Rueben's

Reuben Reifel is one of South Africa's most well known chefs; especially with his more recent appearances as a judge on Masterchef and in TV adverts. Last year, our trip to Franschoek was not planned in advance; so getting a table at a well known restaurant was out of the question. So, this year these things were planned better ...

The food lived up to the reputation - simple style, great presentation and amazing taste.

The starter, which M & I shared, was probably the most different - trout with various pickled vegetables. 

M had the Kinglip with oyster and mussel sauce and I had a chicken and prawn curry. M doesn't like mussels much but there want much left on the plate afterwards! The curry was surprisingly sweet but very flavorful. I didn't think all the accompaniments worked though - the chilli oil for example didn't make sense with the style of curry and I didn't like the carrot sambal (bottom right of the picture) at all. 

The sparsely named "salted caramel tart" turned out to be an elaborate chocolate based dessert - really rich and decadent. I had the panna cotta, with various fruits - a combination that was far superior to the other versions I have had before with berry coulois as a topping for the panna cotta. Ultimately, I suppose that is one of the key differences between the fine dining and regular restaurants.