Taste of Joburg

Right, if I'm going to publish a moaning post (below), I will publish a "nice" post too. Keep some balance in my little universe.

I was fortunate enough to win tickets to Taste of Joburg from Glad to Be a Girl, so TSC and I headed there on Thursday night to discover some new yummies. It was good fun, although I'm not particularly keen on crowds, so we missed out on some of the more interesting meal samples because I couldn't handle standing at the overcrowded stalls for ages just trying to place an order. Patience has never been my strong point. And being my height is not fun in a crowd (I'm at armpit level).

Most of the meals we sampled (TSC and I managed to share each sample so that we could taste as many as possible) were really good. I've included the links to the recipes for the dishes we tried (those that were available) in case some of you have grand gourmet ambitions ;-)

My favourite dish at the festival was the slow-roasted springbok with a sweet potato puree, pickled beetroot and juniper jus, from Roots at Forum Homini. We opted to pay a little bit extra and have it paired with a wine, which was the 2005 Rust en Vrede Shiraz. The food was divine. The wine was divine. Together they were a match made in heaven. Drooling at the memory!

TSC's favourite was the ostrich prego roll from The Westcliff Hotel. It was pretty damn good. So tender!

Also great were:

• The Soweto Hotel on Freedom Square's bunny chow and chisa nyama.
• The vegetarian pasta shells from Ritrovo (although, IMO, the best thing about this restaurant is actually the opera-singing chef who entertains patrons at the restaurant venue in Pretoria).
• The honey-glazed lamb from Piccolo Mondo at The Michaelangelo.

Not quite as great:

• The dim sum from Koi. Not bad, just not my thing. At least I've tried it. I've heard good stuff about the restaurant, so I would consider going there and trying something else off their menu. Perhaps one of their green curries.
• The white chocolate tiramisu from La Cucina Di Ciro. If you like tiramisu, I imagine you'd enjoy this. I'm not a fan though, so I'm not sure why I tried this dish in the first place. I did think the price was a little steep (R35 for a two-bite portion). The restuarant looks gorgeous though!
• The crab fettuccine from The Attic. It also wasn't bad - just not what I was expecting. I think they had one of the most generous portions though, and I am still really keen to try this restuarant. The people running the stand were so friendly and it looks very cute and quaint.

I also picked up a subscription to Fresh Living magazine (at long last). I paid the normal price (R132 for a year) and got a book of crowns (the festival currency) worth R100. Great deal! Wish I'd known about it when we arrived, seeing we'd already tasted most of the dishes by the time we got to the Fresh Living / PnP stand. We had to go back into the festival and figure out how to spend our crowns. We ended up having some yummy Amarula cocktails and getting some deli meats and biltong, which made TSC happy.

All in all, we had a good time. Thanks again to Phillygirl and to the Tribeca PR folks.