Wednesday October 23rd 2019 This was another of those collaborations between the IWFS and AsiaEuro whereby the lovely Michelle invites us to a private event with the winemaker or a representative and we get to sample the good stuff and hopefully get a nice discount on any purchases. In the early stages of the dinner, sample appeared to be the operative word, with a half glass of each of the vertical wines being carefully poured from the bottle into the assembled glasses. But it did liven up once the dessert had been consumed and pouring got a touch more liberal. No complaints at the end of th ..read more

November 10th 2019 Been a while since I posted - last one was in April…  wow...   looking back, figure was a combination of factors revolving around getting depressed over massively intermittent Broadband access causing feelings of non productive uselessness. Could not get the head together to put finger to keyboard. Sometimes I think we men are much like dogs - only happy when we feel useful. Should me more like cats - wtf so long as there is food, milk and tickles... Anyhow....   I must say I didn't really want to go to this one, but our friend said she had booked a table of ten and ..read more

International Wine and Food Society Asia PacificAuckland Festival March 8th to 10th 2019 A recollection and remembrance of eats, drinks, sights, sounds, and people from across the event. Organised by IWFS Auckland in New Zealand, it brought members from all across the world to enjoy the food and wines of the country.  Sunday 10th March 2019 - Day Three AGM, STAMFORD PLAZA HOTEL (10.15am)2019 ANDRÉ SIMON LECTURE (11am), BUFFET LUNCH (12noon)CLOSING DINNER AT TANTALUS ESTATE, WAIHEKE ISLAND (3.45pm) AGM, STAMFORD PLAZA HOTEL (10.15am)I woke up quite fuzzy and lolled around in the bed ahead of a ..read more

International Wine and Food Society Asia PacificAuckland Festival March 8th to 10th 2019 A recollection and remembrance of eats, drinks, sights, sounds, and people from across the event. Organised by IWFS Auckland in New Zealand, it brought members from all across the world to enjoy the food and wines of the country.  Monday 11th March 2019 - Day Four and Epilogue Not much on IWFS in this post - mostly my recollections of a last lazy day in Auckland and the trip back to Kuala Lumpur. Also some reflections on what makes for a good pint of Guinness. And a cute story on Malaysian customs at the K ..read more

International Wine and Food Society Asia PacificAuckland Festival March 8th to 10th 2019 A recollection and remembrance of eats, drinks, sights, sounds, and people from across the event. Organised by IWFS New Zealand, it brought members from all across the world to enjoy the food and wines of the country.  Saturday 9th March 2019 - Day Two AUCKLAND CITY TOURLUNCH AT GIRAFFE, VIADUCT HARBOUR GALA DINNER, STAMFORD PLAZA HOTEL  AUCKLAND CITY TOUR I half remember a fuzzy and late breakfast before joining everyone gathering at the hotel entrance to board the bus for a tour around the city. The weat ..read more

International Wine and Food Society Asia PacificAuckland Festival March 8th to 10th 2019 A recollection and remembrance of eats, drinks, sights, sounds, and people from across the event. Organised by IWFS New Zealand, it brought members from all across the world to enjoy the food and wines of the country.  Day One - Friday 8th March 2019 The faithful would be flying back to Auckland from Napier today and checking into the Stamford, so I figured to maybe try to get ahead of them and go straight there from the Shakespeare. So I showered before making a quick breakfast sandwich of ham, cheese and ..read more

International Wine and Food Society Asia PacificAuckland Festival March 8th to 10th 2019 A recollection and remembrance of eats, drinks, sights, sounds, and people from across the event. Organised by IWFS New Zealand, it brought members from all across the world to enjoy the food and wines of the country.  Prologue This one had been a long time coming. New Zealand has been a bucket list destination of mine for many years and when the IWFS announced there would be an event happening, I was pretty much first in the queue. Did NOT want to pass up or miss this one. Lenglui was not so enthralled, g ..read more

IWFS Kuala Lumpur Hong Kong Jolly January 18 - 22 2019 - A recollection of Five Days of Food and Wine in Hong Kong, and how I became a Lap Cheong mule Day Five - Tuesday January 22nd Woke up to a pretty uneventful but intensely busy morning trying to figure the puzzle that was the packing of all of the Lap Cheong and the other foodie bits. I was concerned at the amount we were to carry. If the cases got scanned, then most if it could get confiscated - pork products coming into Malaysia? Not good methinks. So I stuffed as much as I could in my backpack, which took a lot of the strain out of the ..read more

IWFS Kuala Lumpur Hong Kong Jolly January 18 - 22 2019 - A recollection of Five Days of Food and Wine in Hong Kong, and how I became a Lap Cheong mule Day Four - Monday January 21st Many of the Jolliers were making their various ways back to Kuala Lumpur today. Lenglui and I had decided to extend an extra day, with an original plan to take a day trip to Macao. We were dissuaded from this by the Money, who advised that it would take two hours to get there (and back) and would be not highly enjoyable given the preponderance of mainlanders visiting the Island. What about the Ferry? Faster, but st ..read more