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Saturday, 31 July 2010 11:31

Victoria 22 closed for renovatios

Victoria 22 is closed for renovations for the month of August and will be re-opening early September. The future is bright for Zimbabwean Restaurants,there have been an increase in a number of restaurants closing down for the main reasons of working their magic to improve the ambience and creating a more sophisticated upmarket environment.

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Wednesday, 21 July 2010 16:23

Getting To Know Gordon Ramsay

The Maze Restaurant in Capetown

Scottish by birth, Gordon was brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, from the age of five. With an injury prematurely putting an end to any hopes of a promising career in football, he went back to college to complete a course in hotel management.

Ramsay’s first years in the kitchen were spent training under culinary luminaries such as Marco Pierre White and Albert Roux in London, after which he moved to France where he worked in the kitchens of Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon for three years where he was able to enhance his expertise in classic French cooking. In 1993, Gordon became chef of the newly opened Aubergine, within three years the restaurant was awarded two Michelin stars.

Gordon's first book, Passion for Flavour, was published in 1996. Since then a number of hugely successful books by Gordon have been published. His most recent recipe book, Gordon Ramsay’s World Kitchen was published by Quadrille in November 2009.

In 1998 at the age of 31, Gordon set up his first wholly owned restaurant, Gordon Ramsay, in Chelsea. On 19th January 2001 it won its third Michelin star. In October 2001 Gordon opened Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's which won a Michelin star in 2003. The same year saw the opening of Gordon Ramsay Holdings first international restaurant, Verre, located in the Dubai Hilton Creek Hotel. A year later he opened in St. James's. Within seven months it had won a Michelin star. The restaurant relocated to The Berkeley Hotel in 2003 and won its second Michelin star in January 2007.

At the beginning of October 2002, Gordon Ramsay Holdings took over the food and beverage operation at The Connaught Hotel with Angela Hartnett at the helm. Her restaurant MENU won its first Michelin star in January 2004. In 2003 Gordon Ramsay Holdings re-launched The Savoy Grill and the restaurant achieved its first Michelin star in 2004. This was followed with the opening of Boxwood Café with chef Stuart Gillies.

May 2004 saw Gordon Ramsay star in the Channel 4 series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, later to be awarded a BAFTA and an International Emmy. Shortly after this, Gordon was given two weeks to direct a group of celebrities towards Michelin standard cooking in the ITV series Hell's Kitchen. A second series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was followed by the debut of Channel 4's The F-Word, a high-octane food show with cooking, topical VT's, food campaigns and celebrity guests. In America, a sixth season of Hell’s Kitchen aired this summer to exceptional viewing figures of over 14 million.

2005 also saw the launch of GRH’s eighth UK restaurant, maze, in London's Grosvenor Square and the opening of Gordon Ramsay at The Conrad Hotel in Tokyo. The year was rounded off with Gordon's award of an OBE in the New Year's Honours list.

In November 2006 Gordon made his stateside debut with the opening ofGordon Ramsay at The London in The London NYC Hotel, part of the LXR Luxury Resorts collection where Josh Emett, previously head chef at The Savoy Grill is the resident chef de cuisine.

In January 2007 Gordon Ramsay Holdings opened Cielo at the exclusive Boca Raton resort in Florida. 2007 was also the year that Gordon opened his first pub, The Narrow, in a Grade II listed building on the banks of the River Thames in London’s Limehouse. Gordon has since gone on to open two further pubs: The Devonshire in West London and The Warrington in Maida Vale.

The fifth international Gordon Ramsay restaurant opened towards the end of the year at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Powerscourt, Ireland. January 2008 saw the re-opening of Chelsea’s classic neighbourhood bistro, Foxtrot Oscar, on Royal Hospital Road, just a few doors away from Gordon’s eponymous restaurant.

In early 2008 Gordon Ramsay Holdings and Lyndy Redding announced their acquisition of the acclaimed Tante Marie Cookery School which re launched in September the same year.

In March Gordon introduced his first restaurant in France at the legendary Trianon Palace & Spa located just steps away from the famed Château de Versailles. March was also the month that Gordon, together with Stuart Gillies, opened Gordon Ramsay Plane Food, a restaurant at the newly built Heathrow Terminal 5. This was followed in April by the launch of maze Grill in London’s Grosvenor Square. In June Gordon launched Gordon Ramsay at The London in West Hollywood.

August saw the launch of Gordon Ramsay protégé Angela Hartnett’s fine-dining restaurant, Murano in the heart of London’s Mayfair which was awarded a star in the 2009 Michelin Guide. At the end of September, York & Albany, located on the edge of London’s Regents Park, opened comprising of a restaurant with bar, delicatessen and guest accommodation.

April 2009 saw the launch of maze by Gordon Ramsay at The One&Only Cape Town. Modelled on its British namesake, the menu evokes the bountiful flavours of authentic South African recipes.

At the beginning of July, Gordon Ramsay Holdings opened Gordon Ramsay at Forte Village, at the exclusive and luxurious resort in Sardinia. This was closely followed by the launch of Contrada at Castel Monastero in Tuscany in August.

2010 has already been an exciting year with the re-launch of Pétrus in the heart of Belgravia and also the groups first launches in Australia. maze, and maze Grill take influence from their British namesakes, opening at Crown’s newest acquisition in the city.

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Tuesday, 20 July 2010 18:54

Anti Restaurant - Eat- IN VS Eat OUT?

Eating In

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

On Feb. 23, a select group of Washingtonians received an intriguing e-mail: “The orange arrow is pointing at you,” the subject line read.

It was an exclusive invitation to “an exclusive underground anti-restaurant,” the e-mail explained. “Because the DNA of the magical dinner is unmapped, these events will evolve, month to month, season to season, place to place & plate to plate.”

The invitation alone wasn’t enough for diners to make the cut, however. For the privilege of attending Orange Arrow’s inaugural, $125-a-head dinner, guests had to agree to abide by certain rules.

“If you can’t/won’t eat certain things, this is not for you.”

“No crybabies, whiners or buzz kills can come to our party. This isn’t reality television.”

“Don’t try to sell your ticket on Craigslist. Failure to show basic decency gets you on the blacklist.”

Reached by phone, Orange Arrow’s co-founder, a James Beard award-nominated chef, made no apologies for the invitation’s tone or defiant exclusivity. “We don’t want them in if they’re not fun or interesting,” said the chef, who requested anonymity. “This is a private club. In a restaurant, you’re a whipping post. This is a completely different thing.”

In a city best known for its see-and-be-seen culinary destinations, a new breed of underground restaurants is emerging. These supper clubs shun pomp, circumstance and plebian steak dinners in favor of more-offbeat dining experiences. Some operate as for-profit businesses. Orange Arrow plans to obtain location and liquor permits for its ambitious suppers, which will host as many as 150 select “hungry, hedonistic gypsies” at venues that range from a museum to an alleyway. Others lurk in a legal gray area, accepting “suggested donations” for the food and wine to get around requirements for business and liquor licenses. Hush, the brainchild of a former World Bank staffer, invites no more than 16 for an intimate evening of home-style Indian food and culinary storytelling. There are even traveling underground restaurants. On Feb. 20, 40 in-the-know hipsters surrounded a long table to eat garlicky shrimp (and learn to suck out the heads) at the area’s first Wok + Wine event.

Already, demand is strong. Orange Arrow sold 30 percent of its tickets within 24 hours; it requires visitors to visit http://orangearrowdc.com to list a reference in order to get past the virtual velvet rope. After just one month of taking reservations at http://hushsupperclub.wordpress.com, Hush has an e-mail list of 300 interested diners, and every meal has had a waiting list. “The demand is unbelievable,” said the host, who goes by the name Geeta and runs Hush out of her home in Northwest Washington. “I thought, you know, I’d join Twitter and send out some e-mails and maybe some people would check it out. I thought it would take six months to build interest, not 10 days.”

Unlicensed restaurants have long prospered overseas. In Hong Kong, si fang cai, or speak-easies, in private homes are considered by many to have the best food in the city. But clandestine kitchens are a more recent phenomenon in the United States. The Ghetto Gourmet, which began serving meals in the basement of an Oakland, Calif., apartment in 2004, was one of the earliest. Soon, the concept spread to big cities everywhere. In Atlanta, RogueApron threw an event in an alley between boarded-up houses. In New York, patrons of A Razor, A Shiny Knife have together learned to carve a 150-pound boar. In Washington, two professional chefs launched a short-lived underground experiment, also called Hush, in Eastern Market in 2007. But it wasn’t until this year that the trend took off in earnest.

Washington’s new underground restaurants generally divide into two categories: amateur cooks who want to offer a new kind of experience and recovering restaurateurs who want to set their own rules.

Hush falls into the first group. For between $50 and $75 per person, Geeta serves the dishes she grew up eating in her mother’s kitchen, including dhokla, steamed lentil-and-rice flour cakes, chana masala (chickpea curry) and sweet carrot halwa. It’s a way of sharing her Gujarati culture and her religion, Jainism, which prescribes a diet that bans root vegetables as well as meat and dairy products. “If you want fine dining, go to Rasika,” Geeta said, referring to the popular restaurant in Penn Quarter. “This is the comfort food I’ve been served since I was in the womb.”

The message comes through food and storytelling. At a recent dinner, Geeta told guests about when, as a young girl, she was given her first masala spice box. She encouraged the roomful of strangers to talk about what was interesting and meaningful to them. “We live in a divisive town. We could go the whole night talking about Sarah Palin,” Geeta told the group as they sipped their welcome cocktails, made with coriander-and-saffron gin. “But we are more than what we do. I want you to share things, things that maybe you didn’t think anyone would be interested in in Washington, D.C.”

Whether it was the cocktails or the encouragement, it seemed to work. After some initial nervous chatter, the group of 20- and 30-somethings ate, drank and talked about the Olympics, what they’d cooked during the recent snowstorms and meddling in-laws. Yana Kravtsova, a 33-year-old lawyer, taught software project manager Scott Forman and Rakesh Surampudi (who followed instructions and avoided saying where he worked) the Russian way to make a toast. At midnight, Forman began playing the piano. The last guests left at 1 a.m.

“It’s very refreshing,” said Kravtsova. “I like the concept. Hanging out with strangers is not a very Washington thing.”

Wok + Wine’s mission is also to bring people together. The club was founded in November 2008 by New Zealand native Peter Mandeno, 38, as a way to broaden his social network in New York. In 2009, Mandeno organized 20 events there as well as in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London, Madrid and Washington.

Wok + Wine’s formula is simple. Interested diners sign up at http://www.woknwine.com on a first-come, first-served basis. Only 40 people are admitted. Tickets usually cost $35. Twenty-four hours before the event, guests receive an e-mail revealing the location of the party. Wok + Wine offers one kind of wine — all the easier to meet someone by filling up their glass, the theory goes — and one kind of food: jumbo shrimp stir-fried with garlic, salt, crushed red pepper flakes and cilantro in a high-powered portable gas wok.

The Washington event skewed heavily female. During the first hour, guests sipped a 2007 Quinta dos Grilos (it retails for between $10 and $12) and milled around the 6,000-square-foot apartment in Shaw. At about 8 p.m., everyone was called to the long wooden table, lined with banana leaves. Mandeno scattered the shrimp down the center, and his partner, Yrmis Barroeta, explained how to peel them and suck out the heads. In case anyone forgot, a sign was posted on the wall to remind them: Rip. Lick. Bite. Suck.

Guests muscled their way closer to the table. Conversations sparked easily as several people struggled to eat the shrimp as directed. “The structure definitely makes it easy to talk to one another,” said Sylvia Yu, an employee of the Department of Health and Human Services who had heard about Wok + Wine through a friend. “Getting your hands dirty is messy and kind of sexy. It’s fun.”

Underground restaurants run by chefs are, not surprisingly, more elaborate. The goal of Orange Arrow, the chef said, is to create a place where “people who love food want to go,” not another bricks-and-mortar restaurant that has to serve steak and salmon and make the rent. The first dinner is at the end of the month.

Another underground restaurant, operating out of the Northwest home of two former Washington chefs since June 2009, offers guests half a dozen passed hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, then a multi-course tasting menu paired with wine. On a recent evening, the appetizers included seared scallop with roasted beets, cauliflower soup with Oregon black truffle, steak with Brussels sprouts and sunchokes, roasted rockfish with corn grits and turnip greens, and black truffle ice with vanilla cake. The suggested donation: $195 per person.

The restaurant’s founders said they had tired of the relentless pace of the hospitality industry. But after time away, they missed cooking for friends and food lovers. “We missed the interaction,” the founder said. “So we found a different way of doing it.”

The restaurant has no fixed schedule. Dinners happen about twice month. The chefs set up private dinners upon request or get the word out via friends and the Internet. Guests tend to be people who love food but are tired of the restaurant scene, the founder said. In general, the restaurant serves 10 to 20 guests at each dinner.

Despite their questionable legality, underground restaurants don’t seem to be ruffling any feathers.

Rob Wilder, co-founder of ThinkFood Group, which owns seven Washington restaurants including Jaleo and Zaytinya, has attended two underground dinners with friends and says he has no qualms about any unfair advantage the hosts might have over legal restaurants like his. “If it’s five nights a week and anyone can knock on the door, give the password like a speak-easy, they’re over the line,” he said. “I don’t see a few people doing a few of these a month as competition. I think it’s part of D.C. becoming a more vibrant, fun, adventurous food community.”

A D.C. health department spokeswoman said she was unaware that such operations are taking hold here. The department requires that inspectors visit any establishment that “relinquishes possession of food directly to a consumer,” including restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, bakeries, delicatessens and caterers. Operators also must be located in an area zoned for commercial business, and they must obtain a business license.

But the hosts say that because they request donations and not payments, their events are no different from dinner parties where guests are asked to pitch in for the cost of the meal.

“In some ways, my intention is to be very public about my desire to spread my culture and my cuisine,” said Geeta. But she never reveals her name. Just in case.

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Monday, 19 July 2010 18:28

670 Ways To Say Cheese

670 Ways To Say Cheese

Cheese is nutritious food made mostly from the milk of cows but also other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, reindeer, camels and yaks. Around 4000 years ago people have started to breed animals and process their milk. That's when the cheese was born.

Cheese Fact Sheet

No matter how far archaeological finds go, there is evidence that cheese came into being in prehistoric times. Cheese can not really be said to have been "invented". This delicious food must have resulted from the simple observation that milk left in a container ends up by coagulating, even more if it is hot. People living in areas where the climate changed seasonally would also have noticed the effect of temperature on this process: in warmer weather the milk would curdle faster than in the cold. This might be considered the first technological cheesemaking discovery.

There are hundreds of different types of cheese that can be differentiated both by the type of milk - raw, skimmed or pasteurised, and by the animal - cow, goat, sheep, buffalo, horse or camel. (Source www.cheese.com)

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Monday, 19 July 2010 17:11

Fifeteen Lucky Chefs

Jamie Oliver With Fifeteen Chefs

Around the world there are many reality shows that have given never before possible opportunities to people.  Jamie Olivers show offers young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to work with him.  Fifteen has recently been franchised and is no longer limite to London but is also available in Amsterdam and Melbourne. If you would like own a Fifteen franchise for Zimbabwe you can contact them via their website www.fifteen.net. Fifteen Restaurant, in North London, opened to the public in November 2002. Inspired by Jamie Oliver, the story of Fifteen’s creation was filmed and broadcast on television as Jamie’s Kitchen.

 

Named after the first cohort of fifteen young people, the restaurant is a commercial business, wholly owned by Fifteen Foundation - a registered charity - which has at its heart a chef apprenticeship for 18 to 24 year olds.

 

Fifteen is more than a restaurant. It is a social enterprise, offering a product with a purpose. The product is a high end dining experience in a restaurant where the best of produce is prepared by great chefs and apprentices and served by knowledgeable, professional and relaxed people. The purpose is the empowerment of young people who need a second chance to establish their place in the world. It is our belief that they can create for themselves great careers in the restaurant industry.

 

Inspired by the success of London, Fifteen has been replicated through franchising in Amsterdam (in 2004), Cornwall and Melbourne (in 2006).

 

Fifteen is ambitious. They would like to open in more communities where there is a market for this style of restaurant and a need amongst young people for a unique hands-on learning culture.

 

Jobs at Fifteen

If you would like to work at Fifteen London, please send your CV to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Sunday, 18 July 2010 19:01

Rip, Lick, Bite & Suck

Rip, Lick, Bite & Suck

Hold the prawn in one hand, between the thumb and forefinger, hold the sides of the prawn making sure that the legs are facing downwards. With your free hand grasp the sides of the head with the thumb and forefinger.

RIP

Remove the head of the prawn in a snapping motion, using downward force. Discard the head. With the hand that was holding the now discarded head, remove all of the legs in a single motion, this will assist in liberating the shell from the body of the prawn.
Prise the shell off the body with the thumb, starting at the point on the under belly of the prawn from where the legs where removed. Pull the tail from the flesh of the prawn.

BITE

If the previous steps have been performed correctly, the tail and the shell should fall way in one piece, without leaving any remnants of edible flesh in the tail section.  For larger prawns, after peeling, an incision can be made along the back of the prawn, thus enabling you remove the vein.


LICK

Lick you finger and then finally

SUCK

The head contains some of the best flavours of the prawn and this you should suck to taste.

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Sunday, 18 July 2010 17:51

Madiba's Favourite Chicken Curry

Madiba's Favourite Chicken Curry

Nelson Mandela Celebrates turns 92 today (July 18 2010) and I got thinking if I had to cook for Nelson Mandela what would I cook. Then I discovered that Ana Trapido has written a book with Madiba's Favourite Recipes. Throughout most of Nelson Mandela's time in prison food was issued on racially discriminatory lines and poorly prepared. Prisoners classified as 'black' got less food and of a worse quality than that provided to those classified as 'Indian' or 'coloured', who in turn received poorer rations than those classified as 'white'.

While it was impossible to smuggle food onto Robben Island in the 1960s and 70s, the regime relaxed somewhat in the 1980s and Farida Omar (wife of Mandela's lawyer Dullah Omar) became adept at smuggling food into Pollsmoor prison, Cape Town.

Fellow inmate Ahmed Kathrada recalled that "Dullah was smuggling Farida Omar's samosas, rotis and curries to us – by the end he would come in with a big bag of food, not books, in that brief-case. When I came out of prison and people said 'what do you want to eat, you can have anything you like' and I said 'I've had everything at Pollsmoor'."

Farida Omar's chicken curry

This recipe is taken from Hunger for Freedom, the story of food in the life of Nelson Mandela, by Anna Trapido

Ingredients

 

3 tablespoons sunflower oil

3 cardamom pods

1 stick cinnamon

4 cloves

1 tablespoon butter

2 onions sliced thin

2 teaspoons garlic crushed

2 big tomatoes, grated

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 large whole chicken, portioned and skinned

2cm chunk of grated fresh root ginger

3 teaspoons coriander powder

2 teaspoons cumin powder

1- 2 teaspoons chilli powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

Method

Heat the oil.

Fry the cardamom, cinnamon, cloves in the oil until they release their aroma.

Add the butter and the onions and fry until translucent then add the garlic and stir through.

Once the garlic releases aroma, add the grated tomato and tomato paste and cook over a low heat to form a thick sauce.

When you see the oil coming to the top of the sauce add the chicken pieces, ginger, coriander, cumin, chilli and turmeric.

Braise the chicken curry with 1½ cups boiling water or chicken stock until the chicken is almost cooked through, approximately 20 minutes. Cut the potatoes in half, add and cook them with the chicken until they are very soft, about 20 minutes.

Serve with roti breads.

1½ cups (about 375ml) chicken stock

6-8 small potatoes, peeled

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Saturday, 17 July 2010 18:03

How To Setup A Romantic Dinner

How To Setup A Romantic Dinner

You always wanted to do something romantic for your partner but didn’t know how or weren't 100% sure this might help you. Having a quiet dinner just the two of you can recreate romance again. Even if you had a disagreement, setting up a romantic dinner will only win you kudos.

1) Decide where you would like to have dinner, outside in the garden under the bright moonlight (wait till summer)or on the verandah. Or you could arrange it in your dinning room.

2) Select an elegant table linen, with napkins good china and cutlery.

3) You can make or purchase a small flower arrangement to suit the color of your table linen. Don’t choose a large arrangement because it will be in the way of your conversation. You face could get hidden behind the flowers.

4) Set your table neatly. If you do not know how to place the cutlery refer to any book on table settings or websites.

5) Include candles on your table for the optimum romance. Try using several votive candles or tea lights rather than two tall taper candles. They will keep your view of your partner open and create a romantic glow.

 

 

6) Use attractive serving dishes and platters and keep the pots and pans in the kitchen. Even if you decide to order food from your favorite restaurant, don’t serve food in plastic boxes or cartons. Keep them in serving platters and keep them warm.

 

 

7) Welcome your partner by seating him or her and placing the napkin in his or her lap. Make it feel like a romantic restaurant that is opened just for the two of you.

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Saturday, 17 July 2010 16:48

Gap Year With Gordon Ramsay

Gap Year With Gordon Ramsay

The middle of the year has all the O Level and A level students in Zimbabwe exerting themselves for their mock exams, if any of you are preparing for a gap year this might be of interest to you. Tante Marie is the official cooking college  affiliated  to Gordon Ramsay. For those who are not looking to complete a full Cordon Bleu Diploma, but want something a bit more advanced than a 1 and 2 day courses, Tante Marie offers a range of other options.

Designed for those who want to build confidence in the kitchen, learn to impress family and friends, gain employment during a year out, for example in a ski chalet or cooking on yachts, there are courses for everyone in this category.

Cordon Bleu Certificate (11 weeks)
• An examined course leading to an internationally recognised qualification
• Highly valued by ski companies and other gap year employers
• Full day wine course taught by a Master of Wine
• Contemporary and classical recipes
• CIEH Level 2 award in food hygiene

Essential Skills (4 weeks)
• Certificate of attendance
• Excellent for gap year students
• Recognised by ski and leisure companies
• Demonstrations and practical classes
• No exams
• Contemporary and classical recipes

Beginners (1 or 2 weeks)
• An introduction to good food and healthy eating
• Demonstrations and practical classes
• Especially popular with 6th form and university students
• No exams

For further information, please visit the Tante Marie School of Cookery website by clicking here, or contact the school directly at:

Tante Marie School of Cookery Limited
Woodham House
Carlton Road
Woking
Surrey
GU21 4HF
England
Telephone: +44 (0)1483 726957
Fax: +44 (0)1483 724173
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Thursday, 15 July 2010 16:17

Tantalise your tastebuds this sunday @The Spook House

For as little as $12 Spook House is offering a special 3 course meal especially for you this Sunday .The meal include:

Butter nut soup

*********************************

choice of

Fish

or

Ribs

or

Spicy baby chicken

or

Beef Medallions and pepper sauce

All will be served with chips and vegetables

*** ************************************************************

Koesksuster and ice-cream

Book now on our call center 04 2900 746

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