The Local Grill

photo from The Local Grill FB page

We have dined at The Local Grill in Parktown North more than a dozen times - including last night - and yet I have never blogged about it. I guess I have taken it for granted. My bad. I will now attempt to right that wrong.

The Local Grill is one of Vince's favorite steak restaurants in Joburg. I love it too but for different reasons. He comes for the steak but The Local Grill is so much more than beef. It has a great "other" menu with delicious salmon and calamari offerings. The vegie sides are prepared to perfection. Crunchy garlic green beans and light and delicious onion rings! Their wine list is superb and they are very dog-friendly. Lou & Serge especially love coming with us to The Local Grill 'cuz they know they'll be getting Vince's leftover marrow bones from his starter when we get home!

in the kitchen with colleagues from African Parks and IBM

Ask for a tour of the kitchen if you want to get up close and personal with your entree.

set up for a demo and dine dinner in the kitchen

You can tour the meat locker too!

photo from The Local Grill FB page

They cook their steaks on Himalayan salt blocks!

me and the chef in the kitchen at La Mirande

They also offer private cooking demonstrations and dining in their kitchen. We have never done it at The Local Grill - that takes advanced planning - but we did do a kitchen demo and dine once in Avignon at La Mirande. They are super fun! Someday soon I promise I will organize a night in the kitchen for friends at The Local Grill.

this is what a kitchen demo and dinner looks like at The Local Grill (photo from The Local Grill FB page)

the private dining room and wine cellar (photo from The Local Grill FB page)

They also have a private dining room / wine cellar where a group of 8 or more can dine. Like the fabulous Cellar in the Sky in the old Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of New York's fallen World Trade Center. RIP WTC. :( Someday we will have to do a dinner there too.

Two more dinners at The Local Grill coming up!

Virunga

South Africa’s premier documentary film festival "Encounters" is happening this week in various venues across Cape Town and Johannesburg. It gave me a chance to see the celebrated documentary Virunga on the big screen.

I am happy because Virunga is a big screen-sized documentary. Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara were nominated for Best Documentary Feature for their film at the 2015 Academy Awards. It lost to CitizenFour, the Laura Poitras documentary about the Snowden affair (which is also playing as part of the Film Festival by the way), but that didn't matter to me. After trekking to see the mountain gorillas in neighboring Rwanda last year, I still really wanted to see this compelling film in the cinema.

Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the oldest national park in Africa containing 1/3 of the Virunga Mountain chain, volcanoes which run along the northern border of Rwanda, the DRC and Uganda.

As a World Heritage site, Virunga National Park serves as the home and ostensible refuge for groups of endangered mountain gorillas. But years of civil war, poachers, tremendous instability in the region and the discovery of oil beneath the park have combined to threaten both the gorillas and the dedicated wildlife conservationists who fight to protect them.

Virunga is a documentary with clear good guys and bad guys. The good guys, the Virunga Park rangers and conservationists. The bad guys, the UK based international oil and gas exploration and production company, SOCO and their Congolese thugs, the M23 rebels.  

"Viewers are introduced to optimistic middle-aged park ranger, Andre Buama, spending his days caring for orphaned gorillas; reflective station chief Rodrigue Katembo, risking his life in the bush while covertly exposing high-level Congolese government corruption; soft-spoken son of Belgian royalty Emmanuel de Merode, devoting himself to upholding the law as director of an increasingly volatile environment; and young French journalist Melanie Gouby, on a mission to uncover the operations of a British registered oil company in its attempts to secure exploitation rights in the region.

While the film does not reveal every subtle nuance contributing to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s dire state, it does an excellent job of centering on a microcosmic issue that is reminiscent of what is the norm for much of Africa. It is a land that in many ways is still suffering from the aftershock of imperial players like King Leopold II, as emphasized during a scene whereupon a SOCO employee is secretly recorded claiming that Congo should be recolonized by outsiders if it is to have any chance of socioeconomic success. This theme is perhaps central to the argument that the road to a bright future continues eluding the grasp of many African people due in large part to continued outsider influence and control." - Africa Geographic

It was a really tough film to watch. I knew what I was in for after a year of attending Monday morning meeting at African Parks and listening to Leon, the African Parks Operations Director, relate the travails in his Congolese parks, Odzala-Kokoua in Congo and Garamba in the DRC. There is a war going on! But still it is hard to come away from watching the film with any sense of hope whatsoever.

The gorillas are merely collateral damage in an all-out war for natural resources, power and money. But before I start succumbing to any white oppressor guilt, I have to say the Congolese mercenaries and rebels are just as guilty of greed and tribal xenophobia against their fellow countrymen. The gorillas deserve better but so do the Congolese people. They all deserve to live in peace in a balanced natural environment free from oppression and genocide.


Encounters  runs through June 14 so you still have time to check it out.

Game drives and tours at Akagera

Sarah, me and Jes with Noah in the background

There are many ways to enjoy Akagera National Park in Rwanda. First there is a "behind the scenes tour" where visitors are introduced to the conservation principles behind restoring and rehabilitating the park. Akagera's Park Manager is Jes Gruner and his wife Sarah Hall is the Tourism and Marketing Manager. They live at Akagera with their two adorable sons, Noah and Luca.

I had the great fortune to meet Jes in New York last year when African Parks held a benefit at The Explorers Club in New York. Jes accepted one of the conservation awards on behalf of all of African Parks' park managers and anti-poaching rangers in the field.

Little Luca playing with his Christmas trucks and workbench!

Because of my affiliation with African Parks, Jes and Sarah graciously invited Vince and I for tea before Jes took us on the tour behind the scenes. Not everyone gets to visit chez Gruner!

Jes and Noah playing with their big truck

confiscated sandalwood, snares and bicycles

Law enforcement is still a large part of the conservation effort at Akagera. Sandalwood and bush meat are the main targets for poaching.

We took a boat safari out to the large island in the middle of Lake Ihema. We saw elephants by the banks of the mainland.

ellie

We saw lots of crocodiles ...

... and hippos.

And so so many birds. We even saw this fish eagle in the reeds eating a fish he caught for breakfast.

We took a night game drive in a pop up vehicle. I enjoy night drives because you are pretty much relieved of any photography responsibilities. The pictures, if you can get them, usually aren't very good so it is best to just sit back and watch the elusive nocturnal creatures such as leopards and civets.

Cape buffaloes will usually sit still for a night photo

even with their babies in tow

it is impossible to get a good picture of a bushbaby without a flash

baboons sleep in trees to avoid the leopards hunting below

the scrub hare poses in fright

lots of nightjars in the roads hunting for insects

And then finally we took a traditional game drive through the vast open plains in the northern part of the park. Abundant numbers and varieties of antelopes ...

... and zebra.

This is a different breed of zebra than the ones we have seen in South Africa. These are Plains Zebra that range from southern Sudan and southern Ethiopia, east of the Nile River, to southern Angola and northern Namibia and supposedly northern South Africa.

These giraffes were imported from Kenya

Akagera National Park

Akagera National Park is one of the national parks and game reserves managed by African Parks and Vince and I visited during our stay in Rwanda. It is a conservation success story!

The park celebrated its 80th birthday last year. When it was gazetted in 1934, Akagera was three times the size it is now. But after the refugees started returning to Rwanda from across the river in Tanzania after the genocide, the country needed somewhere to put them. So they took 2/3 of Akagera in order to provide land for the refugees to live, farm and graze. Unfortunately, they didn't stop there. Game poaching became rampant. That and the increased encroachment into the national park pretty much devastated the game and landscape there.

But now that Akagera is managed by African Parks in partnership with the Rwandan Development Board, the park is slowly returning to its former glory. Commercial fishing has been halted. Giraffes which had previously been wiped out were re-introduced. The buffalo, elephant and leopard populations are increasing. And this year, lions and rhinos will be re-introduced making Akagera a Big 5 game reserve once again!

We stayed at Ruzizi Tented Lodge which was built to blend harmoniously with nature.

The architecture is truly part of the landscape!

They built the main observation deck around this stand of trees.

The Akagera River feeds into a series of lakes, marshes and papyrus swamps that constitute central and eastern Africa’s largest protected wetlands. It is teeming with hippos, crocodiles, fish and birds.

Water is collected from rain and electricity is solar-produced.

Our private patio ...

... overlooking ...

... the lake.

This hippo came to our beach for breakfast. We had vervet monkeys too!

African Parks wishes you a Happy Festive Season

My two nights with David Koch

Last Tuesday the New York City Ballet held its annual Fall Gala on the Opening Night of their 2014 Season. After a performance by the NYCB in their home at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center, a gala dinner followed in a tent next door in Damrosch Park.

I was not there. I was across the plaza at Avery Fisher Hall attending another opening night, this one for the subscription season of the New York Philharmonic.

The ballet opening was a star-studded affair presided over by 2014 NYCB Gala Chair Sarah Jessica Parker.

It was also attended by philanthropists David and Julia Koch. Here they are being whisked away inside the theater endowed by and named for him. (As an aside, the theater was renamed the David H. Koch Theater at the New York City Ballet Winter Gala in 2008 at which I was in attendance!)

And here he is again on Wednesday night at The Explorers Club for the African Parks fundraising event. He is second from the right talking to AP Foundation of America's Chairman of the Board Ron Ulrich.

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