Asian Feast at FEAST, Gorey - 29th April 2010

Last night we hosted an Asian Feast at the wonderful FEAST in Gorey.  Anne and her brilliant team (and with help from us on the wine matches of course) put together another of their 'themed Feasts'.  A full house yet again, the evening was buzzing from the start.  It was great to see regular faces as well as many new ones.

With an aperitif of the superb and highly revered Graham Beck Brut Sparkling N.V or a bottle of Tiger Beer we were served with the most lovely Thai nibbles of Chicken Satays and Asian Chilli Beef wraps.  They were absolutely delicious, particularly the wraps, so clean and fresh and utterly tasty.  A fantastic start.

The starter of Seafood and Spring Onion Soup was matched with La Playa 'Sol Y Sombra' Sauvignon Blanc. It was a great match. This wine is so food versatile, so vibrant with zesty lemon acidity, fragrant aromas and an invigorating freshness and a mouthwatering finish.  Perfect for this flavoursome soup.

The main course of Ca Ri Ga (Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry) was a little unusually matched with a white wine.  Asian cuisine, as Liz explained in her very informative talk, is not the easiest cuisine to match with.  They are so many different flavour components involved in making a curry that matching with a wine is no where near as easy as with simpler dishes.  This particular curry was not so much spicy but the sweetness from the potato, spices, coconut, lime etc was quite a challenge.  During the food taste offs earlier in the week (something we always do before food and wine dinners to verify the wine matches) we had to open over 20 wines to try and find a match.  We did find a red match (La Rioja Alta Vina Alberdi 2003) which we served to those who really wanted a red wine with their food but we asked guests to try the white wine with the dish first as we felt it was the best match.  We chose Mount Difficulty 'Roaring Meg' Pinot Gris.  This is a lovely, slightly more medium styled wine that worked so well with the sweetness in the dish.  A success!

The dessert of Banana Fritters with Pineapple Ice-Cream finished the evening in style.  The generous portion of bananas deep fried in dessicated coconut were light and crispy with a gooey center.  The ice-cream was particularly good and quickly disappeared along with a glass of Graham Beck Muscadel 'Rhona' 2004. It showed a rich straw colour with delicate orange rind flavours and grapey freshness on the palate. The wine had an amazing rich lengthy finish that worked so well with the flavours.

Huge thanks to Anne and her team for another brilliant evening that was enjoyed by all.  Anne described the evening as probably the best one so far. 

We look forward to the next event on 13th May 2010.

Jane