Food & wine

Reading Time:2 minutes

Published: 12:00am, 15 Feb 2002

If you're interested in learning more about the art of Japanese cooking, sign up for the classes being held at the Peninsula hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui, from February 20-23. The four-day cookery course will be taught by Masaya Nakamura and Tony Chiu, chef and sous chef of the hotel's Japanese restaurant, Imasa. The class on Wednesday focuses on the basic techniques of sushi (including making sushi rice, nori-maki sushi and inside-out rolls) while Thursday's class looks at nigiri sushi (how to trim and carve salmon sashimi, hand-rolled sushi and the making of sushi soy sauce). On Friday, students will learn the basic techniques of tempura-making and the class on Saturday focuses on Imasa-style tempura (deep-fried preserved bean-curd skin stuffed with mixed seafood; deep-fried lotus stuffed with minced chicken; deep-fried wild boar skewers and prawn tempura with Japanese rice powder). Each $1,000 session includes lunch at which participants can sample the dishes taught that morning. The classes are limited to 15 students per session and are in Japanese and Cantonese with an English interpreter. For information phone the hotel's food-and-beverage department on 2315 3142 or e-mail [email protected].

27 Restaurant & Bar in the Park Lane Hotel in Causeway Bay is featuring a menu with '27 Ways To Cook Prawns'. Special dishes include Cajun tiger prawns on fried sweet potato with cool tomato salsa; prawn, saffron and semillon risotto with chive veloute; prosciutto-wrapped prawns with grilled eggplant and red pepper coulis; poached prawns with flat noodles in coconut-curry soup and seared prawns on pan-fried foie gras with tomato essence and trumpet mushrooms. Reservations on 2839 3327.

Chefs from the Jinjiang Hotel in Sichuan are cooking in the Sichuan promotion at the Lychee Garden Chinese Restaurant in the Hotel Concourse, Mongkok. Their dishes include spicy savoury king prawns, braised beef with hot and spicy herb sauce, braised bean curd with minced pork, double-boiled shark's fin with bamboo fungus and egg white and braised slices of sea whelk with salty fish. The Sichuan dishes are available a la carte or on a set dinner that costs $198 plus 10 per cent ($168 for children under 12). The promotion runs until February 28; phone 2397 9609.

In celebration of the Lunar New Year, SCMP.com is offering readers the chance to win a prize of 60,000 Asia Miles, a two-hour consultation with fung shui master Raymond Lo or dinner for two at Margaux, Napa or Shang Palace at the Kowloon Shangri-La. For information on how to enter the contest, visit SCMP.com.