Alsace Meets Asia Culinary Challenge 2005
By Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet who helps decide which cuisine will be the best with Alsace wines……
MARVELLOUS food & wines were on the menu at the Alsace Meets Asia Culinary Challenge 2005 in the Sheraton Towers on 26th October 2005. My friend, Thierry Fritsch of the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins d’Alsace started the competition with an amusingly brief speech. All the specially invited dinner guests were judges who had to select which of the 3 menus were the best match for the Alsace wines. In between savouring the food & wines, I filled in my Score Cards to give points for the 3 appetizers, 3 main courses and 3 desserts. The Chefs of Patara, Vansh and Li Bai each presented an appetizer, main course and dessert served to Thai, Indian and Chinese music. Between the Thai, Indian and Cantonese cuisines, Li Bai’s cheerful Chef Chung Yiu Ming won the Most Preferred Menu Award! Patara had won in 2004 but its menu this year was no match for Li Bai’s sublime Cantonese delights. Vansh also failed to win the palates of the judges over with its contemporary Indian cuisineTo take just one example, his appetizer of fragrant Long Jin Tea Smoked Duck with air flown Live Sea Whelk stewed for 5 hours was sooo good with the honeydew flavours and distinct petroleum aroma of the Leon Beyer Riesling Comtes d’Eguisheim 2000 wine. Seductively creamy Braised Hairy Crab Roe and Meat with silky Li Bai’s Home Made Beancurd as a main course melded smoothly with the Dopff & Irion Les Grand Crus Tokay Pinot Gris Grand Cru Vorbourg 2002 with its lemon peel and wild honey bouquet. An aphrodisiac dessert of Hasma Egg Tart, Glutinous Ball Filled with Mango, Red Bean Paste and Young Ginger Ice Cream married nicely with the Andre Ostertag Fronholz V.T. Gewuerztraminer 2003. A deliciously rich Gewuerztraminer made from the grapes of the extraordinarily hot summer of 2003, an explosion of perfumes & flavours of longans, faded rose petals, passion fruit plus liquid honeyed caramel made it a sublime delight to taste.
Bon appetit e a votre sante! J
Who will win in 2006? We shall see…………
The Travelling Gourmet 