Greeks bearing goodies
SHE dabbled in wine as a hobby. But investment banking paid the rent and sent Mahi Georgakopoulou around the world. Now, the effusive Greek is too busy waving her country's flag and teaching people that there's more to Greek wine than retsina.
She not only expanded her wine business, she added a lively dimension: authentic food made by her niece.
''Mahi and I were always close,'' explains the newly-arrived and settled Yiota Vassilakopoulou. ''But moving in and working with her is really coming full-circle.'' When she accepted her aunt's invitation to come for Christmas, she never envisioned it would turn into a job of culinary consultant. Goodbye to working in the family pharmacy in Patras. In Hong Kong she puts her cooking experience - years of making Sunday dinner for 30 fussy Greek relatives - to work.
Yiota and Mahi organise restaurant promotions by teaching the chefs recipes and the staff, about wine. The dancing and plate-smashing come after graduation.
For their current promotion at Mecca, Ms Vassilakopoulou taught head chef Andy Lisseman some family favourites, such as gemista (tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and peppers, stuffed with lamb and rice); imam, a salad of eggplant and tomato; stuffed cabbage rolls with lemon and karidopitta (a coarse-textured cinnamon cake, flavoured with brandy).
Their Greek food and wine promotion at Mecca restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong, Central, runs until mid-June. REMEMBER The Platters' golden oldie, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes? Well, that kind of smoke is great.
What isn't is the clouds of cigarette smoke in restaurants. To help non-smokers make easier choices in where to eat, there's a handy guide, PASS (People Acting for a Smokeless Society Ltd) has just published.
The Non-Smokers Restaurant Guide for Hong Kong lists more than 100 restaurants that offer no-smoking sections.
Get a copy free by sending a self-addressed, stamped business-sized envelope to PASS, GPO 11477, Hong Kong. WHAT'S alta cucina? Ask Valentino Marcattilii. Or better still, try it. The executive chef of Ristorante San Domenico will show diners at Nicholini's why his style of cooking and restaurant in Imolla, Italy, earned two Michelin stars.
The protege of the late chef Nino Bergese adopted many of that legend's recipes, including ravioli with egg and spinach, roasted rack of veal in vodka cream and prawns sauteed with garlic and borlotti beans.
The charismatic chef will preside over the kitchen of Nicholini's at the Conrad, beginning tomorrow until May 22. BEFORE he became a restaurateur, Barry Kalb was a journalist. A posting in Rome for Time turned the American into a lover of Italian food and wine, and ultimately dictated his current career.
The owner of Il Mercato and Marco Polo restaurants will become a reporter again next week when he goes to California to research low fat cooking and participate in lifestyle seminars at Pritikin Longevity Centre in Santa Monica. What he learns about low fat cooking he will apply to his personal lifestyle, not his restaurant menus, he insists.
Life in Hong Kong's fast lane came to a screeching halt around Chinese New Year when the 51-year-old native of Washington, D.C., underwent emergency cardiac surgery. ''It all catches up. The stress of running two companies, the lack of exercise, too much good food and wine.'' The worst is over. He is back to work and exercising daily. His weight plummeted to high school level; so did his cholesterol.
After his California sojourn, let's hope this advocate of good, fresh food will ignite a consumer crusade for better choice in the supermarket.
