Eggs benedict at the Steenberg

Over the weekend, I was sifting through my photos of my trip to South Africa last year, when we went to Johannesburg, Cape Town and the Sabi Sabi Game Reserve in Greater Kruger National Park.

This was such a wonderful trip.

Smoked salmon at the Steenberg

Then I found some very nice photos from this trip, which I promptly sent off to the Travel Companion, to remind him of what a happy time we had.

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This sparked a bit of an exchange, and I ended up sending him a very long message via my Blackberry.

He replied: “That must be the longest BBM in history.“

I had to agree.

Anyway, I took lots of food photos on our trip to South Africa last year — way more than on our trip to Tanzania this year, in fact — because we had so many delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

So I thought I’d share with you what breakfast was like at the Steenberg, a five-star luxury hotel in the suburbs of Constantia, which is about 20 minutes from Cape Town.

Bananas and blueberries at the Steenberg

It’s the oldest working farm on the Cape, and it’s been voted one of the best luxury experiences in Africa.

I have to say that if you get booked in the Khoi Khoi Suite, which is probably their best suite, it most certainly is.


It’s like having a very nice duplex apartment.

Sparkling wine with breakfast

Breakfast here was excellent, as well.

The Steenberg has a lovely cold breakfast buffet set-up.

And on the menu for hot breakfast items was a Cape Malay omelette, which we decided to try.

It was spicy and so very good.

Cape Malay Omelette

Even now, I remember how wonderful it was.

This was my last proper breakfast, by the way, on this particular trip to Africa, living a never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

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56 hours back in Manila and I’m still on South Africa mode, editing photos, writing an article on my safari experience and drinking detoxifying Roobois tea.

I got back on Thursday morning after a marathon trip across the world that began with an early morning wake-up call at 530 AM in Constantia, a suburb just outside Cape Town, on Wednesday, and went on through almost 18 hours of non-stop airplane time to Manila via Johannesburg and Hong Kong.

The Steenberg in Constantia, South Africa

I finally landed in Manila mid-morning on Thursday, and it was straight to the office to get back to work. Thursday evening, though, I cut myself some slack and stayed home instead of attending the usual round of events.

It certainly wasn’t jetlag as Manila is ahead of South Africa by about six hours in terms of time; but by Thursday night I just couldn’t keep awake.

On Friday afternoon and evening, I had three rounds of champagne in between work and all kinds of stuff. At this rate, I almost imagined I was still in South Africa as I was having champagne over there at almost this same pace.

Friday afternoon, I dropped by a friend’s perfectly planned children’s birthday party, at a salon in Legazpi Village, to say hello to everyone. I call the hostess “Martha Stewart” because all her parties are picture-perfect and also perfect in every single detail.

This was where I got my first glass of champagne — they served Thai food and sushi with champagne for the adults — and then I refilled my glass and ended up bringing it back to my office.

My office is just about a block away, you see, so I decided to bring my glass to the office so that I could do my first round of magazine pagination with champagne in hand.

My staff teased me: “Ma’am, don’t we get one of those for pagination, too?”

Maybe next time pagination rolls around, I’ll open a bottle for everyone. So anyway, yesterday, I turned my favorite music up on loud and worked the pagination board with a glass of champagne in hand.

It was a very nice way to end a Friday workday, in a week that wasn’t really a work week but an almost perfect and much needed holiday in South Africa.

Then I returned to the birthday party to say goodbye to everyone, since it was just a block away, and this was how I got my second round of champagne. It was nice to just hang around, so I dilly-dallied for as long as I could, and then I had to rush back home at around 7 pm to prepare dinner for two friends coming over to talk about travel.

Okay, I didn’t make dinner this time as it was physically impossible to do so. But I made sure I was back a few minutes before they were meant to arrive so that I could oversee the last-minute touches.

I served only simple comfort food last night: beef salpicao with steak fried rice, spicy longganisa, a pasta and a salad.

The sand dunes of Morocco

The two guys didn’t know each other but I thought they would click since they both love traveling, so I invited them both anyway.

One guy had just returned from Morocco and Switzerland, and the other guy had just returned from hiking up the mountains of Peru on a five-day trek to Macchu Picchu. And of course I’d just been back from amazing South Africa a mere 36 hours before.

Table Mountain at sunset

I was just thinking about it tonight as someone had asked me about my best trip this year; but this trip to South Africa is probably my favorite Travelife for 2012. Then my trip around the Czech Republic in June, with two of my oldest friends, would come in second. Both trips were full of laughter and good memories.

So we had lots to talk about and it was really fun. Especially as one of the guys had brought a nice bottle of champagne. My third round.

Dinner at Kasbah at the Fort

Then tonight, I hosted a dinner for 40 people at the restaurant Kasbah in the Fort, which has excellent Moroccan/ Middle Eastern food. I’d invited about 12 ambassadors and their spouses, and a couple of prominent newspaper columnists for a pre-holiday dinner.

The Ambassador of South Africa attended tonight’s dinner as well, and talking with her about all the places I went to and the experiences I had over the past two weeks made me remember South Africa in vivid color all over again.

She asked me: “What was your best memory of the trip?”

I was at a loss to answer for several minutes. Every day had been simply wonderful, and each place and experience had been unique. But perhaps because I was just then writing up my safari experience, I ended up replying: “A bonfire dinner at Sabi Sabi’s Selati Lodge, and a really fun lunch at Bush Lodge.”

Dinner at Sabi Sabi’s Selati Lodge in South Africa

Everyone loved the food at Kasbah, by the way, and I think we all had a nice time just having a relaxing meal sans formalities.

So as you can see, I’m back in Manila, and it’s still a never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

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Towards the end of our trip to South Africa, we visited the winery of our hotel, the Steenberg, on the beautiful Steenberg estate in the wine region of Constantia, for a very enjoyable wine-tasting.

If you ever find yourself in the Cape Town area on a TRAVELIFE, I strongly recommend a stay and a wine-tasting at the Steenberg.

The picturesque Steenberg Hotel

The hotel itself is so lovely, in a very understated way. Everything is immaculate and beautifully arranged, but there is nothing in excess. The houses and rooms you stay in are located in farmhouses that have been in existence for centuries, as this is the oldest farm in the Cape area.

I chose this hotel because I wanted an authentic old-fashioned Cape area experience, but with all the luxuries and comforts of a Travelife. In this sense, it was absolutely perfect.

Wine tasting at the Steenberg

The Steenberg winery itself is about a kilometer away from the Steenberg hotel, but as it was a perfect day in terms of the weather, we decided to walk from the hotel grounds to the winery via the vineyards.

What a nice walk this was, and it made us feel like we were still on safari. We saw all kinds of birds and squirrels.

The nice long walk from the hotel to the winery on the Steenberg estate

The winery itself was modern and beautiful. It has a wine-tasting bar, a tasting lounge, and a lovely outdoor terrace.

When you’re seated on its terrace, looking out onto the manicured gardens and contemporary artworks, you don’t really know where in the world you are. That’s the feeling I had.

You also get a great view of local landmarks like Constantiaberg, Elephant’s Eye and the Steenberg vineyards.

The view from the bar. This terrace is also very popular for afternoon tea and cocktails.

It sort of  looked like Switzerland because of the hills, but the contemporary vibe could be California, and some part of it felt like France. But there we were in South Africa, 20 minutes from Cape Town and an hour away from the Cape of Good Hope, which is practically the end of the world.

What makes this most interesting is that it’s very contemporary in design, but the Steenberg vineyard and farm is actually the oldest in the Cape area.

We sat at the magnificent bar, under an amazing artwork of a chandelier created out of resin and glass and inspired by the grape, of course.

The stunning chandelier of the Steenberg winery.

The very friendly ladies at the bar took us through the wines they had for tasting that day, and we started out with a very dry and yet fruity Steenberg Brut 1682 Pinot Noir 2007. This had overtones of berries and it was delicious.

We sampled all kinds of wines that night, as the sun set on the horizon, including a Steenberg Nebbiolo 2008 and Steenberg Semillon 2009.

But the one that stood out was a wine named in honor of the first owner of this beautiful estate. Her name was Catharina, and the wine — as well as the Steenberg’s flagship restaurant and the main drive — is named after her.

The wine was called Steenberg Catharina, and it’s a full bodied red with dark overtones of Cabernet.

THE AMAZING CATHARINA

The Catharina wine of the Steenberg. And a wonderful 2009 vintage.

Catharina was a widow who stowed away on a boat from Europe to South Africa disguised as a man, in order to start a new life in South Africa. When she got to South Africa, she managed to buy her own property — and this was the beginning of the beautiful Steenberg estate.

This was in the 17th century, by the way, when it was so unthinkable for a woman to either stow away to South Africa or to buy her own property. But obviously she was made of steel.

The last drop of the legendary Catharina

And perhaps the most interesting story here is that she had five husbands, and she outlived all of them except the last one. One husband, in fact, was supposedly killed by a lion on their wedding night; and it was rumored that Catharina went out into the night and killed the lion before dawn.

Obviously, with a woman like that and a story like that, the wine we had was very powerful. I finished my glass deep in thought, my mind on Catharina and her amazing story.

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The understatedly elegant Steenberg Hotel

Our last full day in beautiful South Africa began with a very nice breakfast at the Steenberg, a lovely winery and boutique hotel in Constantia, in the suburbs of Cape Town, that had been one of the hotels on my “must stay at” bucket list.

Our breakfast was prepared by Steenberg’s executive chef Garth Almazan, whose grandfather was actually Filipino, and we had a chat with him when we went over for breakfast.

Garth has never been to the Philippines, though, and I understand that we were the Steenberg’s first guests from the Philippines. Hopefully that’ll change, as it’s a beautiful and historic estate from 1700 run on five-star deluxe standards but offering all the tranquility and beauty of the winelands.

You read about the Steenberg here, by the way…

The scenery from the car, in this part of South Africa. Beautiful, even on a cloudy day.

A prestigious international magazine recently ranked a stay here as one of the top 500 travel experiences in the world — probably for the authenticity of its Cape Town wine experience and its understated elegance.

This was followed by lunch at South Africa’s most famous restaurant, and then an afternoon drive to the Cape of Good Hope, at the very tip of the African continent.

The eggs benedict at the Steenberg

But back to breakfast first.

I ordered eggs benedict for breakfast at practically every hotel we stayed in, in South Africa — so much so that on this very last breakfast day and just I was looking at the menu for hot breakfast dishes, The Boss said to me point-blank: “Stop fooling yourself that you’re going to order something else. Just get it over with and order your eggs benedict.“

The eggs benedict at Sabi Sabi Game Reserve

So that’s what I did. So far I’d had the following eggs benedict in South Africa: 


1) Eggs benedict with ham (at Westcliff in Johannesburg)
2) Eggs benedict in a slightly native style (at the Sabi Sabi Game Reserve)
3) Eggs benedict with crispy bacon (at the Mount Nelson in Cape Town)
4) Eggs benedict with smoked salmon (at the La Residence in Franschhoek).

I’d also had eggs benedict with a very deliciously sour sauce at Le Quartier Francais, a lovely Relais & Chateaux establishment we stayed at with a very famous restaurant attached to it, run by one of South Africa’s most creative chefs.

And that morning, at the Steenberg, the eggs benedict was also very good.

But that morning, on the Steenberg menu, we noticed something we’d never seen so far: a Cape Malay omelette. So of course we ordered that as well, and it came spicy with lots of vegetables, and in an open omelette style so that the bottom stayed dry and the top was moist.

The Steenberg’s delicious Cape Malay omelette

It was very good and a nice change from happy days and more happy days of eggs benedict.

So for my last proper breakfast in South Africa, I had my usual fruit plate to start, and then half an eggs benedict and half a Cape Malay omelette to end.

The awards won by La Colombe

Then for lunch we went to La Colombe, a nearby restaurant that is probably South Africa’s best-known restaurant. It was considered the best restaurant in the entire Africa and the Middle East for several years, but I haven’t really kept up to see where it’s ranked now.

The chef at its height of fame was Luke Dale Roberts, the very chef who went on to found the modern and cutting-edge restaurant called Test Kitchen in Cape Town, where we had a pretty fanastic 11-course meal just before coming to stay at the Steenberg in Constantia.

Click here to read about our 11-course dinner at Test Kitchen in Cape Town.

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Casual atmosphere of La Colombe

But even without its former very famous chef, we found the food at La Colombe was nevertheless excellent and very enjoyable.

We got there rather early so we were literally the first customers. This gave us an excuse to look around, and we were surprised at how casual the restaurant was, considering its global fame.

A SURE GUESS

Some of the famous people who’ve eaten at La Colombe

When we were ordering our lunch, the Boss said to me, while looking at the menu: “You’re having the oysters or the foie gras to start and then that Chalmar beef fillet as a main.”

He was again guessing what I would be ordering. Then he looked at me with his usual confidence about everything in his world and said: “Tell me I didn’t guess right.”

Yes, he was right, as usual. He knows what I like to eat and he even knows stupid things such as when I like more salt on my food. Sometimes, he doesn’t even say anything, and he just sprinkles more salt on my food because he thinks it’s going to be too bland for me.

And because the oysters hadn’t arrived yet when we began to order, I had the foie gras first. Midway through the meal, the oysters were delivered so I just had to have these as well, delicately poached in champagne. They were luscious.

This lunch is going to be written about as part of our Africa special in an upcoming issue of Travelife Magazine so I’m not going to dwell on the details, except to say that we had a couple of knock-out dishes in a lunch that consisted of two starters, two mains and two desserts — plus a complimentary starter given to us, maybe because we’d come early.

The after-dessert at La Colombe

THE END OF THE WORLD

Don’t miss a drive to the Cape of Good Hope if you find yourself in Cape Town. We’re so glad we didn’t.

From La Colombe, we headed straight to the Cape of Good Hope, which is about an hour’s drive from La Colombe via picturesque seaside towns and pretty amazing stark scenery.

We had a very nice car but it had the lousiest navigation system in the world. Fortunately, we never got lost on our journey to the end of the world.

Baboons were everywhere in the Cape of Good Hope. I took this from our car.

The weather wasn’t very good, but we’d made up our minds to go and see this last thing on our bucket list for our last day in South Africa.

On the left is the rough Atlantic Ocean, while on the right is the calmer Indian Ocean. You can only see a sliver of the Indian Ocean in this photo.

The Cape of Good Hope is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean, and we climbed all the way to the point where you can literally see the rough seas of the Atlantic Ocean force itself on the calmer Indian Ocean.

Miraculously, the sun shone just as we reached this very crucial point of the earth, and we saw the two oceans meet in great glory.

For a Travelife, it was certainly a must-do to see this point of the earth with our own eyes. And this is exactly where I want to end the story of this journey. At least for now.

The Steenberg

www.steenberghotel.com

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Part 1 of breakfast at the Mount Nelson Hotel. We always have part 1 and part 2 of breakfast, with part 2 being the hot food orders.

What a nice day today was in South Africa, living a TRAVELIFE.

We began with another one of our long breakfasts at the Mount Nelson hotel in Cape Town, a lovely Orient-Express hotel which is one of the city’s iconic landmarks.

That’s all our luggage for two weeks in South Africa, being loaded into our car after checking out of the Mount Nelson…

Then we checked out of the Mount Nelson and drove out early to the waterfront for lunch at Reuben’s, a very nice bistro in the ultra-luxury One & Only Resort in Cape Town.

It was slightly early so we got the valet to take our car, and then we actually went to the aquarium next-door for about an hour.

Cape Town has an award-winning aquarium by the waterfront.

The aquarium was fun but it was rather surreal, considering that The Boss and I, two very busy people running businesses (and in his case, lots of businesses), were walking around an aquarium like two kids.

But this is what we did, and it was nice.

Then we went back to One & Only for lunch.

I’ll write more about this delicious lunch in a later blog because I really enjoyed every single dish I ate.

Yes, it’s been long breakfasts, long lunches and long dinners throughout this trip.

Lunch at Reuben’s was delicious

You can imagine what havoc that’s done in terms of calories and kilos, but I haven’t dared stand on that weight scale yet, since I set foot in Africa.

But during this lunch, we happened to talk with one of the hotel staff about driving routes between Cape Town and our next hotel in the winelands of Constantia.

She suggested that we drive by the beach.

Reuben’s at the One & Only Cape Town

What a wonderful suggestion that was, as otherwise we would have taken the inland road.

It was a perfect day for driving by the beach, and the scenery that awaited us in this part of South Africa was truly magical.

I can’t ever forget this day, even just for the beautiful scenery and the sight of Cape Town’s famous Twelve Apostles in the sunshine.

This has got to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world, especially on such a perfect day as today.

I took this from the front seat of the car, as we drove the coastal route of Cape Town

Then we finally arrived at our amazing hotel, the Steenberg, which is the last in the long series of hotels we have stayed in for this South African trip.

It’s located in the wine and horse region of Constantia, only 20 minutes away from Cape Town but an entire world away.

I have to write about this hotel in a separate entry. But needless to say, it took our breaths away in a very understated way.

Both the Boss and I have stayed in some of the most beautiful hotels in the world, but both of us were quite floored by the understated elegance we found here.

We both loved it. That really says a lot.

We spent the sunset hour doing a wine tasting and just exploring the property. Then we had dinner at one of Constantia’s best restaurants.

Constantia has at least three excellent restaurants, including one world-famous one called La Colombe. That’s where we’re eating tomorrow.

And tonight we had dinner in one of the top three: Catharina’s at Steenberg. It was a Monday night but it was very impressively full.

Before dinner, we did a wine tasting at a really cool winery. The structure and the scenery were beautiful, and for a moment we didn’t know where we were in the world.

Maybe this was because it was the second to the last night before heading back to Manila, but we were pretty sentimental over dinner.

We toasted countless times to such a happy trip, full of amazing experiences, and talked about our favorite memories of it so far.

We also actually had a pretty good conversation about all kinds of things.

Then the Boss said something like: “Want to do a Travelife again next year?” I can’t remember whether these were his exact words now but it was something to this effect.

I just smiled and said: “We can do that.”

We’d had such fun on this trip, and there was never a dull, stressful, difficult or angry moment in our two weeks in Africa.

As early as May, we’d penciled in this trip in November, and the travel machinery — The Boss and myself, and our respective staffs — started working on this from June when we’d decided on the country to visit.

I still remember that I was in the Czech Republic in June, and he was somewhere in the Black Sea, and by BBM we’d decided to go to South Africa in November.

For a couple of weeks, we’d been looking for a country we’d both never been to before and that we both wanted to go to, and that was pretty hard to do. Eventually the shortlist became Peru or South Africa.

And after looking at the distances and times involved, South Africa won out in the end.

So anyway, The Boss asked me: “Where shall we go? Namibia? Tanzania?”

We’d fallen in love with Africa, and much of the trip we’d talked about the other amazing places to visit in this continent.

And he knew Namibia was at the top of my bucket list at the moment — along with about a hundred other places.

I want to do a different kind of safari in Namibia, as well as see the amazing sand dunes. In Tanzania, I want to see the Ngorongoro crater and the magical island of Zanzibar.

As for our two weeks in South Africa, we both certainly needed a good break from the real world, even for a moment.

And what a wonderful holiday this has turned out to be.

Good night for now from a most amazing place, and an almost unreal world, living a never-endingly eventful TRAVELIFE.

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