TASTE was quite a meal
The Rhodes High School fields are just down the road from my house and I'd noticed the big white tents being erected in preparation for the TASTE festival, as well as the clogging up of little roads nearby with traffic. So last night I felt quite smug just walking the few metres to get to TASTE. In fact the parking was very well organised and there was lots of room on the school fields. In fact, the whole festival was well organised.
Producers' market
At the entrance you were able to buy a booklet of “crowns” - R100 for 20 crowns. Most main dish tastes cost about seven or eight crowns. Then you wander among the various tents and choose how you will spend your crowns. Each of the 19 restaurants had the menu for the evening displayed - two mains and a dessert. There were also lots of wine estate exhibitors and you could taste and be informed about the various wines. The small producers' market was very popular; here you could sample cheese, chocolate, olives, pesto, aloe products and other interesting flavours. Then there were the beautifully appointed tents for Grolsch (green lights and chandeliers) and Heineken (white leather loungers and artists easels) and the Pick n Pay chef's theatre, where you could watch demonstrations by the chefs of a variety of dishes from cured beef to “terrific tofu”.
TASTE ran for the four evenings from Wednesday, 24 March and the two afternoons of Saturday and Sunday from midday until late afternoon. We went on Friday night and even though there was a chilly wind blowing, there were lots of people and a wonderful vibe. All the people that I recognised were from the Sports Science Institute and a couple of them involved with the Healthy Weight Programme (you can draw your own witty conclusion from that!).
Intriguing tastes
I started with an oxtail dish on creamy potato by Reubens - rich and piquant. My partner tried the lamb curry from Wang Thai - a beautiful blend of spicy flavour. There were all sorts of different and intriguing tastes from which to choose - and because each taste was of a modest size, one could try quite a few. Soft shell crab panko served with dressed pea shoots and smoked paprika aioli (Bistro 16), sweetcorn veloute, parsnip puree and tempura prawn tail (Grande Provence), Kentucky fried quail, sour cream coleslaw (Gordon Ramsay), braised pig's cheek, parsley pomme puree, gremolata (Overture). And then some of the desserts: vanilla and lime panna cotta with fruit salad (Cape Colony), which was heavenly, vanilla rice pudding, raspberry compote, pistachio biscotti (Maze) - very different to the rice pudding we got at boarding school - Tonka bean crème brulee, summer berry chutney, salted peanut butter espuma. If reading about some of these dishes makes your mouth water, I can assure you that tasting them was a real treat. We staggered home feeling extraordinarily well fed.
Photos by Alex Mayne
