This is a blogging post from the Master Class on the subject at The Westcliff Hotel. We'll comment on these posts in a moment. Gaby Palmer, the hotel PR is rushing about offering drinks while Gayo Primic, the techie who created my site, is sitting to the left. There are about 15 professionals who have come to hear what I have to say. How fabulous is that?

Had dinner last night with Morne Botha the executive chef at The Bay Hotel's Tides restaurant. Morne says The Bay is competing with 50 other eateries on Camps Bay's beachfront strip. I was pleased by the prices and most of what I tasted was delicious and well made. From the starter menu I tasted the Black Coast Mussels cooked with chorizo in a tomato and white wine sauce. At R55 it was good value and a large portion as a starter. Morne had the soup of the day which was carrot and celery (R38) while Patricia O'Dea ordered the Biltong pate (R59) - very delicious but perhaps too large a dish as a starter. Either it needs more sweet potato chips, delicious aniseed rolls or a smaller portion of pate or both. The ostrich egg salad (R62) was my first choice and was delicate. Imagine four piles of shredded omlette topped with seaweed, cucumber strips and rooibos tea-smoked ostrich. Yummy.

As a main I ordered from the starter menu. The tripe en croute (R57) was totally delicious but not appetizing to the eyes. It is cooked in a light Malay curry with white wine and cream and served in puff pastry cases. The pastry case bases were too thick and I struggled to cut into them which irritated me. Patricia's sole Bonne Femme (R90) looked fabulous and she raved about it saying it was as good as her meal at La Coulomb over the weekend. Morne had the oxtail (R89) which is cooked off the bone and served on a risotto with wild and cultivated mushrooms. I tasted a mouthful of this dish but would have preferred a plateful. 

The most disappointing dish was my bread-and-butter pudding simply as it didn't have sufficient egg mixture to bring the whole dish together and I was left eating pieces of dry bread. All the food was well presented on square, rectangle and speech-bubble shaped plates and, on the whole I'm impressed by the experience vs price ratio.       

The Vida e Caffé phenomenon is such that we'll happily pay R19.50 for an egg and chourico roll and R10.50 for a small capuccino. In the hour I spent there this morning, catching up with PR hot-shot Craig Dummett, I saw GQ art director Robert Cilliers and probably 30 other folk, each  more stubble bearded and chin chiseled than the next. Even the gals have a chic people-to-see attitude on a lazy public holiday morning. While I'm sure the same number of Green Point habitués hang out at Giovanni on the next block, Vida e is certainly the place for the 30-somethings. While I waited for Craig to arrive, happily his PR skills are not compromised by his lack of being-on-time ones,  I noticed a twosome at the adjacent table. My guess is they're nutritionist and client on a walkabout of the client's eating spots discussing better choices.

The Donnelly clan joined us for lunch at Le Verger, the new spot at the five-star Three Cities Hotel in Franschhoek. It's about three kilometers from the Huguenot Monument past the old Swiss Farm hotel where we visited as children, The views are staggering - and the seating - in pavilions around a central loggia, is like an upmarket La Massaria - that wonderful cheese spot in Stellenbosch. Jack, their five year old loved it too, especially the pizza section and the waterways that surrounded the location.