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It is such a wonderful feeling to walk into a fine dining restaurant with the boys, knowing that they will know how to enjoy the experience and not worry about their behavior. These are truly treasured moments where we talk and laugh and have fun as a family.
To celebrate Daredevil’s birthday, we went to Tequilas, one of my favorite Philadelphia restaurants. Please note that I was asked to omit Mr. from the name, on the request of Daredevil himself, who thought it was too starchy and not appropriate for someone under 18. Who am I not to respect those wishes?
Tequilas is a very welcoming Mexican restaurant with a warm atmosphere; flowers and copper tea lights at every table, large pewter mirrors hanging on the walls together with other interesting Mexican decorations.
Shortly after we were seated, we were addressed in rapidly spoken Spanish by one of the busboys. I am certain that my son’s Argentine Polo shirt I bought in Buenos Aires earlier this year contributed to this. I asked the birthday boy to deal with that one, as he is studying Spanish at school.
The waitress was very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful in describing the dishes and making suggestions to the boys making their choices easier.
Chef Carlos Molina prepares fragrant, colorful, beautifully presented dishes reminiscent of the restaurants I have eaten in San Angel suburb of Mexico City. The food was, as always, very authentic and thoroughly delicious. Langustines I indulged in were as good as in the best Portuguese restaurants in South Africa. Daredevil still raves about his chicken served in a beautiful cast iron pot.
We did have some fun when Mr. Responsible decided to test the heat of a chili pepper. One of those natural teenage boy passages, I guess. I have a sequence of photos showing his face from the moment when the idea occurred to him until he is glugging down the water in an attempt to drown the heat.
The most touching to me was how thankful the boys were for the experience, as they are all painfully aware of how drastically our circumstances have changed.
At home, we presented the birthday boy with a funky green cake in the shape of a frog I bought in Wholefoods, with 13 candles like hedgehog’s spikes protruding from it. After “Happy Birthday” song, making a wish and blowing the candles, at 9:36 p.m. London time, where he was born, Daredevil became a teenager.
Now I need to prepare for the big party on Sunday.
I had the most perfect evening last night. It was my very first wine tasting event at Tria Fermentation School in Philadelphia. The last night was all about the wines so close to my heart – the wines from South Africa. I have many beautiful memories of the times spent eating local cheeses, snoek pate and tasting wines under the shade of old oak trees in many of its finest vineyards. Western Cape province, where the wine is grown, is like no other place on Earth. Picture the Tuscan hills planted with grapes in little rows, but then add the drama of the Swiss mountain peaks, and the red African soil. This soil, left in a red cloud behind your Land Rover, enters your every pore, never to leave. Those who have inhaled it, are forever going to crave coming back. Returning to Africa always feels like arriving home.
With those thoughts, I arrived fashionably late, thanks to the horrendous traffic on 95. I was handed a glass of the Forrester’s Sauvignon Blanc ‘05, a wine at its very peak, crisp, dry and refreshing. I loved it and would highly recommend it. At $20 a bottle, it is a good value for such a nice wine. It turned out to be my second favorite of the evening.
All the wines tonight were from Ken Forrester vineyards in Stellenbosch area. There are three main distinctive wine regions on the Cape wine route – Paarl, Franschoek and Stellenbosch. The grapes and the knowledge of viticulture were brought by the Hugenots, fleeing the Catholic persecution in Europe. I had a pleasure of tasting three Chenin Blancs, a Pinotage, two Shiraz/Grenache blends, and a Chenin Blanc Noble Late Harvest. The last one was similar to the French Sauternes, sweet and delicate, a perfect complement to a Foie Gras.
The absolute winner in my opinion was Chenin Blanc, the FMC 2004. It retails in the U.S. for $69 a bottle and it is an ‘F’-ing Magnificent Chenin (Is that what FMC stands for?) This, without any exaggeration, is a truly beautiful wine with strong ginger overtones that has lost all the bitterness of its younger cousins. If you are a fan of great Chardonneys, you would love this wine.
I am also delighted to say that I am now a proud owner of a black Forrester cap, which I am hoping to use as a protection from the strong South African sun, preferably on the tennis court. I have no idea how I memorized this particular fact during the presentation, but I was able to answer the prize question, “When was the Pinotage introduced to South Africa?” In case you are dying to know, it was in 1925.
At the end of the presentation, I enjoyed meeting the Tria Manager who organized the event and the Manager of the Boutique Wine Collection, an importer of lesser known wines. These guys were a treasure of information on wine and an absolute pleasure to talk to. Anthony, the witty South African presenter and the wine maker, soon joined us. This man leads what others would describe as a ‘dream’ life. Living in one of the most stunning parts of the world, creating wines, travelling around the globe presenting the wine, or purchasing French oak barrels or Portuguese cork. It is hard to believe that some people get paid to enjoy themselves this much.
Full of lasting impressions, I left Tria Fermentation School. Of course, I realised that I was in no condition to sit behind the steering wheel. I decided to stop for a cappuccino at the Brasserie Perrier. Having been surrounded all evening with wine connoisseurs and sommeliers, the Universe had an interesting plan for the end of my evening. There was only one seat in the whole place where I could possibly sit down and sip my coffee. It just happened that the guy finishing his dinner at the table next to mine was a Food and Beverage Director of a 5 Star hotel in Philadelphia. To give things a bit of a spin, he also happened to be from San Francisco and had a great knowledge of the Napa Valley. This obviously was meant to be my wine night. After some more talk about wine, food and travel, he added his business card to the ones I had collected earlier.
I entered Thai Thanee restaurant and was immediately greeted by a courteous owner in her colorful sarong. It was 9 p.m. and there were still a couple of tables occupied with people finishing their desserts. Everyone else, presumably, must have gone home by then. Although I have lived in this area for six years, I forget that most people go out for dinner at six, so that by nine the chef is ready to pack up and go. It is a shame that my stomach stubbornly refuses to adjust to this schedule. I have no doubt that kids coming to my house for a sleepover have reported back home of the weird times they were served meals.
On my recent trip to Buenos Aires, which my stomach greatly approved of, I would leisurely stroll into a restaurant at around ten at night making sure not to be among the first arrivals. Restaurants rarely open before eight, as at four they are still clearing up the lunch tables. Food takes time, and it is expected that the meal would last for hours. Chef may take it as a personal insult if the delicacies he took time and trouble to make, are gulped down in minutes. Most restaurants do not close before two in the morning.
The Thai chef was kind enough to accommodate my ‘late’ arrival. He cooked up a storm, and both chicken satay with the creamy peanut sauce and crispy duck on top of the spicy, but not too hot, red curry were delicious. Desserts in places like this tend to boil down to fried bananas or mango/coconut ice cream. I enquired if the ice cream was home made. I have developed the habit of asking about the origin of desserts, even before I got a hot tip from The Waiter. There are two types of places I never ask. One is the brick oven pizza type of a restaurant I frequent with my boys, as the answer is staring me in the face. The other is a Michelin many stars, Zagat top rated, Bonn Appetite write up, big name chef restaurant. There I simply expect the desserts, which cost a small fortune, to be home made. If they are not up to standard, I never go back.
The ice cream in question was not home made. The chef, an overweight Thai man, and his kitchen help, a tiny elderly Thai lady, were free to leave. I made sure to personally thank them for staying late and complimented them on the food they prepared.
Seeing me drinking gallons of green tea with my food, the ’sarong’ lady revealed to me that she was in her fifties. I looked closely at her face and I can honestly say that if women in their fifties had this woman’s complexion with not a wrinkle in sight, plastic surgeons would be out of business. Leaning closer, she told me that her secret was keeping constantly hydrated by drinking lots of green tea and water. I am certain this practice helps, but strongly suspect that her lucky gene pool and the diet of steamed rice and fish have something to do with it as well.
Farewell till tomorrow, as I need to boil a kettle, and make myself a steaming hot cup of green tea.
