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Head-to-toe in chocolate. From Next 48 Hours
As part of the Gourmet Festival’s Restaurant Week, I had the pleasure of dining at Sinn’s - Thomas Sinn’s exquisite Wembley Square restaurant. I recommend the seafood spring roll in a Noble Late Harvest bisque served with a perfectly grilled prawn. Equally impressive was the grilled kingklip, served on a rocket risotto, with luminous green Tatsoi oil. Utterly fabulous. For dessert, lemon is presented as an ice cream, mousse and mini lemon meringue tart that is fabulous. Two courses for lunch at R75, 00 or three course at dinner at R110 is outstanding value. Menus also include a glass of wine.
Sinn’s 021 465 0967
Balducci’s tomato tart tatin is magnificent. Chef Fernando has created something as good to eat as it is to look at. There is a pure white line of crfraiche which offsets the roasted tomato flavours and a neat square of black pepper. Kingklip is encrusted with Marula nuts which I think is an exciting idea and something I hadn’t tasted before. Think crunchy Amarula.
The accompanying spicy fig and tabouleh salad is very good. They’re serving ginger three ways so expect a ginger-poached pear on top of choco filled vol-au-vent with ginger infused cr brulee complemented by a wasabi ginger sorbet.
Balducci’s 021-421-6002. R95 for lunch and R165 for dinner including beautifully paired wines.
We attended one of Richard Tomes workshops at Chocolate at Tomes at Backsberg Estate and had a wonderful time.
This is a good idea as not only will your upper body strength increase as you conch your choco, but even more so as you temper it. That said, (unconscionable I know) I had no idea what conching was. Chocolate needs to be melted and stirred for many hours to give a smooth texture (conch) and it has to be cooled quickly while repeating a spreading out and gathering movement to achieve its high-gloss beauty (tempering).
I’m not going to repeat its albeit fascinating history here. Nor am I going to tell you about health or otherwise benefits of selecting fine Belgian chocolate over the vegetable fat intensive fodder we so readily consume.
Instead I’m going to tell you about the real advantage of attending this session: the envy and incredulity we were faced with when returning home with 36 ganache centered chocolate truffles made by our hand.
Here’s how you do it: the first few hours are spent conching and tempering the chocolate. Next you pour it over your truffle mould and immediately shake it off. Despite my very vigorous shaking (I almost lost my trousers in the process) I found my chocolate shells still too thick.
Once the outer shell has hardened, it’s time to make a filling. We went for a near equal chocolate and cream ganache filling) although I would have preferred a boozy cherry. Richard suggests keeping the nozzle of the piping bag at the base of the chocolate and maintaining contact with the mixture until the last moment before lifting and moving on to the next one. This prevents a tail from forming.
The last thing to do before unmoulding your truffle is to seal the base with a chocolate layer. Again, this is easier said than done. Final steps are to decorate with milk choco using a mini piping bag made from paper.
R650 per person including wine and a deli-style lunch.
Tel 021 982 5481,
www.tomeschocolates.co.za
[21-May-08]
Brian Berkman
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