[imagesource:facebook]

If you’re a foodie in Cape Town, or happen to work in the wine industry, you will recognise Chris Von Ulmenstein, the woman behind the Whale Tales blog.

You know the one…

We have had our fair share of run-ins with her in the past, including a few stories earlier this year that poked the bear, but we decided the mudslinging wasn’t really cultivating the vibe we like to live by.

That being said, we can’t let the latest drama to slip by without comment.

It all began with the Whale Tales review of Spek & Bone, Chef Bertus Basson’s restaurant in Stellenbosch.

Suffice to say it wasn’t very complimentary – the headline reads “Restaurant Review: Spek en Bone has no bacon nor beans, little SA cuisine, crap in most respects”.

I’ll skip ahead to the end:

I had to rush off to a function, and asked Jacques for the bill. I was shocked when he asked me what tip he should add to my bill! Shocking to me was the cheap and nasty crap interior and furnishings, poor menu and winelist spelling, the lack of knowledge of the waiter, and poor quality crockery.

It’s pretty customary to ask if a patron wants to add a tip, although the Whale has made it very clear in the past that she never tips so perhaps that’s where her shock comes from.

Side note – the Whale uses the word ‘crap’ on six separate occasions. We did a little digging and would recommend she mixes it up a little – baloney, drivel, hogwash and poppycock are a few synonyms that might work.

In response to that review Chef Bertus took to his personal Facebook page for a rebuttal of sorts, and there’s plenty of meat on this one.

Some of that post:

Chris has been around for a long time slinging mud and insulting members of the industry. I have in the past steered clear from directly and publically [sic] responding to negative reviews. On Monday however Chris went too far which necessitated a response. Gauging by the responses to the blogpost, others have also had enough.

Someone must draw the line, and I don’t mind being that guy.

Spek & Bone is intended to be a neighbourhood wine bar serving tasty small plates. It is what Mareli and I have in mind when we want to kick back with our friends after a hard day’s work. It is not an aimed at achieving a rating on a top 10 list of some sort and comparing it to such a restaurant is unfair. Turns out you, our customers, agree as Spekkies has outperformed even our wildest expectations. So Chris, we’re not done just yet.

Luckily we don’t take ourselves too seriously and I had to have a chat to Spek and Bone.

Yes, Chef Bertus decided to chat with Bone, his boxer pooch, and Spek, his pet piggy. This is gold:

I had explain to them that Tannie Chris did not like their restaurant at all and had some pretty nasty things to say.

Bone did not care much. He is a boxer and only wants to play with his pig brother and, jol in the garden. A typical boxer clown.
Spek though, being an emotional creature, was very upset.

He suggested that we ask tannie Chris never to visit us again, and I fully agree.

I asked him how he feels we should go about it and he suggested that we need to put up a sign at Spek & Bone indicating to the whale lady that she is unwelcome…

Spek also said that he means no harm to whales. He too is a mammal and a citizen of planet earth. He was also serious in saying that we should not harm any whales ever and that we should try to always cook fish from the SASSI green list. Wild whales are important to our eco system and for tourism along the coast, so they should be looked after for generations to come. Wise pig.

He then suggested that if any our friends in the industry feel uncomfortable having Tannie Chris in their restaurants they should get hold of us to send them a sign. He wasn’t done yet – he suggested that we sell the sign to other restaurants for R100 each and that all the proceeds raised by the sales be donated to the Sea Sheppard Foundation to be used in their fight against whaling.

That sign is the picture up top, but we’ll pop it here again for your enjoyment:

He ends his response with something we can all agree with – “That’ll do pig, that’ll do”. We think you should also give yourself a pat on the back, Bertus, and many in the industry will heartily agree.

There’s a third part to this one – after Basson’s response began to gain traction on Facebook (at the time of writing it has more than 250 shares), the Whale added a postscript to her scathing review:

‘Bertus Basson (Mareli Basson). I am so sorry that you took my review so personally. Nothing I wrote could have led you to that deduction…

It is a shame that you can not accept my feedback as being constructive, given that you do admit that you do not run a perfect business. To point fingers at my former guest houses, all sold three years ago, deflects from the faults in your restaurant, which you should rather focus on in fixing, in my opinion…

I never write to get a reaction from anyone, including you Bertus. I write as a service to other restaurant goers, and because I love writing. I don’t need sensation at all. As for ‘miserable’, it couldn’t be further from the truth, I am having a ball, and #❤️lovemylife❤️ is my hashtag of more than a year!

2017’s golden rule – if you use a hashtag it must be true.

#Namaste, bitches.

[sources:whaletales&facebook]