last night, we went again to biryani park, malden's temple of sri lankan food concealed in back of a grocery store. you know you're close when you pass the giant ice cream cone outside the everett dairy maid, a soft-serve hut that appears to date from at least the 1960s.
prices appear surprisingly high, but the food is honest and good and the meats are carefully sourced (and halal too, if you care about that kind of thing). various reviewers with misplaced priorities grumble about long waits for food. good food takes time; eat with interesting people you like. we had our act together enough that i finally got a chance to see a lamprais IRL (the lampraises sit, tantalising, in a section of the menu headed "24 hour advance notice required"). the chef had just returned late in the afternoon from portland and had come straight from the airport to make it.
but what is a lamprais? wonder no more: at least at biryani park, the fish lamprais is saffron rice, fried spiced potato cutlets, a catfish curry, fried hardboiled egg, a sweet condiment of caramelised red onion and maybe dates, fried eggplant, and fried ash plantains. these items are purportedly baked together in a banana leaf but the cutlets were so crisp that they might have been added after. (ideas do get around: cutlets = frikkadels = frikadeller)
we got other stuff too. a plate of coconut rice with scattered shreds of toasted coconut and green chili, each grain distinct. a bunch of bone-in goat cubes stir-fried in a vinegary, slightly mustardy sauce with curry leaves and whole chilies covered in a pile of raw white onion shavings. a pile of spiced potato, chutneys, nuts, and probably a lot more stuff wrapped up in a crisp rice and semolina dosa was too tasty to analyse and deconstruct. a jaggery-flavoured pudding with candles in it for the birthday girl. a dense, mildly sweet, brilliant pistachio khulfi. but the roti kotthu was the best thing ever: pieces of torn-up roti fried with chicken, mixed vegetable shreds (carrots, onions, etc) and curry leaf, then packed into a bowl and unmoulded for service. not pretty to look at but viscerally satisfying and deeply savoury. it vanished fast.
spice, fat, flavour on the table. what to drink? we surreptitiously consumed a scholium project naucratis (2008), a rooster hill gewurtztraminer (2010), and a domain lafond rosé (2010). what with everything else going on, the wines were not the main point. and that, in the end, is ok.
producer: scholium project
name: "naucratis"
colour: white
country: usa
region: california (napa, clarksburg AVA)
grape: verdelho
vintage: 2008
price: $20-ish?
drunk over: 2 hours
starting temperature: approx 60F
alcohol: 16.3% (!)
notes: i took a gulp and then began to feel a little drunk nearly immediately. 16.3%! not a sessionable beverage, though to its credit it didn't taste hot with alcohol. this is the first scholium project wine i've had which i was indifferent about. perplexingly, both flabby and green-tasting. maybe it would have been nicer cooler? it did, however, play well with the goat cubes.
producer: rooster hill
colour: white
country: usa
region: new york (finger lakes AVA)
grape: gewurtztraminer
vintage: 2010
price: $18-ish
drunk over: 2 hours
starting temperature: approx 55F
alcohol: 12.5%
notes: deliciously off-dry; not very acid but with a little bit of residual sugar. a pronounced aroma of ripe lychees. nice of them to provide lots of useful information here.
producer: domaine lafond roc-epine
colour: rosé
country: france
region: rhône (tavel AOC)
grapes: the so-called rhône blend of grenache, cinsault, syrah, carignan (with some clairette, picpoul, bourboulenc, mourvèdre)
vintage: 2010
price: $15
drunk over: 2 hours
starting temperature: approx 50F
alcohol: ?
notes: good stuff from organically farmed grapes. orangey-pink, strawberries, warm black cherries. substantial, but also refreshingly crisp. probably because i'd over-refrigerated it in anticipation of a long-ish journey. perfect for the pudding and the kulfi. no one else seemed to like this, so i was happy to crush the bottle on my own.
No comments:
Post a Comment