There was a time when food-and-wine pairing was governed by tried-and-true rules and traditions. French restaurants served French wines, Italian restaurants were loyal to Italian wines, and so on.
Classic European regional dishes and ingredients were a natural marriage for Old World wines from the same area. Cuisine and wine had evolved in tandem. You could sense an empathetic resonance between the two -- for example, in the way an earthy Barolo wine evokes the taste of Piedmont truffles.
In this era of globalization, however, a great Parisian chef may draw inspiration from trips to Vietnam or Hong Kong and season a dish with lemon grass or Chinese five-spice powder. A Japanese chef trained in Europe might prepare bamboo root with a fresh sugo di pomodoro or offer a foie gras-and-shiitake donburi. Suddenly, we find ourselves on a terra incognita of the tastebuds.