An evening at the School of Wok

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:

Rosana - Hot and Chilli

Jeanne - Cook Sister
Maitha - Peony and Blue

Other bloggers at the event:

Danny - Food Urchin

Rejina - Gastrogeek

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.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This content belongs to Nic at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2013 unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.