As soon as I arrived in Taipei, I dumped my bags in my hotel room and went out to get a bowl of niu rou mian, beef noodle soup. My associations with my favourite cities in Asia are not with its famous monuments, buildings or its history, but with the smell, the food and the people. When I slurp down a mouthful of niu rou mian, with its rich, brown savoury broth, succulent beef chunks and chewy noodles, my entire being says: 'Ahhh, I am now in Taiwan.'
When I landed in Bangkok a few days later, all I could think about was my favourite hawker stall on Khao San Road that serves up the most delicious pad Thai (stir-fried rice noodles). My mouth salivated just thinking about som tam (green papaya salad), yam pla duk fuu (shredded catfish salad) and kaeng khiaw waan kai (green chicken curry).
One of my theories about why street food in Bangkok, as well as the rest of Asia, tastes so much better than restaurant food is because of the diners' proximity to the cook - the person preparing the dish is no more than a few metres away and the food is served steaming hot. There is no thought to plating or heightening the aesthetics of the dish, it is simply about tasty flavours that explode in your mouth.
In Bangkok I led a wine and food pairing dinner at the Grand Hyatt Erawan for 70 people. The chef prepared modern Thai dishes to pair with the eight wines I had chosen for the evening. Out of the eight wines, two were from Thailand, and I was surprised to find that many who attended the dinner, the majority of whom were Thai, had not tried either. The two wines I chose came out on top from a big tasting of more than 20 Thai wines I sampled a month ago.
My favourite Thai white during this tasting was the 2011 Siam Winery Monsoon Valley colombard from Hua Hin Hills Vineyard. I've tasted this colombard on many occasions, and I am always impressed. The flavours are savoury and herbal with a hint of pine nuts in the background. This is one of only a handful of Thai whites with some depth of fruit and a moderately long finish. The colombard, as well as the chenin blanc, does well in Thailand because of its crisp acidity. There is a delicate sweetness in the finish of the colombard from the modest amount of residual sugar in the wine; it nicely balances the wine's pomelo and lemongrass flavours.
With the colombard, the Thai pomelo and crab meat salad was perfect. The sweetness of the crab meat was heightened by the wine, while the pomelo flavours echoed back and forth from the dish to the wine glass. As a comparison, we had the 2008 Grosset semillon-sauvignon blanc blend from South Australia with the same dish. By itself, this latter wine was the audience's favourite, but with the pomelo salad, most people preferred the Monsoon Valley colombard.
The other Thai wine was the 2009 Granmonte Asoke cabernet sauvignon and syrah blend, which was paired with a crisp pork belly with a spicy and slightly sour sauce. The Chinese five spice aromas in the wine and its soft, rounded tannins balanced the strong sauce and paired well with the crispy skin and succulent fatty meat. This is one of my favourite reds from Thailand. I enjoy its herbal, savoury flavours as well as its notes of Chinese dried red dates and spices.