 On a recent spring evening, a group of us carried six bottles of red wine for a stroll through Taichung's famous Zhonghua Night Market. In this night market's heyday 20 years ago, we would've been lost in the crowds, roaming out from the nearby movie theaters and clothing stores to visit vendors who stayed open from 5 p.m. until 4 a.m. the next morning. Yet, today, how many people can still recall those busy days at this traditional market?
The group of friends I joined set out on this new adventure with a unique goal: To seek out the best possible pairings between French wines and popular Taiwanese night market eats.
While crepes from a Paris street vendor might go well with cider from Normandy, we found that a traditional oyster omelet from a 40-year-old Taiwanese night market stand pairs exceptionally well with a fresh glass of Chablis, while the richly-flavored Tavel goes well with beef slices stir-fried with "shacha" sauce, served at by a vendor with 60 years of history on a corner at the ChengGong Road intersection. Our continued quest revealed that food from the Mwo Chi King and Huang-Ji's Goose Meat works very well with rose wines from Tavel, white wine from Cotes du Jura, and red wines from Bourgogne.
In short, as our enjoyable night market adventure showed, one may discover that wine pairing is also like the pairing of our fondest memories with our palates. People always say the grass is greener on the other side, and may think that it is a rule that wines must be paired with foreign cuisine. However, we may find that the moon of our hometown is just as round, as we gaze upwards from a big round table in the middle of Zhonghua Night Market.
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July 2015
