Wine Dinner at Shin Yeh

We paired german wines with Taiwanese food last night. Epiphany Wines had a Hans Flach wine dinner at Shin Yeh and oh man, the food and wines were really excellent value. Kudos to Irene from Epiphany for a fantastic night out, been so long since we last met and she was looking hot, that babe.

We started off with a combination platter of Homemade Taiwan Sausage, Roasted Mullet Fish Roe with Cuttlefish, Golden Mushrooms in Mustard Sauce, paired with a Ravensburg Muller Thurgau Kabinett halbtrocken 2003. The second and third dish were the Braised Shark’s Fin soup and the Steamed Sliced Cod with Superior Soya Sauce, paired with a Ravensburg Silvaner Kabinett 2003.

I didn’t like the fish roe with cuttlefish combination, it was way too fishy. But the shark’s fin soup was really yummy (apologize to those with ethical issues here) and the cod was silky smooth - shiok. This was my first time coming across the Müller-Thurgau and Silvaner grapes, I felt a bit suaku. The muller-thurgau grape is apparently the second most widely planted grape in Germany, after the Riesling grape. Silvaner, is an old variety that once was the most important grape in Germany. Interesting, I liked how light the two wines were.

Next up were the “heavier” dishes. I loved the Crisp-fried Prawn Rolls with Yam Paste – crispy indeed and very fragrant and well-executed. The highlight of the meal was the 脆皮如歌, Crispy Roasted Pigeon. It was EXCELLENT. Not as good as the Shatin Pigeon in Hong Kong, but possibly the best I have had in Singapore. We had these two dishes with some red wines various friends had generously brought to share at dinner – some very nice pinots there, thank you.

The meal ended up with a hearty bowl of Taiwanese-style Beef Noodles, nothing like a hot bowl of beef broth to make me smile. “You have a very healthy appetite”, Paul commented, as I slurped the bowl clean. “Thank you” I replied, grinning widely.

For dessert, we had Sweetened Almond Jelly with Peach in Syrup. This was interesting, the almond jelly was textured and chewy! I rather liked this twist. We ended the meal with two Rieslings - Spatlese 2005 and Auslese 2004, and a Scheurebe Auslese 2005. Yum. Sweet/dessert wines can do no wrong.

The dinner was priced at $90++ per person but we had a big group so it was $80++ per person.

I was quite intrigued with the shape of the bottles the wines came in - it reminded me of the bottles of X.O. my dad used to have. A quick google showed up some bits of trivia – the bottle is called a Bocksbeutel and it’s commonly used for wines from Franconia in Germany. The bottle is deliberately flattened for practical purposes, for example, to keep the bottle from rolling away on uneven ground.

Problem: In my semi-intoxicated state last night, I believed I purchased a few bottles of silvaner from Irene. Erm, how does one store these bottles in the wine fridge? *scratch head*