You only live once

Lionel: okay, some people who read this might cringe that this is happened inspite of the current economic and austarity trend. But I say you only live once and my motto in life has always been "Carpe Diem" Latin for "Sieze the day".

Okay, I know they didn't have this in mind when they coined the term but we definitely lived up to the spirit. Let me start at the beginning;

Almost two years ago, a small group of wine and food lovers gathered for a dinner with each bringing a bottle wine each to pair with the food. It then became a monthly affair which I am proud to say has allowed us to drink some pretty amazing wines!

Now although each dinner is different and generally simple but good food. Occasionally, we sort of throw the whole hog in if you get what I mean. So to the dinner in mention, we had decided to have a barbeque but this wasn't your simple sausages and chicken wings stuff. We had managed to get our hands on an amazing slab prime grade A5 Kobe beef, fyi this is suppose to be the best grade of Kobe(55% polyunsaturated fat) at a price lets just say was the average salary of sales manager.

This was just the most amazing piece of beef to put in one's mouth and the wines we served was pretty good too! But I must admit, at the end of the evening, we all agreed that the best beverage with the meat was actually a beer! Mind you, this wasn't your average beer but a RM20 beer from a boutique brewer in western Australia called Little Creatures pale ale.

You have to try this beer if you don't like the taste of beer! It will change your mind, I gurantee it! Find it at a shop name Bottles & Bottles in The Gardens, Mid Valley.

There were 2 wines in particular that does deserve special mention, a wonderful Cornas and the Stags Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23 1995. Cornas is from the Northern Rhone, primarily made from Syrah and it is just an amazing expression of the grape that just cannot be replicated anywhere else. Stags Leap Cask 23 is the legendary wine that came out tops at the Judgement of Paris tasting. I know some people can't get their head around Californian wines, trust me you have to try some of these and not the new over extracted juggernauts they call cult garage wines. Because these wonderful single vineyard wines are amazingly Bordeaux like, imagine a Bordeaux in a warm ripe year, elegant but without the somewhat harsh greeness. Wonderful!