We took a trip to Chengdu, China earlier this year to visit our very good friend Kut and before we arrived we told her…”we are not here for anything else but the food ?!!!” We wanted to eat and taste everything and Kut made sure that’s what we would experience. On our very first night we had a noodle bowl ?and it was amazing??. We had all sorts of amazing food but Chengdu is known for it’s Hotpot, it’s literally hot and spicy at the same time and we knew that we had to bring this experience home with us. We made sure we made space for some hotpot stock when we came home.

Our trip to this amazing country inspired our very first pop up of this year. We wanted our friends and people around us to experience the amazing flavors.

We had the pleasure of collaborating with Grain Field Chicken and most of our dishes were chicken based, it was almost a breeze putting this menu together. Our main dish was definitely the hotpot with the chicken and the fun thing about it is, you get to cook your own food, which is great. We served a Chinese chicken noodle salad for starters and a Chinese wine pomegranate sangria. We had a flavored sticky rice, vegetable stir-fry and popcorn chicken as the sides. It was lovely and straight to the point.

As always, it’s always hard work putting the pop up dinner together, it really doesn’t get easier at all. We were lucky enough to host at a gorgeous boutique hotel in Pretoria called Birdwood Estate. With a lovely garden and views for our guest. The staff were so pleasant and they made the experience so much smoother for us, we are thankful.

We had amazing assistants who came to our rescue and helped with the order of the evening, our babies Kele, Ikanyeng, Pearl and Kamo, it was a great pleasure working with them.

And of course our friend Tebogo and her partner did our amazing artwork and ress_photography did the photography. We are very thankful for a strong girl team.

The 15th pop up!!! Can you believe that? Wow.

To many more… cheers ???

With love, The Twins xx

We honestly can’t believe that this is our 13th pop up restaurant and
we still feel excited and giddy about planning the event and see all the
lovely people who come, we are so thankful ??

It was another collaboration with LAAGER ROOIBOS, so much fun. We were
lucky enough to play around with the Green Rooibos, citrus and Ginger
flavored tea. It smells amazing ?? and tastes even better. We used it in
our “Mocktail of the day ” as our welcome drink. Everyone loved it!!!

We used the lovely Alpine Attitude Boutique Hotel in Pretoria East as our
venue of the day, it’s breathtakingly gorgeous ??. We’ve used this venue
before and our mom kept begging that we use it again… and what a way to
host in our home city PRETORIA!!! This time we were corresponding with
Solette Breet, she’s the absolute best and made the booking and planning of
this event a breeze, thank you so much.???? we didn’t have to do
much to the venue honestly, it matched our bohemian theme perfectly!!!
Couldn’t be happier.

It’s spring time in South Africa and we wanted to do something easy but
also very fun for our guests, we decided on a bohemian theme because it’s
“chilled vibes” ??‍??‍ right and that’s what Spring is all about.
It’s also Heritage month so braai’ing and burgers just made total sense. We
had 3 variations, beef burgers, chicken burgers and vegetarian burgers.
Initially we wanted to do a lovely cheakpea and sweet potato patty for the
vegetarians.. let’s all laugh together ???????‍… it was a total
FLOP!!! We blitzed the mixture a little too much and it was just too soft
and soggy, we tried to pané with bread crumbs… just a flop!!
??‍??‍ so we used lovely shitaki mushrooms, roasted them in the
oven with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic and voilà… it worked, also
the cool thing is mushroom gives an illusion that you’re having meat, so
everyone wins ??‍??‍ the vegetarians liked it ( we love you
guys ?) we couldn’t let them eat that cheakpea mess. ? we also made all
kinds of homemade sauces to go with it, green goddess sauce, chili sauce
and barbecue sauce, we had with vegetable chips, potato chips, pickled red
onions, ribbon cucumbers… Uhm ??… oh and bacon bits to accompany the
burgers. So you could basically go wild!! It was too much fun, too much
yummy. And for dessert we had a light deconstructed peppermint tart, no too
sweet, not too much… just right!!

Now, at every pop up restaurant we like to add a bit of excitement for our
guests, introduce them to something we think is spectacular!! ?? our
beautiful friend Danine has an amazing brand called #headoverheart, she has
the most amazing merchandise, we love it. We are so proud of her and we
wanted to be a part of her journey ?? thank you for gracing is babe.

The pop up went really great, we had amazing assistants, we love and
appreciate you guys.

Of course our baby girl Heiress #ressphotography handled the amazing
photography as always, she does an amazing Job ALWAYS!! What else could we
ask for ? ?? we are so obsessed with her work, thank you. And our amazing
friend Tebogo Mogole and her talented team #swissarmy did amazing work on
our invites and artwork, we appreciate your amazing work. ??

At the end of the night we kicked off our shoes and let our little sore
feet breathe. It’s always so exciting hosting all you beautiful people. You
could literally be anywhere in the world but you choose to come have dinner
with us, what an honor ??

#withlovefromthetwins

#twinspopup

With love from the Twins x Laager Rooibos

Our 11th pop up restaurant!!! Phew!!! ?? it doesn’t get easier planning these pop ups but it definitely does get exciting.

We were also extremely excited to collaborate with Laager Rooibos, which is perfect for us because we looooove tea.

We themed our pop up “Kings and Queens of Wakanda” and EVERYBODY came dressed to the nines!!! Thank you beautiful people!!!!

We hosted at the most exquisite venue ever in Johannesburg called “Dunkeld Manor Guesthouse” owned by the beautiful Sandi, uurrghh!! What more can we say ? ??? absolutely perfect!!! We are so thankful.

We decided to host a cozy late lunch for our guests because the weather has been a bit sombre so we wanted to make a hearty menu. We served a 3 course and the most exciting part was that we en cooperated  the Rooibos tea in most of our dishes.

For starters we had “pap en vleis” balls, out take on the typical South African “Pap en vleis” but we turned it into a canapé… not something that would be typically done.

For the main course we had a lovely Lamb curry, Roti, Tzatziki And salsa. We used Rooibos tea as the liquid instead of your typical beef or chicken stock. It gives it a more clean flavor and this way we could control our seasoning and therefore was less sodium in the actual dish.

For dessert we hosted a “mini high tea” with a trio of desserts. The whole point of this course was for people to taste the tea and all the other different tea flavors.

Not to “toot” our own horns but… it was LIT!!!!

Our hearts get bigger and bigger every time we host these lovely events, we have the loveliest people as guest and they like our cooking!!! Of course they are close to our hearts.

What a successful collaboration and sponsorship with Laager Rooibos ????

Swiss Army for the lovely artwork, EVERY SINGLE TIME ???? and our baby, Ress Photography for the lovely images.

We have the best siblings everrrr ??. Dimpho hosted our people and Kgomotso is the best right hand man ever!!! We love you children.

Ika, you’re our baby.

Wow, we love you guys.

#twinspopup

#popuprestaurant

#laagerrooibos

#withlovefromthetwins