Restaurant Of The Day: Myoga, Vineyard Hotel

The first special I sampled was the gob smacking value for money 6 course meal special for R150 (R225 with wine pairing, Solms-Delta wines) at the delightful Myoga, Vineyard Hotel. I took an esteemed friend and confidant there for what I was expecting to be a delightful dinner, because it’s Myoga, but also had mild reservations about the special being so affordable, ordinarily a two course meal here, without wine, comes at R200. The décor at Myoga has always pleased me – the open plan show kitchen brings enough excitement, interesting interior designs, great views of the garden and the inside dimly lit, very chic, very muted with accents of Veuve Clicquot orange sprinkled carelessly, its almost perfect except as part of their eclectic assortment of chairs, there’s this one particular design that I abhor with a passion, the chairs look better suited for a conference room – when you go to Myoga, please try and find these chairs, there’s a couple of them, and tell me if I’m being unnecessarily stodgy (If you look carefully in the images you’ll see them). Anyway me and my friend found ourselves sitting in one of the 4 lovely sofas with exaggerated backrest that almost touch the chandeliers in an audacious Veuve orange to match. The 6 course dinner kicked off took a worrying start when the first course of ‘black pepper tartlet onion ragout broccoli rabe crème fraiche stone fruit chutney’ was more modest in size than a heaped teaspoon. I immediately realised I should have expected this, but after tasting it the flavours were so beautifully pungent that it made sense for the portions to be on a strict ration. The ‘pumpkin miso soup with gorgonzola croute’ & the main of ‘Kingklip, lemon verbena risotto broccoli rabe candied ginger and chilli coriander beurre blanc’ were the highlights, true culinary triumphs; the dessert was also decadently delicious. The linguine thai pesto with homemade lamb chorizo was the only disappointment and not because it was bad, but it was a tad bland and underwhelming and somewhat took away from the other courses that had bee so amazing. The entire evening was delightful with world class food and convivial company, I will sure be returning there as early as next week.