On Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:11:42 -0700, cwdjrxyz wrote:

> On Sep 30, 2:54Â*am, aesthete8 > wrote:
>> http://www.visitvineyards.com/food/f...ets/wine-food-
tra...
>>
>> "The perfect wine match for Chinese food"
>
> Chinese food comes in a huge number of regional styles ranging from
> rather mild and bland to loaded with very hot peppers. Some of the very
> hot food would overwhelm most grape wine and even many beers. A strong
> bodied, dark stout might stand up to many hot dishes. You might select
> something cheap with low alcohol which you can guzzle rather than sip to
> put out the fire or ask the cook not to make your dish extremely hot.
>
> For the extremely hot food, you might try an Asian reptile wine, often
> containing a cobra, herbs, many very hot peppers, and rice wine, often
> fortified. Such "snake" wines are made in China, Vietnam, Thailand,
> Cambodia and other countries in that part of the world. There are many
> variations, and instead of a small cobra, some versions use lizards,
> toads, sea horses, huge spiders, etc. Some of these wines ship directly
> from Asia, and lizard wine from Vietnam has been sold on eBay in the US.
> Quite a few insects are eaten in Thailand, and at least one company
> there will ship them to the US. They usually are fried, dehydrated, and
> will keep several months. These might be good side dishes for hot
> Chinese or other very hot food. You can buy silk worms, crickets, large
> ants, huge beetles, and even buffalo dung beetles. :-)

Let us not forget the restaurants in Hong Kong that serve a beverage
comprised of a live snake brought to table, belly slit open in front of
customer and the warm green bile squeezed into a glass. It is supposed to
have a very pronounced physical benefit - for men only. ;-)
Please don't ask me to elaborate; Ladies read this group as well.

Godzilla