabin with 2 bedrooms, our own kitchen and bathroom. And a lovely deck to take in the beautiful mountain scenery. Wilderness has it all: Indian Ocean with endless beaches, mountain forests, the Touw River and beautiful lakes. I could easily have stayed a whole week.

Our cabin on stilts

After we checked-in we went for grocery shopping to the Garden Route Mall in George which is about 15 km away. Wilderness has a really dodgy Quick Spar which I can’t recommend to anyone. Sorry, we’re Whoolies girls… Don’t think I would live in South Africa without a Whoolies. The Garden Route Mall is quite impressive and I was almost tempted to shop till I drop but we managed to just buy food for 3 days for the 4 of us. Great braai sessions were awaiting us!

BRAAI TIME!!

The rest of the afternoon was spend enjoying the sun and views from our deck, reading and watching movies on the Ipad.

It was Saturday and we wanted to go one more time to the Firefly Eating House, (www.fireflyeatinghouse.co.za). Somehow this had become a yearly event whenever we visit the Garden Route. Although the food we had (Starters, Malay Prawn & Chicken Curry, Prawn Curry and Beef Curry) was still testing all our taste buds, I wasn’t so excited anymore. It was a bit boring to see the same items on the menu as last year August. The Bobotie Springrolls for starters and the Ostrich Samoosas were top on our list, again!

Sunday morning we headed out to hike to the waterfalls. The information given by SANparks tells you that it will be about 3 – 4 hours to hike although it’s not clear if this is one way or a round trip?? It took us about 1 hr to reach the falls. It was a BEAUTIFUL walk. There are no difficult parts as mostly you walk on a fantastic boardwalk. Hiking boots are not even necessary. I remember that the paths were closed for quite a long time some years ago because they’d washed away after a storm. Well, they’ve been beautifully repaired in such a way that it is accessible for most people. The fun part is to cross the Touw River on the pontoon. This is also a great place to bring kids. I guess I will be blogging about that a WHOLE lot more in the not-so-far future…

beautiful boardwalk through the forest

Crossing Touw River on pontoon

the reward..

The waterfall is beautiful with several rock pools, ideal for swimming. Ideally you bring your picnic basket and spend the afternoon here. We were the only ones there when we arrived but on our way back we ran into few people going. I even ran into some friends of friends! By the time we got back to the cabin, it was time for an outrageous breakfast of eggs and bacon. I was taught a way to prepare scrambled eggs in the microwave without using any oil or butter.. Super fluffy! Not bad at all.

Late in the afternoon Wilderness Beach was the place for a long, very long, beach walk. If you want to see a beautiful beach in South Africa, this is the place to be. There were a few massive jelly fish on the beach. I’d never seen jelly fish with ‘little ones’….

Beach bums!

I love exploring local pubs. Wilderness is not much of a village but surely they have some local pubs and eateries. We found one but after 1 drink we just wanted to get back to the nature reserve and start our braai. We’d shopped VERY well, if I may say so, Whoolies chicken kebabs and Ostrich fillet and tons of roast veggies and salads. Healthy but hearty, just the way we like it.

Monday, another day of relaxation, jeez, we’re really starting to get used to the long weekends. Little walk in the morning. I guess it was a bird watching walk, very flat, which was supposed to take 3 hrs but it took us only 1 hr of brisk walking (as they say in all those magazines talking about exercise…).

We still had too many plans… I’d really wanted to visit my friends Kevin & Elsie in their beautiful guesthouse, Interlaken but somehow I never made it that way. Breakfast at Ile the Pain in Knysna has to wait till another visit (we convinced ourselves that our homemade breakfasts were just as good and I DO think we came close…) and Zuccini restaurant will remain on the to-do list for our next visit.

On our way back yesterday we made the mistake of not immediately leaving the N2 in George and drive back to Cape Town via the Outeniqua Pass, Oudtshoorn, R62 and R60 and then N1. We got stuck BIG time in road works and an overturned truck. The first 100 km took us about 2.5 hours. At Riversdale we took a little leap of faith and just headed in a direction of which we thought was kind of the right way. We ended up on this beautiful mountain pass, Garcia Pass. Wow!! No cars, just us, mountains, pine trees and endless vistas. What an unexpected treat.

No idea where we're going but we're getting there FAST!

At some point we had to turn off the main road onto a well maintained dirt road to end up in Barrydale which was then definitely lunch time. The Country Pumpkin is the well known place and we ended up ordering delicious Bobotie. Next time in Barrydale, I REALLY would like to have lunch or breakfast at another place so please let me know if you have any ‘must-eat’ restaurants that you can recommend in this area. To go 8 years to the same place, please, that’s normally not how we roll but convenience took over (we were HUNGRY by 1pm) and the Country Pumpkin is always a good bet.

Back in Cape Town by 5pm. Great road trip, again.

www.sanparks.org for all bookings into Wilderness National Park. Get a Wild Card for a year and don’t pay any entrance fees. There are different types of accommodation so check the web site: from camping to fully equipped self catering family homes.

Oh dear, I forgot to write about the lovely canoe trip down the river… 1 hour, R100. Easy peasy lovely.

Canoeing down the Touw River, very shallow, perfect to swim too!

GORGEOUS!!

hm, 1 of the nice things of living in Cape Town is that you never ever need to get bored. Last weekend we had to improvise a bit because suddenly the weather let us down a bit. But hey,  how difficult can it be to make a plan B when you have about 300 wineries on your door step?? Can’t be THAT hard. Saturday I firstly had breakfast at Nitida Wines, I had never been and was looking forward to go there because I had heard good stories. It was terrible weather to drive but I’m from Holland so no moaning, just got in my car, on my way. However, I wasn’t amused when my breakfast date sent me a text message: ‘only woke up now’. Hm…luckily only a joke. I’m very German when it comes to time…Anyway, lovely breakfast, Eggs Florentine, perfectly done. Their capuccino’s need a bit of work. The first one I got was almost cold and the 2nd one had burned froth. After breakfast I was ready to move to the wine tasting area. I really felt like tasting loads of red wines but we somehow first went through all the whites.  I really need to catch up on my wine knowledge and taste a bit more because I can’t say a decent word about any wine except: hm ya, I like it.. which I then say after each and every single one. Not sure if that’s a bad thing..We ended up both buying a bottle of their Nitida Calligraphy. It should still age for a bit but it was already quite drinkable. Back home I REALLY felt like: I want more!! So I phoned my partners in crime and YES they were also into some wine tasting. Pfungwa had never seen Groot Constantia so we made a short stop there to view the estate and have a glass of course. I have good memories here. Used to bring all my wine groups here and have a great tasting by Boela Gerber, the wine maker. Then we moved to Gorgeous by Graham Beck at Steenberg, a new Champagne Bar that I wanted to see, taste and experience. Oh, how I LOVE hanging out in beautiful, gorgeous places and live the life… We had a spot at the bar which always allows for interacting with people next to you which I quite enjoy. We all choose for the non-vintage flight and thought we’d moved on to the vintage flight afterwards. However, this never happened. I like to eat, always. So the canapes on offer were just what I needed. 1 picture says more than 1000 words so see below…

Canapes @gorgeous

After Gorgeous, we didn’t feel like going home. I suggested to go to Kitima@kronendal in Hout Bay. One of the most perfect places in the Cape that I would love everyone to experience. They just get EVERYTHING right. Another spot at the bar, now some delicious cocktails and Aromatic Duck Pancakes. OMW!! Oh what a day & night! Loved every single minute of it. Thanks guys!!

After attending MeetingsAfrica last Tuesday and Wednesday I took 3 days to visit both Kurhula Lodge and Tanda Tula. Our first stop was Kurhula. With a great car rental deal from AVIS we took off in our Hyundai I20 from the Holiday Inn in Sandton. Oh, how I love road trips in South Africa. It’s the best thing to do.

After getting some ‘padkos’ at Pick ‘n Pay we were on the road to Dullstroom which would be our lunch spot. I’ve been many times on this road in my time as a Tourist Guide. I would guide groups of about 25 Dutch people on a tour throughout South Africa. It would take us 23 days to get back to Cape Town via Kruger National Park, Swaziland, KZN, Drakensberg, Lesotho, Karoo, Garden Route and wine lands. It was a fantastic way for me to get to know the country. I’m quite happy though to now just be by myself and go on road trips with friends.

Dullstroom is situated on a plateau and in winter this place can become terribly cold. I once had to stay overnight in winter time and it was -10 C. Not so funny in a country where there’s no such thing as central heating..

Anyway, now it was very nice and sunny so Rose Cottage for lunch is great because of their terrace and they do some delicious Trout dishes. After lunch we still had at least 3 hours to drive so no time to waste. We wouldn’t make the game drive which was leaving at 15h30.

We arrived at the entrance of Parsons Private Reserveat around 4pm if I’m correct. We still had to drive about 13 km on a very bad dirt road before we arrived at the entrance of the lodge. We were very pleased with the ‘skills’ of the Hyundai I20, not bad at all. Upon arrival at the lodge Sander welcomed us. It was so nice to finally visit. I’d already sent a few clients their way and they all had a great time. They were not affected by the floods in January because the lodge is situated a bit higher up. However, they told us horrible stories of how the river was up to 160m wide and how they’d seen a dead elephant come past. A lot of lodges in the Kruger area have been badly damaged and some need to be completely rebuild from scratch. Floods like this have happened more or less every 12 years..

Kurhula Lodge has 4 guest rooms with each their own veranda and overlooking the Oliphants River. There’s an infinity pool and lots of corners with comfortable couches and chairs. Kim and Sander have almost completely rebuilt the lodge when they bought it in 2009. You will get the true sense of Africa and it’s a great way to either start or end your self-drive trip through South Africa. You will not find tour groups because of the size of the lodge. Kim and Sander very much prefer a hands-on approach and do most of the work themselves. Kim has a passion for cooking which keeps her busy throughout the day. For dinner we were treated with dishes from Northern Africa. Most lodges stick to the usual braai, potjie, butternut soup and malva pudding, nothing wrong with any of those but I quite enjoyed and appreciated something completely different.

I could easily have stayed another 1 or 2 nights and just chill out, read a book, listen to the bush and watch the playful monkeys in the trees. Thank you very much Kim and Sander for your hospitality and I look forward to sending many more guests you way.

Our veranda

The infinity pool

I have quite a few friends in Jo’burg so it’s nice to visit once in a while and catch up with them. This time my friend was also very exciting of showing me all the hotspots in Jo’burg Downtown. Julia fetched me from the airport and after dropping off my way-to-heavy suitcase (what was I thinking???) at her beautiful house in Houghton we headed to 70 Juta Road, the Jo’burg Design Hub, in Braamfontein. We drove via the scenic Munro Drive with stunning views over the city and amazing houses. Jules thought it might be quite busy at Juta Rd but we were lucky finding parking right in front of all the action. Jeez, jo’burg city centre is getting a serious make-over and it really is becoming a very nice place to hang out for breakfast, lunch, art galleries, quirky designer shops, fashion and watching people. I loved it.

We checked out the neighbor goods market as well and of course it reminded me of the one in Cape Town. It was already lunch time so the place was packed with people enjoying all the good food. We decided we didn’t want to queue for our food and went to the 44 Stanley, Milpark, 1 of Jo’burgs best kept secrets (and I was there, just so you know!!). What a lovely place! We had lunch at a stunning place called Il Giardino and sat outside between the olive trees. I choose a fantastic Italian Burger with delicious Pesto and Jules had a variety of Bruscheta, just as delish. Not sure what they did with the tomatoes but they tasted absolutely divine.

There were some other eateries too and Jules told me that the place is packed on days when there’s jazz playing. Certainly will check it out next time.

After the lunch we made a stop at Rosebank Mall. It started to rain so we ran to a GREAT coffee place called…Motherland, I think..….Waiting for the rain…Did you know that Johannesburg has more annual rain than London? It just comes down in tropical rains for about 1 hr a day in summertime. So it beautifully cools down everything.

The evening we spend on Jules’ veranda with Thai Curry from veggies straight out of the garden. How wonderful! Can’t imagine a better meal.

We had a slow start on Sunday and decided to go to Arts on Main, apparently another lovely spot to browse, eat and watch people. And it was. I bought some delicious Brandy Pate for Jules’ Dad’s birthday. I also saw some incredibly beautiful Christian Dior Vintage Sunglasses. OMW!!! And they just fitted me so beautifully… After trying them about a dozen times I unfortunately had to decide that this was not the time to spend so much money on sunglasses so I didn’t buy them.

Arts on Main has a lovely eatery called Canteen. Here I decided to choose the Tapas platter with Humus, Parma Ham, Salami, Olives, etc. a nice lunch platter. After lunch we went for a little stroll down the road and found some more awesome places. We checked out the rooftop party at an art hotel, what an AWESOME place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon, great party going up there! And we found another jazz café. Wow!!

What an awesome weekend in Johannesburg!

And then we kicked off the week on Monday with a hike on Lion’s Head. Just gotta love life in Cape Town!

                                                                    The Gugulethu Tenors in De Waal Park

The hotel very kindly organized a bus to take us all to the Artscape Theater. The show was fan-tas-tic!! The singing was incredible and the decor was breathtaking. We really felt so spoiled the whole evening. So if you still have a chance to go see the Phantom, please do so. It’s the best production I’ve ever seen in South Africa and it’s a wonderful evening out in town!

Happy Holidays!