South Africa meets the Nagli!

So for our last long weekend in SA, we decided to celebrate Will's birthday in our favorite place: Cape Town. Believe it or not, this was our first trip to Cape Town by ourselves. Every other time we've been, we've been with friends, family, or coworkers. Needless to say, it was great to get there and skip the touristy stuff. We knew we wanted to enjoy wine and relaxing times before moving back home at the end of the month. And that we did....

We'll begin with a few of my fave shots from Kalk Bay, our fave place to stay.

Our apartment is right on the water and fabulous.

Kalk Bay is a super cute fishing town -

I love the colorful boats and the awesome mountain backdrop.

View from our balcony of the fishing harbor

Opposite view from the balcony

Massive seal in the harbor...

Obligatory self-photo from the patio...

Love Kleine Zalze. We ate at Terroir with Will's parents in September 2009 and really enjoyed the food and the wine tasting. We came back to drop in and buy some vino.

We didn't buy this bad boy, but it sure did make a good photo op!

We lucked out at Kleine Zalze and purchased a few bottles that will be cellared rather than enjoyed in the next few years. Looking forward to enjoying a glass down the road!

Rust en Vrede.
Hands down: best restaurant in South Africa.

Fantastic grounds, beautiful food, and an amazing sommelier.

This was a perfect birthday meal for Will!

Blogger hates me so pardon me while we pause here and continue on to Cafe Olympia...

Cafe Olympia.

One of my all time faves.

Casual, homemade, always fresh, friendly staff.

Divine. Best bread ever.

Just look at that chalkboard menu - it changes every day!

Penne with tomato, olives, and goat cheese.

Fantastic fish.

Uber-fantastic vino, made just for Cafe Olympia.

You can't find this edition of Zandvliet ANYWHERE.

We tried. So we just drink it here.

Did I mention breakfast is awesome?

This is the place that got me to fall in love with coffee.

Love that berry parfait.

I'm not an omelette girl, but that looks pretty perfect to me!

This is my perfect breakfast: scrambled eggs on toast with a grilled mushroom and tomato plus bacon, all topped with fresh argula.

Arugula + eggs = best flavor combo EVER.

Other Cafe Olympia faves:

-- Potato and Bacon soup

-- Pea and Bacon Soup

-- Salad with salami, strawberries, and goat cheese

-- Linguine del Mar (DIVINE)

Back to Rust en Vrede....

View from the restaurant

Some of the best champagne I've ever had.

So good, I took a pic of the menu!

We did a 6 course meal with wine pairings. We started with this to-die-for foie gras soup that had sorbet and vanilla salt. Sounds grody, but it was terrific.

This is my main course: springbok loin with foie gras, beets, and yummy potatoes.

Divine fluffy heavenly cheese. This is Tete de Moine with truffles and walnut cream

(and yes, pretzels).

Deconstructed Tiramisu. Divine.

We got introduced to Creation Wine here, as well as Black Pearl.

We traveled to Hout Bay, to check out whales and wineries. We stopped here at this super cute open market. Sunshine, live music, fresh food, wine... it was perfect.

View of Hout Bay from the restaurant, Bientang's Cave

Whales!

yay whales!

Love guinea fowl

Graham Beck, one of my favorite wineries and home to the best sparkling wine in SA!

As a member, I get complimentary deluxe tastings. Yay.

On this trip, we scored two magnums from Mandela's inauguration in 1994.

What a great souvenir!

To change things up, we stayed in the winelands for a night.

We stayed at this fabulous cottage at Lindhorst Winery.

Loved it.

Completely remote and set in the winery and equipped for entertaining and cooking.

I could have stayed here for weeks.

Fantastic-o wine here too! Love their reds!

Beautiful view from the Lindhorst vineyards of Franschhoek

Allee Bleue! Fantastic winery with some of my fave white wines!

Boekhenhoutskloof, home of the famous "Chocolate Block"

One of the most beautiful wineries I've ever been to! It was surrounded on both sides by mountains. Baboons ran through the winery - crazy!

There it is.

The only thing that stinks is you can't sample previous years of Chocolate Block.

They only had 2008 there, which is what's in the stores now.

If you ever see a bottle of a previous vintage, buy it!

Definitely buy a 2008 and age it. Do not drink it now - let it age.

Well, with a view like this, should I really complain?

Gorgeous winery!

A friend of Will's offered up his place to stay in Durban for the weekend so we jumped on it. We found flights for cheap and flew down for the weekend. The condo was great in the fact that it had E!, which I happily watched as a marathon. It was far from the beach, but comfortable.

The guys went deep sea fishing and caught all types of tuna. We ate it every which-a-way - sushi (I'm terrible at making rice), fried fish, grilled fish, you name it! There's nothing as good as fresh tuna.