Our first visit to the Swan & Dolphin Food & Wine Classic 2014 took place on Friday, October 31
This is the fifth year for the Food & Wine Classic and I’ve attended Chad’s Sake Class every time it’s been offered, Nick’s only missed one (2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013). This is a photo blog with captions and a post-script at the end. There was so much going on that my notes are very sketchy – if you want more details about sake, follow those links or just do a search of our blog using “sake”…

As you’ve guessed by now, the format was very different this year. Chef Cib and Chad were co-hosting “The Fine Arts of Sushi & Sake”. We arrived a bit early, we didn’t expect that Chef Cib was going to be part of the class, nor did we expect the room to decorated so nicely with so much detail.

Uh oh! We might have to work for our sushi tonight! (we were expecting small tastings to pair with the sake, guess Chad and Cib have grander things in mind)

… rather than pour all of our sake and have it sitting on the table getting warm, we were served cold sake throughout the class

… we each had a sharkskin grater, a piece of wasabi root, a ball of wasabi (made from powder), fish eggs (tobiko?), cream cheese (ooh, yuck), and gari

the recipes and the sakes are in this nice little magazine (we heard that Dustin [used to be our favorite server at bluezoo] designed these in his new position in marketing and design at the resort)

Joe (on the left of Chef Cib) has been at all of the Sake Classes during the Swan & Dolphin Food & Wine Classics

Junmai Dai Ginjo is the pinnacle of sakes, very pure, made from rice that’s been milled at least 50%

“Kampai” the traditional Japanese toast means “empty cup” (you’re supposed to drink you little glass of sake in one go)

we each had a tray with tempura shrimp, crab, cucumber, shrimp, avocado. sesame seeds, and spicy tuna mixture

another reverse roll… (we had extra spicy tuna mixture, I just ate it with the little spoon as the class progressed; I’d have liked it a little bit spicier personally)

Joe is telling us about the 4th sake (yes, I missed a few) – called Sato No Homare (pride of the village) – this sake is rich, full bodied, with hints of licorice (it’s Joe’s favorite)

the glasses of sake are piling up (we purchased 4 tickets to this event, but couldn’t get things worked out to have another couple join us… thus, extra sake)

my Dragon Roll (I goofed and put all of the avocado I had left inside the roll with the shrimp, it was supposed to be on the outside)

Chef Cib told us to use the cream cheese to help hold the other fish on top (yuck) or you could use the seasoned mayonnaise

we covered it with plastic wrap so that we could reinforce the “roll” and make it easier for them to be cut

we didn’t get to use a real knife (safety issues), so the chefs would roam the room with knives and cut our rolls for us
This event was really a lot of fun. It was much more interactive than we expected and we’d love to do it again.
Our biggest “problem” with the Food & Wine Classic (as it has evolved) – the Causeway has become so popular that we didn’t do it this year and therefore the classes are more our speed – the drawback… the classes are getting better and better and we can’t attend as many as we’d like because they’re all on Friday and/or Saturday afternoon before the Causeway. It would be really nice if some classes could start earlier in the day and others start later in the day (that way you could attend two classes in a day).
Thank you to everyone at the Swan and Dolphin Food & Wine Classic – we had a great time… and we were so full, we didn’t need to have dinner!
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