Sommelier: Can you drink wine with Chinese food?

by Mathew Sloane, Liverpool Daily Post

CHINESE food with wine - an issue that's been puzzling people with nothing better to do, like myself, for longer than the time it takes to buy a train ticket over the phone. Ages.

It's a lot to do with the vast array of ingredients, the occasional oiliness and, worst of all, the dreaded involvement of monosodium glutamate which can leave the old tongue feeling like it's been licking batteries for a month.

On most occasions, I would advise some fine Chinese beer with your chow mein. Tsing Tao is a crisp, clear winner with most Oriental tucker, but, if you find a decent restaurant, it's well worth experimenting with some vino.

We have a shedload of Chinese restaurants in the city centre, most of them in Chinatown, as it happens. In my opinion, two stand out from the rest, for different reasons.

I shouldn't even tell you the name of the first, it's difficult enough for me to get a table at two o'clock on a Sunday morning, but, for late-night dining, The North Garden, Nelson Street, is unbeatable. Order the braised halibut hot pot, some cold belly pork, a pot of Chinese tea and set yourself up for a nice snooze on the taxi ride home.

Anyway, to business, apparently this is a wine column.

My only recommendation for dining out with excellent Chinese food and superb wine is The Yuet Ben, Upper Duke Street (0151 709 5772). The venue serves fresh, quality produce, excellently and subtly prepared and top boy, Terry Lim, will be on hand to recommend some wines from his list to accompany his fantastic menu.

I recently attended one of Terry's infamous wine and food evenings. It was exactly a week ago and I'm still feeling the effects. I was sitting with the gang from 60 Hope Street and, as usual, it was loaded glasses at 40 paces and the last man standing was obviously cheating by drinking water in between courses.

Seriously, though, the food on the night was incredible and well matched with some excellent wines.

The second course, roasted chicken with spring onion and ginger, which was paired up with a Riesling from Western Australia, made by Plantagenet, was perfect. The slight peachiness of this very well-made Riesling slipped down gracefully alongside the cheeky, savoury bite of the chicken dish, a bit like going out with a posh gymnast who also drinks Guinness.

My other star of the evening was the gorgeous Omrah Pinot Noir, again from Western Australia, which I guzzled down with a plateload of old faithful - crispy duck pancakes, this was more like going out on a date with a pint of Guinness that suddenly does a mean turn on the pommel horse, different yet very entertaining. Terry does these wine nights once a month, usually for around thirty quid, give him a bell and find out about the next one.

Each night is hosted by a different wine merchant or producer, the last one was presented by Dougie Lowe, from Origin Wines, who plied us with ten storming bottles to accompany our five courses. It's an informal, unpretentious, fun evening, just don't make any serious plans for the morning after, trust me. Drink sensibly, folks.