This shrinking hotel world
Aboard QE2; Kochin, Mumbai, Cape Town. Was the world always this small? A fellow passenger who thought he knew us turned out to be Peter Gautschi, who used to run the Peninsula Hotel Group in Hong Kong and was instrumental in introducing Western-style hotels into China. Over a glass of Champagne, Swiss-born Gautschi, now retired, shared happy memories of two years at the Connaught in 1947 and 1948. He was shocked, though, when he heard that the Connaught's unique restaurant was being "farmed out".
We docked in Kochin the next day. Over lunch in the waterfront garden of the stunning Taj Malabar hotel, visitors were treated to a performance of Keralan music, classical dance and traditional "play-story" costume drama. Thanking general manager Prabhat Verma and duty manager Sanjay Varma, we learned that they were both old friends of our dear friend, Adi Modi. Modi has been managing director of the Bombay Brasserie, a Taj Hotels property in London, for 20 years and this is still, in our opinion, the finest Indian restaurant in the UK.
On to Mumbai, where we sneaked off for a sundowner at the Taj Mahal hotel after a gruelling tour of the teeming city in steaming heat. The hotel's granite façade overlooks the Gateway of India and the ocean, and in 1902 was the first Taj hotel built.
Today, the Taj Mahal has 600 guest rooms in the restored Heritage wing and the more recent Tower wing. General manager Maneck Patel was away, but two impressive concierges, Brice and Sumeet, beamed at the mention of Adi Modi's name. We're glad you - or at least your name - was with us, Mr Modi.
Back on board, we bumped into (literally - it was the wardroom cocktail party, overcrowded as always) wine man Richard Wheeler, boss of Lay & Wheeler of Colchester. He was on his way home from visiting the company vineyards in New Zealand. This will be their third vintage of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and, for Wheeler, it was the fulfilment of a lifelong ambition before he retires.
Cape Town reunions
Cape Town is a favourite port, made more so by a reunion with John Tovey, founder chef-patron of Miller Howe in the Lake District and one of the pioneer country house hoteliers. Over one of JT's sensational lunches at his home in Rondebosch, accompanied by some show-off South African wines, we caught up after a long absence.
It was particularly significant for us, since JT was the one who played Cupid and got Eve and I together back in 1977. Caterer can claim some of the kudos, too. As a freelance feature writer for this magazine, Eve was assigned to a series called "Great British hoteliers" and, at Tovey's instigation, I was the first hotelier she interviewed. She asked me so many questions I had to marry her to keep her quiet. And, no, it didn't work…
That night we were treated to a leisurely dinner with good friends Harold and Anthea Eedes, publishers of South Africa's Wine, Hotel & Caterer and a stable of other magazines. Again we were able to catch up with some choice South African wines, starting with a 2001 Thelema Sauvignon Blanc and including a five-year-old Morgenhof Cape Wine Guild Auction Reserve Merlot and a 10-year-old Thelema Cabernet Reserve. It was such a treat to taste quality SA wines that have been allowed to age as they deserve.
Cape Town has more than its share of wonderful restaurants, and next day we all lunched at one of the top five - the Blue Danube. Austrian chef-patron Thomas Sinn and his wife, Brita, have transformed a two-storey Victorian house into a series of small dining rooms. The menu features local specialities such as ostrich (smoked, carpaccio or bobotie), roast loin of springbok and the most tender and flavoursome Karoo lamb.
The predominantly South African wine list is full of temptations, and our two Paarl wines, Rupert & Rothschild "Baroness Nadine" Chardonnay 1998 and the Glen Carlou Pinot Noir 2000, illustrated once again the heights South African wines can reach at an enviably low price.
The bill for four people, including coffee and wines, was R986 (£64), excluding excellent service from maître d' Scheepers Ferreira.
A culinary April Fool Our table companions in QE2‘s Mauretania restaurant lost patience with a fellow passenger who carped endlessly whenever Asian dishes appeared on the menu. They were full of contaminants, he complained. You never know what's in them. Take your life in your hands if you eat them, and so on. Come April Fool's Day, they printed their own menu and persuaded the maître d' to insert it into one of the leather binders.
The theme was "A culinary tour of the subcontinent" and included as appetisers "butterfly of smoked salmon with curry crème fraîche" and "chilled eggplant soup vindaloo with peppers". Main courses featured "grilled tuna curry in olive oil with lime chutney served on curried ratatouille" and - our own favourite - "mongoose scaloppine Bangladesh-style". Desserts of the day included "ice coupe bangalore with mango chutney ice-cream" and, to round off the meal, "Cunard's selection of exotic tease [sic], expresso, crappuccino [sic] plus regular and contaminated coffee".
It's not known whether they made him eat his words…
