Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [108]
The main-course selections include other vegetable preparations, as well as ostrich, calamari, and beef, but Bill is intent on the kitchen’s most famous dish, a whole, house-smoked Franschhoek rainbow trout, deboned and served warm with a spaghetti galette and asparagus draped in fennel and an aioli with naartjie (African tangerine). “This is even better than the freshly caught trout I smoke at home,” he admits.
Cheryl decides initially on a pan-fried duck breast marinated in hoisin, orange, ginger, and oak-wood chips with an accompanying plum tart tatin until the waitress describes, in loving detail, the special of the day, a local karoo lamb slow-roasted twelve hours before the fall-apart meat is wrapped in thin eggplant slices and served with mint yogurt over spaetzle. “I’m sure the duck would have been good, too,” Cheryl says, “but this is sublime.”
All the wines on offer come from the cellar below the restaurant, made by Mark from the grapes on the farm. Our choice is a Blanc Fumé, featuring a blend of Sauvignon Blanc from two vintages. A perfect match for the trout, it also adds a complementary crispy tang to the lamb. Our single dessert, shared between us, shines as well. The plate combines a trio of lemon wonders: Olivia’s personal take on an icy limoncello liqueur, the house’s lemon ice cream, and a warm lemon tart in a pine-nut shell, essentially a lemony crème brûlée in a crust with a topping of broiled sugar and caramelized pine nuts. The total tab for everything comes to about U.S.$75.00
During lunch, Mark acts as host, waiter, and probably dishwasher when needed. He stops by to introduce himself, knowing we’re guests at the inn, and offers us a tour of the wine operation in the afternoon.
“Sign us up,” Bill says.
At the appointed hour, he leads off with some background on La Petite Ferme. “My grandmother opened the restaurant originally, then turned over the kitchen to my mom, who helped to train Olivia. About thirty percent of the staff goes back to my grandmother’s time, and another thirty percent came during my mother’s tenure. My parents still live here, and my father stays active in the farming, but Josephine and I took over the helm in 1994. A major fire destroyed everything two years later, but we rebuilt and added the guest cottages.”
He guides us down stone steps into the cellar and wine production room. “I made my first wine when I was eleven. It was simply part of life on the farm. I never studied enology formally, just learned from experience.”
“How many different wines do you make?” Cheryl asks.
“Thirteen, but some of them on an irregular basis. The ones based on Sauvignon Blanc grapes are the most popular, and I focus a lot on them. Unlike many of the area winemakers, though, I seldom make Pinotage, like only twice in the last ten years.” He gives tastes from the barrels of several developing wines, all finely crafted.
Before our arrival in South Africa, Bill had solicited the advice of the staff on dinner restaurants and asked them to make reservations on our behalf. The manager booked us tonight into a private dining room, Klein Oliphants Hoek, run by Ingrid and Camil Haas in their home. They serve only people staying in their eight guest rooms and outsiders recommended by one of five other local inns, including La Petite Ferme. Camil, from the Netherlands, does the cooking, and Ingrid, born in South Africa into a Dutch family, functions as the hostess.
She escorts us to a back terrace, where the dozen or so diners gather before the meal for glasses of a local sparkling wine (a combo of Pinotage, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay) and a taste teaser, an oyster on the half shell with a Chinese black bean vinaigrette. The deck overlooks a huge flower, vegetable, and herb garden, where lavender and roses bloom brightly in the foreground of a magnificent sunset over the craggy mountain peaks in the distance. As the