Hong Kong street food with wine

Love the eFlyer that Kylix did for a Riesling Weeks event with German Wine Princess Katharina Fladung. It began with,

“Wine = Western cuisines?
Wine = Upmarket restaurants?”

When mention wine and food, most consumers would think of wine and food pairing dinners in formal, and often western restaurants. While the menus are delicious, the settings could deter some wine lovers. The emphasis on these wine pairing dinners also mislead some consumers to think that wine should only be drunk with elaborate meals. This is against my philosophy that wine is a lifestyle beverage that could be enjoyed in both casual and formal environments and shared with friends. Therefore, when Yuki from Kylix suggested matching typical Hong Kong snacks with German Riesling, I immediately jumped to the idea.

We had four Rieslings ranged from Trocken (dry) and Kabinett to Spatlese and Auslese. The menu
included Hong Kong style roasted pork belly and barbecued pork, dum sum, three stuffed treasures (煎釀三寶), curry fish balls, clams in spicy and black bean sauce, and red bean pudding (砵仔糕). Roasted pork belly fared well with the Trocken while Kabinett was the best match with dim sum. Spatlese stood up to the stronger flavoured honey barbecued pork and three stuffed treasures; and the majority, including Katharina, concluded that the Auslese was perfect with curry fish balls and the spicy clams.

The best part of this exercise was demystifying conventional food and wine pairing. Most guests admitted that it was the choice of food that attracted them to join. Hopefully, this experience would inspire them to have wine with their everyday dinner.

Dedicated wine lovers have wines whenever they eat and would BYO to local eateries. However, we need more mid-market Asian restaurants to serve wine in order to turn wine into a mainstream beverage. I still would love to persuade our fast food chains to serve a glass of wine with their personalised dinners, and Chinese restaurants to serve weekend dim sum brunch, not with tea but with a Riesling Kabinett - a perfect breakfast wine with dim sum.

Wines selected for pairing from Kylix:

• Wittmann Riesling Trocken 2008
• Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Josephshöfer Riesling Kabinett 2014
• Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Spätlese 2014
• Ruppertsberger Nußbien Riesling Auslese 2014
• Scharzofberger Riesling Auslese 2004