Relax with Dax

As JP Roussouw observed in his opening comments, meat is our national food. We love to eat it and we’re passionate about it. Steakhouses have been a a feature of the restaurant industry in South Africa for as long as we can remember. A steakhouse would have been one of the places where we learned [...]

I popped into Taste of Cape Town last night. It was the first session and I wanted to get a feel for this year’s event. I will be there again for the Saturday afternoon session to give it a proper go, but here are my initial impressions and some tips on things you should taste [...]

This is the 3rd year I’ve attended the Classic Wine Trophy awards dinner. I quite like these awards as they are fairly small and quite unique from many other competitions. The uniqueness is for 2 reasons, firstly the judging is all done blind. The judges only know the style of wine, so that they can [...]

I was honoured once again to be invited to the annual Eat Out DSTV Food Network Awards ceremony where they announce the Top 10 restaurants along with a few other awards. Held at the Westin Cape Town and attended by 360 people, it was a glamorous event. The who’s who of food were all there, including [...]

A couple of weeks ago I was flown up to Joburg by Cadbury’s to compete in the Bubbly Challenge. Most of my readers thought it was something to do with champagne, which is understandable. But it was actually the launch of the new Cadbury’s Bubbly chocolate. We weren’t sure what to expect, but it turned [...]

It started as a bar tending training programme, but it’s now a global competition to find the best cocktail maker (mixologist). The competition takes place in over 40 countries around the world, and the winner from each of those countries competes in the finals, which are taking place in Rio this year. Running from the [...]

Every year I get quite heavily involved in the Good Food & Wine Show as I believe it’s a major attraction in a foodie’s diary. You can read all about this year’s show in my review. This year I was even more involved, thanks to Cavendish Square shopping centre. They had a clever idea to [...]

 The Good Food & Wine Show gets bigger and better every year. I had a long chat with show director, Christine Cashmore, and learnt a few things about the show that I didn’t know. Some small things like why do they put all the wine and alcohol stands together on one side, and the reason [...]

The Olive Festival is always appealing to me for 2 reasons, I love olives and Riebeek Kasteel is one of my favourite small towns. Despite the appeal of the Olive Festival, I haven’t managed to go for the last few years due to calendar clashes. So I was pleased to be able to make it [...]

The popularity of the cheese festival hasn’t taken a knock with the move to the new venue last year. Driving there this morning I saw the familiar “Sold Out” signs and heard the usual stories of people arriving and not being able to get in. There were many thousands of people there, it was vibing. [...]

The Top 100 SA wines for 2012 were announced on Thursday evening. This year they had nearly 400 entries, substantial growth from last year. You have the opportunity to taste the winning wines at the One & Only hotel on the 10th of May. Tickets available from Webtickets. More information on the Top 100 SA [...]

Here are the menus for Taste of Cape Town this year. Leave a comment on which dishes you’ve tried and how you rate them so we can see which are the ones to avoid and which ones we must try… Find out more about the festival at the Taste of CT website. The 2nd page [...]

It was only recently that I started to understand the value of good quality cookware and kitchen utensils. Having grown tired of trying to dice and slice things with stupid, blunt little steak knives, I purchased some Global knives. It changed my life. Whereas before I cooked only seldom, cooking became such a pleasure that [...]

If you read my review of last year’s Eat In Awards, you would recall that I wasn’t impressed with the event. Thankfully they took note of the feedback and this year the awards were fantastic. The Eat In DSTV Food Network awards this year were held on a Saturday morning at the Stellenbosch Market at [...]

A little while ago I attended the launch of the latest Relais & Chateaux guide (2012) at the Cellars Hohenhort hotel. It was more than just the launch of the new guide though, the second Grand Chef in Africa was also announced, Peter Templehoff. Plus, Relais & Chateaux revealed their first African cookbook. Relais & [...]