It has been a wonderful month of wines for the Dining Out team with wine dinners at the Dusit Thani, the Dicey Reilly’s Pub at the Marriott and the Sheraton Pattaya plus another at Don Joe’s in Walking Street. I have reported on the Dusit Thani and Dicey Reilly’s so this is the Sheraton’s report card and Don Joe in a week or two!
The Peter Lehmann/Sheraton evening began in the Latitude room, which is on beach level, with the reception wine being a Peter Lehmann Weighbridge Unoaked Chardonnay 2009. A pleasant and refreshing wine which loosened the tongues, sharpened the palates and allowed the diners to meet the Peter Lehmann Export Manager Howard Duncan.
(L to R) Ross Edward Marks (vice president of Central Food Retail Co., Ltd.), Howard Ducan (export manager Canada, Asia, & Middle East for Peter Lehmann Wines Limited), Michael Delargy (general manager of Sheraton Pattaya Resort) and Caryn Delargy.
It offered a chance to speak with Chef Spencer Kells before he popped back to the kitchens to oversee the six course dinner he had planned.
Also on hand was Michael Delargy, the Sheraton GM, and his charming wife Caryn, ensuring that everyone was made welcome.
Spencer Kells, director of Kitchen & F&B Sheraton Pattaya Resort.
The reception was held in the Latitude room and a great place to watch the sun go down. The reception wine was the Peter Lehmann Weighbridge label un-oaked Chardonnay 2009 to go with chef’s canapés. With around 60 diners it was hard for Howard Duncan to get round everyone who had come to experience the Peter Lehmann wines, which by the way included the ex-president of the Royal Cliff Wine Club Ranjith Chandrasiri, now headed back to Sri Lanka, his birthplace and also that of his vivacious wife Chitra.
The dinner itself was held in the Papaya room and the reception wine continued for the first course of a scallop tartare, white chocolate foam and crustacean oil. A very different mélange of flavors for the first course. Howard also addressed the diners and he is a typical laid back Aussie, gregarious and good natured but the affable exterior hides the encyclopedic experience of 25 years in the wine business, with his home being in the village of Tanunda in the famous Barossa region of South Australia and two minutes from his office at the Peter Lehmann winery. Howard spoke on the depth of winemaking in the Barossa Valley, established since 1840, and Peter Lehmann Wines have twice been voted International Winemaker of the Year and three times Australian Winemaker of the year. Peter Lehmann has a good CV.
Main course: Australian short ribs ‘Bourguinon’.
The second course was a Tasmanian salmon confit with a fresh orange, fennel and coriander salad, accompanied by a Peter Lehmann Clancy’s Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2009. The salmon some diners did not like, done as a confit, but I did, and the Semillon Sauvignon Blanc was most enjoyable too.
Third course was a foie gras stuffed quail, taken with the Weighbridge Cabernet Merlot. I found the wine was very heavy on the tannins and the quail got rather lost somehow, but hats off to chef Spencer for experimenting with this.
The main course was Australian short ribs ‘Bourguinon’ about which Howard Duncan said he could have cut it with a butter knife, and he was quite correct. Superb! The red wine with this was a Clancy’s Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2008. A good drop and went well with the Australian beef.
The third course is a foie gras stuffed quail.
Chef Spencer then treated us to a cheese platter with Gorgonzola, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Camembert taken with the Peter Lehmann Stonewall Shiraz 2006. The Shiraz tried hard, but how do you beat a Gorgonzola? You don’t, and revert to enjoying the cheeses on their own, and drink the wine afterwards, and there’s nothing in the rule book to say you can’t do that!
Chef Spencer’s ‘Grand Finale’ was a lemon and basil parfait with strawberry sorbet, strawberry jelly and meringue tears. Several thousand calories and taken with Peter Lehmann’s Botrytis Semillon 2009. A ‘jolly’ finale indeed.
It was interesting looking back on the previous wine dinners this month. The Dusit Thani was a wine dinner in the ‘grand manner’, Dicey Reilly’s was a very laid back event, complete with a wine quiz in the middle, and the Sheraton was somewhere in between. Not too formal, but very varied in the dishes and so enjoyable that it ran overtime and none of the diners was complaining about the time.
Well done Chef Spencer, GM Michael and hello and goodbye Howard Duncan and Peter Lehmann wines.
(L to R) Ranjith Chandrasiri, Pim Smeaton, Suphaporn, Pui Phillps, and Som Corness; (back row) Jim Smeaton, and Jim Phillps.
A toast to a great night with great friends!
