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  • Thanksgiving Asian Style
  • By Jeannie Cho Lee
  • on 25 Nov 2010 in Food

  • I am planning my menu for Thanksgiving this week and it includes my now-classic repertoire of a 24 pound turkey with spicy kimchi stuffing. Yes, I have taken a very American holiday meal and given it a uniquely Asian twist. I have been making and refining this stuffing for about 15 years now and each year I change the recipe, just for the sake of continual improvement.
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  • Is Hong Kong a Wine Hub?
  • By Jeannie Cho Lee
  • on 22 Nov 2010 in Wine

  • It is incredible how quickly Hong Kong is solidifying its position as the premier wine centre for Asia. In early 2008, I was working on my Master of Wine dissertation on the potential of Hong Kong becoming a fine wine hub within five years. I projected the growth in wine auctions as well as the increase in the number of wine brokers, merchants, retailers and importers that would flood the scene. Conservatively, I calculated that it would take about five years for Hong Kong to solidify its position as a fine wine hub by 2013. read more

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  • Penglai, the Bordeaux of China
  • By Jeannie Cho Lee
  • on 18 Nov 2010 in

  • Shandong province has a special place in my heart. When you walk through the busiest streets of its key cities like Qingdao and Yantai, Chinese characters make room for the more geometrically shaped Korean letters. Around every street corner, there is a Korean restaurant and inside every major hotel, Korean food is available. For breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Yantai, I enjoyed dim sum and congee accompanied by the pungent, classically Korean dish, kimchi (fermented chili cabbage). read more

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  • Hong Kong/Asia’s BYOB Culture
  • By Jeannie Cho Lee
  • on 17 Nov 2010 in Wine

  • I had the opportunity recently to evaluate fifty wine lists of the top restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau. The markups on wine varies from double the wholesale price to three or four times the wholesale purchase price. Many of the top hotels follow the latter pricing scheme while a handful of enlightened hotels and restaurants choose to encourage wine consumption by having reasonable mark-up. I am often asked in Hong Kong by both visitors and locals, “With no sales tax and no wine duty, why are restaurant wine prices in Hong Kong so high?

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