I get a taste of the The Westin Cape Town’s ON19 Winter Menu

by Karisa

I recently joined a group of fellow foodie bloggers & media folk to work my way through The Westin Cape Town Hotel’s ON19 Restaurant Winter menu.

Now this is not the first time I’ve featured the The Westin Cape Town Hotel or their ON19 Restaurant.  Therefore this post is not so much a full restaurant review, it’s more of a reminder…  As in:  Hey guys, don’t forget that if you’re looking for a great view while enjoying a great meal, you really should give this restaurant a call.

ON19 is of course a reference to the restaurant’s location all the way up on the 19th floor of the hotel.  On the night I arrived a bit late, so I missed the sunset… But I grabbed this pic from their website just to show you what they’re working with over there:

You quite simply don’t get a better view of Cape Town than this people…

So a menu tasting literally means what it says on the box.  You get to taste errrrrythang. 😉  But in smaller bites of course… Otherwise you would literally die from overeating.

This is exactly why it was so hard not to overindulge on their yummy bread & butter selection:

Just bring me carbs!

But I had to be strong…

We worked our way through 5 courses:  an amuse bouche, salads, starters, mains & desserts.  And this is what it all looked like:

Top left: We kicked things off with an amuse bouche of chicken curry. We then had a selection of salads. Top right: Caprese salad (rocket, teriyaki tomato, buffalo mozzarella, balsamic syrup). Bottom left: Bagna Cauda (baby vegetable salad, garlic fondue, pistachio). Bottom right: Chicken Caesar Salad (oak smoked chicken, cos, parmesan, crisp fried whiting, poached egg, caesar dressing).

The starters – From left to right: Duck liver parfait (apple salad, pickled onion, shimeji a la grecque, walnut, chicken crackling), Rooibos infused beef tartare (caper berry, radish, salt baked beets & horseradish cream), prawn dumpling crispy fried (pickled cucumber, wasabi & curry mango sorbet, “Blackened” tuna, tomato, popped rice, spring onion, miso ginger dressing).

Mains part 1 – from left to right: line caught fish (butternut gremoulata, warm edamame bean & Bulgar wheat salad, vanilla jus), and beef fillet (burnt onion & parsnip puree, baby leek, pommes Anna, smoked Bordelaise).

Mains part 2 – from left to right: happy hog (Verjuice & honey glazed belly, bitterballen, apple chermoula, sweet potato puree, pork popcorn) and pulled lamb bobotie (truffle custard, banana, gingered apricot, tomato sambal).

And desserts – From left to right: Eskimo pie (blueberry cheesecake, macaroon, warm Romanoff sauce), chocolate pudding (salted caramel ice cream, honey comb crumble), and Dacquoise (hazelnut, almond, espresso)

As you can see – all of the dishes are quite intricate with some very unusual flavour pairings thrown into the mix.  This is certainly not your run-of-the-mill hotel dinner buffet…

Standouts for me included that prawn dumpling starter with the pickled cucumber, wasabi & curry mango sorbet.  I know it sounds really weird, but that sorbet was beautiful, and paired with the crispy fried prawn dumpling, I was in heaven.  Amongst the mains the lamb bobotie was the winner for me – which is strange, because I don’t even like bobotie.  This dish is a refreshing (and major) upgrade to that old-school recipe my mom used to force me to eat when I was a kid; and I was very happy that I got to try it.  Second was the pork belly – that “pork popcorn” they need to sell in packets to take home with you as a late night snack… #JustASuggestion

And then from the dessert selection, I really enjoyed both the eskimo pie and the chocolate pudding.

Now have you seen anything here that’s piqued your interest?  Then why not make a reservation to try it out for yourself.   You can contact them on:

Then steal some of that pork popcorn for me, won’t you?  (Thanking you in advance)

xxx

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