Catch Up

I’m sure all of you have one of those friends that no matter how long you’ve been apart or what has happened, that when you get together you just get on like a house on fire.

I’m fortunate enough to have a few friends like that; and had the pleasure of catching up with such a friend. One of my best mates from when I was a kid in East London, David was in town and we decided to meet up over breakfast, at good old Arnold’s (one of the friendliest, best-value-for-money spots in Cape Town).

It’s been a while since I’ve seen ol’ Dave, at least a few years; but when we met up it seemed like we could pick up from where we last left off. We chatted about the good old day’s, found out what each other has been up to, in the recent chapters of our lives and really had a good time reconnecting. It didn’t feel awkward; it wasn’t weird; there was just this sense of familiarity.

The only difference really between now and then is that we’re bigger, hairier (at least he is…I don’t grow much body hair) and perhaps a little wiser (doubtful – but possible).

So, not much happening today – pretty chilled - that’s why I’ve decided to do the domestic thing: cook and do the odd chore around the flat.

Feeding Frenzy

Taking me to a buffet is like chumming water in false bay. It gets pretty ugly and the feeding frenzy is quite embarrassing especially for the person accompanying me.

Yesterday was DVT's year end function, held at Simon's in Groot Constantia and they laid out quite a smorgasbord. Candice who accompanied me to the function said she wasn't embarrassed by the amount of food that I managed to consume; but my work colleagues, Rikesh, his fiance Leshni and a few others were shocked - they've only heard of my legendary appetite, but you really have to experience it first hand to get to grips with its magnitude.

I guess since Candice has known me for a while, she's grown accustomed to my crazy binge eating, but if that didn't embarrass her, then my terrible dancing did. My company's generosity was enjoyed by all and it's kind of nice to see your colleagues, in a more relaxed atmosphere and out of the work environment.

Speaking of generosity the kind folk at Vida have given me some freebies to give to Coffee Club this Saturday. I'm really just writing this for the sake of accountability; but I have in my possession, 30 complimentary coffee cards. I wouldn't do it...but it did cross my mind to keep it a secret and cash in on the bounty for myself. It obviously wouldn't be ethical - but when it comes to freebies - screw ethics. Well, since I've publically acknowledged receiving them, I guess I can't exactly get away with not handing them out on Saturday...

Scorcher

I’m suffocating from the heat. You think coming from tropical island origins, I’d be able to handle it, but no, not me. I think I’m built for moderate climates about 25 Degrees Celsius, warm and sunny is ideal, but the prediction of a whopping 35 is just too much and it’s already starting to feel like I’m melting and struggling to breathe.

I hate Taiwan in the summer, it’s usually close on 40 every day and the humidity is over the 100% mark, there’s nowhere in South Africa that can even compare with, not even Durban. When you walk out of that plane for the first time you’re hit by the heat and it feels like you’re walking into a brick wall. If you try to take a cold shower there is no refuge, the water is still boiling. The only solution is to hide indoors in an air-conditioned environment.

The biggest problem is that I just become really dehydrated from sweating, it’s ridiculous just from running from the car to the front door, I sweat so much that it looks like I’ve just jumped into a pool. Personally I don’t think I’d be able to survive in extreme temperatures and will be one of the first to go when the global warming phenomenon starts becoming more apparent.

We had a great coffee club meet at Mugged on Roeland Street this morning. Often when we have meets at a new venue, the service is usually a bit under par, as the venue is not used to such a large group.

But Mugged really came to the table and handled the 28 strong attendees with poise and made our morning thoroughly enjoyable. The food is great and reasonably priced, but for me the coolest thing about Mugged; is that it’s right around the corner from where I live so in future if I get lazy, I’ve found a great venue to host it; where I can just roll out of bed and walk there. Awesome!

For our Friends

Yay. It's official I'm a friend of the Loading Bay. The LB, as I like to call it, has come up with an awesome concept of putting up a wall in the store dedicated to its loyal customers. Basically they've cordoned off a section of their wall and are putting up some tiles with the names of a few selected individuals engraved on them. There's a small fee that you have to pay, but it basically pays for itself as you get 10 free cups of coffee and discounts off everything for life...not to mention covering the cost of the tile itself.

I think the wall is limited to about 50 tiles at the moment and I'm one of the few that have reserved to be immortalized in the LB's Friends Wall. Watch this space because they always seem to come up with some new and exciting ideas.

Speaking of great idea,s they held a Lebanese themed evening last night, which show cased an all Lebanese food menu. Very interesting and very tasty too, I love trying new, different types of food and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think they've come up with this thing, where every Wednesday is a different theme and I've heard rumours of a champagne and crayfish evening...you'll bet your bottom dollar that I'll be there for that one.

After the LB, I went to FTV (what's with all the abbreviations in today's post) to thank the management team for their kind offer. After, I think, Marius read my post about how I'm a sad loser and never really celebrate my birthday; he sent a message to say that FTV would like to help me celebrate this Friday - sadly it was a little bit too short notice to get friends to attend. But in any case, I'm sure that FTV will be a great place to party this weekend - with or without me (I may suffer from delusions of granduar but I'm certainly not going to claim that I'm the life of any party). Thanks for the message though, much appreciated.

What's Your Age Again?

Either I have a freakishly large appetite or the KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal is a bit of a joke! I finished the supposedly “Man Sized” meal comfortably even after having 2 packets of Doritos, a cup cake, a piece of tart, scrambled eggs, beans and chorizo sausage on toast and 3 scoops of ice cream. Hooray for cheat day Saturday. Hmmm perhaps the KFC marketing team should go back to the drawing board seeing as this man is only 5ft nothing and barely pushing 60kg!

So I made a slight mistake organizing the coffee club at Gelato Mania this morning…seeing as how they only open at 12:30, but thankfully there was an awesome spot called Miss K right next door to serve as back up until Gelato Mania actually opened. Miss K is great and has tons of awesome little treats, the whole vibe, setup and food reminds me of my favourite Jozi breakfast spot called Tashas.

Raeanne’s Birthday yesterday evening at Relish was tons of fun. The birthday girl and Paul surprised us with some party accessories, and throughout the course of the evening, as a party rule we had to wear these monkey masks. Should ever you were caught not wearing the mask you were fined and had to do a shooter. Seeing as how I’m on a mission to lean down, meaning 6 days of extreme dieting eating ridiculously bland food I want to make sure that the torture I’m enduring is worth it, the last thing that you will catch me touching is anything containing alcohol.

Because of this I had the mask on almost permanently. I even kept it on while going to the bathroom. It was quite entertaining when some guy walked in, and Ernst and I greeted him while both wearing our masks…I’m sure that he thought he had walked into the bathroom, through some trans-dimensional worm hole and into another world.

After a while I grew pretty comfortable behind the mask and actually developed a new persona! Since no one could identify who I was behind the mask (except for perhaps the name which had been written our foreheads), I got up to all sorts of mischievous activities, for example trying some cheesy lines on some poor promotion girls. My M.O. was: I was wearing the mask because my face had been horribly disfigured while trying to save a bunch of babies from a burning orphanage…for some reason though I think they saw through it…

Tonight is Suzelle’s 21st, ahh to be 21 again. Do you remember when you were very young, and how massively conscious of your age you were? I mean you’d never forget how old you were would you? I remember when people used to ask: “How old are you little girl? 5?” I’d answer “Firstly I’m NOT a girl, I’m a boy and I’m actually I’m 18 and ¾.” So it was quite a foreign concept to me that older folks could “forget” how old they were. Sometime mid-week this week was the first time that I’ve forgotten my own age, I had to work it out by subtracting my birth year from the current year….this is seriously not a good sign, it most probably means I’m pushing on and soon becoming an old man.

Relish

Getting too much of a good thing can’t be bad for you can it? I haven’t been to Relish in quite a while, at least over a year, and all of a sudden, in a single week, two engagements have popped up there.

The first which happened tonight, was held courtesy of the company I work for called DVT. I’m beginning to sense that these little soirees occur on quite a frequent basis - its quite refreshing that a company genuinely wants to get to know its people. Just as an aside DVT specialises in the analysis, development and delivering of custom software solutions, so if anyone is looking for some software developed why not give us a call? Tell them that Benny sent you…they’ll take special care of you, if you do.

The second engagement at Relish is Raenne’s Birthday bash which is going to be held this Friday evening. A little dinner! Awesome! Although afterwards I’ve been warned to drink plenty of Red Bull’s to have enough energy to keep up.

To be honest I forget why I don’t frequent that place more often, as Relish is a great restaurant with some pretty decent chow, it also has an amazing lounge area above, with some spectacular views for chilling out and having a couple of cocktails with friends.

Prawn Star

Woohoo, there’s a Prawn special at Bravo this evening, I think the special is a kilogram of prawns for just under R50 or something crazy. Those bottom, filter-feeding cockroaches of the sea sure are ugly-looking; but goodness are they delicious?! High cholesterol aside, Prawns are high in protein and low in carbs...and did I mention they are darn tasty!

The reason why they are so high in cholesterol though is apparently due to their feeding habits. There’s a massive prawn farm that has recently been established just outside Port Elizabeth, called Sea Ark which will do away with the cholesterol by feeding their prawns very… errr scientifically (unfortunately I don’t really know the details). My digs mate in Jozi’s, family has a massive stake in the farm, so while I was living up there we got to sample some scrumptious batch prawns.

If they are indeed as healthy as they claim, I may just change to an all prawn diet! It kinda reminds me of the good old days when Joe and I would go to Jimmy's Killer Prawns in Kloof Street and decimate the all you can eat prawn special. I think the most I had in one sitting was 80 prawns, and Joe had somewhere in the vicinity of 70, only problem was he made use of the special way too much and has now developed an allergy toward them. Poor bastard.

Also since I’ve crashed my vehicle so many times, I know of an awesome panel beater, called Ludski and Sons that used to give me a kilogram of prawns every time I had my car repaired there…I fear that subconsciously, this freebie could be the root of my crashing cars so often….

Finding Balance

I often forget how Table Mountain can affect the weather in Cape Town. The weather is beautiful today…at least it is in town. I decided that I’d tried to soak up some rays in the Camps Bay area and perhaps catch a surf at Glen Beach, but turned out that not only were the waves manky but the weather was too, even though it is literally a few kilometres from town to Camps.

Seems like the mountain was blocking the clouds and bad weather… in any case I was determined to make use of the sun and ended up at the top of Kloof Street at Café Paridiso, I usually hang out near the bottom of the street and often forget about the cool deli’s and cafes along the top stretch. I don’t do it intentionally but there are so many good spots along that road that sometimes you get distracted by all the ones at the bottom that you never make it all the way up.

At Café Paridiso I had an awesome seafood salad called the Salade De La Mer which was actually, extremely tasty. I chose a salad because I’m on a bit of a mission to lean down again. The weather today reminded me that summer is right around the corner, and it was probably a good idea to lose the spare tyre that I’ve gained over the winter.

Call it what you will, vanity or even me just being plain pedantic, but previously having been involved in a nutrition company; I’ve become a lot more conscious of my health and what type of shape I’m in. Besides, I’ve done the overweight thing, and it’s not really all that pleasant. I never intend on being back in that position so I like to try keep things in check.

One of the biggest fallacies about trying to lose weight is that you should starve yourself. Being a food lover like myself, as I’m sure you have realized if you’ve been following my posts, I can honestly say you can still enjoy food and keep in shape, in fact you can still enjoy eating out and keep in shape. It’s all about choosing the right things off the menu and creating a balance; living an active lifestyle and not overindulging in certain things…

When Food Goes Bad

Never drink milk that has been standing for too long; even if it is “long life”! That’s the lesson I learnt yesterday evening. I had my usual, before bed protein shake, but instead of using water there was some milk left that I thought I should finish before it went to waste (with an increase in food prices, wastage is a big faux pas)…all I can say is that it reacted violently in the middle of the night; and I was not a happy camper this morning.

Thankfully I’m feeling better already, but you can’t be too careful; I’ve heard of some really bad food poisoning cases. Someone who I met once used to be in the military and has been shot before, on multiple occasions. He has also suffered from a severe bout of food poisoning, and told me that if he had to rather receive food poisoning or be shot again he would choose the latter; as he was feeling so bad he started hallucinating and thought he was going to die. Perhaps the next time you find that mystery meat in the back of the fridge, you should reconsider before consuming it?

Breakfast of Champions

Being the most important meal of the day, let me share a little breakfast secret of mine (perhaps my greatest contribution to mankind to date). To start off the day I like to have a little something, something I like to call “Benny’s Bowl of Excellence”.

“Benny’s Bowl of Excellence” consists of a few scoops of Acai( Brought into the country, courtesy of D-Squared you can find the Acai in a sorbet like format at a few delis across Cape Town and Johannessburg), 1 scoop Reflex Banana Whey (or any other flavour of whey you’d like to use but I like using banana, cos banana is freakin’ awesome), topped off with some Organic Quinoa and Chocolate Cereal from good old faithful Woolies.

There you have it, a delicious breakfast bowl tailored for champions that will help kick start your day. Rich in energy, protein, anti-oxidants and essential fatty acids; I challenge anyone to find a more well-rounded, balanced meal (please don’t… that was just a blanket challenge, if you tried I’m certain you’d just be disappointed and come off second best). So don’t be surprised if Oprah airs an episode, thanking me for my contribution to humanity…

Auto Pilot

I’m starting to notice that my general sense of direction is shocking, if you had to ask me to give you directions from the airport to my childhood house in PE, I wouldn’t be able to tell you; but if I had to climb into a car and just drive I’d get there absolutely no problem. Somehow my mind just kicks into autopilot and it just knows where to go.

I’m beginning to notice that when I type as well. If you made me draw a keyboard I would not for the life of me remember where any of the keys are supposed to be situated but when I start typing, my fingers just know where to hit.

Anyways the reason why I bring this up is because we had a work function tonight at The Wild Fig, near the Riverside Club in Observatory. I’ve been to the Riverside Club before but honestly it’s not too familiar in my memory, and added to that I have not been there in a good couple of years. I thought I’d try test the auto pilot theory and without a glitch, I just somehow climbed into the car and POOF I was there…mind blasting!

The food was great too just in case you were wondering.

Back to the Future

Ecco Il Café is still one of my favourite coffee spots in Cape Town, in particular I really like the one situated in the BMW Show Room, situated in the Foreshore (there are two more that I know of, one near the Foundry in Green Point and the other in Long Street). Where you also get to, quickly pick up a new vehicle, with your daily coffee…

The food and coffee there is always top notch! And the staff are amazing, instead of giving you an order number they take down your name…and when your order is ready they call out your name instead, it makes you feel VIP, as if you’re first name basis there. With so many great restaurants and eateries in Cape Town, it’s the little things that set one apart; and a lot of other establishments could learn a thing or two from the friendly people at Ecco.

You’ll find some of the best latte artists there too …I have a picture of a coffee with my face “drawn” in it, and it was done by an ex Ecco Barista by the name of Peter…unfortunately I’m not sure where Peter has gone…but it’s still evident today that they take their latte art tradition seriously.

If you are also an avid fan of design and architecture I’d suggest you go check out the The Mini Showroom(Mini as in the cars… not a really dinky show room) and pick up a Mini, to go with the Beamer... It just so happens that Lauren designed the place and gave us a guided tour of it. The show room has a neo-futuristic, 50’s American diner feel to it and reminds me of something out of Back to the Future Part 2. Man I watched that movie recently…and it’s still as good as I remember it to be.

Bon Appetit

Two things in life are certain: Death and… I make the best damn Lasagne... Now you may probably think that I’m exaggerating here but it’s true, the only reason I haven’t publicized this before is because I don’t want Italians to be ashamed that an Asian dude makes better pasta then them…although everyone knows that the concept of Pasta actually came from the orient…noodles…anyone?

After having a pretty tough week, being sick and working way too many hours, my work somehow decided to stick the guy with the flu in an ice box…well it was close, it was actually a server room filled with computer equipment and some insane cooling equipment to keep the equipment from overheating. I don’t know, but I think someone out there has it in for me; and wants to see if I’ll catch pneumonia. Anyways for some reason when I’m sick I seem to crave comfort food.

There are one or two dishes I enjoy more, but in general Lasagne is pound for pound my favourite meal. So on my way home from work I decided to pick up some goodies to make some. Finding me in the kitchen these days is pretty rare, it seems that I’m always preoccupied with other stuff…but it doesn’t mean I can’t cook.

The mere fact that I enjoy food so much would suggest that I should be pretty good at combining flavours and delivering a pretty tasty meal but where I’m good in that department I’m completely lacking in the technical department and pretty darn clumsy… I once somehow spilled an entire pot of boiling water on myself…I was just extremely lucky to be wearing the thickest jacket imaginable, and it saved me from certain, 3rd degree burns.

I also tend to use all the wrong utensils, for example when I cook I love using pots. I don’t like pans even when it comes to frying stuff. Which I suppose is not so weird, considering my mom refuses to use any other knife to prepare food with except a trusty bone cleaver…I think it’s an oriental thing and should probably follow suit, but I’m not going to risk my fingers seeing that I’m already very accident prone.

I digress, my point was that if you do find me in the kitchen I like to make it count and I’ve probably made enough Lasagne to feed 8 people…I’d let everyone taste some but it’s actually that good, that I fear I’d be hassled ad nauseum, for the recipe… which I carry with me to the grave by the way. So without further a due, I have some eating and sleeping to attend too.

Sleepy Seaside Town

The one thing I love about living in Cape Town is the diversity it has to offer, one minute you may be surrounded by tall buildings, the next you’re tasting wines and eating cheese in the wine lands; and later on you might find yourself in a spot that feels like a sleepy little fishing village.

I slept pretty late today, trying to recover from this dang flu, and when I finally woke up, not at my own free will I might add: by my mom, who phoned to see if I were still alive; all the rest I luckily received, made me feel tons better and one of the first signs of a restoration of health is a serious case of the munchies…

As I was deciding what I was going to make, for breakfast; Ernst and Lauren called me up to find out if I was keen on going for a ride to Hout Bay, so I postponed my breakfast for the trip. Before our trip out though, we decided some coffee was in order and missioned to Kloof Street where we opted to get some cappuccinos from Seattle Coffee Company. I think that the Seattle Coffee Co is seriously under rated and offers some really good stuff.

Armed with our coffees we were ready, and drove through to Hout Bay. It might be the middle of winter, but you would never say, with the sun out and the temperature being at least 25 degrees Celsius. We walked around a bit, checking out the fish market at Mariner’s Wharf and afterwards tried to decide where to get something to eat. Hout Bay is allegedly the home of the best Calamari in South Africa, found at Chapman’s Peak hotel and the best Fish and Chips too, found at the wharf. With too many choices, I felt like that old horse that was introduced to me, way back in Economics 101 that died of starvation because it was placed between two pails of hay and couldn’t decide which to eat from.

Eventually we didn’t choose either and ended up somewhere in between, at a place called Dune’s. Our hypothesis was that if the wharf had the best Fish and Chips and the hotel the best Calamari the the place in between must have the best of both worlds! Dune’s is a great spot and the food is great too…and while it might not be the “best” it made up with a killer vibe, and had awesome views of the bay along with fishing boats setting out from the harbour. I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast, which only started at 3:30pm.

Sole Food

Well it looks like I’ve disproved the “Mind, Over, Matter” saying! I had all the will-power and mindset to carry out the strenuous workouts, heavy grafting, late night studying and blogging…but have found that the lack of sleep and the constant beating of my body has taken its toll and has completely depleted my immune systems reserves; and for the second time in a month I’ve caught the flu! You win this time, stupid flu!

The worst thing about getting the flu for me, worse than the nausea and feeling-like-I’m-going-to-die sensation is losing my sense of taste. Perhaps you might have noticed from my previous posts, but man, do I love eating…

I suffered in particular today at Beluga, where a few of us, Joe, myself, Karisa and Anna (my doctor friend), decided to make use of the 2pm-7pm weekend half-price sushi special. Normally one likes to savour the taste of the fresh fish, but today I might as well have been eating a bowl of rice, because my taste buds were not functioning! In fact I had to dunk the sushi in a copious amount of wasabi and soy sauce to have my taste buds fire off messages to the sense receptors in my brain…Anna please don’t criticize my lack of accuracy or medical terminology in that previous statement…remember I’m a techno geek not a med student!

So while I could not enjoy the taste of my meal to it’s full extent, I had more focus on the social aspects of lunching. Sure, sure…there is always conversation when you have a meal with friends, but I find that concentrating on someone talking while I’m trying to stuff my face with tasty foods is more difficult…. I’m male and apparently lack the chromosome to multi task. So to compensate for the lack of taste receptors, I was able to focus more on what was being said around the table.

One thing that struck me as amusing and came up as a brief topic of conversation is: how going to the cinema is a very social event, even though the experience itself isn’t a very social one. I mean you can’t really have a full blown conversation in the middle of a movie can you? I know I would be irritated as hell if someone next to me was having a fat chat. Yet not many people attend movies by themselves…

Snacky Poof Time

I usually try to keep the week pretty tidy when it comes to snacking, opting to eat healthy and try not to eat high GI carbohydrates and fatty foods.

I’ve relaxed a bit since leaving Reflex, but when I was with them I was ridiculously strict, for example I wouldn’t even have an after-meal mint because it was too high on the GI scale. I’d continue with this for 6 days straight…but come the 7th day, things would get messy …really messy and I’d consume more than my weight in junk food on a single day. The theory was that ones body can only absorb so much in a single day and I would allow myself just one cheat day just for my sanity if not anything else.

I lived for that 7th day and would stock up on all sorts of snacks, chocolate, ice-cream chips, sweets. I’d roam the streets looking for the nastiest fattiest, food imaginable, like McDonalds and gorge myself to a point that I wouldn’t want to look at junk food for the next week.

Tonight is reminiscent of those 7th days and I’ve stockpiled some really good stuff; I’ve bought myself some Ghost Pops, BBQ Spare Rib Pringles and Arnott’s Tim Tams (the most awesome chocolate biscuits ever, introduced to me by Bryan) and guaranteed before the night is done, they will all be finished!

TKO

The Bas Rutten System is the real deal! What is this system you may ask? It’s a workout which is specifically designed, by some crazy mixed martial artist, named Bas Rutten, to keep one fit in confined spaces. Simply explained it is 7 rounds of pure, calorie smashing goodness.

Each round lasts 3 minutes and consists of the recording of some guy (apparently Bas himself, but I’m convinced it’s some lazy voice over guy, sitting on a comfy sofa) shouting at you to kick, punch, do push ups, jumps etc. And in between these rounds there is a 1 minute break for you to try to catch your breath.

I’ve actually heard about it for a while and some of my mates: Junior, Action Dan and Paul; have raved about it and have been hooked since making Generation Kill, a hectic HBO, mini-series about the Gulf War (If any of you are lucky enough, to be in the US at the time, the mini-series starts in July).

I’ve been dying to check the workout out but haven’t had the opportunity, until today. At the little gym in my complex, where I was letting out some steam on the boxing bags after a long day at work, my neighbour, Oliver caught me and asked if I wanted to try a cool workout with him. I agreed and so it began.

Just a word of caution it’s not as easy as it first appears. The first round seemed pretty leisurely but come round 4 or 5; you really start working up a sweat! Reminded me of some of the drills I used to do with my boxing mentor Sandile…minus the body shots and bruises. I’m hooked…and will definitely try, find the workout on the internet and continue it as part of my training regime.

I was in serious need of a recharge after the workout and what better way to get the energy levels back up than with a bit of low GI, rice pasta, courtesy of Bini. A get together with good food and good company still remains my favourite way to spend the evening, but while the rest have gone to have some fun at the Jade Bar. I’m about to retire on account of a TKO.

Technology Wins Again!

Thought I'd try something a little bit different today, and blog first before I go to work.
As I blog I'm sitting without my mobile phone! I feel naked! And I feel sick...my whole life is on that phone. It's my window to the outside world, all my contacts...I even depend on it to get up in the mornings. How I'm up right now even typing this blog is a wonder.

Mobile phones have to be one of the most widely used and depended on inventions of the last 15 years. I can't remember what life was like without it. Casual hook ups had to be arranged in advance, with a particular meeting place in mind. These days, one can just whip out their handy phones and call or text the person. "How on earth did we used to get by without it?!"

Katrina is my new hero, I have no idea how she survived her last week, in a foreign country without a means of communication, having her phone stolen off her in Long Street, and done with a "cool as a cucumber" poise. Mucho respect! And here I am freaking out and it's only been a one evening.

Anyways I'm hoping that I left it at Xavier's...soon, I hope to come up with an invention so awesome, that someone else will blog about it; and wonder "How on earth did we used to get by without it?!" Mark my words it's going to happen, I'm not exactly sure what it is yet but watch this space...

By the way it's Gourmet Restaurant Week here in Cape Town. Basically a host of restaurants participate in a week long gourmet extravaganza, of gastronomic proportion. Each restaurant puts on a set menu to show case their establishment, for a fraction of the price. Now, that's my kind of festival, although I'm a little disappointed with the line up this year. Last year they had 3 of my top 5 restaurants participating and this year, none. However the line up is still pretty good, so if anyone is interested in going to any of the restaurants give me a call...Oh snap! you can't I don't have a phone...