On christmas eve, we got to escape to Franshhoek, which is 40 mins away from Cape Town and is a small quaint wine region. We got there at about noon and had a great yummy lunch with wine (we did not have to deal with kids!). The town is kind of like a smaller version of Stowe in Vermont (am not sure why I did not take a picture of the town). I did however take a picture of their herb garden, which sells plants and educates people about herbs but is strangely manned by two rastafarians, that smelled like they have been very involved with "herbs".
We tried to hit a few vineyards but everyone had more or less closed early for Xmas (we'll have to go back!!), the only place open was a new champagne grower. So we went back to our really nice hotel, Le Franshhoek Hotel (again no picture!) and we went for a full body massage and got ready for dinner. It was starting to feel like the days before kids.
We booked a spot at Le Quartier Francais - The Tasting Room, but Loren did not get a spot in the "chef special spot" as the waiting list is 3 months long. We got there and... lucky us... someone just cancelled! we got in!! Apparently they are voted one of the top 10 restaurants. Here is a sampling of our 8 course meal with different wine pairings that took 4 hours to eat, the time flew by really quickly though. They had a really nice beaded reindeer as decoration (and I didn't take a pic as well!!!)
Seared scallop, parsnip puree, asparagus, hot oyster mousse.
Chilled tomato water, black olive and parmesan jellies, liquid basil ravioli.
Pan fried foie gras, fig and yoghurt panna cotta, peach relish, brioche.
Bitter chocolate, praline and guinness log with ice cream
Anyway this meal inspired us to finally hit Auberge Michel in Joburg this Friday.
On Christmas day, everything was closed :( so we had a big breakfast (lunch was booked out) went for a nice long walk, went back to the hotel to take a nap, awoke to this big big rainbow (see pic) and then had our facials and sauna steam room to detox and headed back to reality................ the kids were fine! Ike was walking when we got back and nate was very well behaved.
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