culturally correct caffeination

hi-collar is a piece of taisho tokyo in the east village. it was a long way to go, even for kodawari coffee.

california, north and south, 2011

piedi grandi i did not find completely successful, but maybe hank and the sierra foothills are learning what a nebbiolo/mourvedre/syrah blend should be. the first day, it was hot as hell and with not much else going on. purple in the glass with brick edges. on the second day, it had calmed down and opened up into some peppery dark fruit, blackcurrant leaf, and some aggressive tannins, but it was still essential to drink it chilled. on day three, it had the fresh elderflower and scrubby aromas of northern california on a hot day and an enticing sweetness that was enjoyable at something more closely approaching cellar temperature. i don't know if i would call this a conventionally complex and complicated wine, but it is a thought-provoking one that recalls the sense memory of a brief time in the mountains of northern california. if i had more bottles and if they were under cork, i would lay some down for research purposes.

the martian ranch parallax, which is all mourvedre from santa barbara county, has the same blackcurrant leaf aroma. most distinctive was the sensation of the wine in the mouth: a creamy, almost starchy quality that i've never encountered before. the fruit was inkily intense but there wasn't much acid to balance it. after a day open, it developed flavours of alcohol-soaked cherries and blackberries. it was unpleasant enough that i left it to sit, undisturbed, for a few more days in the refrigerator, at which point it had gotten over the booziness and was subdued wood and vanilla, delicate cherry, cream, and a little of the tephra ashiness that marks nerello mascalese from etna.

is mourvedre the unheralded terroir grape of the cooler and less fashionable regions of northern california? i would certainly leap at the chance for another stab at la clarine's 2011 cedarville mourvedre. california is 1.44 times the size of italy.

the worst

lyle fass pulls no punches:

The worst wine in the world has to be really bad Pinot Noir from Burgundy. Thin, stewey, vegetal, green, almost like drinking a puddle, with no finish and weedy. Truly like they got all the dirt, hay and moss and liquified it and added like one small cherry, dyed it red, slapped a label on it and that was that.

it is a good thing to have an opinion.

the miller's grape

thierry puzelat's wines have always pushed my boundaries pleasurably outward. the 2010 le rouge et mis is 100% pinot meunier, a grape i have hitherto knowingly encountered only in champagne. the scent of ripe strawberries and red dates (also characteristic of the olivier cousin grolleau that i've been drinking a lot of) rises from the bottle as soon as it is opened. though low in alcohol and with not much in the way of tannins, it is surprisingly intense. there is much ripe (possibly even overripe) fruit and, most notably, a powerful but not overpowering vinous acidity. unredeemably cloudy but still limpid in the mouth, it is worthwhile to serve it chilled to start and to pour generously. nor would a decanter hurt. a refreshing, joyous, remarkable wine.

maximum capacity

over-proof rum should be consumed judiciously, he observed.

in the mail

from sandra and brad, some fruits of natural advantage: golden sweet apricots and crimson lady peaches from frog hollow farm. a box to make you miss california.

asta

the cooking is smart, idiosyncratic, and skews sweet with carefully hidden acid balance. as often as not the kitchen brings your food to you. there are no uniforms and the playlist is dominated by ... well, you can hear for yourself.

generous and comfortable in its own skin, asta is worth a visit.

after service

L: many rum punch.
R: a simple burger with foie gras terrine scraps and pickle chips.

the straggler

last night, we opened a bottle of cédric bouchard's inflorescence (a blanc de noirs from a single parcel in the val de vilaine). golden and only lightly effervescent, with compellingly mellow and vinous yet lively acid and none of the harsh carbonic acidity of sparklier champagnes and cremants. a remarkably beautiful champagne of depth, grace, and lightness that i actually want to drink—preferably in quantity and after (heresy i know) it has warmed up a little and gotten a bit of air. why did four half-glasses of it get sent off the table to be poured down the drain? at the end of the night, we found a micropour left in the bottle and gave it a good home.

the perils of variance

Now, he says, "Dominique Saibron is one of the best three or four bakeries in France, but there are so many different factors involved in baking bread. It's different each time." ... When asked to sample one of Dominique Saibron's baguettes, Professor Kaplan turns somber. "I worry about tasting because I want it to be good and on many occasions, it's disappointing."

lennox morrison, "the best baguette in paris"

sicilian overload

otto is never crowded at lunch, the vegetables are good, and the pastas are usually excellent. bucatini all'amatriciana seems to be a menu staple and is always portioned with restraint and generously supplied with guanciale. the list of wines by the bottle is intimidatingly long, but worth attention. munjebel 8 is 100% nerello mascalese grown on the slopes of mt. etna, from frank cornelissen's 2010 vintage. extraordinarily intense, and with the scent of freshly wetted tephra—carbonic, limestoney, ashy. full of unexpected contradictions, it is rich and deep, brittle and vibratory, dense and weightless. but maybe more dense than weightless. a single glass would have been perfect; three at lunch was perhaps a bridge too far.

4-napkin snack

i took my bike over to the north end today to spend a lot of someone else's money on wine—which is the best way to do it. but before that, a slice and a panzarotto (potato variant) at umberto, and a plain cannolo, no icing sugar, from modern.



also, public interest announcement: the la clarine "sumu kaw" syrah and piedi grandi (nebbiolo, syrah, and mourvedre) are available at the wine bottega.

changing my mind about california

baklava della nonna

idle conversation in dwelltime about how easy it is to make baklava led to baklava made in north cambridge by channeling the spirit of a turkish grandmother who relocated to italy for the weather: the baklava method, applied to ricotta, raisins, and pine nuts. why is there not a thai baklava, stuffed with roasted coconut, crushed peanuts, lime, a bit of sweet fried onion, palm sugar, and topped with powdered shrimp and sweet mint?

way off strip

it is unfair that las vegas has two of the country's best thai restaurants, and more unfair still that both of them also have lovingly assembled wine lists that allow the rare pleasure of eating great thai food while drinking something other than beer or a thai iced tea. lotus of siam you already know about. the other one is a new spot across town located, as many good vegas restaurants are, in a stripmall shoebox way off the strip. chada thai and wine is the new project by the guy who used to be lotus's wine director. his wine list at chada is smaller but filled with tantalising and fairly priced prospects, none of which i got to try.

he's also cooking the food, and the food was wonderful while being less expensive than a mediocre takeout thai restaurant. intensely flavoured, beautifully balanced stuff in small portions. many elements reminded me of the cooking of southern china and the malay archipelago: less sour, more sweet, more not-chili spice, less heat, more coconut, the use of sweetly acid fruit like plums instead of acidly sweet fruit like tamarind, a different fermentary flavour profile. we were on our way to the airport and only had time to try a few things, but each was a marvel. a dry crab, roasted coconut, and ginger salad portioned into romaine cups; the dipping sauce was unnecessary. fine rice noodles, soaked, wound into skeins, steamed, then served next to a small bowl of turmeric-filled crab red curry. and a spice-heavy kua kling that was a textbook example of how to fry-render ground meat.