Food and Drink

Vienna sausage

This is about as traditional as Viennese street food goes, the humble Vienna sausage. The Vienna sausages from Vienna are nothing like we get at home. They are not the mass-produced slightly suspect sausages we think of. Rather they are top-quality.

You can find them on almost any street corner, usually served sliced with (not on) a roll, with a little mustard or tomato sauce on the side. They are great value and perfect for filling the lunch-time gap.

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Lunch time

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A selection to choose from

Cape Town Burger Festival

If you weren’t at the burger festival this weekend you lost out. They should have more correctly called it the burger and beer festival, because there was plenty of amazing craft beer.

It’s great to see how many small scale breweries there are now in Cape Town, and tasting how good some of the beers are! There was plenty to taste, and the beer community has such amazing people in it – so passionate about their beer, and so willing to share.

Of course beer goes hand in hand with burgers, and it was difficult to choose which stand to buy a burger from. I eventually settled on a 3-cheese burger – mozzarella and cheddar mixed into the patty, topped with blue cheese from Fat Harry’s. I don’t normally eat chips, but after a 30k run this morning I was hungry, and I am glad I ate the chips. Without a doubt they are the best chips I have ever eaten.

It turns out that Fat Harry’s is a restaurant in Harfield Village; I will be taking a turn there to try their other burgers. Here is their website. http://www.fatharrys.co.za

Here’s a pic of my burger; you can decide for yourself how good it looks.

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Viennese coffee and cake

Vienna is known for its coffee shops, and with good reason! The coffee and cakes are wonderful, enjoyed in the splendour of comfortable leather armchairs. I could get quite comfortable with Viennese life.

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I had coffee with whipped cream, enjoyed with a Mozart cake, which is layers of light and dark chocolate.

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Fat bombs

A friend of mine sent me an amazing recipe for low-carb chocolates – basically made from coconut oil and butter.

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The original recipe is from Primal Perks, and here is my version. The main differences is that I dropped the sweetener, used peanut butter (yes I know peanuts contain carbs but given the amount used it will add very little to the total) and I made 1/2 the quantity for my first attempt.

By the way it only takes about 10 min to make.

Ingredients

  • 90 g coconut oil
  • 25 g nut butter (almond or macadamia) – if you are not too purist use crunchy peanut butter which is what I did
  • 1.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 60 g unsalted butter
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla essence

Method

  1. Melt all ingredients together in a pot
  2. Cool mixture slightly and pour into ice-cube trays
  3. Put into freezer to set for a few hours
  4. Once set, pop them out of the mould and place in freezer bags

They are excellent and very filling. They naturally separated a little as they froze, giving that nice three-layer effect. I think they may make a great pre-race snack which I will try on my next race.

Thanks to my friend Trevor for sending the original recipe to me.

Beer festival time

southyeasters

The South Yeasters Beer Club (of which I am a member) are hosting a beer festival this Sunday, at the SAB brewery in Newlands. There will be over 40 home-made beers available to sample. So if you want to check out the home-brew scene, or just try some amazing beers pop over for an hour or two. Tickets are R100 (that’s about what you will pay retail for 3 craft beers – you will get to try over 40).

To get you in the mood, here are a few pics from my brewery.

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