Qui Cuisine & Mixology continues on its merry way with its elegant food and wine pairing dinners at its Le Thanh Ton location in Saigon’s District 1.
This time the popular inner city restaurant and bar welcomed newcomer to Vietnam’s F&B scene Australian beef producer and distributor, Stockyard, with its premium wagyu wine pairing dinner (VND1.9 million per head).
Stockyard focuses on the production of high quality Angus and wagyu beef, including their Stockyard Long Fed Angus Gold (grain-fed for min. 200 days) and Stockyard Wagyu (grain-fed for min. 400 days).
On this occasion, the menu was paired with Concha Y Toro wines by acclaimed Chilean winemaker Marques de Casa Concha.
Qui executive chef Mark Molnar and his team as usual put together an intriguing four-course menu with dessert (Valrhona chocolate fondant with passion toffee sauce) that included a Kiwami* wagyu tenderloin MB9* carpaccio with nori dressing and miso flakes.
Miso almost exclusively comes as a soup at most restaurants, however, Molnar’s decision to solidify it and serve as light and crispy wafers was an enjoyable surprise which kept the dish “on-topic” with the Japanese meat theme of the evening.
The carpaccio was paired with the Concha Y Toro chardonnay, a drop worthy of its high reviews in many of the world’s leading wine guides.
Next up was another playful approach to combining the produce on show and the environment in which we found ourselves.
This time it was a pho flavoured broth with Kiwami wagyu striploin MB9 eaten shabu shabu style, where the raw strips of meat are given a gentle bathe in the pho broth before eating.
The pho shabu shabu was paired with perhaps the tipple of the evening, the Concha Y Toro pinot noir with all the hallmarks of why I adore this variety – medium body, fruity but not overly sweet or dry.
I believe it retails somewhere between VND600,000 – VND750,000 depending on the venue. It’s worth dropping some of your hard-earned on for a try.
Our gentle, but enjoyable, introduction to Stockyard’s produce ramped up a few notches with the third dish – a slow-roasted, 200-day grain-fed Tomahawk with condiments.
I hazard a guess that this was why we had all traded in a night of Netflix on a Monday.
It got us sitting upright in our saddles and planting our feet firmly on the floorboards beneath us for a firmer grip on those chunks of meat with our utensils.
At least, that’s what I sensed from the young chap next to me who hailed from Omaha, where they eat steak, with their steak, for breakfast.
More than a few times I copped some friendly fire in the form of an elbow to the ribs (mine) such was his gusto.
The Concha Y Toro carmenere, deep red in colour and quite full-bodied seemed like the obvious partner for our ‘hawk, although I could’ve quite easily settled in for the evening with the pinot noir we had quaffed earlier.
The fourth and final course for the evening was the Kiwami wagyu ribeye MB9 with kizami wasabi and a yuzu salad paired with the Concha Y Toro Etiqueta Negra.
Like the entire dinner, the combination worked – high-quality steak that is off the charts in flavour, thoughtfully paired with a choice new world wine that’s accessible in Saigon both on the shelves and in the wallet.
What I’m loving is the quantity and quality of food and wine pairings in Saigon
I’m starting to tire of carpaccio but it’s a good tired
A must is dinner and drinks at Qui (excellent service) whenever you’re in Saigon
Witnessed at the dinner table “celebrity” chef Peter Cuong Franklin stripping not one, but two Tomahawk bones, well, to the bone
Words by Matthew Cowan. Follow Matt on Instagram at @mattcowansaigon
Photos courtesy Qui Cuisine & Mixology
*Kiwami – loosely translated from Japanese meaning extreme or high level, but in this case Stockyard uses it has a name for its product
*MB9 – highest grade marbling score
To keep up-to-date with Qui Cuisine & Mixology’s wine pairing dinners, go to http://quilounge.com/hochiminh/
Qui Cuisine & Mixology is at 22 Le Thanh Ton St., District 1, HCMC, Vietnam
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