Back to school for wine enthusiasts

The School of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Management at Sunway University College organised an excellent Food and Wine Pairing Workshop recently. The four hour workshop was followed by a dinner at its fine dining training restaurant, so participants could see their food and wine pairing theories learnt earlier, being put into practice. The workshop was open to the public and attracted approximately 30 participants who were a mix of students, Sunway staff and secondary school counselors and teachers.

Participants getting a taste of the workshop

F&B Coordinator, Daniel Chong of the School gave an enlightening presentation that included fascinating facts about wines as well as explaining the theory behind food and wine pairing. The workshop offered a tasting of 6 different wines of different grape varieties and from different parts of the world, old world as well as new.

Chong said “I hope this workshop will enable participants to use the right jargon when talking about wines so that they can impress others and also know how to select the right wine to go with a meal”. He added “The wines were specially purchased by our School and not sponsored which is very important so that participants can learn about wines from a totally neutral position”. The spectacular 6 course dinner had dishes that utilized Asian spices and Asian herbs so that the participants could see the how wines can be paired with spicy dishes. The dinner which featured pigeon with Szechuan pepper, Alaskan crab soup, cod fish with “daun kaduk” and lamb curry were beautifully accompanied by wines selected by Chong who has an Advanced Level Wine Trainer Certificate from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), U.K.

Dimitriy Sinkov from the Ukraine, a second year International Hospitality Management Degree student at Sunway, who was at the workshop shared, ”The workshop was fantastic and definitely interesting and it was a good experience for me”. His classmate Arjun Dev Chadha from India enthused, “I found the workshop really educational and it taught us about stuff we did not know about”.

The students of the School of Hospitality decorated the black and white restaurant in the theme of “Vintage Christmas”. Some students provided entertainment in the form of live music and solo singing. Degree students were involved in organising the workshop and dinner. Head Chef, Patrick Siau, supervised the students’ well-executed preparation and production of the dinner.