South Africa Day 12

Friday morning Tim was up early, so he wandered the garden of our bed and breakfast before breakfast. We then had yet another lovely “full English” breakfast and made friendly with the hosts’ dogs before setting out for Franschhoek. Franschhoek is like the Sonoma of South Africa (with the nearby Stellenbosch being more like the Napa of South Africa). However, it appeared that Franschhoek was also the foodie capital of the country. We stopped first for lunch at a little winery restaurant called Bread and Wine. Tim had a most delicious sweet potato gnocchi, and I just had the antipasta (cured meat and olives) plate. Miryung and Alan had a lamb pizza. We continued on the road to a winery that is famous for its Dutch architecture. We sampled some wines, but it was really too rainy to stroll the grounds much. We headed back into Franschhoek, where we rounded out our souvenir shopping, including getting some South African wine to bring home. Dinner on Friday night was an affair planned in advance. We had reservations at a restaurant called the Tasting Room in Le Quartier Francais hotel, which was recently rated as something like the 31st best restaurant in the world. Tim and Alan both had the eight course tasting menu; Tim even took his with the wine pairing of local vintages. These courses were very adventurous, including oysters with chorizo, poached lobster with a squid ink marshmallow and prawn wafer, foie gras with whiskey smoked cranberries and proscuitto jam, cleriac and buchu risotto, quail breast with a truffled quail egg, braised karoo lamb that was cubed then fried and served with salted grapes, a chevre mousse with pickled turnips and plums, and finally a buttermilk cannelloni with raw jersey milk sherbet. Miryung and I both selected from the five course menu, which was equally fabulous. I had sweetcorn and truffle soup, duck breast with pea parfait, wildebeest sirloin with a tomato foam, some delicious Huguenot cheddar, and the best chocolate ganache I think has ever been made. We even had entertainment with dinner… at a nearby corner table, a Japanese film crew seemed to be filming a piece about the restaurant, complete with professional camera and lights and reflection boards.