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Archive for October 2013

Hark, I hear The Darkening Dream

Oct30

Ten months in the making, The Darkening Dream audiobook is finally ready!

The complete unabridged book is available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for MP3 download to your phone or ipod. It’s narrated by producers Marti Dumas (female parts) and Eric Pollard (male parts).

A bit about the production

ACX_Logo

I started way back in January, and like most Independent authors considering an audiobook edition, decided to use Amazon’s ACX service. This is a marketplace for connecting authors with voice and production talent as well as an automated mechanism for delivering the finished books to the big online markets (Audible, Amazon, and iTunes). This makes it  easy to post descriptions of what your looking for and a section of the book to read. I listed both The Darkening Dream and Untimed. Lo and behold, over the next couple of weeks a pile of auditions started to come in.

ACX has a couple of options and it’s important to get them squared away BEFORE you pick a production team as they make it difficult to change after the fact (I know from experience). You can go either Exclusive or Non-exclusive. Retaining the right to sell through some other market (and remember they hit all the big online markets) earns you a much lower royalty rate (about half). Also, you can chose to pay your production team either as a fixed dollar amount per finished hour or as a percentage of royalties. Obviously royalties involve less up front costs on the part of the author, but I suspect that far less voice talent is interested in taking those terms as earn outs for Indie books are probably very variable. I went for pay up front exclusive.

The Darkening Dream  is a tricky novel from a recording standpoint as it has seven different points of view, of both genders, and given that the protagonist is a young woman and several of the POVs are nasty male villains, I couldn’t imagine either a man or a woman reading both. Luckily, I found a talented pair who works together and we began production last winter. However, I wasn’t totally prepared for how long it would take and how much work it was on both sides.

Belle Voix

Marti (left) and Eric (right) finishing up a recording session with a glass of al-Nasir’s blood

First of all, it’s important to prepare very detailed notes on all your characters. TDD has a big cast, many with varied accents and histories, and not all are even human. Each of the POVs had to sound distinct and in the authentic voice of that character. After my team studied my character sheets and we discussed each character, we created a number of voice tests for the major parts. I listened and then gave feedback. This is a broad pattern that continues through the process. Prep -> Record -> Listen -> Feedback -> Repeat.

As I’ve experimented in many mediums: video games, novels, screenplays, and now audiobooks, it’s worth noting some of the differences. The physical placement on the page (as dictated by white space) is useful in novels. I separate dialog spoken by different people on different lines, and I make sure to place tags (he said, she said) and beats (small action queues like “Alex shifted in place” or “Sarah smirked” in the same paragraph as the speaker’s dialog. In an audiobook, you can’t hear the white space, but differences in voicing can make up for who is speaking. Still, you lose this spatial grouping. The tags also stand out more when spoken, as the eye tends to ignore them.

Another thing I hadn’t thought about is how long it actually takes to listen repeatedly to an entire novel. TDD is over eleven hours and every few weeks I’d get an hour or two of recordings, need to listen — usually twice (paying attention!) — and write up notes. And my side of the work was a lot easier than Marti and Eric’s. I can only imagine how long it took to record multiple takes, audition them, edit, then proof.

With the multiple voices, TDD sounds a tad like an audioplay, which is rather cool, and a few of the supernatural elements needed sound effects. We kept this to a minimum, because once you head down that rabbit hole, who knows where it leads — but the mystical horn (readers will know what I’m talking about) and the vampire glamour both begged for a little special treatment.

Then, as the months rolled by, chapter by chapter, the book came together brilliantly. I’ve listened to it between 2-3 times — although not all together at once. I’m curious at the psychological effect, but after reading various drafts over 50 times and a couple listens, I’ll leave that to you guys!

Listen to a free sample if you like:

/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/71-The-Darkening-Dream-Retail-Sample.mp3

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

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By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon.com, Audible, audiobook, Eric Pollard, horror, iTunes, Marti Dumas, The Darkening Dream

Serene Republic of Quippy Thievies

Oct28

51xAZnvLHvLTitle: The Lies of Locke Lamora

Author: Scott Lynch

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Length: 752 pages

Read: October 15-25, 2013

Summary: Best fantasy I’ve read in a while

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The simplest pitch for The Lies of Locke Lamora would be Thieves World Venice. Fantasy often borrows heavily from history, and LLL is no exception. I’d place the  era as roughly 17th century. The book is set entirely in the fictional city of Camorr. It’s got canals, bridges, Italian names, a Duke (Doge), nobles, masks, and pretty much all the trappings of the real Venince. It’s also got sorcerers, alchemy, and giant towers built of indestructible Elderglass.

Like the brilliant Perdido Street Station, LLL features the city as character. This outing isn’t quite as purely imaginative, but also isn’t nearly as weird, and  far more approachable. I’m a big Venice fan anyway, and so I very much enjoyed the feel. There is a nice balance struck here between atmosphere and pacing. LLL is a fast book with a lot of flavor. The underworld and the city proper are both excellently realized. I particularly enjoyed the glimpses into a  well developed religion. Camorr is a city of 13 gods, and as such borrows more religious spirit from antiquity, but at the same time Lynch colors it with an extremely Renaissance/Baroque feel.

The novel is fairly focused. No Game of Thrones, LLL concentrates on a single hero and a few of his friends. It’s written in a slightly bizarre third person omniscient, without a heavy distinct narrator, but feels free to flit around between time and characters (even if it hovers 90% on our protagonist, Locke). Interludes discussing historical aspects of the city or flashing back to (mostly) relevant childhood events in the lives of our heroes are frequent. While these stray from the spine of the story, they are entertaining and add depth. There is some slight of hand played with the chronology. Occasionally some action is undercut with the preparations for the same action in a way which is a little confusing.

At the prose level, Lynch is a good writer, with some style and flair. He does a nice job dotting the text with certain archaic words that lend flavor, but all the while keeping the text modern and lively. And he has a knack for deft and humorous descriptions. At the same time, there is a hint of anachronism. LLL isn’t a Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell with pitch perfect historical tone — but it is also much faster paced and transparent to the reader.

The action of LLL is part heist, part swashbuckling adventure, part orphan tale. Like a Venitian Ocean’s Eleven, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Oliver Twist all rolled into one. The tone is quippy and cavalier, but also contains a dose of nastiness and torture (night that I mind). The dialog is full of zingers — many hit, some miss. And often it sounds oddly modern. The plot is easy enough to follow but has a certain byzantine quality — and more than its share of deus ex machina — but essentially it all works. The action is fast, furious, and easy to follow. A dizzying mix, but one that works well.

I pounded through the second half (at 752 pages, hardly a novella) in one sitting. Flaws aside, it’s fun and ambitious without being overwrought in scope. All in all, The Lies of Locke Lamora was no chore, instead a genuine pleasure, and certainly the best fantasy I’ve read this year!

For more book reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book Review, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Locke Lamora, Reading (process), Red Seas Under Red Skies, Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora, thief, underworld, Venice

Totoraku Double Meat Madness

Oct25

Restaurant: Totoraku [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 10610 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064.

Date: October 22 & 23, 2013

Cuisine: Japanese Yakiniku

Rating: Best beef in town!

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About twice a year my Hedonist group takes over Totoraku. It serves a very refined version of Japanese Yakiniku, which is Beef BBQ originally from Korea but filtered through Japanese sensibility.

Last spring, we took the whole restaurant with 28 people, but the evening was total chaos (albeit fun chaos), and this time we decided to split it into two nights. The first night (which I attended) was 13 people, oriented toward the heavy hitters wine wise, and the second night was about 18-19 with some non drinkers. Still, there were some pretty incredible wines that night too.

Everyone brings a wine vetted by the group and the standard is very high at this event, basically close to 100 points, high pedigree, age, or some combination thereof. As you’ll see, we really tore it up and in terms of scale and wine this was the most epic Hedonist event yet.

The outside is basically a shell. The “Teriyaki House” has nothing to do with the food within, and the phone number is incorrect. The place is like a beef speakeasy!


NV Krug Grande Cuvee. Parker 91-95. The NV Brut Grande Cuvee emerges from the glass with freshly cut flowers, almonds, pastry and spices. This is a relatively floral, bright Grande Cuvee with fewer of the oxidative qualities that are typical of the house style. According to Krug’s ID Code, this bottle is based on the 2004 vintage, which explains the wine’s tense, taut personality. Another year or two on the cork will only help the wine gain expressiveness and depth. Today, the Grande Cuvee is quite reticent and not showing the full breadth of its personality.


1987 Joseph Swan Vineyards Chardonnay Estate Bottled. A bit oxidized. Drinkable, more or less.


1970 Charles Krug Winery (Peter Mondavi Family) Zinfandel. Surprisingly fresh.


The appetizer plate.


Jellyfish!


Uni risotto balls.


Shrimp with endive and caviar. Little okra’s to the left front of them.


1970 Château Haut-Brion. Parker 85. Although surprisingly light-bodied, consistently pleasant and enjoyable, this is an undistinguished effort. The 1970 Haut-Brion has always come across as angular, and lacking the exceptional perfume and complexity this estate can achieve. In this tasting, the wine displayed vegetal, tobacco scents, good spice, some fruit, and a medium ruby color with significant amber. The tannin and acidity were too high for the amount of fruit, glycerin, and extract. Drink it up.


Salmon wrapped in daikon, stuffed with avocado and other vegetables.


Octopus and tomatoes. And in the front, black sesame tofu.


In the front, mushrooms. In the orange thing, tomato salad.


A very soft gelatinous thing that probably had some crab in it.


1983 Joseph Phelps Insignia. 94 points. Transparent ruby. Bit of Madeira on an otherwise rich and complex nose. Focused with gorgeous acidity, fruit and length. Another marvelous mature insignia!


Beef carpaccio with special salt, flowers, and some onion family derivative. Very yummy. This is eaten raw.


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Two kinds of beef sashimi, eaten nearly raw. On the left beef tataki (rib eye) and on the right (in the cup) beef throat sashimi. Also on the plate is a bit of Korean style hot sauce (the red stuff), some intensely strong garlic (yum) and micro julienned ginger.

The throat was very chewy, more about texture. The rib eye soft and more flavorful. All went well with the garlic and ginger — I particularly liked the garlic.


From my cellar: 1991 Chapoutier Ermitage le Pavillon. Parker 100. This is a Le Pavilion of mythical proportions. Produced from extremely old vines, some dating from the mid-nineteenth century, with yields averaging under 15 hectoliters per hectare, this is the richest, most concentrated and profound wine made in Hermitage. The 1991 Ermitage Le Pavilion follows the pattern of the 1989 and 1990-it is another perfect wine. The saturated black/purple color is followed by a compelling bouquet of spices, roasted meats, and black and red fruits. Enormously concentrated yet with brilliant focus and delineation to its awesomely endowed personality, this extraordinary wine should age effortlessly for three plus decades. Very powerful and full, yet displaying silky tannin, this is a seamless beauty! Anticipated maturity: 2001-2035.


A raw beef dish. Marinated raw beef is seen here with ginger, raw egg, cucumber, daikon, pine nuts, and something orange. Apparently, this is a Korean dish called Yukhoe. Actually, I’ve had it at Korean places, but in any case it’s delicious.


The elements are mixed together and then eaten. It’s hard to describe why it’s so good, but it is, with a very complex flavor and texture interplay.


1994 Penfolds Grange. Parker 91. This is the first vintage where Grange went to a bottle with laser-etched identification numbers to preclude the possibility of fraudulent bottles. The wine, a blend of 89% Shiraz and 11% Cabernet Sauvignon, shows some toasty oak mixed with notes of root vegetables, damp earth, blackberry liqueur, prune, and licorice. The wine is dense, full-bodied, not terribly complex in the mouth, but layered and rich. I would not be surprised to see the rating on this wine improve as this youthful Grange continues to evolve.


Beef tongue with salt. After cooking, you dip it in lemon juice.


1993 Guigal Cote Rotie la Landonne. Parker 88. The great glories of this house are its Cote Roties, of which there are now five separate offerings. The 1993s, which have just come on the marketplace, are from a troublesome vintage for everyone in Cote Rotie, rivaling 1984 in difficulty. Nevertheless, the single-vineyard wines have turned out well. As for the single vineyard wines, they are all excellent in 1993, but more herbaceous and clearly marked by the green pepper smells of slightly underripe Syrah. The most tannic of the three famous single vineyards is the 1993 Cote Rotie La Landonne. It is amazingly powerful and rich for the vintage, and reveals more fruit and intensity than it did prior to bottling. It exhibits a saturated ruby color, and copious amounts of pepper, tar, olives, licorice, and black cherry fruit in the nose. It remains the most muscular and structured of the three wines, and has managed to avoid the hollowness and vegetal character that plague so many 1993 northern Rhones. This Cote Rotie should age gracefully for a decade or more.


Filet Mignon with bell peppers, onions, and sisho pepper.


Filet on the grill.


1996 Guigal Cote Rotie la Landonne. Parker 93-96. The 1996 Cote Rotie La Landonne is a wine with tremendous intensity and tannin, as well as a pronounced roasted herb, smoked meat, and Asian spice-scented nose with tell-tale black fruits, melted tar, and truffle notions in the background. Rich, powerful, and massive, this effort will require 3-4 years of cellaring, and will last for two decades.


The “salad.” Cucumbers, carrots, daikon. They are served with this spicy sweet miso dip. The vegetables do help to move along the fat and protein heavy meat.


2002 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. Parker 94. One of the best wines of the vintage, this is a classic Pauillac that is a blend of 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Petit Verdot. Dense ruby/purple in color with a glorious nose of melted licorice, lavender, barbecue smoke, black currants, and graphite, the wine is tannic, classically structured with an opaque ruby/purple color, beautiful definition, and a 1996-ish personality. This deep, full-bodied, elegant yet powerful 2002 should age handsomely for over two decades. Some patience will be required since this vintage exhibits more muscle and virility than normal.


Momotaro tomatoes with a vinaigrette. These are supposedly incredibly good tomatoes, as a hater, I didn’t try them. I think Oyama-san gets them from some special place in Orange Country.


2004 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto. Parker 96. Giacosa’s 2004 Barolo Falletto is so compelling it will be hard not to drink it in its youth. This gorgeous Barolo reveals a deeply structured frame layered with sweet dark fruit, mint, spice and pine. At once delicate and powerful, it is a beautifully finessed wine that is sure to provide much pleasure. A recent bottle of the 1982 is a testament to the virtues of this great site as interpreted by Bruno Giacosa.


My first time having this dish. Marinated duck.


The duck grilling. This was a lovely addition to the collection of meats.


1992 Bryant Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. Parker 91. Over the next year readers should be on the lookout for some of the 1,000 case production of Don Bryant’s Cabernet Sauvignon from an old vineyard on Pritchard Hill near the Chappellet Vineyard. Bryant’s 1992 Cabernet Sauvignon offers an impressive black/purple color, rusty tannin, immense concentration, full body, and enormous richness in the finish.


Outside rib eye with special salt and garlic.


The outside rib eye on the grill.


1999 Greenock Creek Shiraz Roennfeldt Road. Parker 98. There are 236 cases of the 1999 Shiraz Roennfeldt Road (also from 65-year-old vines). Although it pushes ripeness to the limit, it does not reveal any raisiny/pruny characteristics. It offers wonderful freshness, good acidity, superb intensity, and copious quantities of blackberry, cassis, crushed rock, floral, and spicy new oak notes. Massive and concentrated with perfect equilibrium, it can be drunk now and over the next 25 years. Kudos to one of the world’s finest wine producers!


Inside rib eye.


The inside rib eye on the grill.


2002 Marquis Philips Shiraz Integrity. Parker 94-99. Deep garnet-brick colored, the 2002 Integrity is a 100% Shiraz that displays evolved leather and tobacco notes intermingled with some meaty and gamey aromas and nuances of coffee, olives and underbrush. Full bodied, it has a coffee flavors in the mouth, medium levels of velvety tannins, and a medium-high acid backbone. It finishes long with notes of eucalyptus showing through. It is drinking now.


“Special” beef. I think it was a form of sirloin. It was certainly good, very salted.


And it on the grill.


2009 Hundred Acre Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Few And Far Between. Parker 94. The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Few and Far Between Vineyard has developed beautifully since I last tasted it from barrel. Mocha, espresso, exotic spices and orange peel all come together in this inviting, multi-dimensional Cabernet Sauvignon. Totally alive in the glass, the wine is constantly changing, and reveals different sides of its personality with each taste. Hints of sweet red berries and cloves add complexity on the long, polished finish.


You have to special order the lamb, which like all of Kaz’s meats, is pretty wonderful.


Grilling up the chops.


One hell of a chop.


2009 Schrader Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon RBS To Kalon Vineyard. Parker 96. The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon RBS Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard comes across as dark, plush and inviting, but with greater inner focus and minerality than some of the other wines here. Graphite, smoke, tar and licorice are some of the notes that wrap around the intense, juicy finish. I especially admire the way the RBS grows in the glass as it turns more explosive over time, yet never loses its more refined shades of expression. The RBS is 100% clone 337 from the B1 and B2 blocks. According to winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown, it is the addition of fruit from B2 (new this year) that gives the 2009 much of its personality.


Skirt steak.


And as a final course, the rarely seen but much enjoyed slightly spicy Korean style egg drop soup.


From my cellar: 1990 Chateau d’Yquem. Parker 99. An extraordinary effort, Yquem’s 1990 is a rich and fabulously superb, sweet wine. This wine also possesses lots of elegance and finesse. The wine’s medium gold color is accompanied by an exceptionally sweet nose of honeyed tropical fruits, peaches, coconut, and apricots. High quality, subtle toasty oak is well-integrated. The wine is massive on the palate, with layers of intensely ripe botrytis-tinged, exceptionally sweet fruit. Surprisingly well-integrated acidity, and a seamless, full-bodied power and richness have created a wine of remarkable harmony and purity. Certainly it is one of the richest Yquems I have ever tasted, with 50-100 years of potential longevity. An awesome Yquem!


Toto serves homemade ice creams and sorbets as dessert.

So chaotic was this giant night that they brought out all five flavors on each  plate and just placed them about the tables. I like the ice creams better than the sorbets here. The white chocolate was fantastic. Still, it’s all great.

Chef/Owner Kaz Oyama on the right. Both parties are partaking of my D’Yquem.

And this place IS all about the beef, which is arguably some of the best I’ve ever had. Certainly the best yakiniku/Korean BBQ I’ve ever had. There is a perfect tenderness to every cut that’s fairly transcendant. I’m not even that much of a steak fan — but I’d take this stuff any time over even a spectacular cut from Mastros or Cut. The food here does not vary much from visit to visit. There is no menu. The quality however is utterly consistant. So while it isn’t an everyday sort of dining experience, perhaps once every 6-9 months, I love to return for my fix.

This was a spectacular evening — really, truly, deeply epic. It was about 5 hours of mind boggling wines and crazy beef.

The Wines of Night 2

The next day a further 18 or so Hedonists returned for the exact same meal, but as they brought their own wines (ours being liver food at that point), I light them here too. I didn’t catch 100% of the wines. Missing are the 96 Sassicia, 01 Gaja , 97 Solaia and probably more.



1986 Ducru Beaucaillou. Parker 90-92. At 16 years of age, this wine continues to taste more like a 5 to7-year-old Bordeaux. The color is a handsome dark ruby with just a bit of pink at the edge. The wine exhibits sweet red and black currant fruit intermixed with wet stones, spice, and flowers. Medium-bodied and still moderately tannic, but very concentrated, this firmly structured, slightly austere wine has tremendous upside to it. By the way, this was the first vintage where I began to notice on some bottles the wet cement/damp cardboard aromas that were far more increasingly evident in the subsequent vintages, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990. Interestingly, the last five times I have tasted the 1986 Ducru-Beaucaillou, they were totally pristine bottles.


1990 Figeac. Parker 91-94. One of Bordeaux’s most schizophrenic properties, as disappointing as Figeac’s 1989 has turned out, the 1990 is fabulous. This property has not made a wine as rich as the 1990 since 1982. In contrast to the 1989, the 1990 is a great Figeac, potentially a richer, more complete and complex wine than the 1982. The 1990 exhibits a saturated dark purple color (somewhat atypical for Figeac), and a gorgeous nose of olives, fruitcake, jammy black fruits, minerals, and licorice. Medium to full-bodied, with gobs of glycerin-imbued, sweet, jammy fruit, this wine is nicely buttressed by moderate tannin and adequate acidity. Fleshy and rich, as well as elegant and complex, it is approachable because of the wine’s sweet fruit, but it promises even more pleasure with 2-4 more years of bottle age; it will last for 20 years. I predict the 1990 Figeac will have one of the most exotic and compelling aromatic profiles of the 1990s. It is a terrific wine!


1982 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. Parker 100. One of the monumental wines of the last century is the 1982 Pichon Lalande. Since bottling, it has flirted with perfection, and was a sprinter out of the gate, which gave rise to questions about how quickly it would begin its decline. However, at age 27, it retains all its glossy, rich, flamboyant cassis fruit, chocolaty, berry jam-like notes, and plenty of earthy, foresty flavors. This is a full-bodied, extravagantly rich Pichon Lalande seemingly devoid of acidity and tannin, but the wine is incredibly well-balanced and pure. It is an amazing effort!


1985 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. Parker 90-91. Fully mature, this wine shows some pink at the edge, a sweet nose of herb-tinged cherries and black currants intermixed with dusty notes and new oak. The wine is medium-bodied, elegant, very flattering, and perfumed. It does not have the weight, depth, or dimensions of the top vintages, but is quite seductive.


1982 Certan de May. Parker 92-98. A murky, dense, opaque garnet color is followed by spectacular aromatics of roasted herbs, smoked meats, cedar, prunes, black cherries, and black currants. Rich, powerful, and full-bodied, with a thick, unctuous texture, considerable fat and glycerin, and dazzling concentration, Certan de May has not produced a wine of such intensity, thickness, and aging potential since their 1949, 1948, 1947, and 1945.


1961 Château Brane-Cantenac. RJ Wine 93. This looks fully mature. Initially there are some sandalwood notes on the nose, then some high tones. The palate is open, and nice and clean with some acidity lending a freshness, but nowhere near that of the Giscours. It’s a tiny bit dried out, but there is still some good black fruit in there on the palate. Returning to this later, it was becoming very secondary and faded on both the nose and the palate.


2000 Du Tertre. Parker 91. A dense purple color is followed by layers of concentrated blackberry fruit intertwined with damp earth, mushroom, and sweet, toasty barrique smells. With ripe tannin, medium to full body, a layered texture, and a concentrated, impressively endowed finish, this is the finest Du Tertre since their 1979. This is a property on the move … up!


1995 Chateau Rayas Fonsalette Cotes du Rhone. Parker 90. The 1995 Chateau Fonsalette Cotes du Rhone is a twenty-year wine that requires 4-5 years of cellaring. It exhibits a black/purple color, good acidity and tannin, a closed, dense, moderately tannic personality, exceptional richness, and a powerful, full-bodied finish. Yields of 30 hectoliters per hectare were slightly higher than the 15-20 achieved in 1996. This is a wine for those who cannot find or afford to purchase Rayas.


Grace family Cabernet Sauvignon (can’t read the vintage).


1996 Chapoutier Ermitage l’Ermite. Parker 99-100. One of the candidates for France’s wine of the vintage is unquestionably Chapoutier’s 1996 Hermitage l’Ermite. In October, 1997 I reported that this was a virtually perfect wine made from a small parcel of vines, believed to be over 100 years old, located close to the tiny white chapel owned by the Jaboulets on the highest part of the Hermitage Hill. Yields were a minuscule 9 hectoliters per hectare. Now that this wine is in bottle, it is unbelievable! Unfortunately, only 30 cases were exported to the United States. The wine boasts a saturated black/purple color, as well as a phenomenal nose of rose petals, violets, blackberries, cassis, and pain grille. In the mouth, it is phenomenally rich, with a viscous texture, and a multidimensional, layered finish that lasts for over a minute. Its purity, perfect equilibrium, and unbelievable volume and richness are the stuff of legends.


2010 Saxum Terry Hoage Vineyard. Parker 94+. Here in its first vintage, the 2010 Terry Hoage Vineyard bursts onto the palate with rich, dark fruit. The weight power and richness of Syrah comes through beautifully in the layered, sumptuous wine. Flowers, licorice, mint, tobacco and grilled herbs wrap around the finish. The 2010 boasts serious density and fabulous overall balance. It is terrific first effort. The blend is 46% Syrah, 33% Grenache and 21% Mourvedre.


1989 Marcel Deiss Riesling Bergheim.


1976 De Suduiraut. Parker 92. For me, the 1976 is the greatest Suduiraut of the seventies, and the only wine other than the 1989 that resembles the magnificent 1959 this property produced. Medium to dark amber/gold, this full-bodied, massive wine has a very intense bouquet of vanillin oak, ripe pineapples, and melted caramel. Very deep and viscous, this is a decadently opulent Suduiraut with enormous presence in the mouth.


Vin Santo Del Chianti. Silvio Nardi.

The madness!

More crazy Hedonist adventures or

LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

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  2. Epic Hedonism at Totoraku
  3. Totoraku – Secret Beef!
  4. Big Bottle Madness at Kali Dining
  5. Hedonists at STK again!
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: beef, Chardonnay, Charles Krug Winery, Château Haut-Brion, Dessert, duck, hedonists, Ice cream, Japanese cuisine, Kaz Oyama, lamb, Los Angeles, Totoraku, Wine, Zinfandel

Luminous Lechon Pigout!

Oct23

Restaurant: Eva’s Lechon

Location: 4252 W. 3rd st. Los Angeles CA 90020. 213-383-3179

Date: October 19, 2013

Cuisine: Filipino

Rating: Total Pig Out!

_

Months in the works, it’s finally time for the highly anticipated Hedonist whole suckling pig out!


Elisabeth and Jake were very generous to host us at their lovely 20s Hacienda.


This setting definitely does NOT suck.


Wayne went crazy tonight and brought some really fabulous wines, like this top top champagne.

1996 Salon. Parker 97+. The 1996 Salon is yet another wine that is maturing splendidly. Once focused to the point of being painfully austere and angular, today the 1996 Salon has begun to soften and fill out. My latest bottles have been rich, generous and totally compelling in every way.


What is wine without a little cheese. Next to the nuts is a washed rind.


2004 Marcassin Chardonnay Three Sisters Vineyard. IWC 93+. Slightly deeper yellow than the Zio Tony. Pure, subdued nose hints at lemon, ginger, spring flowers and flinty minerality. Then almost shockingly fat, broad and rich in the mouth, with elevated alcohol contributing to the impression of plumpness. Dry yet luscious, with a honeyed flavor. Finishes with considerable breadth and power, and more obvious structure than the Zio Tony. But this one really calls for a year or two of additional aging.


And a blu cheese.

2006 Moraga Vineyard Proprietary White. Parker 92. The 2006 Proprietary White offers beautiful notes of honeyed lemon blossoms, melons, figs, and flinty undertones. Well-integrated acidity, wood, and alcohol has rendered one of the finest California Sauvignon Blancs money can buy. It should continue to drink well for several more years. This is one of the most distinctive little treasures in California. A tiny, 9.5-acre vineyard (5 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Petit Verdot, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Sauvignon Blanc) is planted on some of California’s most expensive real estate, the sloping hillsides composed of limestone and sandstone in Bel Air.


And a creamy (almost like butter) cheese that I think was Brillat-Savarin. I can’t be sure, but the style is right and I loved it, which makes it likely.


And a slightly moldy (on purpose) brie.


From my cellar, 1970 La Rioja Alta Rioja Viña Alberdi Crianza. It was a little shaken up by the journey here, including having been rolled down a bumpy street in my wine bag, so the sediment had mixed into the wine, but the flavor was there. Almost Burgundian, with a crisp acidity and a lot of “red berry” fruit.


1995 R. López de Heredia Rioja Viña Bosconia Coscha. 92 points. Dark red. A kaleidoscopic bouquet evokes candied red fruits, incense, pipe tobacco and potpourri, with hints of woodsmoke, leather and Asian spices gaining strength in the glass. Silky and sweet, with intense raspberry liqueur and bitter cherry flavors that take a darker turn with air. Tangy acidity adds lift and focus to a strikingly long, sappy finish. This wine belies its age with its vivacity.Dark red. A kaleidoscopic bouquet evokes candied red fruits, incense, pipe tobacco and potpourri, with hints of woodsmoke, leather and Asian spices gaining strength in the glass. Silky and sweet, with intense raspberry liqueur and bitter cherry flavors that take a darker turn with air. Tangy acidity adds lift and focus to a strikingly long, sappy finish. This wine belies its age with its vivacity.


1998 Clos du Marquis. Parker 90. A superb effort, the 1998 exhibits abundant quantities of black currant and cherry fruit subtley dosed with toasty oak. A medium to full-bodied, nicely-textured, pure effort, with a moderately tannic finish.


Wayne goes all out again, 1995 Guigal Cote Rotie la Turque. Parker 98-100. The 1995 Cote Rotie La Turque (about 7% Viognier in the blend) possesses a dense ruby/purple color, and roasted herb, olive, and Asian spice characteristics. It exhibits exceptional concentration and is velvety and concentrated. The fabulous 1995 La Turque is a virtually perfect wine with flamboyance, harmony, and remarkable opulence and length. It should drink well when released, and last for two decades.

Psych. We didn’t open it, too good for BBQ!


2009 Mouton-Rothschild. Parker 99+. The 2009 Mouton Rothschild has a striking label from Anish Kapoor. The wine is a blend of 88% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% Merlot that begs comparison as a young wine with what the 1982 tasted like in 1985 or, I suspect, what the 1959 may have tasted like in 1962. Representing 50% of their production, the wine has an inky purple color to the rim and not terribly high alcohol for a 2009 (13.2%), but that is reflected by the high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon. It has a remarkable nose of lead pencil shavings, violets, creme de cassis and subtle barrique smells. It is stunningly opulent, fat, and super-concentrated, but the luxurious fruit tends to conceal some rather formidable tannins in the finish. This is an amazing wine that will be slightly more drinkable at an earlier age than I thought from barrel, but capable of lasting 50 or more years. Kudos to the Baroness Philippine de Rothschild and the entire Mouton team, lead by Monsieur Dalhuin.

More psych, also saved for another day.


1996 Dunn Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain. Parker 96. The 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain possesses a black/blue/purple color, and a texture of unctuosity and thickness. Greatness is suggested by a wonderfully sweet mid-section, gorgeous purity, and this humongous wine’s overall symmetry. It also possesses sumptuous layers of concentration, remarkably sweet tannin, low acidity, and a 40+ second finish.

This one we drank!


2006 Lillian Syrah. Parker 94. The second release from Maggie Harrison, previously an apprentice at Sine Qua Non, the 2006 Syrah from Lillian is even better than the excellent 2005. Totally sourced from the White Hawk Vineyard, and aged in 65% new oak for 23 months, there are 508 cases of this beautiful Syrah. Notes of creme de cassis, blackberries, spice, incense, flowers, ground pepper, licorice, and subtle smoke are followed by a full-bodied, layered, multidimensional, big (15.6% alcohol) Syrah. Beautifully balanced, elegant, and pure, it should age gracefully for a decade or more.


1995 Vineyard 29 Cabernet Sauvignon Grace Family Vineyard. 93 points. Superripe, sappy nose combines blackcurrant, chocolate and brown spices. Sweet, supple and chewy on the palate; already displays expressive inner-mouth aromatics. A fairly big wine, finishing with excellent length and thoroughly buffered tannins. Faint notes of roast coffee and game on the aftertaste.


2005 Marquis Philips Shiraz 9. IWC 87+. Saturated ruby. Powerful, room-filling aromas of dark berry compote, vanilla, chocolate, cola and espresso aromas show a head-spinning quality (this says 16.5% alcohol on the label). Fat, soft and oily, with sweet cassis, plum and blackberry flavors sweetened by mocha and vanilla. Doesn’t seem especially tannic but maybe they’re lurking underneath the wine’s confectionary quality. An unctuous, jammy example of shiraz that could use more energy, but this style has its fans. (The other ’05 releases I tasted from this producer were all solidly made but on the jammy side.)


2008 Cayuse Syrah Bionic Frog. IWC 96. Bright dark red. Multidimensional nose delivers black raspberry, brown sugar, smoky cardamom and black olive. Superconcentrated, sappy and rich, showing a rare blend of power and delicacy. No single element dominates this outstanding syrah; flavors of red and black fruits, pepper and spices wash over the palate in a wave. Finishes with very fine tannins and great persistence.


2005 Cascina Tiole Barolo. Nice, if a little young.


2002 Plumpjack Cabernet Sauvignon Estate. Parker 95+. The 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate is an amazingly rich, full-throttle effort boasting notes of blackberries, creme de cassis, acacia flowers, graphite and wood smoke. This massive effort tastes more like a mountain-styled Cabernet Sauvignon than one from the Oakville valley floor. It should be forgotten for another 5-6 years and drunk over the following quarter of a century.


w

2005 Château Cap de Mourlin. 90 points. Eye: deep dark purple. Nose: berries, smoke, lots of fruit, spice. Palate: round, fruity, some structure hidden, slight sweetness, medium finish.


Most of the food came tonight from Eva’s, a traditional Filipino BBQ place that many say has the best pig in the city.


And here is the poor guy.


I’m not sure I’d look so cheerful if 25 Hedonists were about to carve into my back and chow down!


Pancit Bihon. Thin rice noodles with soy sauce, lemon, and cabbage. Very tasty, and our only starch (we badly needed rice).


Pinakbet. Chicken, green beans, and squash in a fermented fish sauce (probably some coconut milk in there too).


Pork and chicken adobo. Meat cooked in a mix of vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic.


Dinuguan. Blood stew with pork or beef (traditionally pork). The blood is pig blood and there are some peppers and potato in there. Despite the frightening appearance and scary concept it was quite tasty.


Arroz Caldo. Sticky rice porriage with chicken, garlic, and ginger. Surprisingly tasty with a congee like texture.


Lumpiang Shanghai. Or Shanghai eggroll. Little fried rolls stuffed with meat (probably pork and shrimp).


Kare-kare. A peanut curry with cabbage, green beans, and some kind of meat, maybe oxtail. Traditionally, it’s oxtail, brisket, and tripe. The meat was very dense and chewy.


The feeding frenzy.


Looks like Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, since there was no rice, all the stews blended. It still tasted good, but probably was a little chaotic.


Wayne strikes again with a magnum of: 2001 Château d’Yquem. Parker 100. There are 10,000 cases of this perfect sweet white Bordeaux. The 2001 Yquem reveals a hint of green in its light gold color. While somewhat reticent aromatically, with airing, it offers up honeyed tropical fruit, orange marmalade, pineapple, sweet creme brulee, and buttered nut-like scents. In the mouth, it is full-bodied with gorgeously refreshing acidity as well as massive concentration and unctuosity. Everything is uplifted and given laser-like focus by refreshing acidity. This large-scaled, youthful Yquem appears set to take its place among the most legendary vintages of the past, and will age effortlessly for 75+ years. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2100+.


Some lovely fresh fruit tart.


A nice cake.

We’ve enjoyed this Santorini Vin Santo before. It’s good, but after the D’Yquem…


Biko-biko. Caramelized sticky rice. Mild and pleasant.


Flan. I do love flan.


And fresh made whipped cream, whipped up by our host right then and there. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

Overall, this was another awesome evening. The pig was some of the best I’ve ever had, the wines were great, and the atmosphere and the company fantastic. What more can you ask for in an evening?

Discover more crazy Hedonists adventures on my Hedonist page or

For more LA dining reviews click here.


Hanging out.


And the lovely house by moonlight.

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By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Dessert, Filipino Cuisine, flan, hedonists, Lechon, Philippines, suckling pig, Wine

Medieval Land Fun-Time World

Oct21

Absolutely hilarious faux lip sync Game of Thrones trailer. This must have been a lot of work and I can’t tell if the semi-sensical dialog is just goofy writing or a requirement to match the mouth movements in their clips. But cool.

Plus fart jokes. And vaguely reminiscent of Adventureland too.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

medieval-land-fun-time-world

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Amusement park, Bad Lipreading, Game of Throne, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Lip sync, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters, spoof, World of A Song of Ice and Fire, YouTube

Shin Beijing Again

Oct19

Restaurant: Shin Beijing [1, 2, 3]

Location: 3101 W Olympic Blvd – Los Angeles, CA 90006. 213-381-3003

Date: October 17, 2013

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: very solid electric Chinese

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The Hedonists return to one of our regular haunts, Korean Chinese Shin Beijing for some reliable (and somewhat closer than the SGV) Chinese eats.


NV Billecart-Salmon Rose. Parker 90. The NV Brut Rose is a pretty, gracious wine. Freshly cut roses, red berries and spices take shape nicely in the glass as the wine shows off its understated, timeless personality. Billecart-Salmon’s NV Brut Rose is a reliably tasty wine.


Cold appetizer plates are traditional at real Chinese restaurants.


1999 Domaine Ramonet Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champs Canet. Burghound 90. I’m always curious to taste this wine because in the past, it has been completely and utterly different from the Chassagne 1ers, both in terms of the flavor profile, which is to be expected but also because it has always been much softer, more forward with less obvious acidic structure and decidedly less cut. However, in 99, the Champ Canet appears to have joined the Ramonet camp, stylistically speaking with its bright acidity framing the white flower fruit and rich, generous, sophisticated flavors and finely detailed finish. Very classy juice.


Aromatic braised beef in black bean jelly.


From my cellar, the 2000 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Chevalier-Montrachet. IWC 92+. Complex, subtly perfumed aromas of apple, pear, minerals and nutmeg. Dry, steely and penetrating, with brisk acidity giving the wine an almost painful firmness today. Extremely closed, even dry-edged, but very long on the back end.


Cold jellyfish with wasabi sauce.


1994 Penfolds Chardonnay Reserve Bin 94A. unfortunately, our bottle was gone.


Shrimp with mustard sauce.


Radish kimchi.


Cabage kimchi.


From my cellar, 1990 Faiveley Latricières-Chambertin. 90 points.  A little reserved, but still plenty of fruit and balance.


Beef w/ black mushroom, bamboo shoots.


Our live lobsters.


2009 Gros Frère et Sœur Clos Vougeot Musigni. Burghound 93. Here a gently oaked nose runs more toward the red side of the fruit spectrum before merging into rich and seductively textured broad-shouldered flavors that are also blessed with ample amounts of dry extract that renders the supporting tannins almost invisible on the detailed, youthfully austere and solidly persistent finish.

Way too young, but an extremely fine wine hiding in there under a bit of oak.


Beef patties. Sort of Chinese hamburger. Actually pretty great.


From my cellar, 1996 Domaine des Perdrix Echezeaux. 90 points. A rich but high extracted nose that seems more like a northern Rhone wine that pinot leads to robust, moderately rustic flavors that are very firmly structured and culminate in a mouth coating finish of good if not exceptional length.


Mixed egg fried rice. Really delicious carby goodness.


1990 Marc Sorrel Hermitage. Parker 87. The 1990 Hermitage-Le Vignon is an opaque, black/purple color, with a promising nose of gamey Syrah fruit and some noticeable herbaceousness. While there can be little doubt concerning the wine’s exceptional richness and full body, its acids are alarmingly high, even shrill, and the tannins sear the palate because of their astringency and ferocity. My experience suggests that astringent, hard wines such as this rarely come into balance. If the fruit does not fade before the tannins, my score may look conservative. This should prove to be an uncommonly long-lived wine, even by the standards of Hermitage.


Peking duck, artfully reassembled after cutting.


The pancakes for the duck.


The hoison sauce, which in this case, and tonight in particular, was oddly salty.


Cucumbers and spring onions.


An assembled pancake. While the duck itself was great, these pancakes were a bit underwhelming because there was too little sauce and it was too salty. The usual yummy cloying (in a good way) sweetness was missing.


Which still didn’t stop me from saucing a drumstick.


Optional buns to accompany the duck. These have a spongy texture and are slightly sweet.


1995 Domaine Zind Humbrecht Tokay Pinot Gris Rotenberg Vendange Tardive. Parker 92. I tasted six dry Tokay-Pinot Gris offerings from Zind-Humbrecht and one Vendange Tardive. As the enthusiastic notes that follow reveal, it is a toss up as to whether Riesling or Pinot Gris was the more successful varietal in 1995. The only Vendange Tardive Tokay-Pinot Gris I tasted was the 1995 Rotenberg, a wine with 9.5% total acidity, and 14.5% alcohol. It is nearly too intense, yet who could not admire its amazing display of powerful, highly-extracted, buttery, slightly botrytised flavors, remarkably high acidity for such intensity, and marvelous purity of flavor and length. The wine coats the palate with viscous fruit, yet the acidity gives it vibrancy and freshness. It possesses a remarkable sweet/sour flavor combination. The wine should drink well for 20+ years.


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Lobster prepared two ways (this is the first). This one is in a mild flavorful sauce.


And this one “Hunan style” with mixed green and red chilies. Both were excellent.


2008 Gainey Riesling Limited Selection.


Chicken stir fry. Pretty typical.


2002 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. 92 points. Ripe apple and vanilla on the nose are joined by salty, resinous, and sweet herbal accents on the palate that one doesn’t particularly associate with the site. While the palate is undeniably rich, and the finish promising, this is a bit covered over by its sweetness right now and needs time to really show what it’s got.


Spicy chicken wings. Pretty hot and pretty good. Way better than your usual western hotwings.


Spicy eggplant, extremely tasty and extremely temperature hot.


A fine sweet Monbazillac. Slightly funky, but very good.


Noodle with black bean jelly.


These look pretty icky, but they taste great. These is a general  sweet and savory flavor. It’s not like the more tangy bean noodles at Chengdu Taste.


Fried shrimp (mild).


And the spicy hot wing version.


Iced leechee for dessert. Chinese restaurants aren’t known for their desserts.

Overall, this was a great evening. Shin Beijing turned out to be a great find with a nice ambiance (as far as Chinese restaurants go) and terrific food. They really treated us well too. It’s not so easy to handle a boisterous group of this size and they managed perfectly. The price was very reasonable too, $41 a person all inclusive of tip and tax, considering the number of dishes and the fact that we had several lobsters, lots of shrimp, and two peking ducks.

Service was as good as it gets for Chinese. They provided us with plenty of wine glasses, brought the dishes slowly, and were extremely friendly.

Discover more crazy Hedonists adventures on my Hedonist page or

For more LA dining reviews click here.

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  5. Spice Up Your Life Szechuan Style
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beijing, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, Kimchi, Shin Beijing

Gravity – Puts the Thrill Back in Thriller

Oct16

gravity-movie-posterTitle: Gravity

Cast: George Clooney (Actor), Sandra Bullock (Actor), Alfonso Cuarón (Director)

Genre: Science Fiction Thriller

Watched:  October 14, 2013

Summary: Best movie of the year (so far)

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I know there is a lot of great buzz about Gravity, but I have to chime in and agree. This is just a wonderful film. It’s not deepest hour and a half of cinema to ever hit the silver screen, but as a Science Fiction film, spectacle, thriller, and all around emotional experience — it’s first rate.

Let me also say that I’ve been an Alfonso Cuarón fan for some time. I loved his version of Great Expectations. Y Tu Mamá También is extremely touching. And Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (a bit of a deviation for him) is the most personal and thoughtful of that octolagy. Cuarón knows how to combine intimacy with visual panache and Gravity is not only directed by him, but co-written, and produced by him as well.

The premise here is simple. Something goes wrong in space. Sandra Bullock tries to survive. The nothingness between worlds is both beautiful and scary. This is the most hostile environment mankind has ventured to. Maybe being pressurized on a really deep dive is about as bad, but at least there, up is up and down is down.

gravity-debris

Not a great time for a little space walk

This is a gorgeous film. Everyone says so, and they’re right. The 3D is subtle and intense. The panning and spinning shots are dizzying on purpose. I didn’t even see it in Imax (just on a normal big Real 3D setup). In Imax it must be really intense. The visuals are generally seamless. The shots have a nice artistry to them, as one expects from Cuarón.

It’s also, for all its big scope, a very intimate and personal film. Bullock carries it, and carry it she must as she’s in every scene and there is only one other actor (George Clooney) — and he’s gone after the 25% mark. This is her film, and that same plucky charisma she displayed in Demolition Man, Speed, and whenever she picked a decent script over the 20 years since is there in  force. I’m not sure I totally believe her as a loner doctor, but she had me at “hello.” You feel for her, for her character, and for the awesome magnificence of the circumstances in which she finds herself. There is just enough backstory  to sell the emotional depth. When she manages to get inside the International Space Station (after nearly being punctured, battered, and suffocated), she curls into a little zero G ball. It works.

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An emotional and intimate moment

The music is also very good, adding to the grandeur and scope . Just as effective is the consistent and utter lack of any sound that wouldn’t be conveyed through vacuum. The shuttle and space station are destroyed silently. Hatches bang open without a sound. Jets release gas soundlessly. Like that moment in Saving Private Ryan where the artillery blast knocks out Tom Hank’s ears, the effect is even more dramatic that the usual cacophony.

Gravity‘s pacing is relentless. As each hopeful goal is neared, some new catastrophe intervenes, keeping possible salvation just out of reach. This is accomplished with a deft mix of understandable mistakes and by the sheer array of force deployed against our heroine. But for all that, this is a movie without any villains. The one secondary character borders on saintly. It’s a classic “man against nature” thriller, and the scope of nature’s ability to kill here is truly frightening. When you depend a thin layer of archaic and marginal 1960s tech for every ounce of survival, things like 300 degree temperature swings and small bits of metal traveling 20,000 miles an hour are formidable foes.

Let’s sidestep for a second and talk about the Science Fiction. Gravity doesn’t assume any future tech. It’s set right now, or perhaps even 2011 as we haven’t launched a space shuttle since then. The events are improbable, and even a few are probably unsurvivable, but the film doesn’t go out of its way to be unrealistic or gratuitous. If I had to choose things to disbelieve, I can: Some of that huge debris storm would likely have hit Sandra (fatally). The sheer amount of physical punishment (being whacked around) would be pretty tough to take. Sandra manages to do a lot of things that are probably very difficult, very quickly. The 3 hours shown would be unimaginably exhausting. Her ISS Soyuz capsule was traveling pretty fast as she passed the Chinese station, and there is no friction in space, so I’m not sure the thrust in a single half-used fire hydrant would be sufficient to match velocity with the station. Or that she had the talent to fly with it. The early reentry of said station would probably be catastrophic as well. But this is all unimportant. Movies require suspension of disbelief, and this film doesn’t demand such unreasonably.

Gravity does everything a film should do. It provides character and drama. Shock and spectacle. Thrills and tears. Enough said.

For more Film reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Alfonso Cuarón, George Clooney, Gravity, International Space Station, Movie, Sandra Bullock, Science Fiction, Science fiction film

Continuum – Corporate Future

Oct14

continuum-season-one-blu-ray-400pxTitle: Continuum

Genre: SciFi Thriller

Cast: Rachel Nichols (Actor), Erik Knudsen (Actor)

Watched: October 5-11, 2013

Summary: Solid sci-fi

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Continuum is the second excellent Canadian SciFi television show I’ve found this year (the other being Orphan Black). The regular American networks just wouldn’t make something like this. In fact, they all passed on it. Their loss, because while it has a couple of flaws,  as television goes, Continuum is first rate science fiction and imminently watchable.

Plot wise, we have a 2077 cop who while supervising the execution of the world’s worst terrorists, is propelled back in time to 2012 as part of their cunning escape plan — maybe.

The pilot does a first rate job of setting up the future and getting us quickly back in time . The details are hinted at rather than beaten over your head, which is good because the events leading to the time travel will be revisited numerous times in future episodes  as we learn more and more about the  players. The first few episodes seem almost procedural, with our heroine rapidly shifting herself into a cop role in 2012 — but this begins to shift right from the beginning to a more extended style of plotting. True, the always amusing fish out of water dynamic is underutilized (Kiera picks up 2012 like a pro), but the show really keeps the high level plot moving forward.

The show’s two biggest strengths are its big but tightly integrated cast and its complex mythology. The characters are interesting, and for the most part, not entirely formulaic. Alliances are always forming and shifting, without feeling forced. The terrorists are a varied bunch, with differing agendas, and the writers have deftly complemented their reprehensible methods with highly sympathetic political goals. In fact, this is a show with a substantial dose of moral ambiguity. The apparent behavior of the character is often at odds with their political agenda. The terrorists might be evil killers, but we agree with their points. Kiera might be our heroine, but at some level, her defense of the status quo can be called into question. Overall, the characters are interesting and not totally predictable.

The future city looks great (for TV)

The future city looks great (for TV)

At a political level, the take on 2077 is intriguing. This is a world where government has gone by the wayside and the corporations have risen to dominate the political and social landscape. Profit über alles. And given how things are now, this isn’t such an unreasonable trajectory. The future tech is for the most part pretty well done. We have a lot of slick touch screens, on nearly every kind of surface. For low budget television it looks pretty darn good, if a bit like modern buildings in Vancouver playing high tech dress up. I have a few specific tech nit picks, but they don’t detract from the watchability of the show.

  1. Alec is way too good about coming to grips with technology he is supposed to invent decades from now and has way too easy a time interfacing his 2012 prototypes with models from 2077. I know why the writers did it, but it’s unrealistic.
  2. Why the hell does Kiera have to use touch screens on her suit sleeve when she can control her CMR (internal cyber hud) just by thinking?
  3. The batteries on her stuff sure last a long time.

The mythology is quite excellent. Each episode is studded with flash forwards (usually from Kiera’s perspective) into 2077 and each time we get a bit more of the picture as to who all the players are and how they intertwine across both timelines. It’s, for the most part, sharply written and quite intriguing. Many of the 2012 folks are a bit at odds with who they become, not in the sense of character believability (which is pretty good) but with where we might expect them to go. This all makes it pretty fun.

Not the execution they were looking for

Not the execution they were looking for

The time travel is well handled. Two seasons in (and a third has been ordered) we’re not totally sure which end of the time travel  spectrum we’re operating on, but the characters are asking the right questions, which makes it interesting. In one episode they try to  eliminate each other by killing their grandparents — only to find it doesn’t work that way. So we know causality doesn’t loop (a.k.a. Back to the Future), but is this a fated timeline? Did original older Alec remember younger Kiera and engineer her return? I don’t think so, meaning we are dealing with two possibly disconnected timelines. As a time travel fan and author thinking about these questions made my day.

All in all, I watched it in a 3-4 episode a night binge and I was depressed when it was over. Good thing another season is on the way!

Check out more TV reviews or

my own Time Travel novel, Untimed.

continuum01

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By: agavin
Comments (12)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Continuum, Erik Knudsen, Rachel Nichols, Science Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Television, Time travel

Not So Close Shave

Oct11

Restaurant: Salju Dessert

Location: 35 W Valley Blvd, Ste B. Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 289-3578

Date: September/October, 2013 and many times since

Cuisine: Shave Ice

Rating: Perfect after Szechuan

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Most of my San Gabriel valley excursions are to Chinese, and as anyone who eats authentic Chinese knows, you’re more likely to be served taro or red bean than salted caramel budino. And particularly after the sensory assault of Szechuan or Hunan, one needs something to cool off.


Enter Salju Dessert. Here in SoCal we’ve been getting more and more of this kind of Asian shave ice place. I think it originally comes from Taiwan. I already reviewed a Sawtelle outpost. Salju is much further east — but it’s also a lot better.


The format is above. You chose a size, a flavor of “snow” or syrup, and then some toppings.


The snow starts as a block of frozen slightly dairy confection of various flavors. It’s mostly ice, but there is some sweetened condensed milk or something in it.


Once fit into that giant white press in the back, it’s shaved.


Here is some relatively plain “snow.” It’s hard to describe the texture, but as big as this tub is, there is almost nothing there. It’s fluffy, light, and just a little bit chewy.


Here is my favorite combo so far. Mango snow, passionfruit syrup, mango poppers, almond jelly, and blackberries. Sweet, fruity, and intensely refreshing it’s the perfect thing to settle the spice.


Pineapple snow, passionfruit syrup, almond jelly, and strawberries.


Coffee snow, egg pudding, blueberries, and chocolate syrup.


Black sesame (the grey stuff) is a favorite. This one also has sweetened condensed milk, leechee and taro!


And another sesame with almonds and poppers.


Pineapple snow with passion fruit, almond jelly, blackberries, and boba.


Mango snow with strawberries, blueberries, passion fruit syrup and almond jelly.


Coffee snow with coffee jelly, syrup, and almond jelly.


Coconut snow with peanut butter cups, egg custard, and condensed milk.


Green tea snow with chocolate chips.

Classic (sweetened) flavor with gummy bears and Oreos.

Black sesame with berries and chocolate sauce.

Thai ice tea flavored with mochi, graham crackers, and chocolate sauce.

And sweet toast. This innocent looking item is a slice of toast that has been somehow infused with sugar and butter and glazed with sweetened condensed milk. It’s so insanely sweet and rich and somehow a bit like cinnamon toast without the cinnamon but more sugar.

Cool place!

For more LA dining reviews click here,

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

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  5. Hedonists Hunan Style
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Condensed milk, Dessert, hedonists, san Gabriel valley, shave ice, shaved ice

East Meets West – Maru Sushi

Oct09

Restaurant: Maru Sushi

Location: 12400 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. 310.820.7240

Date: September 6, 2013

Cuisine: Modern Sushi

Rating: Creative

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Maru is a new addition to the excellent Westside sushi scene. It melds traditional (or at least mostly traditional) sushi with a “market menu” of interesting hybrid East/West dishes.


The big interior used to hold Sasabune.


They have a giant mid restaurant table.


2005 Marisa Cuomo Costa d’Amalfi Furore Fiorduva. An enjoyable wine, with minerality and stone fruit on the nose, good body, a nice mid-palate and length. Flavors included lemon, menthol, slight cinnamon and ginger, persimmon, mango,some oak, and simple syrup.


The menu.

Heirloom Tomato Salad. An assortment of vine ripened heirlooms in a sherry vinaigrette w/ a shiso pesto. Popular with the nightshade fans.

Roasted Beet Salad. With lolla rosa lettuce & a sherry vinaigrette. Topped w/ Red Wood Hill Farm goat cheddar cheese.

Hamachi Kama. Broiled yellowtail collar. Lots of cartilage, but a nice flavor.


Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice. crispy rice topped w/ spicy tuna & jalapeno w/ spicy mayo & eel sauce.

Crispy Duck Risotto. Our famous duck confit & risotto sautéed crispy on the outside. With an herb salad & tomato-truffle oil sauce.

This is one of the restaurant’s signature items. It was good, but the risotto itself didn’t have the ultra creamy quality that great risotto should.


Scallop Ravioli. Mascarpone, morels, tahitian vanilla bean, balsamic sauce.

Really nice. Soft with an interesting blend of richness and that hint of vanilla.


From my cellar, 2006 Domaine William Fèvre Chablis. Burghound 88. A very clean, fresh, bright and airy nose that offers good Chablis character on the white flower and green fruit nose that introduces energetic and mineral-infused flavors that are both delicious and deliver fine finishing volume. Good quality at this level.


Alaskan Black Cod. Half brown rice, bloomsdale spinach, meyer lemon broth.
Nice and light.


Pork in Puff Pastry. braised shoulder, local asparagus, gruyere, soy reduction.


The inside. This was darn tasty.

Curry Lamb. Colorado lamb loin roasted med-rare. Served over a bed of crispy-shiitake rice and marinated onion with cilantro and a Japanese style curry sauce. Excellent with the Soter Cab Franc or the Groth cabernet.

I liked the curry sauce.


Steamed scallop tendons in ponzu.


The meat of the Japanese scallop, server nigiri style and as sashimi. Yum!


A bit of sushi. In the back, toro, the in the middle salmon and kanpachi (young yellowtail). In the front, tamago (omelet).


Here in the back, some BBQ freshwater eel.


Ice cream sandwich of valrhona chocolate chip cookie with chocolate, vanilla, and mocha ice cream.

Quite excellent.


Rice pudding. Lemon grass infused, wong farms mango, key lime drizzle.

Subtle and refreshing, with nice exotic flavors.


Peach cobbler. organically grown, tahitian vanilla ice cream.

Overall, newcomer Maru Sushi boldly melds Japanese flavors with Western dishes and a bevy of local ingredients. As a seeker of new culinary experiences, I have to admire this. The results aren’t entirely even, with some dishes working well and others a little quirky. The menu is big too, which is probably a little confusing to the uninitiated. It presents a greater challenge in constructing a harmonious dining experience. I’m not entirely sure I succeeded. The sushi at the end was good, but didn’t marry totally successfully. This is difference than at the Nobu/Matsuhisa restaurants where the dishes don’t introduce as many dairy or heavy animal fat notes. After these, the sushi seems a little odd.

Service was nice, but they brought the “market” dishes too rapidly in a big group. I would have preferred them one at a time.

Still, I enjoyed the experience, and a number of the new dishes were excellent and interesting. I’ll have to give it another try and see how it holds up.

Check out more LA Sushi places I’ve reviewed here.

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  4. Sushi Zo
  5. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Japanese cuisine, Maru, Maru sushi, Sushi

Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn

Oct07

Restaurant: Chengdu Taste

Location: 828 W Valley Blvd. Alhambra, CA 91803. (626) 588-2284

Date: October 2, 2013 and October 17, 2016, April 21, 2017 and August 31, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Face Numbing!

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Chengdu Taste, is a Chengdu style Szechuan restaurant, it’s the first to feature this regional cuisine that Jonathan Gold recently raved about and still one of the best.


Obviously, i’m not the only one that feels this way…


Because even on a Wednesday night there are about 20-30 people waiting for tables. Our big party even had a reservation, but they still made us wait for 45 minutes. Plus — the horrors — they wouldn’t allow us to open our wines. They don’t have a liquor license and they succumbed to the common misconception that us opening our own could get them in trouble — which it won’t.

Anyway, after much debate about the ordering the food began to pour out (in rapid succession unfortunately, often multiple dishes at once):


Mung bean jelly noodle. Very interesting. An unusual sweet and sour taste with a little bit of heat. Refreshing and spicy at the same time.


Cold garlic noodle. You mix it up yourself, to give:


These were delicious. A nice vinegar tang and a considerable amount of heat, but a lot of flavor.


Look at all that chili oil!


Diced Rabbit with younger sister’s secret recipe. The tangy spicy flavor on this was nice, but the rabbit has been diced (as promised) into tiny morsels bone and all. Each bit is sharp and requires nibbling at to get fragments of meat out of the spiky little bones.


Fish and tofu pudding in spicy sauce. There are mild boiled filets of fish and generous cubes of soft tofu under all that pepper. The “sauce” is nearly liquid, almost solid chili oil with a sea of peanuts, heavy facing pepper, and tons of little Szechwan peppercorns. They included the real deal Szechwan Peppercorn which has only been allowed in the US for about 7-8 years (for strange political or environmental reasons). Wow did it have an “impressive” breath and depth of hotness. I mean serious existential hotness of a new type. Not an inedible heat (which I’ve had in China), but this weird numbing effect that is a feature of the genuine Szechwan peppercorn (the little brown black pepper-like balls floating in the dish). Woah!


Every table had several bowls like this. Look at all that chili oil. There must be 57 gallon drums of it in the back.
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The contents in a bowl.


Vegetable hot pot. This was a similar dish, but without all the peppercorns it was hot, but not as numbing. It also had a surprisingly nice array of vegetables in there, particularly the potato and lotus root. It was many people’s favorite dish.

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Fish boiled in chili oil (8/31/18). Pretty much the same as the one with “tofu pudding” but without the tofu. Feel the garlic!

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Boiled beef in chili sauce. Sauce red sauce, different protein.


Toothpick lamb. These little bits of lamb are covered in cumin and skewered. It was a nice break  from the heat, but the lamb bordered on mutton. It could have been far more tender.

NOTE: In October 2016 I had this dish again and it was fabulous with very tender and flavorful lamb bits.


Boiled Fish with green peppers. This is the house signature dish, and it was on nearly every table. It’s similar filets of white fish boiled in a “broth” of oil and peppercorns. This has an interesting vegetable herbaceous heat. In some ways a mild and pleasant flavor, but with a broad numbing quality.


Numb taste wontons. Tasty little pork wontons in a searing chili oil. My first one, looking as it did like above was very tasty. But after they soaked up the chili oil they lost their flavor behind all that spice.


Chicken in mother’s preserved chilies. By far the worst dish of the night. The chicken was mostly chicken necks and the sauce was hot and not so tasty.


Ma Po Tofu (aka Pocked Faced Old Lady Tofu). This was a wonderful dish, probably my favorite. The soft tofu was embraced with really serious heat, a nice vinegary flavor, and a bit of porky goodness.


Pork shank. This huge hunk of pig leg was braised and covered with chilies. Comparatively, it was actually a very mild dish. The meat was juicy and tender. There was a lot of fat around it too. Yum.


Duck tongues. This still fry with onions and peppers consists entirely of duck tongues. Yes, every one of those little meaty things is an individual bird tongue. Pretty tasty actually, although the texture was very rubbery (as I’m sure duck tongue always is).

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Eggplant in garlic sauce. An excellent, and very garlicky, version of this dish. The intense sauce was amazing.
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Kung Pao shrimp. Classic.
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Griddle (dry hot pot) chicken (8/31/18). Really nice flavor and spice. Had the bones, but of course.
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Grandmother’s beef with preserved chilies (8/31/18). This was the first time I’ve had this style of dish. It had a tangy/spicy thing, quite sour actually. Very soft generous slices of beef and crunchy cucumber. Really interesting and delicious, although the sour quality might be weird to some westerners.


Tan Tan Noodles. This classic of Szechwan cuisine features noodles, pork, sesame, peanuts, green onion.
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You mix it up. And while it doesn’t look lovely, it tasted great, with a really wonderful sesame nut flavor, some noodles, and a bit of sweetness (some spice too — of course). One of our favorites.

Overall, Chengu Taste offered up great authentic fare. The above feast was a mere $30 per person with tax and tip. The service was nice, but there were several practical issues: 1) long wait 2) no wine allowed 3) they brought everything out too fast. This significantly marred the experience (particularly the wine and rapid delivery). We had brought some great sweet wines and they would have calmed the inferno. Plus, by delivering 4-5 dishes at once, the enormous heat of some of them (fish and tofu hot pot!) swamped out the flavors of others (the peppercorn fish). So I’d like to go back if we can arrange for them to deal with those problems.

Still, a delicious and unusual meal, and it was interesting and fantastic to get such a bracing introduction to real Szechwan pepper (I’ve had it before, but not in this quantity). The face numbing effect was dramatic and the flavor complex. The only problem is that the spice kept me up half the night!

October 2016 recap. 3 years and a LOT of Szechuan later I still think Chengdu is a great place. If anything the ingredients seemed to improve. It didn’t feel nearly as hot — I mean it was still hot — but not mind warping. I think that’s just me having “acclimated” to Szechuan food. I have it a lot. I cook it at home! But the flavors were great. Maybe not quite as complex as Szechuan Impressions, but I didn’t get CRS afterward (with SI gives me). The menu is improved and has pictures. There was no wait at lunch although it was reasonably crowded. If you want serious Szechuan classically and well executed you could do far far worse that Chengdu Taste. In fact, it’s pretty darn great.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

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  4. Revenge of the Han Dynasty
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By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chengdu, Chengdu Taste, China, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, Ma Po Tofu, Sichuan, Szechuan Chinese, Szechuan Pepper

The Bling Ring is Pretty Wild

Oct04

The-Bling-Ring-Official-Movie-Trailer2Title: The Bling Ring

Cast: Israel Broussard (Actor), Katie Chang (Actor), Sofia Coppola (Director)

Genre: Satire

Watched:  September 18-20, 2013

Summary: As reality bending as a Terry Gilliam film

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I was drawn to see The Bling Ring for two  reasons: Director Sofia Coppola (I liked both Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette) and Emma Watson (who didn’t love Hermione?). I finished  with a peculiar feeling: Was I watching Fiction or Truth? Satire or Exploitation? I just couldn’t be sure.

In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Emma Watson, despite her character’s high damage level, never totally leaves Hermione behind. Yet here, the similarities are only surface level. The bright intelligence behind the eyes has given way to a cold calculated cunning. Particularly chilling — and effective — are the bits at the end where her character “apologizes” blankly for herself by declaring that her “main goal in life is to be a leader” and that her destiny is to “save humanity or the environment or something.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4c6hmrwba0]

This statement, buried as it is in referential fiction, struck me as true. Not the text about her being a leader (hopefully), but the subtext and psychological reality behind the statement, an absolute belief in “If I say it, it must be true.”

So what is true here? I had to know. As the credits rolled  surfed the web to find out about the real Bling Ring. The names had all changed, but the players remained vaguely similar (although the timeline was drastically altered). The story was clearly based on Nick Prugo’s perspective. Emma Watson’s character, it turns out, was based on “real” life Alexis Neiers. Who, it seems, “starred” in a reality show called Pretty Wild while moonlighting as a burglar. I found a video of her  to see if the film portrayal  read true.

And then found myself sucked down into the abyss that is Pretty Wild. Now, I could only stomach a couple episodes (blessedly free on Netflix), but they hit me in the gut, leaving me with a strange greasy feeling on my skin. Line after line in the film is pulled/adapted right out of this “reality.”

But again, what’s true?

In The Bling Ring we have a bunch of actors playing at being real people (but with fictitious names) in a supposedly true story based on a reality show about some real people warping their real lives for the camera. How much of the show is genuine? It certainly feels like very little.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMuG-S6uYtI]

And what's with all these random tattoos on teenage girls? An ankh, the Buddha's  head? The same principle at work. "If I have the Buddha's head tattooed on my arm I must be a good person!"

And what’s with all these random tattoos? An ankh, the Buddha’s head? The same principle at work. “If I have the Buddha’s head tattooed on my arm I must be a good person!”

Other reviewers have said this before about Pretty Wild, but watching it, you do have the sinking feeling that the end of Western Civilization is nigh. We have sunk to new lows. The pit yawns open before us. What is clearly real is that these four girls (or at least the mom and the two principle older daughters) are completely devoid of anything but narcissism. Raised on a diet of fashion magazines and home schooled with a curriculum based on the movie version of The Secret? Not even the book! The movie! I dare say these girls fall in that vast majority of Americans unburdened by basic facts like: “Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States.”

As completely f**ked up as these girls seem in the show, digging on the web reveals the real story is probably far more sordid. The show fails to mention that Tess is already a Playboy model, her undetermined membership in this bizarre family, and certainly doesn’t dig into the heavy drug use and other self destructive behaviors (just google for topless pictures of Tess Taylor smoking a bong, or the pair doing heroin).

But again, all the participants seem to be willing another reality into focus. The “if I say it, it must be true” principle at work. The rhetoric and the actions are completely disconnected.

And equally disturbing is the bizarre line the Pretty Wild producers walk between satire and exploitation. Sure, it’s clear the “actors” are the main target of mockery, but how about the audience? What’s with the gratuitous presence of Tess’ breasts as secondary performers. The show goes out of its way to show these thinly blurred twins at any opportunity. I’m all for nudity,  frequently complaining in my reviews about its relative absence in recent films, but here it feels so forced, as do the omnipresent shots of LA freeways, palm lined streets, and that most exciting of subjects: the ugly stucco facade of girl’s house.

Is this art imitating life? I don’t know, but it certainly isn’t art.

For more Film reviews, click here.

Including Emma Watson’s better turns in Wallflower or Harry Potter.

And p.s. does no one in Hollywood lock their doors or turn on their alarm?

Role Models

Role Models

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Movies, Television
Tagged as: Alexis Neiers, Bling Ring, burgulary, Emma Watson, Film Review, Pretty Wild, reality tv, Sofia Coppola, Tess Taylor

Tony Terroni

Oct02

Restaurant: Terroni [1, 2]

Location: 802 S Spring St. Los Angeles, CA 90015. 323-954-0300

Date: September 30, 2013

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Great location!

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Terroni is a small chain (5 restaurants) of high end Italians out of Toronto. They have two locations now in LA and downtown is the latest, just a few weeks old. This provided the perfect excuse for the Hedonists to haul the Italian treasures out of the cellar.


It’s situated in a stunning early 20th century space with great vaulted ceilings.

And our private room is no slouch either.


The location being both quiet and attractive (except for the traffic getting there).


2009 Vie di Romans Friuli Isonzo Tocai Friulano Dolee. IWC 89. Bright, gold-tinged straw-yellow. A hint of lanolin dissipates to reveal fresh aromas of lemon and yellow apple, complicated by musky nuances of licorice and nuts. Nicely balanced and lively, with flavors of lemon icing, butter, cut grass and shaved almond. Finishes long, rich and buttery, but with very good rather than outstanding concentration.

Prosciutto e Burrata. prosciutto, burrata, fresh spinach and extra-virgin olive oil.


Tonight, co-organizer Kirk wanted to go all Italian and really set the  bar high. This is most (but not all) of the lineup and includes some of the boot’s top wines. He also reigned in the chaos present at some of our dinners and served the wines neatly in flights.


Bread.


From my cellar, 1990 Gaja Barbaresco. Parker 95. The 1990 Barbaresco emerges from the glass with an exotic array of tar, smoke, licorice and grilled herbs. There is wonderful intensity to the fruit and plenty of structure. The tannins are still a touch young and the wine is only now beginning to enter the early part of what looks to be a long drinking window! The 1990 Barbaresco is rounder and softer than the 1989, with perhaps just a touch less aromatic complexity and inner perfume, although that is splitting hairs at this level. The finish is long, intense and deeply satisfying. This is a marvelous bottle of Barbaresco.


1996 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto. Parker 94-96. The saturated ruby/purple-colored 1996 Barolo Falletto exhibits an extraordinary nose of smoke, earth, white truffles, black fruits, licorice, and floral scents. Extremely massive, with layers of concentration, high tannin, a muscular personality, and a 40+ second finish, this classic, young Barolo will require patience. Why can’t I turn my body clock back twenty years?


1996 Aldo Conterno Barolo Cicala. Parker 94. The stunning aromatics of the 1996 Barolo is full-bodied and muscular. It possesses high tannin as well as extract, and mouth-searing acidity that gives the wine both great precision as well as a frightfully backward character. A super-dense, extracted, and rich Barolo, it will not be ready to drink for a decade. Discipline in the form of cellaring is definitely required for this fabulous Barolo.


Mangiabbun. white pizza with mozzarella, garlic, rapini and homemade spicy Italian sausage.

Cheesy and a touch bitter. They sent around some Calabrian peppers that really spiced this up nicely. They have a chewy thin crust that is pretty authentically Italian.


Margherita. tomato,mozzarella and basil.

Da Do a Da. tomato, mozzarella, goat cheese, eggplant and roasted red peppers.


Usually, Terroni refuses to cut the pizza (although they did for us), so I came armed with pizza cutter (Lana is modeling it here).


Ricchia salad. arugola, fresh mushrooms, shavings of parmigiano lemon and extra-virgin olive oil.


2006 Dal Forno Romano Valpolicella Superiore. Parker 91. Romano Dal Forno’s 2006 Valpolicella Superiore is dark, rich and powerful. Firm yet well-integrated tannins frame black cherries, mocha, licorice and spices in this deep, broad-shouldered wine. The 2006 boasts tons of depth and richness in a sophisticated, sleek style. I was quite surprised to see the 2006 drink well with just a few hours of air.


1982 Roberto Mazzi Amarone Punta di Villa. Parker 92. Mazzi’s 1982 Recioto della Valpolicella-Punta di Villa is a wine to enjoy at the end of a meal – either with cheese or by itself. It is a powerful, spicy, intensely aromatic wine (nuts, herbs, leather, and red fruits), with exceptional intensity and a dry yet muscular, rich finish. It should last for 10 or more years.


Spinach ravioli stuffed with spinach. A nice homemade pasta, but nothing magical.


2004 Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino Cru Cerretalto. Parker 96. The 2004 Brunello di Montalcino Cerretalto is deep and powerful in its smoke, tar, spices, scorched earth and plums. The wine has shut down quite a bit since I last tasted it a few months ago, and the refined silky tannins that were present a while back have turned decidedly virile. Still, the wine’s pedigree is impossible to miss, and the only thing this needs is time, probably lots of it. Pretty scents of soy, smoke and incense inform the long, elegant finish.


2001 Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino. Parker 91. The 2001 Brunello di Montalcino, which saw three years in cask, opens with a perfumed, aromatic nose followed by layers of dark cherry fruit, licorice and tar that develop in the glass with outstanding purity and definition. It offers notable balance and harmony. Today the tannins come across as slightly hard and this wine will require a few years in the bottle to fully come together.


Capunti al Ragu d’Agnello. capunti pasta with slow cooked lamb ragu’ and parmigiano shavings. Covered in white truffles. This proved a slightly unusual combination. It’s basically a classic Bolognese with truffles on top. I’m not sure they added hugely, but it was tasty.


A vegetarian version.


2008 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo. Parker 96+. Mascarello’s 2008 Barolo is a wine of extraordinary elegance. A sweet, open bouquet leads to dark red fruit, mint, spices and licorice in this pretty, nuanced Barolo. The 2008 is all about detail and understated finesse. It boasts breathtaking purity in its fruit and fabulous overall balance. A textured, finely-knit finish leaves a lasting impression. The 2008 is very classic in style. It will require considerable patience, despite its deceptively medium-bodied structure. This is another dazzling wine from Maria-Theresa Mascarello.


Salmon over mashed potatoes with calimari (left). This dish was accidentally set on our table. It didn’t survive.


From my cellar, 1994 Castello di Ama Vigna l’Apparita Toscana IGT. 95-96 points. Moderate depth of color, red rim (looked younger than its age), moderate depth of color at rim… aromatically this wine was phenomenal… lots of dark and red fruits, just a hint of savory tomato thing I often find in merlot, loads of exotic spices… some from oak some from somewhere else… minerals… incredible definition of aromas. On the palate the wine was fresh with high acidity, had a nice round midpalate with good flesh, the tannins were completely integrated, moderately ripe, ETOH was moderate. Perfect balance, incredible length, great intensity of flavor, off the charts complexity. Wine had finesse, flawless texture, and very good expression of place. This wine really surprised me and is one of the two or three best merlots I’ve ever had. Remarkable wine… I was floored!


1998 Antinori Solaia Toscana IGT. Parker 93. Solaia has been one of Italy’s most brilliant wines since the early eighties. Made in a Bordeaux-like style, it will age for two decades or more. The 1998, a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Sangiovese, and 5% Cabernet Franc (8,000 cases), was aged for 14 months in new and one-year old French oak casks prior to being bottled without filtration. Yields were a low 30 hectoliters per hectare. The 1998 is a classically-structured, dense, full-bodied, youthful, well-balanced wine designed for cellaring. Its opaque ruby/purple color is accompanied by a classic bouquet of black currants, vanillin, earth, tobacco, and a touch of mint. Full-bodied, moderately tannic, dense, and concentrated, this backward 1998 needs 3-4 years of cellaring.


2005 Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Masseto. Parker 94. The 2005 Masseto comes across as fresh, vibrant and beautifully delineated. It is a mid-weight wine that will most likely age along the lines of some of the more slender years from the 1980s. Today the 2005 impresses for its length and sheer energy. In this tasting the 2005 comes across as a bit out of place in a flight of wines from ‘challenging’ vintages. The 2005 is a striking Masseto.


Grilled pork with mixed vegetables. The pork was a little salty, but when washed down with all those big Tuscans managed alright.


Grilled seabass.


1976 Ruster Eiswein. Delicious old sweet wine in a funny Austrian bottle. There was also a 2001 Greek Vin Santo that was nice too, but I forgot to take a picture.

A dessert plate consisting of nutella fritters (amazing), pana cotta, hazelnut gelato and a creme puff thing (upper right).

Overall, this was a fabulous evening. Terroni’s new space is as good looking as any restaurant space in town and the service was top notch. Plus our bevy of top Italians were utter knock outs. The food is still a bit of a work in progress. I’d call it better than 80% of LA Italians, and the menu is large and excellent, but execution needs a bit more tune up to rival the very best.

For more crazy Hedonist dinners, click here or

Read my complete LA dining review page.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Barbaresco, Barolo, Bruno Giacosa, Burrata, hedonists, italian, Italian cuisine, Italian sausage, Terroni

Catch the Dragon by the Trailer

Oct01

Sure it’s overdone and really should have been only two films, but I can’t help but get a little excited:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbOEknbi4gQ]
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By: agavin
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Tagged as: J. R. R. Tolkien, Movie Trailer, Peter Jackson, The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Watch the Trailer or

Buy it Online!

Buy it Online!

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