Great food and wine for the price of corkage

A bunch of us needed to find dinner before the company holiday party. I choose my favorite Chinese (Sichuan/Shanghai) restaurant The New China Delight, which is big on flavor and low on ambience and wine quality. We wanted to have some wine, of course, so I phoned to see if they had a corkage policy. The woman had to check w/ the manager and it was ... $5 a bottle. I was all over that like white on rice.

It wasn't as big a dinner party as it could have been, but it turned out to be a splendid dinner. Everybody in a good mood, the food lived up to its billing and the wines went wonderfully. And with $5 corkage, we could open bottles with impunity. Half of the group was eating vegetarian, hence we ordered:

• Pot stickers - good
• Veggy dan dan mein - noodles in a Sezhuan hot oil... very nice and pretty hot
• Cold hot vegetables - root vegetables in a hot Sichuan oil
• Bamboo shoots in a green sauce - looked like pesto but it wasn't
• Ma Pau Tofu (1 with meat; 1 without) - they make one of the best versions I've had stateside, but tonight they seemed to be missing the numbing spice, which is integral
• Chongching spicy fish - some of the best fried fish I've had. The moist fish is in a flavorful batter. But you may miss this as it comes covered with whole red hot peppers, which are mostly decoration. But there is chopped up peppers clinging to the batter.
• Dry sauteed string beans - a standard at Chinese places, but B who perhaps hadn't had these before, really liked them. Nicely done.
• Fried tofu - very plain... deep fried tofu.

The wines I brought that were opened:

• Kim Crawford 2006 Pinot Noir - New Zealand is up and coming with their Pinot. And their prices are very attractive. This was young with a zesty cherry, a bit of stone and lots of acidity. It would be interesting to try this after a few years.
  
• St Claire 2006 Sauvignon Blanc - It didn't stand out, but was quite pleasant with standard citrus (grapefruit) and peach in a lively medium bodied finish.
  
• St Michelle ? Blanc de Blanc - I've had this for a while and with all the recent press on bubbly, I grabbed it. It went quickly without me having any, so I think it went well.
• Sebastiani 2003 Cabernet - this was the one big red we opened. Others did not care for its big jammy flavor, but I quite liked it. Notes of coffee, caramel, oak amidst the big ripe fruit. Much better than I remember it being.

I had a really good time. But the real kicker was the bill: $18/person after tax and tip.