One
of the places on my (long) list to visit is Hong Kong. Although small
and compact, there are more than 10,000 restaurants to choose from,
which means that if you ate out three times a day, it would take over
nine years to try them all out!
I love these soy sauce bottles
If
you haven't got nine years to spare and can't get to Hong Kong, I have
good news! As part of a six-week celebration of food and wine, the
Hong Kong Tourism Board has partnered with four of London's finest Chinese restaurants, offering special menus to honour the
Hong Kong Wine and Dine celebrations, plus special classes at the London cookery school
'School of Wok' (love that name) to recreate those traditional Chinese dishes at home - for however many years you want!
I
got the chance to try out the School of Wok last week, and it's well
worth a visit. Located close to Chinatown, the school hosts a variety of
classes and corporate events, covering many different Asian cuisines.
Not only do you prep and cook the food, you also get to eat the dishes
you create. Classes range from a 1 hour quick fire wok lesson to a 5 day
intensive course.
One of the work stations at the school, well equipped & clean
Founder & head chef, Jeremy Pang
The
young founder and head chef Jeremy Pang is like a breath of fresh air
to the London cookery school scene. Not only passionate about food, you
can tell he loves teaching and sharing his knowledge and skills. The
school also has other teaching chefs, each with their own signature
dishes and specialist cuisines including Chinese, Indian, Malaysian,
Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese.
Being shown how to fold a wonton
My wontons - nearly as good as Jeremy's! ;)
Finished wontons, deep fried
We
were shown how to fill and fold wontons, which were deep fried and
served with a sweet chilli sauce. Then we were given a wok
demonstration, before being let loose with our own stir-fried 'Hong Kong
Fried Noodles'. A smoking hot wok is the key here and plenty of wrist
action with the spatula.
Ingredients ready for cooking
Keeping everything moving in the smoking wok
Finished dish of noodles & vegetables
During the evening, we sampled some fresh and exciting wines from a new pop-up wine company called
A Grape Night In.
Our hosts Laura and Kiki explained how to pair wines with Asian spices
and encouraged us to try different wines with our food, rather than the
same old wines we are comfortable with.
Laura explaining the differences in the wines she had chosen
Trying the wines, which one did I prefer?
Riesling
from Australia (check out that funky label) & a Zweigelt from
Austria - both went down well with the noodle & rice dishes -
the red was my favourite
A sparkling light & zingy Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand to go with the wontons
Rice to go with the noodles
There are a few more photos of the evening on my Flickr set,
School of Wok, please take a look!
The school even has a few woks on hand to buy, plus other essential equipment
For other posts on this event:
Click here for further details on the Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival.
Click here for further details on the School of Wok.
Disclaimer: I was invited to this event but was not paid to attend or write this post, all views are my own.
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This content belongs to Nic at
Cherrapeno.
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