Winos and Foodies,
Last night I joined fellow Berserker Jay Shampur and his good friends George and his wife Maphinder at Susur Lee’s Luckee for dinner. As with the last 2 times I was there, the food was excellent. These guys literally don’t make a single bad dish on the entire menu. I was so confident, in fact, that I told the others that I did not need to make a choice off of the menu and would eat whatever they wanted to.
We started with the famous 11 ingredient Chilled Soba Noodle Salad which is served on a dry ice platter and dressed and tossed at the table with a delicious sesame hoisin vinaigrette.
We followed this with the Peking Duck and Chinese pancakes which were served on the side with cucumber, watercress, green apple, duck sauce and a sweet Asian fusion chutney.
Our last dish was the spicy Kung Pao Shrimp where we were warned not to eat the chili peppers unless we were tired of living and that they were there only for aromatics. Personally I think that’s a waste and had a tiny bit of chili with my shrimp.
For dessert, we had the mango passion fruit topped almond pudding and the lemon curd tart split 4 ways. Very good choices to end with two tart desserts as the acidity cleansed out our palates of the rich duck and shrimp.
And of course the wines.
CHATEAU DE BLIGNY NV Brut Rosé – A fine and very refreshing Rosé champagne. Forgot to take a photo, so only a stock photo for the likes of you.
Lovely light salmon pink color in the glass. Nose of strawberries and fresh roses. In the mouth, light-bodied with a fine but not overly foamy mousse and very pleasant and refreshing flavors of strawberries and rosewater with some biscuity lees on the finish but not too much. This was an excellent match for the food and, surprisingly, I actually preferred this over the Pinot Gris! 
RECOMMENDED Yep, my palate has definitely changed thanks to Jay and Michael.
HUGEL 2008 Jubilee Pinot Gris – Rich but not dark gold in the glass, lovely nose of ripe honeydew melon with a touch of smoke. In the mouth, ripe honeydew and crenshaw melon flavors that are sweet but not overly sugar combine with a lighter body and higher acidity than you would normally get in a Pinot Gris. It all then ends with a very long smoky finish to remind you this is Alsacian Pinot Gris.
This is holding up amazingly well for an 8 year old white wine. Interestingly, this was very dry and not as sweet as the Rolly Gassman, Rieflé, Bott-Geyl, and Zind-Humbrechts that I like so much but I actually quite enjoyed that. It was actually quite refreshing for a Pinot Gris. It went very well with the food and was only beaten out by the champagne due to its lack of acidity. RECOMMENDED
DOMAINE PFISTER 2007 Selection de Grains Nobles Riesling – Our waiter with whom we shared this thought this was a Riesling late harvest and he was not wrong in making that assumption. Eerily similar to the Cave Spring Cellars 2013 Riesling icewine I posted about recently.
Great note on the petrol nose from Jay’s friend George: “This smells like new electronics or a new car.” Light gold in the glass in stark contrast to the very orange-colored René Muré Clos. St. Landelin bottle I opened previously when Boston-based Angelo came to town.
Not a whiff of botrytis glycerin on the palate. Instead, this was all lemon cream pie with a racy acidity and a very refreshing light body. This was more akin to a VT or a North American late harvest than it was an actual SGN. The René Muré was more along the lines of what I was expecting out of an SGN but this is still very good. RECOMMENDED
And lastly, bonus dessert porn:
