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Saturday, March 23, 2013
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Wine Match with Mark Anstead
25
food & drink
Travelling Globe for a taste of the Orient
Every week the founder of Cambridgeshire Wine School seeks out the best wines to go with Living’s recipes. I’VE never watched Choccywoccydoodah, but as a TV show it sounds fairly horrendous. Adding a celebrity ‘wow’ factor feels like returning to the previous decade – wouldn’t it be more interesting to watch wonderful chocolate cakes being made for ordinary people with deserving personal stories? But hey, what do I know? I’m just the wine guy. Which brings me to talking about chocolate and wine. Despite what you may have read about matching chocolate with red wines like Shiraz, most chocolate desserts are too sweet. Make sure your wine is sweeter than the dessert you are eating with it or you may wonder why the fruitiness seems to have disappeared. All the recipes on the opposite page would go very well with Elysium Black Muscat, a red Californian dessert wine made by Andrew Quady. Elysium is Greek for ‘heaven’ and this luscious wine is packed full of rich raspberry compote flavours and honeyed plums. Add this to a mouthful of any chocolate and the combination of flavours will remind you of black forest gateau. You can pick it up for £9.99 for a half bottle from either Noel Young Wines or Majestic – perfect for an Easter treat. I Wine Tastings and Courses from £22.50: www.CambridgeshireWineSch ool.com
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eating out ELLA WALKER ventures out of her comfort zone to explore the new Chinese kid on the block – Victor Chan Oriental Cuisine, St Neots
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HE sad fact is, the only phone number I know off by heart, other than my own, is our local Chinese takeaway’s. It’s also embarrassing to note that they know our order off by heart too, so if we decide to skip beef chow mein for once, they get all concerned.
No other takeaway lives up to it, and I don’t like change, so heading to St Neots’ newest Oriental offering, Victor Chan’s, was a bit of a gamble. It’s on the edge of town in what was the old Globe pub, and had stood empty and crumbling for too long. The last time I visited was for my sixth form leavers’ do when we got drunk and played pool with our teachers. Those were the days . . . Now it is much smarter, and still has that freshly painted newness to it. In fact, it doesn’t really look or feel like your classic Chinese restaurant at all, namely down to there being no fish tanks or Geisha motifs on the wall. Out for an early Mother’s Day meal with my mum and sisters, we were led to a table in the corner (where the dart board used to be), and I was absolutely starving. I was so hungry my hands were shaking and my vision was slightly dizzy, meaning that when the mixed starter arrived (£13.80 for two), I lost it. Scrabbling for dinky spring rolls, accidentally tipping seaweed all over the table, fighting for the end of a honeydrizzled spare rib and ripping off pieces of chicken to swirl in the satay sauce. Luckily my sisters have given up bread for Lent, so the prawn toast was all mine. When it came to the aromatic crispy duck (£8.90), my lack of table manners really came to the fore – I’m not a nice person when I’m hungry. Neatly shredded at the table for us, it was incredible, and in my opinion the best Chinese dish there is. Papery thin pancakes, rich hoisin sauce, slivers of cucumber (does anyone ever eat the spring onion?), and meaty, frazzled chunks of duck. I managed to spill quite a lot of this on the table too – thank goodness I believe in the 10 second rule. For the main we ordered bowls of more chicken satay (we are a family of peanut butter fiends), deep fried shredded chilli beef and sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong style (all £6.80). The satay chicken was ridiculously tender, the beef was crisp with a hint of spice and the sweet and sour wasn’t the disappointingly gloopy mess you often get served.
taste test Victor Chan Oriental Cuisine, 77 Huntingdon Street, St Neots, Cambridgeshire, PE19 1DU Telephone: (01480) 218000 (takeaway: (01480) 216 300) Website: www.victorchan.co.uk Restaurant opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday: 5pm – 10.30pm Open on bank holidays Cost: Dinner for four, including drinks, came to £68 Food: $$$$ Service: $$$$ Atmosphere: $$$$ Value: $$$$$ SMART MOVE: The once crumbling Globe pub has been transformed into new restaurant, Victor Chan Oriental Cuisine Pictures: David Johnson 900013/14/16/
Despite usually opting for egg fried rice, we decided to be adventurous and chose Singapore style (£4.50). It was a good move, but even topped up with prawns and snippets of veg, it was still a nightmare to eat with chopsticks. Unlike the beef chow mein (£6.50) which was easy to twirl into your mouth. To placate my mum, we also ordered the fried mixed vegetables (£4.80). It didn’t come with broccoli as she’d hoped, but the slices of water chestnut, mushroom and onion were perfectly cooked in a garlicky sauce. We were too full for dessert (and £3 for two scoops of ice cream did seem a little overpriced) and sadly there were no free prawn crackers for spending over a tenner, or a Chinese New Year calendar to take home (and stick in the recycling). But happily, monosodium glutamate was completely absent, so sometimes change is good. My only request would be: please bring back fortune cookies.