Saturday, December 11, 2010

Amazing Multi-Course Dinner at Matt & Cheryl's House - w/German Riesling & an Italian mystery red

About a month ago, Johan and I accepted an invitation to a dinner in the home of Matt and Cheryl.

We met Matt and Cheryl just recently, when they invited us to their wine tasting group, where we tasted Bordeaux wines and Bordeaux-style wines from the new world. It was an interesting wine tasting group - all wines were tasted blind, but with food - food that was constantly pouring out of Matt's kitchen - exotic foods like veal meatballs, gravlax, roasted bone marrow, and various other rich meaty dishes that went so well with the wines... the food coming out of the kitchen was amazing and endless, it seemed, and Matt was chef orchestrating these delights.

Naturally, there was not so much spitting of wines being tasted, when tender morsels of inspired food were being eaten with the sips.

After this wine tasting, where we became acquainted with many members of this wine tasting group, we got a nice invitation to a private dinner, and so we went.

Little did we know it would be a multi-multi-multi course dinner that was utterly amazing! I didn't even get to take pictures of every course being served - there were so many - and the creativity of the dishes was beyond compare! Starting with a delicious chicken liver spread on crostini, then going to rice/bacon/egg/preserved vegetable dish that was intensely savory, then to two pasta dishes...


The above is just one of two pasta dishes serves - delicious thick homemade noodles in a rich meat sauce - might have been veal if I recall. The other pasta dish, which I didn't catch a picture of was the ear-shaped pasta with sausage and broccoli-rabe.

Above here is the pork shoulder roast with a cherry sauce, and a side of curried cabbage.

Below is a homemade custard with a fruit paste that I believe was passionfruit.

Not just one dessert but two - below is the chocolate covered pop-corn on a spicy homemade ice cream.


As someone who occasional hosts a dinner party - I am stressed to served an appetizer, a main, and a purchased dessert. Sometimes others will bring an appetizer, so I'll only be responsible for the main, with a starch and a vegetable. Sometimes I'll screw that up. But nevermind, I'm pretty okay with the main dish and I tend to serve decent wines, so I get away with it. But 8 course dinners? How does Matt pull it off? I just don't know how he does it!
For this dinner, we had 3 wines. Two are pictured above - we started with the 2001 Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Kabinett which was delicate and pretty and a great wine to start with and pair with many of the dishes. Then we moved on to a surprise red wine from Italy - I did not guess it was from Italy by the way - a 2004 Bressan - I'm totally not familiar with this wine, but I enjoyed its earthy goodness. Finally we ended with a 2008 Schloss Lieser Niederberg Helden Riesling Auslese, which was quite sweet, rich, balanced and enjoyable.
All in all, an amazing meal - and by amazing, I mean I could not have pulled it off myself, and don't know how Matt does it - but I imagine he can do it because he practises and cooks for others and enjoys it all. It certainly is inspiring to someone like myself, who struggles to put out one or two courses for guests!
I'll have to strive higher.

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