Oyster Festival in Johannesburg

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Wow! It is this time of the year again. Because the weather is not good, it is cold and windy, no more travelling. Most of Johannesburg residents prefer either to stay at home or to go locally. May be to Oyster Festival at Montecasino. You kill two birds with one stone. Montecasino is pleasant on it’s own and here it’s an Oyster Festival. 6500 oysters must be eaten, plenty of other food and more than 50 different types of wine is waiting for you.

Johannesburg today is looking like a 40-something beautiful woman, lived a lot, loved a lot, a bit tired. She woke up in the morning and in need of pain killers or something stronger, may be a joint, and definitely in need of make up. Everything today looks grey, no sun. It is incredibly cold and windy, recent rains brought chill and the air is humid. So, there is nothing else to do, and I decided to go with my friend. She has a tendency to jump on a last train, and it is almost impossible to get her out of her home earlier. It was Sunday, and only one hour till the end of the festival. Never mind. You can do a lot in one hour. You can fall in love in one hour, you can divorce in one hour, you can fix your relationships in one hour- whatever you prefer.

Today was the coldest day in Johannesburg we experienced so far. Still there were quite a lot of enthusiastic people, centered mainly near the stalls with wine. That was where we went. Forget the oysters, first thing- to put something inside yourself that will warm you up. Stalls with food- pastries, plenty of cheese (how can you taste wine without cheese?), pizza, biltong; lonely stall with something meaty, sweets, chocolates. I bought roasted pistachio Turkish sweets on special. If it happens you’ll be in Istanbul either to see a city or changing flights, and you want to use your time to try some sweets- do you know how much it will cost you? Yes, that what I am talking about.

During events like that you might find real treasures, at least you are hoping to find something extraordinary, that will tickle your palate, amuse you and left you guessing how was it that you did not know about this food/drink before? South African wines are well known for it’s high quality and they are very popular inside the country and abroad. Some of the sellers were also winemakers and were proud to present their wines. You can find quite good quality wines at very affordable price. I moved to the busiest corner and tried muscatel from Bulgarian couple. It was amazing. It reminded me Odessa’s Shampagne? But without bubbles.

Then I moved to the other corner and found fantastic wine. Unbelievable combination of different notes: fruity, something from muscat grapes, and honey, plenty of honey.That was Lourensford Honey Liqueur.Apparently you can find it in Makro, but the price is obviously going to be different, may be 50% more.

I will show you different pictures from encounters at the Festival. After we drank a little bit more, we started to make friends. Some of them asked me to take their pictures. Before we get completely drunk we decided who is going to be a dedicated driver. It was getting dark. Driving home and meeting fat, unfriendly traffic officer was not on my plans. Did I mention oysters? With all that food around who need oysters? May be some other time.

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