Starting on June 1, Den Anker Belgian restaurant is tempting diners with varied special offers, one for every day of the week, and continuing until the end of July.

Moules Mondays means a kg of mussels and frites (R100), Trappist Tuesdays sees diners get a cheese platter with every Trappist beer ordered and Wednesdays are meant for those watching their weight, as low-carb or Banting meals are offered for R90 including a glass of wine. Belgian draught beers come under the spotlight on Thirsty Thursdays where a range can be tried for R60, and on Fishy Fridays, diners can indulge in fish and frites plus a white beer for R90.

Den Anker goes Spanish on Saturdays with three tapas treats for R120 and on Sunday under-10s eat for free with each adult meal ordered.

Booking is always advisable on 021-419-0249. Follow @Den_Anker. www.DenAnker.co.za .

Visitors to Boschendal farm can dine well at four of the estate's  culinary venues for the same basic price from Monday to Thursday evenings from this week. At each there will be a main course presented in place of the usual menus: Enjoy pasta ad the Deli on Mondays, pizza at the Bakery on Tuesdays and a filling winter casserole in the striking new Werf restaurant on Wednesdays. On Thursday evenings diners will savour a heritage dish in the historic Manor House kitchen, now open to the public for specific occasions.

This tempting choice of options is the brainchild of executive chef  Christiaan Campbell,and the price for all the main courses is R95 excluding drinks and service fees. All of them will illustrate Campbells commitment to sustainably produced fare from farm and garden, that is seasonal and ethically produced.

On Friday and Saturday nights The Werf Restaurant presents its fine a-la-carte menu. Guests staying  on the farm get preferential treatment when booking, but all others are welcome, depending on availability.

Reserve your table at reservations@boschendal.co.za or +27[0] 21 870-4274

Heritage flavour: White Winter Pearmain

The Tru-Cape Heritage orchard on Oak Valley farm in Elgin celebrated its maiden harvest recently with an event worthy of three and half centuries of local pomology. The 20-odd trees, each a different species of heritage apple, were weighed down with red and green fruit, some bent over almost double. It seemed little short of miraculous that those slender twigs I saw planted back in November 2012 were now bearing so prolifically. Guests were invited to pick an apple of their choice - I went for Winter Pearmain - a variety I remember my mother buying when I was very small.

Back home we cut it up and relished every mouthful - sweet, crisp and presenting  wafts of apply perfume - something you don't find with contemporary apples, however beautiful they look.

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The apple orchard now has a heritage pear sapling as well - to mark the harvesting of Van Riebeecks first wijnappel in

April 1662, a Winter Saffron pear was planted, taken from the oldest pear tree south of the Sahara, still clinging to life in the Company Gardens in Cape Town - it yielded its first pear on April 19 1665.

 For keen cooks who enjoy sampling produce from the past, keep an eye and ear open in coming years - there's a reasonable chance that  we will be able to buy some of these heritage varieties when the trees get a little bigger. Slow Food members - take note!

Our splendid lunch in the Pool Room restaurant was as contemporary and delectable as any gourmet could wish for - while the apple pie, one of the desserts on offer, was made from heritage apples using an old Dutch recipe, popular at the Cape a century or more ago.  Enjoyable yes, but I much prefer my own apple streusel recipe, which beats any pie or crumble recipe tried to date. Its based on one by Robert Carrier, but is spicier.

I will post it in a separate blog.

TITLE: Now’s the time to see if Daily Dish works for you,

From now until the end of April, Daily Dish, the online ingredient and recipe provider, is offering a R250 discount to those who sign up for one of their meal service choices, which are Classic, Low carb and Vegetarian.

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For those new to the concept, Daily Dish provides a weekly meal kit to people who are too busy to shop, yet want fresh ingredients, ethically sourced, along with precise recipes, to be delivered to home or office. Daily Dish has been providing four dinners per week,( each of which takes about 30 minutes to prepare from start to finish), to selected suburbs in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria for some time . They have just signed up with Fairview wine and cheese producer in Paarl to include some of ingredients – cheese, olive oil ,bakes, even wine, etc - in their kits. To give an example of what you get for your money, I looked at the Vegetarian option: For a meal kit for two, you would normally pay R610 a week, or R76 p/p per meal. Take R250 off that and the price becomes very tempting. Menu options change weekly, and you can see what you will get on their website www.dailydish.co.za/What’s On the Menu. At time of writing I would have received the makings of:- Corn fritters and bocconcini salsa, mushroom and basil linguine, veggie shepherd’s pie and halloumi with broccoli and sesame. For Cape Town based clients, the delivery area stretches from Cape Town to the southern peninsula, west to Melkbosstrand, and north to Paarl – but see exact areas on the website. For more info, visit their website and follow Daily Dish on Facebook (dailydishforyou).

Lanzerac Winemaker Dinner

Join Lanzerac cellarmaster,\ Wynand Lategan, and executive chef Stephen Fraser on Wednesday 25 March for the first event in the 2015 Winemaker Dinner Series. They are intimate affairs, limited to a maximum of 20 diners, and are held in the Taphuis, one of the oldest bar in the  Boland. The estate’s heritage and premium  chardonnay, merlot and pinotage will star throughout the three-course meal which opens with kabeljou ceviche, accompanied by cauliflower, pea shoots, mangetout and sweet potato wafer, dressed with grapefruit, passionfruit and coriander dressing. Tickets cost R375. Email winesales@lanzerac.co.za to book.