Sake and truffle fries

As I discovered when I visited Akashi Tai in Japan last autumn* sake is coming out of its shell, no longer a niche product to drink in Japanese restaurants but a versatile beverage to pair with food.

Last week I had it with several umami-rich dishes at a fancy restaurant called Dalloway Terrace in Bloomsbury - a preview of their forthcoming sake menu which included a mushroom soup and a dish of chicken breast with mushroom and truffle sauce.

I went full truffle by also ordering their Twineham Grange and truffle fries which actually proved an even better match with the full-flavoured Heavensake Junmai 12 sake I was drinking and a combination you could easily replicate at home (less expensively than at Dalloway Terrace where the chips are £8 though that isn’t out of the way for London these days.) Twineham Grange is a vegetarian parmesan-style cheese which is made in Sussex.

You can buy the sake, which is made in collaboration with Regis Camus, the cellarmaster at Piper Heidsieck champagne for £29.99 from simplywinesdirect  or from Laithwaites for £33

* See also 8 foods you might be surprised to find pair brilliantly with sake

I ate at the restaurant as a guest of Heavensake

Eggs, chips, truffles and Cava gran reserva

You might think egg and chips was too humdrum a dish to be paired with wine but not the way the Spanish make it.

This was one of the dishes on the table at Boca Grande in Barcelona where we were taken by top Cava producer Juvé & Camps.

It’s known in Spain as huevos rotos meaning broken eggs. The basic version (recipe here) is made with home-made chips fried in olive oil, topped with an egg - or two - which are broken over the potatoes. Sometimes serrano ham is added as well.

This was a luxury version with (I would guess) fine slices of Iberico ham fat and copious amounts of truffles and was just insanely good with the rich, full-flavoured Juve & Camps 'Gran' gran reserva which is surprisingly available from Amazon for £26.68. Honestly I wouldn’t have cared if that had been the only thing on the table.

I also really liked the highly versatile Juve & Camps rosado which is pure pinot noir - and you can really taste it. It’s not, like most rosados, a standard cava which happens to be pink but has a really gorgeous summery red berry character. We drank it the next day with a diverse selection of modern tapas and it was utterly delicious. It's again available in the UK from Amazon and various independents* and in the US from wine.com

* Baileys Delicatessen; Broadway Wine Company; Chislehurst Wines; Discover Wine UK; Duncan Murray Wines; Hortic Express; Lewis & Cooper Ltd; Milestone Wines; Noble Wines; Rosso Bianco Wines

Runaway American Brown Ale and chicken poutine

Last week I was in Manchester for lunch at the new Hawksmoor, a restaurant I can hardly review given it’s one of my son Will’s.

However I think I can fairly point out that the outrageously good chicken poutine barm in the bar (which you can also order in the restaurant) is the perfect match for local Runaway Brewery’s American brown ale.

Poutine, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a Canadian fast food dish of chips with cheese curds and gravy. What the kitchen’s done here is replace the curds with pulled chicken - and crisp shards of chicken skin - add an egg and stuff the lot into a soft bread roll or barm as it’s known locally in Manchester. It comes with a jug of gravy on the side which is the element that makes the brown ale pairing work so well.

Sound filthy? It is but it’s soooo good!

Runaway is a new Manchester brewery and also makes a cracking smoked porter I’m told. There's a list of the other places you can buy or drink it on their website.