A food and wine pairing was organised at The Oberoi recently by the Food Lovers Club, with the audience comprising top chefs from across the city. The pairing was held as part of the food and wine festival that will be conducted in select restaurants from June 22 to July 8.
A host of restaurants such as Aloro, Medici, Olive Beach, Shoa, Fava areparticipating in the festival. Diners at these restaurants will have the option of ordering wine-paired signature dishes from a special menu. The restaurants will be judged by a select panel of judges and a citation and award handed out to the best performing restaurant. At the pairing, Nine Hills wines were paired with delicacies from across the planet.
We started with helpings of dishes such as tandoori anjeer and tandoori bhuni tarkari with the Viognier 2012 wines. The shrimp and chicken sumai, with a hint of dim sum sauce was the highlight of the first platter, offering varied tastes and ensuring that the taste of the wine remained on the palette. The best part of the meal was the excellent Australian pork belly, served with green peas and braised onions. Contrary to expectations, the soft galuti kabab with ultay tawa ka paratha makes for a delightful combination with the wines on offer.
One of the speakers and editor of Food Lovers Magazine, Kripal Ammanna, contends, “We want to promote a wine culture in India. Though consumption of wine has increased in India, our per capita consumption of wine is much lower than smaller countries such as Haiti and Sri Lanka. We aim to correct this situation by hosting such events on a large scale.” He adds, “The large number of Indian dishes used in the tasting is an attempt to dispel the myth that wines do not go well with Indian food.”
