Read full review
2010-08-08
25 views
I came as a representative of The Local Nose to an Open Rice Tasty Union. The Local Nose is a wine reviewing website, where you can find information about wine events, where to get great valued wines, and about everything about wine in Singapore.I researched the restaurant menu before the outing, to decide what wine to bring, to find that it is a rotary hotpot restaurant (kinda cross between a sushi train and hotpot), offering six different soup-bases, eight different sauces, chicken, fish, seaf
I researched the restaurant menu before the outing, to decide what wine to bring, to find that it is a rotary hotpot restaurant (kinda cross between a sushi train and hotpot), offering six different soup-bases, eight different sauces, chicken, fish, seafood, red meats, omigod!
Choices, choices... what to do??!!!! Should I bring white wine or red wine? Dry or sweet? Woody, fruity, flinty, what? Arrgh!!!
Ok, ok, deep breath...*mmm-ahh*...om....
Thankfully, some items are marked “signature.” Let's just go with that. The signature soup is a mushroom broth, and signature sauce contains fermented beans, sesame, sweet chilli, coriander, spring onion and garlic. Now we're getting somewhere.
This calls for fruity white wine, with medium body to hold against the mushroom and bean paste, and forward enough fruit palate to balance the strong flavours of chilli, herbs and spices. So I opted for a German Scheurebe and an Australian Pinot Gris.
The South Australian 2008 Pike & Joyce Pinot Gris' rich fruit flavours blended beautifully with the sweet prawns cooked in gentle mushroom soup base, the spiced-pears palate with sweet chili and coriander. Most definitely a goer!
As we put our noses to the glass, the 2007 Juliusspital Scheurebe from the Franken city of Würzburg exploded with floral and sweet fruit aromas. Ripe stone-fruit flavours persisted even after being washed with (by then) richly flavoursome soup and mouthfuls of stuffed bitter gourd (my favourite!). I thought the apricot palate even added a dimension to the spicy sweet bean sauce!
Terence, OpenRicer and self-proclaimed absolute novice, swirled, sniffed, sipped, mused over both wines and declared preference to Scheurebe because the wine taste better with the food. The fruit flavours stayed longer, said he.
The restaurant gave us a taste of their house wines, Chilean Montes Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon, to try and match with our hotpot soups. The Sauv Blanc was an easy-to-drink, can't-go-much-wrong sort of fruity white, which, well, can't go much wrong.
My initial reaction of the Cab was not impressive, even with the strong “red meat” flavour of pork liver. But OpenRice graphic designer Jayden preference to medium-rare liver showed the way. He mused what it would be like to marinate the liver in the red wine, and lo and behold, that combination did bringeth forward the fruit in the Cab Sauv.
There was dessert, too, of chocolate fondue with fruit, but I was too busy yapping, sipping, munching and experimenting that by the time I finished my hotpot soup, the restaurant was empty and staff was cleaning up. Too much fun and not enough time!
Post
