Reflecting at the start of 2013 on the wonderful TRAVELIFE that was in 2012, this is part of a series of blog entries that looks at the best aspects of our never-ending, and never-endingly eventful travels. 

This year was so full of indescribable and inspiring experiences — and we’re certainly looking forward to an even more wonderful Travelife in 2013. 

A blessed New Year to everyone

from all of us at Travelife Magazine.

We wish you a year of happiness

and an amazing Travelife.

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Cape Town’s Table Mountain

In fact, thinking about it now, I don’t know why it took me so long to get to South Africa.

It’s a beautiful country blessed with amazing nature, a great lifestyle, and some of the best wining and dining on the planet. Boy, did we eat in some fabulous places. And it’s not even very far compared to Europe.

From Hong Kong, it took us about the same time to get to Johannesburg as to fly to Paris. 12 hours, and on both ways, we just pushed the “flat bed” button and slept for most of the way. Talk about a pretty painless flight.

And guess what. South African Airways has amazing deals from Manila to Johannesburg via Hong Kong. I saw their advertisement in our current Travelife issue (December 2012 – January 2013) and the prices made me do a double take.

FLY SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS

Manila to Johannesburg for as low as US$795

Manila to Cape Town for as lowas US$928

www.flysaa.com

Tel 884-8129

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Then came the fun part.

I volunteered to do the basic planning for the trip because no one can really plan a trip the way we can – we are Travelife Magazine after all, the Philippines’ leading travel and lifestyle magazine. Honestly. I’ve seen lots of seasoned travelers plan their trips pretty nicely, but so far no one — absolutely no one — can plan a seamless and truly interesting trip like us, regardless of destination.

We always include really interesting things to do, we stay in very nice hotels, and we never bungle flights, trains or restaurant reservations because we know what to do about these.

But back to South Africa. I did remember to ask my friend for his wish list, and fortunately it was the same as mine: seeing the Big 5 on a best-of-breed safari, discovering the new hype and vibes of Johannesburg, and exploring the great dining and wine opportunities in the Cape Town area.

Read us every Sunday in the Business Mirror

Knowing my penchant for luxury, perhaps, he left all the hotel choices to me, so I basically chose all the places I’ve always wanted to stay in on a South Africa trip.

These are the places I chose for our trip:

The Westcliff

An Orient Express Hotel

Johannesburg

Sabi Sabi Game Reserve Selati Camp and Earth Lodge Greater Kruger National Park

Le Quartier Francais
Franschhoek

La Residence

Franschhoek

The Mount Nelson Hotel

An Orient Express Hotel

Cape Town

The Steenberg Hotel

Constantia

Then, after I was done with the basics, I turned over the itinerary to him as “homework,” to finish off with things he wanted to do – like go to the top of Table Mountain, visit Robbens Island, where Nelson Mandela was jailed for over two decades, and book all those great cutting-edge restaurants he’s so keen on.

After emailing him the basically finalized itinerary, regarding the non-dining and wining parts of the itinerary, I told him: “Everything not mentioned in this itinerary is part of your homework. You can plan the free time any way you wish and I’m happy to go along as long as you leave enough time for breakfast and get us back in time to dress for dinner.”

We have the same general interests and we both like good dinners — even if he is way more of a “World’s Best Restaurants 2012” kind of person than I am — so I was sure it would work out in the end.

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We were in South Africa for a nice holiday for two weeks last month

We sat right next to the open kitchen at Test Kitchen in Cape Town, and had the 11-course dinner. Test Kitchen was just chosen as South Africa’s best restaurant.

The list of 10 best restaurants in South Africa just came out, and we’re happy to note that Travelife Magazine got every restaurant right, at least for the destinations we visited.

We went to four out of the 10 restaurants, and most of the others were in places we didn’t go to.

The food at Test Kitchen in Cape Town, recently chosen South Africa’s best restaurant, was innovative, experimental and enjoyable. We had an 11-course dinner here.

We also visited 2 very new restaurants that we are so sure will make it to the Top 10 Restaurants of South Africa for 2013 if they keep on cooking in the way we experienced last month, living a TRAVELIFE in South Africa.

The Boss and I are big foodies so restaurants were a top priority for our South Africa trip. And at the same time, I’m big on luxury and we’re keen on best-of-breed experiences, so we basically did the very best of South Africa in two weeks.

The action at Test Kitchen in Cape Town on the night we dined there. Test Kitchen was judged South Africa’s best restaurant.

For restaurants, our top picks in the places we visited in South Africa were:

1) Test Kitchen in Cape Town (2012 Restaurant of the Year)
2) Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek (2012 Chef of the Year)
3) La Colombe in Constantia
4) Rust en Vrede in Stellenbosch (2012 Service Award of the Year)

The Boss picked #1 while I picked #2,3 and 4 although I think he would have picked at least #2 as well. I like fancier more traditional restaurants while he likes modern cutting-edge establishments so between us we have a nice mix for a trip.

Remains of dinner and wine at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek. LQF was chosen South Africa’s #2 best restaurant, and Chef Margot Jansen was chosen South Africa’s best chef.

In the above restaurants list, #2 to #4 are considered among the best in Africa and the Middle East, and this is why we made sure to eat here during our trip. Fantastic food and truly enjoyable meals.

Meanwhile, Test Kitchen (#1 on the Travelife list and in the Top 10 list) is relatively new although it has a famous owner chef. It didn’t receive any major accolades yet because of its newness, but we decided to book dinner here on one of our two evenings in Cape Town. We certainly got that one right.

The food at La Colombe in Constantia. La Colombe has long been recognized as one of the best restaurants in the world.

Margot Jansen of Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek is South Africa’s chef of the year for 2012

In addition, Chef Margot Janssen of Le Quartier Francais was chosen South Africa’s Chef of the Year for 2012. We really enjoyed her food, and dinner here was on par with Test Kitchen for us, although in a different way.

But I’ll let someone else explain the details of these wonderful meals in an upcoming issue of Travelife Magazine.

Table with a view at Le Quartier Francais. South Africa’s #2 best restaurant also has beautiful accommodations, so you can dine, drink and sleep. And not have to drive.

No one travels like us. Or eats like us. Or writes like us.

When we booked these restaurants for our South Africa trip last month, the Top 10 Restaurants in South Africa list had not yet been released.

So we’re quite happy to note that we called things right. We do seriously like food, after all.

We really liked La Colombe in Constantia as well. My meal here coincides with one of my favorite days on the trip.

We’re also pretty sure that two restaurants we additionally picked will make it to the 2013 list. They didn’t make it this year only because they’re too new to do so.

Our top contenders for newbies on the 2013 list are Five Hundred at the Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg and Camphors at Vergelegen in Somerset West, very near Stellenbosch and Cape Town.

On our 2nd night in South Africa, we visited Chef David Higgs of Five Hundred, Johannesburg’s newest fine dining restaurant, in his kitchen. Afterwards we had an amazing meal. We’re so sure he’ll make the list in 2013.

We actually visited internationally famous chef David Higgs of Five Hundred in his kitchen, when Five Hundred was still filled with boxes. This was my pick, by the way, and I remember we were incredibly tired from a very long day by the time we got here — but the food certainly perked us up.

We’d come for dinner at the Saxon Hotel exactly ten days before Five Hundred was going to formally open; but we’d wanted to try his food so much so David Higgs instead created a wonderful tasting menu just for us and served it in a temporary but very beautiful venue in the hotel.

David Higgs explains our tasting menu to us

It was an excellent meal and we were both in raptures. If this is a sign of things to come — Five Hundred is now officially open in Johannesburg, by the way — then Five Hundred will definitely be in the Top 10 list for 2013.

Incidentally, David Higgs used to be the chef for Rust en Vrede, long considered one of South Africa’s best restaurants, and also one of the best restaurants in the world according to the S. Pellegrino.

So we’re glad to see Rust en Vrede still in the Top 10 list as well, even with a different chef at the helm. We very much enjoyed our meal here — this was where I first had a Chalmers steak — and we also liked Rust en Vrede’s boutique wines.

I hope Camphors at Vergelegen in Somerset West will make it to the list next year.

My second choice for a top new restaurant for 2013 is Camphors at Vergelegen, which is the fine dining restaurant of the beautiful Vergelegen Winery. We had a wonderful meal here, accompanied by their equally memorable wines.

This is the restaurant proper of Camphors at Vergelegen. As it was such a fine day when we visited, we had a three-hour+ lunch on the patio instead.

This time, Camphors at Vergelegen had just been open for two weeks; so it was still undergoing birth pains and finalizing lots of things, and we were among its first customers. But what we had on that day was definitely impressive.

I’m sure this will soon be one of the Cape’s top dining venues.

The chef at Camphors at Vergelegen

So there you have it. We’re so happy we got our restaurant selections in South Africa right. And if we had had more dinner slots to fill, in our never-ending TRAVELIFE, here’s what I would have added to our South Africa trip: the Greenhouse at The Cellars-Hohenhort, which is also another place I wanted to stay in, and Jordan in Stellenbosch. Just have to save these for next time.

I don’t want to sound repetetive here but I just can’t help it.

No one travels like us. Or eats like us. Or writes like us. And that’s why we’re #1.









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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.

Scroll down to read more…

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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