Li Wenjun smiled and said nothing.
Tao Guangming coughed dryly and lowered his voice and said, "Teach me how to taste this. Rushi likes these foreign things, but I know nothing about them. I have eaten Western food many times before and drank many kinds of wine, but I always ate ginseng with Zhu Bajie. It's the same as before, just eat it, what does it taste like? Forgot... Besides, most of the people who eat with me are more earthly than me, so how can I care about this? "
Li Wenjun was amused by him and said: "Actually, it's nothing. Just drink each one and compare it with each other and you will know."
Tao Guangming said: "The key is now that it's too late to taste everything. When Ji Rushi comes, we have to study the combination of wine and food. I only know that Maotai goes with braised pork, and everything else is blind. I really I have nowhere to turn for help, so please teach me quickly. Anyway, I know that even if you don’t understand everything, you can definitely tell a few things.”
Only then did Li Wenjun understand the reason why Tao Guangming was pestering him and insisting on bringing him to the hotel.
Isn't this the same as cramming before an exam, when a bad student seeks tutoring from a top student?
He motioned to the waiter to open both bottles of wine.
When the waiter was about to pour the wine directly into the cup, Li Wenjun said quickly: "Don't pour it directly into the cup. Please go and get me a big glass jug."
Waiter: "Do you want herbal tea? We don't have it here."
Li Wenjun said helplessly: "There is no glass pot. Are there other porcelain or glass utensils? I want something with a slightly larger mouth."
Waiter: "Can I have a big bowl of soup and noodles?"
Li Wenjun sighed: "There is nothing else, so I can only use that one."
The waiter didn't know what he was going to do, so he had to go to the kitchen to get it. After a while, he brought a big bowl and put it on the table.
Li Wenjun couldn't laugh or cry: This was his first time using a large porcelain sea bowl to sober up.
Li Wenjun smiled at the waiter: "Okay, we can do it ourselves."
There were other customers in the restaurant who laughed softly when they saw this.
"Nowadays, some young comrades really blindly worship foreign things. They think that they understand everything after eating Western food."
"Yes, he also said that he wanted to talk about wine and food pairing. Let's see how he talks nonsense."
“When it comes to wine tasting, in the end it’s not all about drinking wine.”
Tao Guangming originally planned to whisper to the two of them, but now he met the people next to him and said something about it. He said to Li Wenjun angrily: "Don't be a coward, just say it."
Li Wenjun knew what Tao Guangming meant. He didn't want to show off, but he didn't want to act cowardly and make others look down on him.
He poured red wine into the big bowl, and then poured a glass of white wine for Tao Guangming and himself.
He motioned Tao Guangming to take a sip, and he took a small sip himself, and then said slowly: "Generally speaking, white wine does not need to be decanted. Unless the temperature is low, the aroma cannot come out, or there is an unpleasant taste, you must decant first. Put it away." He thought about it, and there was no need to teach Tao Guangming about the order in which Western food should be served. Anyway, these hotels and restaurants would take care of it, so he could just eat it. So, just teach Tao Guangming how to eat.
Tao Guangming said this: "It's sour and sweet, but it doesn't taste like alcohol. What's the point? Why drink this first instead of the red one?"
Li Wenjun said lightly: "The simplest way is to match the region. The wine produced wherever it is produced should be matched with the special food there. Of course, this method is not always perfect. For example, the Drop Gold we drank is produced by a famous winery in Bordeaux, France. The sweet white wine produced with botrytis has an excellent balance between sweetness and acidity, and is sweet but not greasy in taste and rich in flavor. Generally speaking, sweetness goes with saltyness, and this kind of sweet wine goes well with plump and salty foie gras.”
While we were talking, the waiter had already brought the foie gras to us.
Li Wenjun didn't know whether to laugh or cry: The food is served here in a haphazard manner. What is served is what is prepared. Shouldn't the snails as an appetizer be served first, then the soup, and then the foie gras as a side dish?
Just looking at the steaming hot foie gras with jumping oil beads, he suddenly felt that it didn't matter. It’s served as it is served, and it’s the same food anyway.
Although the Western food in the city hotel tastes a little dull compared to before, the environment for producing the ingredients is much better than before, so the ingredients are more delicious and the dishes made taste better.
The most luxurious ingredients often require the simplest cooking.
The foie gras is only slightly fried before being served and put into the mouth. The tender tofu-like foie gras melts in the mouth with its unique aroma, and there is no extra taste except saltiness.
Then take another sip of the sweet wine, and the fishy smell and greasy taste from the oil disappear instantly, leaving only a smooth and tender feeling.
Tao Guangming imitated Li Wenjun's example and cut a piece of foie gras and savored it carefully. He took another sip of wine and nodded repeatedly: "That's right, don't tell me yet. Listen to what you said. It feels really different when I eat it again. It’s fragrant, smooth and tender, with no fishy smell like other foie gras.”
Li Wenjun added: "Then, acidity is paired with oil. This is the same as the Chinese way of eating. Acidic red wine goes with fried steak, cheese-baked snails and other high-oil, high-fat and high-protein foods. It will not be so greasy. Or You remember that red wine goes with red meat. This one is red, so it goes with steak. The wine just now is white, so it goes with white foie gras, fish, chicken, these white meats."
Tao Guangming: "It's easy to remember. I think it's quite troublesome for foreigners. They have to change tableware so many times to eat. It's better for us Chinese, chopsticks and spoons solve everything."
Li Wenjun laughed: "Isn't it? The knife and fork for eating salad and main course are not the same, which is quite troublesome."
Sitting like this with Tao Guangming, eating Western food and drinking wine, looking out and seeing only the lush park and blue sky and white clouds, not the low buildings and narrow streets, Li Wenjun had an illusion : He was not reborn. He was just gathering with friends in a restaurant to talk about business and life, as he had done many times over the years.
Sometimes life is like a cycle, and when you reach the end, you realize that this is just the place where you started countless times.
Seeing that Tao Guangming was almost done with his foie gras, he was almost done with the red wine.
However, Li Wenjun found that he could not pour the wine from the big bowl into the red wine glass, so he could only scoop it out with a porcelain spoon.
The waiter brought the steak again. When he saw Li Wenjun ladling the red wine from the bowl into the glass like soup, he couldn't help laughing. Then he walked aside and whispered to the other waiters: "Look, Look at that country bumpkin drinking red wine like this. He must be drinking juice here. I also asked him why he asked me for the sea bowl. It turned out that he wanted to drink it with a spoon. If I had known I would not have to go to such trouble to give him a larger spoon. .”
Tao Guangming felt harsh and impatient when he heard it, so he raised his head and glanced over there.
The waiter quickly shut up and turned his head.
