restaurant

Breakfast at Kauai

by Craig on April 6, 2010 · 0 comments

in Breakfast

The title says it all.  We went back to gym after over two weeks off!

Gym sometimes means breakfast at the in-house eatery Kauai (technically Kauai In Motion to differentiate between them and the regular Kauai stores).  They do pretty good food.  My only complaint is that the Kauai In Motion stores don’t have the full menu and as such their menu is limited, and as a result, a bit boring after a while.

Caro had the fruit salad with YMH (yoghurt, muesli, honey) – it even came out in the right order!  The muesli is wheat free as requested (due to our diet this week).

I had the Magma Wrap on a gluten and wheat free wrap.  I normally have the normal wrap but as our diet this week specifies no wheat, I went for this option.  The magma wrap is chicken, kidney beans, tomato, rice and melted cheese.  Very nice!  It comes with a very edible garnish of cucumber and carrot.  I can’t say much for the gluten and wheat free wrap though.  A bit lot plasticy.

Just to fill you all in as to why we’re going for wheat free options at the moment.  We’re following Patrick Holford’s “6 Weeks To Super Health” diet.  It’s not so much a weight loss diet, although it does have that effect.  The main goal is to become healthier, and to be shown how to do it.  Each week a different objective is introduced, and this week the objective is on digestion.  Wheat, apparently, is a major gastro-intestinal irritant in some people which is why they dictate leaving it out for this week.

Now we don’t have to follow this diet 100%, but I have a problem with a permanently stuffy head.  Constantly blocked nose and sinuses afflicts me and I need to find out what it causing it.  It’s so bad that I have a cortisone nasal spray that I have to use every day to keep my nose clear.  If I don’t use it, once the cortisone has worn off the mucous comes back.

When we went to Australia last year we encountered soy milk that was very accessible in eateries which made it easy to stick to it.  One of the major causes of mucous in a lot of people is lactose intolerance (an allergic reaction to the lactose contained within dairy products).  I wanted to check whether this was the case with me so I started replacing cow’s milk with soy milk, and stopped using the nasal spray.  I was fine while I was in Australia, but on my return to South Africa the mucous came back despite still mostly sticking to soy milk.  It clearly isn’t lactose intolerance.  I continue to use soy milk now though because I like it, and because it is a healthier alternative anyway.  I tried many different products, both pharmaceutical and homeopathic but nothing helped.  Antihistamines had no affect.  When I started using the cortisone spray again things got better.

So now I’m testing for wheat.  Since yesterday morning I have not used the nasal spray and my nose is still clear.  If it continues to be clear without the spray by the end of the week and the mucous returns next week after eating wheat then we know what the problem is.  To be honest I hope it isn’t that because I can’t see me not eating bread or other wheat products in the future.  I’ll have to stay on the nasal spray but at least I’ll know what is causing the problem.

If it isn’t the problem then I’ll have to get some allergy tests done to find out what the problem is.  It’s possible that I have developed an allergy to cat hair (or rather a protein in cat saliva that is on their hair – delightful thought hey?) – If that’s the case I will have to live with it.  I’m not living without my cats!


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Dinner at Kyoto Japanese Restaurant

by Craig on March 27, 2010 · 0 comments

in Dinner

We noticed that there was a Japanese restaurant 300m from the B&B so we decided to give them a try.  The restaurant was situated in an oriental “village” at Port Elizabeth’s Boardwalk casino complex.  In this village was also a Chinese restaurant and we were tempted to go there and see if they had char siu, but we plodded on to the Japanese place.

When we got there it was quite empty, only two other couples in the entire restaurant, but as the night went on other customers came and went.

For starters we each had a prawn hand roll.  They didn’t skimp on the prawns, and the roll was fresh and tasty.

For main course Caroline had (although we were sharing) the chicken teppanyaki.  The sauce was quite sweet, and the chicken used was clearly thigh with the skin still attached.  Those who know us will know that we prefer breast and most definitely with the skin off.  But the dish was tasty, and the addition of bok choy was welcomed and very tasty.

My dish was the fillet steak teppanyaki.  Very very tasty this was easily the dish of the evening.  We asked for them to go easy on the garlic, but as you can see from the photo, there is plenty of it!  The did however chop it in big pieces so that you still got the flavour but it was easy to remove the large pieces.

We skipped dessert because we still had some of the soy desserts in the room back at the B&B to have.

Kyoto Japanese restaurant was very nice, but they were quite expensive.  We commented that they actually made our few Japanese restaurants back in Durban look cheap!

LOCATION

Kyoto Japanese Restaurant

Shop 56, Boardwalk Casino Retail Complex

Summerstrand

Port Elizabeth

Tel: 041-583-1160


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Breakfast at Ile de Païn again

by Craig on March 27, 2010 · 0 comments

in Breakfast

Once more, and for a final time, we visited Ile de Païn for breakfast.  As usual the food was excellent.

This is the protea flower that greeted us at the table.

Caroline had the Brioche French Toast again, which I didn’t take a photo of because you can see it here.  I had a taste of this this time and it is indeed a very tasty breakfast.

I had the “Companio” which is soft poached eggs with bacon and spinach on their toasted companio bread.  It was lovely, the eggs were all bursty and filled with their soft yolky goodness, and the white was completely set.  Perfection!  The spinach was a tiny bit hard to cut through given the mostly blunt knife I had, but I managed. :-)

I had to include the food porn shot of the egg exploded all over the plate!  YUM!

We also had a Ca-phe nau nong again, which we will have to replicate at home, and afterwards a café au lait.

I will miss Ile de Païn for sure.

LOCATION

Ile de Païn

Long Street

Thesen Islands Harbour Town

Knysna

Tel: 044-302-5707

Email: office@iledepain.co.za

Website: www.iledepain.co.za


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Dinner at 34 Tapas & Oysters

by Craig on March 26, 2010 · 0 comments

in Dinner

After our visit to Featherbed Nature Reserve we decided to look for food before heading back to the house.  For some reason all the places we tried were closed, so we ended up at one of the few places that was open on the island, and were pleasantly surprised despite not really being a big fan of tapas or oysters.

The service was good, and the food and drinks came out really fast.

In the picture above we have (from top left to bottom right): Frikkadeletjies (Afrikaans for small meatballs); Pickled Fish; Beef Trinchado; Calamari and Chorizo.

Then Hake Goujons and Chips.

And finally for dessert we shared a tiramisu,

And a chocolate mousse.

All very good.  The calamari was the worst of the lot, but still ok, it was just a little tasteless.  The best was by far the Hake goujons, we could easily have ordered another portion of those if we hadn’t decided to have dessert.  The pickled fish was also very good, although everything was nice.

They also had excellent live music at the time.  A guy playing guitar.  I’m not a fan of live music, but this guy was very good.

LOCATION

34 Tapas & Oysters

Long Street Ext.

Thesen Islands Harbour Town

Knysna

Tel: 044-382-7196


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Lunch at Caffe Mario

by Craig on March 26, 2010 · 2 comments

in Lunch

As planned we ended up at Caffe Mario for lunch.  Still full from previous meals we decided to order something small, not that what I got could be considered small.  Now I’m paying for it.  As TFP would say, I had my “eating pants” on, but now even they are becoming tight.  Good thing this holiday is coming to an end soon and next week the diet starts.

I ordered a regina pizza.  Basic margarita base with ham and mushroom.  Very yummy.  Despite it’s size I ate the whole damn thing.

Caro had avocado on toast.  In my eyes perhaps a little strange, but it was pretty!

We’re happy with our visit to Caffe Mario.  It was a pity that we couldn’t have had dinner there, or ordered something more substantial, but that’s what future visits are for.

LOCATION

Café Mario

Knysna Waterfront

Knysna

Tel: 044-382-7250


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Dinner at Cruise Café

by Craig on March 26, 2010 · 0 comments

in Dinner

Last night we went to the Cruise Café at the Featherbed launch site in Knysna.  We were originally going to go there today for lunch, and to Mario’s last night for dinner, but we had not made a reservation at Mario’s and were turned away as they were full and could only accommodate us nearly an hour later.  So we decided to switch things around and go to Cruise Café last night and Mario’s today for lunch.

Cruise Café is a nice looking restaurant.  Relatively plain but warm and inviting at the same time.  The food was good in general but there were a few things that could have been done differently.

For starters we both decided to have the calamari, which is typical for us, as it is one of our most commonly ordered starters.  We normally have it grilled, as I did last night, but Caroline decided to be different and have hers deep fried.  Both were excellent.  I wasn’t too much of a fan of the tartar sauce, having preferred to have the grilled calamari plain so that I could enjoy the “grill bits”.  Caroline said that she enjoyed the sauce with her fried calamari though.

For main course Caroline had the fillet steak served with potato wedges and an aïoli sauce which she said seemed like a strange thing to put on a steak.  The steak itself though tasted good.

I had the rack of Karoo lamb in a mint sauce served on a butter bean and coriander mash and veg.  The sauce was very nice, very minty and the mash, while very nice, was actually a potato mash with butter beans in it, not mashed butter beans as it would have seemed from the menu.

The lamb tasted great, and the outer crackled fat was also very nice and an added bonus, but I found the lamb to be very fatty.  If I was to guess at the fat percentage of the entire meat portion I’d have to put it at about 70%.  I don’t mind some fat on lamb, that’s inevitable, but I really don’t like paying R85-95 (can’t remember exactly how much) for something that was predominantly fat.  Maybe I just got a fatty portion, but still, if I was a chef I wouldn’t send that out.

We decided to skip dessert as we were far too full from all the other foods we’ve been eating on this trip, much to our waiters disappointment.  I think he got the impression that there was something wrong with the meal, but really we were just to full too eat another morsel.  (Wafer thin mint anyone? :-) )

LOCATION

Cruise Café

Remembrance Lane

off Waterfront Drive

Knysna

Tel: 044-382-1693


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Lunch at Ile de Païn

by Craig March 25, 2010 Lunch

Yes we ended up back at Ile de Païn. We said the other day that we would come back for lunch. I won’t go into a rave again about how good they are – that much we already know. I’ll just leave you with some photos and a few descriptions of what we had. For [...]

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Breakfast at The East Head Café

by Craig March 25, 2010 Breakfast

This morning we were up early to go up to the viewing point on Kysna’s eastern head.  I wanted to get some photos of the estuary at dawn so that the sun would be behind us and would be lighting the whole estuary in that golden light that you only get in the early morning [...]

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Dinner at Thai Kitchen

by Craig March 24, 2010 Dinner

A comment from the other day by “Who is Cooking” led us to Thai Kitchen in Kysna for dinner tonight. This place is busy, and it’s not hard to see why.  The food is excellent and authentic, but you do have to be patient.  Fortunately the kitchen is completely open for all to view so [...]

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Dinner at Wu's Chinese & Sushi

by Craig March 23, 2010 Dinner

The char siu continues to elude us.  Where in South Africa can we find a proper char siu (BBQ pork)? We had seen that there are at least two Chinese restaurants in Kysna and I had decided that I wanted Char Siu after reading a blog post on The Food Pornographer.  I remember getting this [...]

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