Wine Tour in Mendoza

There are hundreds of reasons to visit Argentina, the scenery, the meat, the music and the tango to name but a few. One of the main draws for us was the famously excellent wine, particularly the Malbec. We drink a lot of Malbec at home (how else are you supposed to get through an English winter?) and were looking forward to trying some in its home country.

So, we made a beeline for Mendoza, a city on the eastern side of the Andes, where the main industries are olive oil production and wine making, so predictably, the people enjoy the finer things in life. The city itself is pretty and vibrant, with fabulous restaurants and chic wine bars. There are numerous fountains that spurt red water to look like wine, and pavement cafes line the streets. The surrounding area is the largest wine producing region in Latin America, and it was here that we went on a wine tour.

We organised the tour through Trout and Wine, a brilliantly named and professional company. We were in a group with just one other couple and a friendly and knowledgable guide. We travelled towards the Uco valley and made our first stop just outside it, at Pulenta. It is a small winery with a 135 hectare vineyard. We were shown around whilst enjoying a glass of La Flor Sauvignon Blanc, which was crisp and grassy and thankfully available in the UK. The winery is beautiful, very stark and minimalist. In the  tasting room, we passed round glasses of coffee, grass, vanilla, rose petals and more, which we had to blindly smell and guess the contents. We were good at this game. We were less good at picking out the individual aromas in the La Flor Malbec, Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and Gran Reserve Cabernet Franc, but we were good at drinking them. They were all delicious, especially the Cabernet Franc which is a new grape for us. We've had it a lot in combination with other grapes at home, but never 100% as this one was. 

Next we went to La Azul, a tiny family-run winery with three different lines of wines.The production is all done in one room, as is the tasting. We tried glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and lastly were given a taste of 100% Malbec straight from the barrel. This wine will not be bottled until 2015. All the wines were delicious but the last Malbec was our favourite. 

By now we were feeling a little giddy and a lot hungry. Our last destination was Salentein, an enormous winery with a concert area in the middle where the audience sit against barrels. We ate a fantastic lunch at their restaurant. To start was a mozzarella and tomato salad followed by empanadas (Argentinian Cornish pasties). A huge, beautifully cooked piece of bife de chorizo was next, served with hand-cut chips and mushrooms. For dessert there was a Malbec muffin which was warm and fluffy, with white chocolate and berry ice-cream. It was all delicious and perfectly matched with Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Malbec. Our memories of these wines are a little hazier, but we definitely enjoyed them all!

Good food, good wine and spectacular views of the foothills of the Andes. A great day. How could it not be?


Kate

Fish Head Curry in Singapore's Little India

We had heard good things about the fish head curry before we arrived in Singapore, so we made it our mission to seek it out. We were staying in Little India so it wasn't too hard to find, most of the bigger restaurant offered a version, so we opted for the restaurant who apparently pioneered the dish, the Banana Leaf Apolo.

The dish is of South Indian inspiration, and bears a close resembelance to Kerelan currys but with an classicaly Singaporean twist. As with many of the dishes of the Malay peninsula this dish is a product of the fusion of different ethnic groups brought together by the massive trading hub of the east British Empire. Here a classic south indian dish is altered to appeal to the Chinese, who view the fish head as a delicacy.




The Banana Leaf Apolo has a very authentic Indian resturant atmosphere, in that although nicely decorated it still can't quite shake off the canteen feel. Meals were served in large bowl with a strip of banan leaf as a plate. As with all the places we ate in Little India the lassis were fantastic, and a good substitue for the exorbrantly priced alcohol.

The first thing that hit us when the dish arrived was the fantasticly rich curry smell, the second was the sheer size of the dish. A huge bowl  contained a single red snapper head bathed in a rich curry sauce, and this was a 'medium' portion. The snapper must have been a monster in life as it was one of the biggest heads I have ever seen. Around the neck and cheeks there was plenty of tender flesh to be had, and the rich and well spiced sauce was one of the best I have tasted. Having grown up in Birmingham and made several trips to India, this is a huge commendation.


Predictably with Asian cooking we couldn't finish our medium serving between two. We probably ate far too much as it was so tasty. Without a doubt it was one of the meals we wil remember most of our trip.


Tom

Roti Canai

Malaysian cuisine has influences from China, India, Indonesia and Europe, making it one of the most varied cuisines that we have come across. My favourite dish that we discovered is Roti Canai, which is traditionally eaten for breakfast or as a snack.

It consists of a round Indian flat bread, less dense than naan and fluffier than chapati, served alongside a small portion of curry or more frequently sambal. The bread is made by spinning dough into a thin sheet, and then folding it over in itself before lightly frying it. This method gives lots of little pockets of air to the bread, making it light and fluffy. You eat it by tearing bits off and dipping it into the sambal. It's a perfect size meal for breakfast, and completely delicious.

Kate

Brunch at Bill's Sydney

Brunch is one of the 'must do' things when visiting Sydney, and we chose to have ours at one of the three Bill's restaurants.

After inevitably drinking too much Australian wine the night before, we had a leisurely brunch at around 11am. The restaurant itself is bright and airy, with piles of fresh fruit lining the shelves and tables both inside and out. The menu is varied, with traditional brunch options alongside more unusual dishes. There is a long drinks list of coffees, teas, and Bloody Mary, Bucks Fizz and champagne if you really can't shake off your hangover.

I chose ricotta hotcakes with banana and maple syrup. The two hotcakes were huge, deep and fluffy, with large chunks of banana scattered over the top. I was given a little jug of syrup to pour over. They were light, delicious and very very moorish.

Tom had crab and chorizo fried rice with kimchi. This dish is a western variation on the classic South-East Asian breakfast and the flavours worked beautifully. 

The coffee (flat white and Americano) was of course delicious, and both dishes were beautifully presented. It is easy to see why Bill's has become a Sydney institution.

Kate

The Last Pisco Sour

Our last stop in South America was Santiago, and we had done so much coming and going from this lovely city that it was starting to feel like home. The day we left Santiago for Sydney was a bank holiday, and our plans for stockpiling Pisco were thwarted by closed duty free shops at the airport. The bars were open thank goodness, and it seemed appropriate that our final drinks in South America should be Pisco Sours, in the
aptly named bar, 'The Last Pisco Sour.'

Chorrillana

Chilean food isn't great. Aside from the excellent sea food (which you'd expect with one of the largest coastlines in the world) Chilean food mainly consists of meat unimaginatively paired with some kind of carbohydrate, usually bread, corn or potato. Even the Chileans tacitly acknowledge that Peruvian cuisine is better by the plethora of Peruvian restaurants that line the streets of Santiago.

The mixture of meat and stodge does come into its own when it comes to drinking and hangover food. The king in this genre is undoubtedly the Valparaiso specialty of chorrillana. Chorrillana is essentially a plate of chips (or fries if we have any North American readers) with a huge pile of fried steak, chorizo sausage, onions and egg dumped on top. This is not finesse food. It is however bloody amazing.

It's usually shared between at least two,  and as far as I can see it is always accompanied by a beer (one area that Chile does have Peru beaten hands down). Our first chorrillana we ate fittingly in Valparaiso. Having not seen one before we weren't sure what to expect.  Should we have ordered two? When it arrived all fears of leaving hungry were put firmly to bed. We had another one in Santiago on our second to last night in South America.

The picture below doesn't make it look very appealing. It was taken in poor light on a compact, but even with the best light in the world it's still just going to look like a pile of grease. The taste however more than makes up for its looks.

Tom

Caipirinhas

Caipirinhas, not routinely found on the menus of British cocktail bars, are the national drink of Brazil. They are found everywhere from classy cocktail bars to beachside huts with plastic chairs, and can cost anything from £2 to £20 accordingly. They are made by muddling chopped lime with cachaca (a sprit distilled from sugarcane) and shaking the mixture over a glassful of crushed ice.

We mostly drank caipirinhas in plastic cups from beach huts or street stalls in Lapa, where you got a lot of cachaca for your money, but we did have the occasional posher one, notably in Garota de Ipanema in Rio and Veloso bar in Sao Paulo. My parents even found a restaurant in Rio where they came with a lime ice lolly in the glass, but they frequented classier establishments than we did. 

They are extremely refreshing, very moorish and dangerously drinkable. The bittersweet taste masks the burn of the alcohol, and if you aren't careful things can get messy.....

Kate