What a week for publishers! Fashionable foodista JP Rossouw takes over the publisher’s La-Z-Boy recliner at the sighted Platter wine guide and Alan Maleh, publisher of Man of the World, an uberbling New York lifestyle magazine, commissions a photo shoot at Kyoto Garden Sushi, my local purveyors of Alaskan scallops and Japanese cabbage. Well Alan came to the right address as proprietor Scott Wood (below) is certainly a man of the world – he even went to Studio 54 (once) – and his sushi is the best in town.
And Man of the World sounds a far better read than Platter. As Alan says, his organ “caters specifically to men who value style, travel, food, art, and culture. Man of the World is tightly focused on that group; it doesn’t try to be all things to all people. It’s for a ruggedly sophisticated male niche audience, and it’s somewhere they can go for consistent, compelling, informative content.
MAN OF THE WORLD is a handbook for the modern man, with its DNA inspired by American Heritage. Like most of us growing up, I really appreciated the appeal of the Hollywood icons of the 1960s and ’70s, guys like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Al Pacino. I wanted to emulate their effortless style and admired their sense of confidence. I think their style is just as relevant today, if not more so.” While Platter is more of an anorak job.
So what better venue in which to feel like a Man of the World than Kyoto Garden which is so sophisticated, it hurts.
But what to drink with lavishly indulgent scallops? My first prize would be Flight of the Fish Eagle brandy as the top end of SA brandy is certainly worth a couple of features in Man of the World. I do hope that combination pops up on Yang Zhao’s Dim Sum by Design menu.
Failing that, Earthbound Pinot Noir 2012. A Fairtrade wine, R6.50 from every bottle is paid to the community on the Cape’s west coast. Which makes the plutocratic prices for quality sushi slip down just that little bit easier. Fully fruited, the wine is fresh and maritime as the grapes hail from Papkuilsfontein. And how appropriate to match African west coast wine with American west coast seafood. As Paris Hilton said “I love Africa in general South Africa and West Africa, they are both great countries.” And you can’t say fairer than that.
The face of Fairtrade wine in SA is Arianna Baldo who earlier this evening sent me a Facebook link to a global map of penis size. Alas, at this stage of the meal, I’m more interested in Pinot Noir than Noir Penis.
