Archive for Wine – Page 20

Return to Esso

Feb04

Restaurant: Esso Mediterranean Bistro [1, 2]

Location: 17933 Ventura Blvd. Encino, CA 91316. 818-514-6201

Date: February 3, 2016

Cuisine: Syrian

Rating: Really delicious and authentic flavors

_

One of my first couple Hedonist dinners was an epic Armenian / Syrian dinner at Esso and while I’ve gone a couple of times myself, I was very excited for the group’s big return. Esso Mediterranean Bistro is a hole in the wall in an Encino mini-mall right next door to my Kosher butcher. It serves up first rate Syrian fare and a selection of unusual dishes. The owners hail from the beleaguered city of Aleppo — an ancient settlement with a longstanding great culinary tradition based around its location near the birthplace of Western Civilization.

NV Charles de Cazanove Champagne Tête de Cuvée. 91 points. Lemon colour, plentiful bead. Toasty pear nose, a little icing sugar. Full, rich taste; orchard fruits, very toasty. Rather vintage/grand cru in style and quality. Great value.

Spicy pickles.

From my cellar: 2011 Prager Riesling Smaragd Klaus. VM 91. Rich aromas of vineyard peach, passion fruit and acacia honey. Tautly strung on the palate, with juicy apricot fruit wound around a vibrant backbone. The wine’s discreet residual sugar is disguised by abundant minerals and a lemony nuance. With a long finish featuring yellow plum and wet rocks, this riesling shows good balance in spite of its 14% alcohol.

Hummos. Chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice and spices. Topped with extra virgin olive oil and parsley. This was some great hummos, and very fresh. But I still like Sunnin’s a little better because of the lemony garlic tang.

2008 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Meursault 1er Cru Les Genevrières. VM 91. Yellow peach on the nose. Lush and silky in the mouth, conveying a distinctly sweeter impression than the examples from Chassagne-Montrachet. Stone fruit, spice and crushed rock flavors are complemented by some vanillin oak.

Moutebbel (Baba Ghannouj). Roasted eggplant mixed with sesame sauce, garlic, and lemon juice. Topped with extra virgin olive oil. A very fine example, with pleasant smokey flavors.

Pita bread, of course.

2012 Maison Albert Bichot Corton-Charlemagne Domaine du Pavillon. Burghound 92. This is a bit more discreetly oaked though again, the wood treatment is not invisible on the overtly floral nose of green apple and wet stone. There is outstanding concentration to the powerful broad-shouldered flavors that possess better energy and plenty of minerality on the driving finish. Despite the fact that this should reward up to a decade of cellaring there is so much dry extract that this could actually be enjoyed young if desired.

Lebneh. Yogurt/cheese. I love this stuff. I find it cuts the far/factor on a lot of dishes.

2012 Bruno Giacosa Barbera d’Alba. 90 points. Dark purple. Nose of cherry and rose. Dark fruit in the mouth. Great acid. A bit hot, but surprisingly fresh and fruity.

Sliced liver pate. With pistachios. Not totally sure it was liver, but it seemed like it. Good stuff.

1998 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie Château d’Ampuis. RR 95. Full medium ruby. Explosive aromas of cassis, brown spices, tar, mocha, spearmint and crushed pepper. Sweet, spicy and highly concentrated, with black fruit and pepper flavors given clarity and grip by solid underlying structure. Very long and aromatic on the back end, with pepper and spicy oak notes. Perhaps the best vintage yet for this bottling, which was inaugurated with the excellent ’95.

Eggplant stuffed with tomato. Very pretty. I’m not a tomato fan, so I preferred the later meat versions.

From my cellar: 1990 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape. RR 97. Similarly rich colour. Intense fruit, rich with aromas of roasted garrigue herbs, with nuances of ink and wet stones. A rich and hedonistic wine on entry, with an immediately apparent full and velvety texture. Despite its age this big and muscular wine still has a wealth of tannins, but with fine acidity and such rich fruit this wine will go the distance. Ripe fruits, with some aromatic, almost floral notes. A spicy, tannic finish, and some considerable length. This wine is still on the way up, and should be superb.

Stuffed Grape Leaves. Grape leaves stuffed with calrose rice, walnuts, onions, and spices. I love these in general, and these specifically were particularly delicious.

2003 Clos des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape. Parker 97-98. While I’ve always loved the 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape, it was extremely controversial in its youth due to its exuberance and ripeness. Yet today, with the wine at maturity, all of that controversy has been put to bed and I know of no one contesting the beauty of this wine – the 2007 vintage in Chateauneuf du Pape will be the same. Looking at the 2003 vintage, Paul-Vincent told me that they started harvest on September 5, but quickly had to stop due to rain on the September 7. They waited for the vineyards to dry out and the last plots weren’t brought in until October 4! As to the wine, this beautiful 2003 offers a kaleidoscope of kirsch liqueur, Asian spices, ground herbs, blackberries and incense. Full-bodied, textured, ripe and plush, Avril commented that this would evolve similar to the ’89, but I certainly see no need to delay gratification here and would drink up while the getting’s good!

agavin: really nice. Probably WOTN.

Mohammera. A spicy mix of walnuts, bread crumbs, paprika, pepper paste, and pomegranate juice. I love mohammera, and have even made it. This particular one was quite spicy with a really nice zing. It made an amazing pairing with the Donnhoff Riesling above (and none of the other wines, haha).

2011 Chapoutier Chateauneuf du Pape la Bernardine. Parker 89. Leading off and a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre, the 2011 Chateauneuf du Pape La Bernardine is a solid, workhorse-styled effort that offers up notions of sweet red cherries, licorice, garrigue and earthy notes on the nose. Medium-bodied, lively and fresh, with an overall elegant, supple profile, it won’t make old bones, yet is a joy to drink and will dish out plenty of pleasure over the coming 5-6 years.

Tabouleh. Parsley, tomatoes, onions, bulghur (cracked wheat), mint, lemon juice, and extra virgin olive oil. From the parsley oriented school of Tabouleh.

Salad. Standard Middle Eastern cucumber and tomato salad. I liked the tangy dressing and the crunch of the cucumber.

2008 Clos Saint-Jean Chateauneuf du Pape la Combe des Fous. Parker 94. The 2008 Chateauneuf du Pape Combe des Fous shows what this estate can do in a more difficult vintage. Full-bodied, seamless and beautifully textured, it has ample kirsch, forest floor, truffle, black pepper, and an exotic, liquid flower-like quality to go with superb concentration and silky, polished tannin. Showing the vintage’s cooler nature, it nevertheless has serious richness and depth. Drink it over the coming decade.

Kibbeh pie. A sort of pie shaped pastry of spiced meat and bulgur wheat. Similar ingredients to the kibbeh balls, but with a higher wheat ratio.

2003 Chateau de la Nerthe Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee des Cadettes. Parker 91-96. The luxury cuvee, the Cuvee des Cadettes, is the only Chateauneuf du Pape completely aged in 100% new oak, a la many Bordeaux and Burgundies. The 2003 is an outstanding wine but somewhat of a letdown after what I tasted from cask. A 1,000+-case blend of 47% Grenache, 36% Syrah, and the rest Mourvedre, the wine has a deep purple color, a sweet nose of graphite, toasty new oak, cassis, and black fruits. In the mouth, it is medium to full-bodied, revealing more rugged tannin than it did last year as well as aggressive new oak. Nevertheless, there is impressive concentration, but the 2003 is not up to the level of the brilliant 2001 or 1998, the two finest Cuvees des Cadettes I have tasted. In short, it seems to have tightened up and taken on a far more tannic personality than it had last year. Anticipated maturity: now-2014.

agavin: I thought this was a little hot and over oaked. It didn’t taste like a typical CNDP.

Kebbe Nayye. Fine minced raw beef, cracked wheat, onions, parsley and spices. Topped with extra virgin olive oil. A very unusual dish. This is a kind of steak tartar. Soft and slimy in texture, it was very mild in flavor.

2004 Shirvington Shiraz. Parker 95. The sensational 2004 Shiraz’s inky/purple color is followed by aromas of graphite, blueberries, and creme de cassis. It offers wonderful purity, plenty of stuffing, toasty espresso notes from new oak barrels, admirable intensity, and a tremendous finish. Drink it over the next decade. Former winemakers Sarah and Sparky Marquis have left Shirvington and the wine is now being made by Kim Johnston. Little has changed, although the 2004s appear to be more streamlined and delicate than their 2003 and 2002 counterparts.

Crispy cheese “spring rolls.” Like a cigar shaped version of the triangular shaped versions of these. Really great, though, nice soft cheese contrasting with the crispy dough.

2007 Booker Vineyard Alchemist (Syrah / Cabernet Sauvignon) Booker Vineyard. Parker 96. The 2007 The Alchemist, an intriguing blend of 79% Syrah, 19% Petit Verdot, and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon, is fabulous. Inky ruby/purple in color, with an extraordinary nose of scorched earth a la a top Graves wine from Bordeaux intermixed with tar, acacia flower, blackberry, and creme de cassis as well as graphite, its incredibly complex aromatics are followed by a full-bodied wine with considerable opulence, flesh, purity, and depth. Seamless integration of tannin, good, vibrant acidity (no doubt from the limestone soils), and a freshness (despite the wine’s substantial size) make for a compelling red. Drink it over the next 10-15 years.

Moujetderreh. Lentil with bulghur and sauteed onions. I’ve never had this dish, and it was amazing. The pleasant soft texture combined with a really lovely flavor.

2005 Adelina Wines Shiraz. Parker 87. The 2005 Shiraz is sourced from a 100-year-old estate vineyard. Purple-colored, it offers an expressive perfume of cedar, plums, and blueberry. This is followed by a concentrated but straightforward wine with soft tannins, good balance and length, as well as several years of aging potential. Perhaps a few years in bottle will yield more complexity. If so, my score will appear conservative.

Shekh Meghsy. Squash stuffed with ground beef. Topped with fresh tomato and served with rice and yogurt.” These were also spectacular, even if they do look a tad like dog turds.

2006 Tatiarra Caravan of Dreams Shiraz Pressings. Parker 94. The 2006 Pressings Shiraz Caravan of Dreams was aged for 18 months in new American oak. It offers an expressive nose of cedar, spice box, pencil lead, game, and blueberry compote. Dense, full-bodied, and structured on the palate, it has a big core of concentrated, savory blue and black fruit, with pepper and chocolate notes making an appearance. Give it 6-8 years of additional cellaring and drink it from 2015 to 2030.

Armenian pizza. Crunchy bred with a layer of spiced meat inside.

2006 Mitolo Shiraz G A M. Parker 95. The 2006 Shiraz “G.A.M.” (the initials of the Mitolo children) was aged in French and American oak, 60% new. Opaque purple in color, it has an aromatic array of roasted coffee, violets, lavender, pepper, Asian spices, blueberry, and blackberry liqueur. In the mouth it is velvety-textured, deep, concentrated, opulent, and altogether hedonistic. It will evolve for 5-7 years and drink well through 2026.

Kibbe Balls. Lean beef balls mixed with bulghur (cracked wheat), stuffed with ground beef, and onions.” Meat torpedo, and not the Spinal Tap version. These were amazing.

2013 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon. Parker 94. A beautiful ripe, plump, fat and opulent style of Cabernet Sauvignon that Caymus has pioneered, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon has a dense purple color, loads of juicy blackberry and blackcurrant fruit, low acidity and no real evidence of oak, but a nice, plush, full-bodied opulence. This is irresistible, especially for a Cabernet Sauvignon coming in at 14.9% natural alcohol. Drink it over the next decade or more.

agavin: tasted way too much like fruity oak for my taste

Sausage and peppers. Really tasty grilled wieners. Pickled peppers.

2008 Clos Mimi Cabernet Sauvignon Mcginley Vineyard. Parker ?. This is generally a Rhone Ranger-dominated portfolio, but Clos Mimi has produced a 2007 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from the McGinley Vineyard in Santa Barbara that is a beautiful wine, without a bit of herbaceousness. Inky/purple, with a big sweet kiss of creme de cassis, camphor, spice box, and cedar, it is rich, full-bodied, and probably capable of evolving for 20+ years. This is a brilliant Cabernet Sauvignon from an area where no one ever expects to produce Cabernet of this quality.

Eggplant with meat and cheese. I’ve never had this one, but it was really good.

2006 Ridge Monte Bello. Parker 94+. While it is eclipsed by the brilliance of the 2005, the 2006 Monte Bello (68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 10% Petit Verdot, and 2% Cabernet Franc) is a very strong effort. Its dense purple color is followed by copious aromas of creme de cassis, licorice, spice box, and a touch of oak. Well-balanced, dense, pure, layered, and rich, its big, rich style is similar to the 2003. This cuvee should keep for 25-30 years in a cool cellar.

2000 Wantirna Estate Cabernet-Merlot Amelia (mag).

Stuffed eggplants with rice and sausage. Never had this mix exactly, but the vegetables were stuffed with that same ugly pale stuff — but it tasted great, a risotto-like blend of rice, cheese, and sausage.

2012 Duckhorn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. 91 points. Velvet tannins. Medium acid finish. Enjoyed two glasses on day one. Quality wine. For the price it had better be. Most expensive bottle at my local grocery store. Goes down easy. High guzzle index. On the sweet end, but I wouldn’t call it a fruit bomb.

This bottle had a funny story as Michael Z forgot his wine and got it next door at BevMo — although I would have preferred the Rhones he was supposed to bring 🙂

Moussakaa. Always one of my favorites, although this one looks like French onion soup!

But inside are some of the classic elements: spiced meat and eggplant. Very good, although I prefer it Greek style with the Béchamel. Love me my Béchamel.

Frog legs Aleppo style. Yum. If you can ignore the amphibian factor (ribbit!) Kermit tasted great. Like a fish chicken blend, incredibly juicy, and with lots of garlic.

Whey yogurt with honey and pistachios. Incredible blend of creamy dairy, sweetness, and nutty crunch. Probably a several thousand year-old dessert, but incredible.

Tasty oranges.

I thought the Rhones paired the best — although I’m never a fan of new world. I probably missed a couple of wines too because it was a large 20 person table and very chaotic.

Overall, just an amazing evening. A totally epic combination of food, wine, and people. We had so much food that everyone basically ran out of steam after the warm appetizers and only ended up with about 2 entrees! Really, there was too much of each dish but it was just a ridiculous amount of food — and almost all so tasty!

For more LA dining reviews click here,

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. Hedonism at Esso
  2. Memorial Day Pig
  3. Oceans of Wine
  4. Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Sun
  5. Valley Heat
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,

Brandon DiFiglio – Post-Maudern

Jan25

Restaurant: Brandon DiFiglio at the Villamalka

Location: The Villamalka

Date: January 23, 2016

Cuisine: Modernist

Rating: Best “home cooked” meal I’ve had

_

January 23, 2015, my wife and I hosted a second annual special fund-raising dinner at our house. And given our penchant for details, things were bound to be off the charts epic. Last year was a blast, so we had really high standards and wondered how to take it to the next level…

Our “solution” was Chef Brandon DiFiglio (right), formerly head chef of Maude, and before that at elBuli, the French Laundry and more! Brandon (and I) came up with a staggering menu, and then he worked like a dervish all week brewing up a storm of components to generate this amazing meal. Brandon is a highly technical chef with a passion for combinations and textures. There were literally hundreds of ingredients. When he arrived at 10 in the morning the day of the party his entire car was packed with them! And so soon was our kitchen.

I might like modernism in my food, but when it comes to the decorative arts my wife and I agree things have been on a downhill slope since the mob stormed Versailles. We’re both history buffs and have gone to some length to recreate the fantasy of a 1730s Italian villa. So, in that vein, guests are welcomed into the Chinoiserie Drawing Room for champagne and snacks.

NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée. AG 94. The NV Grande Cuvée is absolutely stellar. This is one of the very best Grande Cuvées I can remember tasting. The flavors are bright, focused and beautifully delineated throughout, all of which make me think the wine will age well for many, many years. Lemon peel, white flowers, crisp pears, smoke and crushed rocks race across the palate in a vibrant, tense Champagne that epitomizes finesse. This release is based on the 2005 vintage and was disgorged in winter 2012/2013. The blend is: 44% Pinot Noir, 37% Chardonnay and 19% Meunier.

Smoked Salmon Toastie, smoked salmon & cream cheese, everthing bagel crumble.

Malt Pain Perdu, salmon roe, crème fraîche, fingerlime, chive.

NV Pierre Gerbais Champagne L’Originale. 92 points. Strange to be 100% Pinot Blanc; waxy richness, full, seemingly vanilla; firm palate, long finish, big mid palate; different.

Artichoke Croquette, liquid center.

Gougere, french pâte à choux, carmelized sunchoke puree filling.

The table is set, and with Riedel Sommelier stems too, as it should be. The walls of the dining room were painted by my mother from photos we took in Italy.

All wines are from my cellar and served by 2/3 Master Sommelier Chris Lavin. By 2/3, I mean he’s passed 2 out of the 3 of those torturous tests detailed in the Somm documentary. Which really means he’s an amazing Sommelier.

This year, I just sent Chris off to browse my cellar (virtually) and he picked 2 wines per course to pair — a massive volume and some phenomenal pairings.

2013 Prager Grüner Veltliner Stockkultur Smaragd Achleiten.

2010 Borgo del Tiglio (Nicola Manferrari) Collio Studio di Bianco. AG 95. Weightless, crystalline and pure, the 2010 Studio di Bianco appears to float on the palate. White pear, crushed rocks, oyster shells and lime jump from the glass. A beautifully delineated, vibrant wine, the 2010 captures the best qualities of the year. Stylistically, the 2010 is brighter and more focused than the 2011, with a bit less body but more sheer drive and personality. What a gorgeous wine this is.

Cauliflower Custard, cauliflower cous cous & chips, curry foam, raisin & almond soil. An awesome start to this awesome culinary journey.

2004 Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste. Hune. AG 95. Pale, bright yellow. Ripe pineapple, liquid stone and exotic honey on the nose, with a spicy lift that suggests an oak influence this wine does not possess. On entry, this is sweeter and creamier than the Frederic Emile, but it livens up quickly in the middle, showing powerful minerality and sharply delineated flavors of liquid stone, pineapple and citrus peel. Still, this conveys a distinctly glyceral impression that suggests more sweetness than its 5 grams of residual sugar, no doubt a function of the 20% or so botrytized berries (in contrast to the Frederic Emile, which included no botrytis). Communicates an impression of power with elegance, finishing minerally and long but not austere. Pierre Trimbach compared this wine to the estate’s great 1990. This is already showing more Rosacker terroir than riesling character. About 9,000 bottles were made from 1.5 hectares of vines.

2011 Veyder-Malberg Riesling Bruck. 96 points. First beautiful straw chablis like color, nose of oil can like and lead pencil, the finish is very long smooth and lasting for over a minute. Awesome wine.

Cured Ocean Trout, crisp ocean trout, radish, wasabi. This dish was amazing. Sashimi grade fish and fabulous bright flavors.

2005 Luneau-Papin / Domaine Pierre de la Grange Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Le “L” d’Or. VC 94. Opens nice and light, saline, with that curious note you often get in older Muscadet that suggests oxidation, but goes away with some air time. Elegant, refined, medium-light bodied; not a ton of depth and complexity, but well-integrated and health-giving. A good bottle.

2012 Domaine Comte Abbatucci Cuvée Collection Général de la Révolution. 92 points. Full yellow. This was also a large scaled white wine but not nearly as satisfying as the Diplomate d’Empire. For one, it has an underlying core of oxidation.

Chef Brandon DiFiglio.

Beet Salad, glazed, roasted, chip, merengue, salted, paper, Lenora cheese, hazelnut. Tasted like a great beat and goat cheese salad — but super interesting and complex testimonies.

2011 Zilliken (Forstmeister Geltz) Saarburger Rausch Riesling “Diabas”. 92 points. Justin brought this because he knows I like it. As usual, very crisp and precise on the nose – light and pure: powdered stone, light citrus. Gentle now with just the right touch of sweetness to round it out a bit while still having it stay exciting. Lemon and stone, nice balance. This is great. Spicy nose: cinnamon, nutmeg, petrol and apple. Quite dry on the palate. Gentle, balanced, spicy with good acid. Apple. Apple/spice finish.

2009 Dönnhoff Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Riesling Spätlese. VC 96. Tantalizing aromas of papaya, sweet herbs and incense. A discreet but intense apricot flavor rises from the mid-palate, accompanied by a subtle acidity. Animated, finely spiced spatlese with a deep, long finish.

Tuna, avocado, kimchi pear, puffed rice, lime. A nice deconstructed tuna/avocado dish.

2007 Paolo Bea Sagrantino di Montefalco Secco Pagliaro. 96 points. Still amazing. Today it showed more cumin herbal notes, anise, black licorice, and orange peel. Still powerful, integrated, complex, and dynamic in the glass.

2010 Azienda Agricola Montevetrano Montevetrano Colli di Salerno IGT. AG 96. The 2010 Montevetrano is flat-out gorgeous. Vibrant, floral aromatics lead to layers of beautifully delineated fruit in this finely sculpted chiseled Montevetrano. A wine of extraordinary beauty, the 2010 impresses for its clarity and nuance. I don’t think I have ever tasted a young Montevetrano with this much pure silkiness and finesse. There is a level of precision and delineation in the 2010 that is truly marvelous. I can’t wait to see how it ages. The 2010 is also notable for a much higher percentage of Aglianico (30%) than has been common in the past, while the international varieties are less prominent in the blend. In 2010 Montevetrano is 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Aglianico and 20% Merlot, which means the Cabernet Sauvignon now plays a much smaller role in the blend.

Carrot and Smoked Parsnip Soup, carrot crumble, herb puree. A smokey / interesting complex soup.

1985 Bouchard Père et Fils Chevalier-Montrachet. 88 points. A little tired, but not oxidized at all. In great shape considering it’s 30+ year old Chardonnay!

1995 Pierre Morey Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières. 96 points. Liquid butterscotch. Arguably WOTN. Just an amazing MP, drinking on point.

Challah Crusted Branzino, parsley, saffron, whipped tofu. This dish was an 11. The fish was incredibly moist and soft, and the blend of the pseudo chili sauce with the cool parsley and interestingly sweet tofu were awesome.

2000 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. 94 points. Light in colour with cherry, stalks, floral spice and musk – really quite bright and appealing. So refined on the palate, this steps it up to the next level. Beautifully layered and with great depth. Superb – an effortlessly great wine. The other contender for WOTN.

2001 M. Chapoutier Ermitage Le Pavillon. VM 95. Saturated red-ruby. Explosive, superripe aromas of black raspberry, boysenberry, black olive tapenade, licorice, coffee and smoked meat. Wonderfully opulent and voluptuous in the mouth, with a texture like liquid silk. Coats your mouth, cheeks and whatever other surfaces it can find. Finishes with extraordinarily fine tannins and great sweetness and persistence. The best bottle of Pavillon I’ve tasted in at least a decade.

Toasted Bread Cavatelli, cured tuna heart, zucchini purée, braised little gem. Awesome chewy texture on the pasta.

1999 Forey Père et Fils Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Gaudichots. AG 90. Medium ruby. Nuanced aromas of raspberry, Oriental spices, espresso and mint. Powerful, closed and severe in the mouth; boasts strong fruit but comes across as rather dry today. Finishes with huge tannins but also very persistent dark fruit flavors. My score assumes that this wine will benefit from another four or five months in barrel.

2002 Domaine Jean Grivot Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts. Burghound 92+. More elegant and finer than the Brulées though this doesn’t have the raw muscle, spicy exuberance or power. As is usually the case, there is an appealing note of minerality on both the nose and the slightly chalky, sappy, very stylish flavors that build in intensity to an astonishingly long finish. This too is blessed with impeccable balance and undeniable class.

Hen Egg, baked potato. This basically tasted like baked potato. The egg added a lovely richness, but there was also sour cream and the like. Really nice.

2004 Francesco Rinaldi e Figli Barolo Le Brunate. AG 92. There is notable clarity and detail to be found in the 2004 Barolo Le Brunate. The wine possesses lovely density and richness, with very typical balsamic aromas and flavors that swirl around the dark fruit. This shows terrific purity and balance, yet the firm style will require quite a bit of patience.

2004 Luciano Sandrone Barolo Cannubi Boschis. AG 98. Just as impressive as it was at the outset, the 2004 Barolo Cannubi Boschis remains fresh, vibrant and absolutely impeccable. Black cherries, plums, spices meld into mocha, menthol and leather as this plush, inviting Barolo shows off its alluring personality. As good as the 2004 is today, it truthfully still needs time to show all of its cards. The towering, statuesque finish is a thing of beauty. I hope to do a vertical someday with the 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010 just to see how the vintages stack up. There is little doubt the 2004 is one of the best vintages of the Cannubi Boschis in recent memory.

Crisp Salmon, liquid center polenta, caper, cured egg, truffle. The gnocchi here are “sphereized” in the elBuli style.

1995 Louis Jadot Echezeaux. 92 points. Impressive deep ruby-red. Perfumed, slightly candied aromas of red berries and smoky, charred oak. Supple and sweet, but a wine of only moderate intensity. Finishes with slightly dry tannins.

2002 Louis Jadot Echezeaux. Burghound 93. Strong oak spice presently dominates the nose with round, sweet, rich and impressively complex flavors that deliver stunning length. This is quite a powerful wine yet there is almost no rusticity and I very much like the obviously high quality material. As with several wines in the range, my score awards the benefit of the doubt regarding the oak.

Australian Barramundi, ramen gnocchi, mushroom consommé, pickled fungus. Super yummy smoky consommé.

2007 M. Chapoutier Ermitage Blanc Le Méal. AG 94. Pale greenish gold. Orange, pear, hazelnut, sweet butter, truffle and minerals on the nose, with a slow-building floral quality; like a serious Chassagne-Montrachet. Palate-staining sweet citrus and orchard fruit flavors are underscored by smoky minerals and talc. The minerality seems to gain power on the finish, which is strikingly pure, focused and persistent. More energetic than the l’Oree, and in need of more patience.

1989 Troplong-Mondot. Parker 96. The 1989 Troplong-Mondot is an extraordinary wine. It is slightly less evolved than the 1990, with more muscle and tannin, but equally rich and compelling. The color is an opaque dark ruby/purple, and the wine offers up aromas of licorice, prunes, black cherries, and sweet cassis fruit intermingled with high quality toasty new oak and smoke. This is a full-bodied, rich, layered, concentrated wine that should evolve more slowly than the 1990. It is a spectacular achievement in this vintage!

2000 La Fleur de Gay. Parker 94-95. I have always thought this was the best Fleur de Gay since the 1989 and 1990, and it showed extremely well in the 2000 horizontal tastings. Dense ruby/purple, with notes of melted caramel and mocha, along with raspberry and blueberry, the wine has that endearing combination of elegance and power. Layered and multi-dimensional, with silky, sweet tannins, the wine seems to have hit full maturity, where it should last for another 20 or more years. This is a beautiful wine.

Cheese plate. Not only were all four cheeses great (We made a family outing of tasting — I mean selecting — them at Andrew’s Cheese Shop), but the chefs arranged and decorated to great effect. The plate is one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen!

Grapefruit Mousse. As a palette cleanser.

1946 Bodegas Toro Albala Don PX Convento Selección. Parker 100! The 1946 Don PX Convento Seleccion produced with Pedro Ximenez grapes dehydrated under the sun at the time of the Second World War, was only bottled in September 2011. This is an extreme wine, my first descriptor was ultra-mega-super concentrated. It is unbelievably powerful, both in the nose and the palate, full of umami, with sweet cinnamon, Christmas cake, camphor, petrol, lemongrass, Belgian chocolate and butter. Incredibly complex and rich, sweet, balanced and smooth in the palate, it is both very sweet and somehow salty, and with time it develops a black olive note. It combines the texture of the 1962 and the elegance of the 1949. It is as decadent as it gets. 825 bottles were produced. This wine will survive all of us. These wines are kept for generations and offered in very small quantities, but it’s amazing that you can still buy and drink something so old, and I’m even tempted to say that it might represent good value for what it is. A real tour de force sweet wine. Drink it if you ever have the privilege to do so from 2013-2060.

Comes in a cool box too — with a vial of the stuff for “sampling.”

Blood Orange Cheesecake. Very much deconstructed cheesecake. Tastes like it too.

Black Forest. Deconstructed black forest cake. Yummy! You dig down to get all the elements.

Gelatti, chocolate grapefruit, szechuan peppercorn.

Sorbetti, blood orange campari, blackberry madeira.

I made these myself for the dinner. You readers might not know, but I’m fairly serious about my gelato/sorbeto fetish. I’ve made perhaps 70 flavors. These were all interesting and quite excellent. Most are my own variants/inventions. The chocolate grapefruit has an awesome creamy texture. Somehow it tastes like chocolate orange, even though it was infused with grapefruit rind. The szechuan peppercorn is my unique creation and was actually rather incredible with a spicy citrus character and a bit of mala numbing heat. The blood orange is tangy and bitter and refreshing, and the blackberry madeira uses the fabulous Bual from Marcel Vigneron!
 They even blend well together.

Mignardises. pate de fruits, macarons, nougat, brigadeiros. I love these little desserts, so we sourced all this stuff ourselves.

Roy Rene Nougat de Provence, flavored with honey and lavender.

Francois Doucet, Pate de Fruits. apricots, “Orangés de Provence” and pear “William des Hautes Alpes”.

Brigadeiros, Brazilian chocolate/dulce de leche deserts in milk chocolate, dark chocolate, vanilla coconut, pistachio, and lime. Sourced from Simply Brigadeiro.

Macarons from ‘Lette Macarons. Chocolate, vanilla, coconut, raspberry, and almond.

We even printed up the menus.

Bundt cakes to go from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Can’t have a truly epic dinner without “parting gifts.”

7.5 hours — 28 bottles for 18 people!

But what was really epic was the length. Over 7 hours for dinner! A marathon of gluttony, but everyone had a fabulous time. Brandon’s cooking was on point and inventive, and no one went home hungry. In fact, the “wafer thin mint” joke was bandied about more than once.

Everything was amazing, and we ironed out a few kinks from last year. But the food was just crazy good. I was staggered at how efficiently Brandon and his team (who only met that day) were able to churn out so many complicated dishes. A lot of it was due to Brandon’s multi-day prep. And they really tasted great. There wasn’t a miss amoung them. Probably the “worse” was about an 8 on the 10 scale. Some, like the Branzino, were 11s. Just really interesting and memorable.

The wine pairings were really amazing too. These weren’t always the easiest dishes to pair with — modernist cooking can be tough — but Chris pulled all sorts of unusual stuff out of the cellar and all were dead on.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Marcel Vigneron – Taking Epic Further
  2. Cabin in the Woods – Post Modern Fun
  3. Mei Long Village – Pig Stuffed Duck
  4. ThanksGavin 2013
  5. ThanksGavin 2015
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

Winter at the Peak

Jan22

Restaurant: Saddle Peak Lodge [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Location: 419 Cold Canyon Rd, Calabasas, CA 91302 (818) 222-3888

Date: January 21, 2016

Cuisine: Modern American

Rating: Great ambiance and terrific game oriented food.

_

Ever year, both in the summer and winter, we Hedonists return to Saddle Peak Lodge. It’s pretty much the perfect venue for both a winter or summer food and wine blast, with gorgeous lodge patio, game driven food, and awesome wine service. For those of you who don’t know, Hedonist events have amazing wines (each diner brings at least one bottle).

Saddle Peak Ranch used to be a game lodge back in the early part of the 20th century. The rich and famous used to come up and hunt Malibu’s finest, such as this poor fellow. Now the deer are just served up on the menu.

The private room (this photo is actually from the year prior, but it doesn’t look much different).

The regular menu tonight, although we had some off menu specials.

2005 Taittinger Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne. VM 94. Bright yellow. Vibrant pear and melon aromas are complicated by suggestions of ginger, brioche and smoky minerals. Dry, smoky and precise, offering intense orchard and pit fruit flavors that gain weight with aeration. A dusty mineral quality adds focus and lift to the long, penetrating, floral finish. There’s a Burgundian thing going on here that’s quite intriguing.

Roasted Vegetable Soup. It tasted a bit like Eastern Shore Crab soup (tomato based for sure).

Bonus from my cellar: 2005 Morey-Blanc Corton-Charlemagne. BH 91-94. More evident wood with hints of spice and vanilla frames the green fruit and spiced apple aromas and a trace of it can also be found on the full-bore, rich and intense big-bodied flavors blessed with excellent concentration and muscle, all wrapped in a minerally, delicious and serious finish of superb length.

Pretzel bread and butter.

2008 Domaine Michelot Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières. VM 92. Deep yellow. Initially reticent stony, saline and smoky aromas gave way to butter and stone fruits with extended aeration. Complex and mineral-driven on the palate, with a dusty gingery spice quality and an impression of firm acidity. Broad, rich and dense wine with a long, tactile finish, but very young and in need of cellaring. In fact, this improved markedly with 48 hours in the recorked bottle.

Chef’s daily selection of market oysters.

Caesar salad, garlic croutons, Parmigiano-Reggiano. With anchovies, which rule.

Roasted Pink Lady apple salad, endives, St. Agur blue cheese, pecans.

This begins the first of our three red flights. The theme tonight was “Rhone Style”, and in this case, actual Rhone.

1989 Chateau Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape. Parker 97. The 1989 is inkier/purple in color than the 1990, with an extraordinarily sweet, rich personality offering up notes of smoke, melted licorice, black cherries, Asian spices, and cassis. Full-bodied and concentrated, it is one of the most powerful as well as highly extracted Beaucastels I have ever tasted. It requires another 3-4 years to reach its plateau of maturity, where it should remain for at least two decades.

agavin: nice, in great shape for this wine.

1990 Les Cailloux (Lucien et Andre Brunel) Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Centenaire. Parker 100. One of the greatest vintages for Andre Brunel, aside from his extraordinary succession of vintages from 1998-2001 is 1990. The perfect Cuvee Centenaire is still dense ruby/purple-colored with a sumptuous nose of white flowers, raspberry and cherry liqueur, smoke, and mineral scents. The gorgeous aromatics are followed by an unctuously-textured, pure wine that combines the best of Chateauneuf du Pape with the floral, earthy complexity of a great grand cru red Burgundy. This is a riveting tour de force in winemaking. Don’t miss it.

agavin: Great. Tasted very mature, almost a little Burgundian, but great. Another contender for WOTN.

1995 Guigal Cote Rotie la Landonne. Parker 95-97. The brawny, black/purple-colored 1995 Cote Rotie La Landonne reveals the animal, sauvage side of the Syrah grape. Licorice, prune, iron, and vitamin-like aromas compete with copious quantities of black fruits and smoke in this complex, structured, muscular, massive Cote Rotie. It will require 5-6 years of cellaring, and should keep for 30+ years.

From my cellar: 2000 Chateau Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape Hommage A Jacques Perrin. Parker 98. The 2000 Châteauneuf du Pape Hommage À Jacques Perrin (60% Mourvedre, 20% Grenache, 10% Counoise, and 10% Syrah) was singing! Open, upfront, sexy and seamless, with awesome notes of saddle leather, Provencal herbs, barnyard, spice and licorice-soaked black cherry and sweet cassis, it hit the palate with full-bodied richness, no hard edges, and an unctuous, heavenly texture. Reminding me of the 1990, yet perhaps just slightly less intense, this is a profound effort that will drink nicely for another two decades or more.

agavin: a delicious, even slightly bretty, anise-starred monster. Many people’s WOTN.

Foie gras with toast, berries etc. Really nice tonight with a generous slab of the good stuff.

Or sauternes to go with the foie: 1997 De Suduiraut. Parker 88-90. The 1997 Suduiraut reveals surprisingly crisp acidity for its weight, as well as excellent richness. An intense, weighty, moderately sweet feel in the mouth, with copious quantities of buttery, honeyed fruit, impressive power, and a corpulent style, characterize this well-delineated wine. It should develop more complexity, and may merit an outstanding score after bottling. Anticipated maturity: 2004-2022.

And back to our regularly scheduled program of heart reds, this time the Grange flight!

1980 Penfolds Grange. Parker 94+. The least impressive, but still a very great wine, is the dark garnet-hued 1980. Still a young wine at age 29, it exhibits massive earthy, meaty, bacon fat notes intermixed with notions of scorched earth, blackberries, currants, pepper, and spice. Full and rich with slightly rustic tannins, it has a good 20 years of life ahead of it.

agavin: still lots of fruit and life. After about 30 minutes, most people’s favorite of the flight. Tons of eucalyptus.

1981 Penfolds Grange. Parker 97. The 1981 stood out as slightly superior. Winemaker John Duval always felt this was a tannic style of Grange, but the wine has shed its tannins, and this is one of the few vintages where the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon was above 10%. Sweet notes of creme de cassis, cedarwood, charcoal, and barbecue spices are followed by a full-bodied, opulent wine displaying heady amounts of alcohol, glycerin, and density in its full-bodied, skyscraper-like texture. I was drinking this wine with great pleasure in the mid-nineties, yet here it is nearly 15 years later, and the wine does not appear to have budged much from its evolutionary state. This is a testament to how remarkably well these wines hold up, and age at such a glacial pace.

agavin: young. Everyone’s favorite at the start, but the 1980 seemed to get better with time.

1990 Penfolds Grange. Parker 96. Deep garnet-brick colored, the 1990 Penfolds Grange has an evolved, earthy character of damp loam, black truffles and tar with an underlying core of figs, dried mulberries, salami and aniseed. There’s a good amount of savory flesh supported by a crisp acid line and medium to firm level chewy tannins, finishing long with some smoked meat coming through. Drink this one now to 2020+.

agavin: younger and more massive. Lots of great fruit.

Goose. Our special goose and berry and potato course. The goose was a bit over-cooked.

And onto the Chris Ringland flight!

1997 Chris Ringland (formerly Three Rivers) Randall’s Hill Vineyard Shiraz. Parker 96. Deep garnet colored, 1997 Randall’s Hill Shiraz offers notes of warm mulberries, figs, sandalwood, cinnamon stick, cloves, underbrush, tree bark and black truffles. Decadently full bodied, rich and dense, it has just enough refreshing acidity and a medium to high level of velvety tannins to support. The finish is long and layered of baking spices and dried fruits. Drinking beautifully now, it should continue at this plateau for another 6 to 8 years+.

Look at the cool case and sign that came with it.

1999 Chris Ringland (formerly Three Rivers) Shiraz. Parker 98. The Chris Ringland (formerly known as Three Rivers Shiraz), is aged 42 months in 100% new French oak, and is rarely racked until bottling, represents an extraordinary expression of Barossa Shiraz. The intense 1999, released in 2004, demonstrates that this vintage is somewhat underrated after all the hype over 1998. From a vineyard planted in 1910, its inky/purple color is accompanied by aromas of lavender, lard, smoke, licorice, blackberries, cassis, espresso roast, chocolate, and pepper. Full-bodied, slightly less voluminous than the perfect 1998, with an unctuous texture, sweet tannin, and a 70+ second finish, this magnificent, still young Shiraz should be accessible in 3-5 years, and last for two decades.

2000 Chris Ringland (formerly Three Rivers) Shiraz. Parker 97. This is a re-review of the 2000 Shiraz since I significantly underrated it previously. It is clearly the Barossa wine of the vintage, and has put on considerable weight since it was bottled. This stunning cuvee, which used to be known as the Three Rivers Shiraz, was aged 33 months in new French 300 liter hogsheads. A beautiful bouquet of crushed rocks, white flowers, blueberries, blackberries, incense, and subtle pain grille is followed by a rich, full-bodied red revealing supple tannin as well as tremendous texture and richness, and more depth and intensity than it did last year. By Chris Ringland’s standards, it is quite approachable, and should age beautifully for 10-15 years.

2001 Chris Ringland (formerly Three Rivers) Shiraz. Parker 100! The monumental 2001 Shiraz, from a 91-year old vineyard, spent 43 months in new French 300-liter hogsheads. The result is a compelling wine of great richness, flavor breadth, and length. An inky/blue/purple color is accompanied by extraordinary scents of flowers, blackberries, blueberries, and cassis as well as hints of espresso roast, truffles, roasted meats, and incense. This sexy, beautifully balanced, loaded Shiraz should keep for three decades or more.

agavin: sadly, our bottle was mildly corked.
Because there was so much food, we shared 3 of these “game quartet” plates for 12 people.

Amaroo Farms Emu Strip, apple-wood bacon, broccoli rabe, corn fricassee.

Braised buffalo short rib. Pommes puree, bloomsdale spinach, globe carrots.

Elk tenderloin, brandied cherries, vanilla-butternut squash, baby portabella, cipollini.

Rack of Venison. Pine nuts, glaze.

Sauteed wild shimeji mushrooms.

Jumbo asparagus, béarnaise.

Four cheese mac & cheese gratin.
Buttermilk biscuits, honey butter. Oh yes! Voted a 10 by the group.

Truffled french fries, parmigiano.

A dessert madeira we didn’t open.

Beignets, apple.

Banana huckleberry croissant bread pudding with white chocolate ice cream.

Chocolate raspberry brownie.

Trio of house-made sorbets. mango, coconut, blackberry.

This was a total blow out event. The food was impeccable and the service warm. We had so much wine we left them a little overwhelmed, but that’s par for the course. Plus we had a really great mix of people and some of the most awesome wines. Tonight was particularly killer in the wine department as you have seen.

A note on the wines. The flighting really helped, and even helped me enjoy the New World’s better because they drink much better amongst their own kind.

Click here for more LA restaurant reviews,

Or for Hedonist extravaganzas.

Related posts:

  1. Saddle Peak Peaks
  2. How many Saddles to Peak?
  3. Saddle Peak Again?!?
  4. Hedonists climb the Peak
  5. Summertime Peak
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

Thirds at Smoke Oil Salt

Jan15

Restaurant: Smoke Oil Salt [1, 2, 3]

Location: 7274 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90046. (323) 930-7900

Date: January 14, 2016

Cuisine: Spanish

Rating: Good “New American” Spanish

_

After a year’s absence, the Hedonists return to Smoke Oil Salt for some more creative Spanish food — particularly given that they have a new chef.
1A0A2925
Owner Stephen Gelber was on hand making sure we didn’t get into too much trouble!

Yarom brought: Cattier Champagne Brut Premier Cru Chigny-lès-Roses

olivos. olives, toasted almonds, pickled vegetables.

Bonus bottle from my cellar: 2011 Raul Pérez Rías Baixas Muti. 90 points. Fresh citrus…lemon, lime, grapefruit tinged w/floral notes. Razor sharp base minerality puncuated with clean even finish. Great wine for the summer!

Butternut squash soup. Nice little shot of soup.

2006 Domaine Ponsot Morey St. Denis 1er Cru Clos des Monts Luisants Vieilles Vignes. Burghound 90. A ripe, pretty and spicy green fruit nose leads to textured, sweet and seriously intense flavors underpinned by firm acidity and evident minerality, all wrapped in a linear, long and precise finish. Impressive if not overly complex at present yet this wine always requires time in bottle to deepen as well as flesh out.

pulpo con tomate. smoked octopus, caramelized onion, sliced chorizo, tomato chutney.

Frank brought: 2012 Marchand & Tawse / Pascal Marchand Clos de la Roche. Burghound 91-94. This is aromatically similar to the Clos St. Denis except for the presence of plenty of sauvage character and a more pronounced earthiness. As one would reasonably expect there is more size, weight, richness and power to the big-bodied flavors that possess very solid volume on the balanced and impressively persistent finish. There is fine depth and this should amply repay medium to longer-term cellaring.

agavin: this was drinking great, having not yet closed down, with a strong intense berry quality. Many thought it WOTN.

Grilled Catalonian onions with Romesco. An awesome dish, and almost certainly the best grilled onion we’ve ever had!

Brian brought: 2005 Marqués de Murrieta Rioja Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial. Parker 96. The 2005 Castillo de Ygay Gran Reserva Especial, a classic among classics, is back in top form with the excellent 2005 vintage. It’s produced from a blend of 89% Tempranillo and 11% Mazuelo (aka Carinena), a difficult grape that is in high esteem at the winery (they exceptionally produced a varietal Mazuelo in 2000 to celebrate their 150th anniversary) as they consider it adds acidity and aging potential to the blend and has been selected specifically to make part of the flagship wine’s blend. In 2005, the Tempranillo was harvested on September 30, the Mazuelo on October 3, and fermented separately in stainless steel vats. The Tempranillo ages in American oak barrels and the Mazuelo in French ones, both for a period of 30 months. The wine matures for a further two years in bottle before being released. It’s extremely backward and tight, showing very young, with a balanced nose between spice, tertiary and cherry fruit aromas. It’s a powerful, still young vintage, with plenty of glycerin, body, round tannins. An austere wine (is it the Mazuelo?), it is complex and ever-changing in the palate. It has a sense of harmony that only the best wines have. Very long and elegant. I loved its serious and austere overall feeling. 100,000 bottles produced. This is a true vin de garde which develops complex notes of violet and meat with time in the glass. This is a Gran Reserva greatly marked by the Mazuelo, which should give it great ability to age. At this quality level it represents very good value. Drink 2014-2030.

charcuteria de iberico. charcuterie board of iberian meats & cheese. A really great charcuterie plate!

From my cellar: 2007 Spectacle Vins Montsant Espectacle. Parker 98. The 2007 Espectacle is 100% Garnacha sourced from 120-year-old vines located at La Figuera on the northern edge of the Montsant DO. The vineyard is managed by Rene Barbier’s Clos Mogador team and is aged in one 4000-liter vat at Celler Laurona. The 2007 Espectacle reveals a sexy bouquet of mineral, Asian spices, incense, truffle, and black cherry compote. This leads to a full-bodied, plush, succulent, impeccably balanced wine which admirably combines elegance and power. It will evolve effortlessly for several more years and have a drinking window extending 2013 to 2022 if not longer. It is Montsant’s benchmark wine and a world-class expression of old-vine Garnacha.

pan con tomate y longanizas caseras. catalan tomato toast with house-made sausages.

Kirk brought: 1997 Clos Mogador. 91 points. Clos Mogador’s 1997 boasts a saturated ruby/purple color, a fat, dense, concentrated, black currant, mineral-infused character, full body, layers of concentration, sweet tannin, and a 35-second finish. Impressive and pure, with nicely integrated toasty oak, it will drink well for 10-15 years.

lomo. charred iberico pork tenderloin, xato sauce, picaeta sauce. Decent, but not as good as some of the other dishes.

Sebastian brought: 2001 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf du Pape. Parker 93. The 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape La Crau is gorgeous, structured, impressive. Full-bodied and backward, with great depth, purity, and heady aromatics, this 20,000-case blend of 60% Grenache, 15% Mourvedre, 10% Syrah, and 15% miscellaneous amounts of the other permitted varietals will easily rival the 1998. A deep ruby/purple-tinged color is accompanied by a sweet perfume of salty sea breezes, seaweed, melted licorice, kirsch liqueur, creme de cassis, and iodine … a classic Vieux-Telegraphe aromatic display. Powerful as well as firmly structured, this is a wine to lay away for 4-5 years. It should prove to be uncommonly long-lived, lasting a minimum of two decades. It gets my nod as the greatest Vieux-Telegraphe since the 1998.

Mushrooms. An amazing mushroom dish. Really delicious.

Larry brought: 2000 Clos des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape. Parker 95. The Burgundian-styled 2000 Chateauneuf du Pape is drinking at point today. Possessing beautiful notes of forest floor, truffles, spice, garrigue and sweet cherry and kirsch like fruit, this beauty has notable freshness and purity, medium to full-bodied richness, fine tannin and a layered, integrated texture that keeps you coming back to the glass. There’s no need to delay gratification here and I’d enjoy bottles over the coming 4-5 years.

Kale and Parsley salad. Very nice, fresh and bright. Like eating parsley at Passover — in a good way.

Arnie brought (again :-)): 2007 Alban Vineyards Syrah Reva Alban Estate Vineyard. Parker 96-100. The 2007 Syrah Reva is dazzling. It possesses striking inner perfume and beautifully delineated fruit. Blackberries, blueberries, freshly cut white flowers, licorice, tar and asphalt are some of the notes that take shape in the glass. Alban gave the 2007 Reva 44 months in untoasted French oak barrels. Anticipated maturity: 2017-2027.

patatas bravas. fried potatoes, serrano ham, chorizo, fried egg. Another awesome dish.

Lana brought the Ornellana: 2008 Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Ornellaia. Parker 97. The 2008 Ornellaia continues to blossom in the bottle. Dark cherries, chocolate, espresso, blackberries and mocha are just some of the many notes that explode from the glass. A rich tapestry of licorice, tar and camphor notes develop in the glass, adding considerable complexity. The 2008 is a huge, structured Ornellaia endowed with massive structure. It has come together beautifully since the early days when it was a tannic beast. Readers who can be patient will be rewarded with a spectacular bottle of wine. This is a fabulous showing. Anticipated maturity: 2018-2033.

churrasco. wood-fire grilled sirloin cap, piquillo and picaeta sauce.

2005 Gruaud Larose. Parker 90. The 2005 Gruaud Larose has a deep ruby/purple color, excellent concentration, and clean, pure black and red currant fruit, licorice and spice. It is medium to full-bodied, lush, and very soft and round. I’m surprised how drinkable it is already, although it is certainly capable of lasting 15 or more years.

Paella with chorizo, banana, short rib, and fried egg. This was the most disappointing dish. It looked fabulous, and the sausage was great, but the banana totally didn’t work for me.

Spanish cheese plate. A nice cheese plate, although similar to the meat and cheese earlier.

Chocolate mousse.

All in all another great evening of pure hedonism. SOS is rocking on even minus the original chef. The dishes are largely similar in style, with some being even better, a few more middling (like the short-rib rice). It is right in there in the current “wood table, paper menu, small plates, loud room” thing that dominates new restaurants in LA right now. The food is quite Catalan/Valencian and very good. It’s quite salty, sometimes a little too much. Not crazy salty (like I’d sometimes get in Japan), but noticeable. Flavors are very strong (a good thing IMHO). The service was 11 out 10. Everyone pulled out all the stops.

For more LA dining reviews click here,

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. SOS – Smoke Oil Salt
  2. Breakfast = Carbs + Salt
  3. Salt’s Cure
  4. SOS – Wine Rescue
  5. Valley Heat
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

The Not So New American

Jan06

Restaurant: Toomey’s

Location: 6085 Minaret Rd. “At The Village”. Mammoth Lakes, CA. (760)-924-4408

Date: December 30, 2015

Cuisine: American

Rating: decent, for Mammoth

_

Mammoth Lakes isn’t exactly a culinary capital, so another night brings us to:

A popular American joint right at the “Village.”

The inside has a “man cave” sports chic.

But like most Mammoth places they do allow corkage!

From my cellar: NV Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Rosé. VM 92. Pale orange. High-pitched red berry, orange zest and jasmine aromas, with suave mineral and smoky lees notes adding complexity. Spicy and precise on the palate, showing very good punch to its strawberry and bitter cherry flavors. Opens up smoothly with air and picks up a bitter rhubarb quality that lingers onto the long, tightly focused finish. This bottling showed more brawny character than many past renditions of this cuvée, but with no lack of vivacity.

Baked Brie. French Brie baked in puff pastry topped with Apricot, Citrus, Berry Glaze, French Baguette & Fresh Fruit.

Humus w/Vegetables & Pita Bread. Creamy Bean Puree with Fresh Veggies and Pita Bread.

Lobster Taquitos. 3 Taquitos, Black Beans, Avacado Salsa & Salad.

From my cellar: 1993 Georges Noellat Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts. 92 points. Medium garnet-tinged ruby. Narrow paler rim showing a touch of brick, and clear at the very rim. Light, fresh nose. Spicy and floral with ripe cherry and plum fruit. Classy, but not much depth. Mouth feel is round, firm and sweetly fruited with red cherry. Mid-palate shows spicy, meaty tones. Round and pleasing, with good acidity and real flair. Lingering, spicy finish.

Fresh Organic Spring Mix Salad with Fresh Grilled Salmon. Seasonal fresh vegetables, goat Cheese, roasted garlic, balsamic, olive oil dressing.

Chicken tenders and fries.

Fish ‘n’ Chips – “Marin’ the English jealous”. Beer Battered Atlantic Cod served with Fries & Homemade Tartar Sauce.

Seafood Jambalaya “As southern as you can get in Mammoth”. Shrimp, scallops, king crab, Andouille Sausage. It wasn’t exactly real Jambalaya — the seafood was pretty good actually, but the sauce was more a ratatouille than a properly cooked down Creole dish. Still, not bad.

They have pies from Mimi’s Bakery, which is an awesome (even on the absolute non Mammoth scale) pie bakery.

Gingerbread pie.

Coconut cream pie. Amazing.
Chocolate Decadence pie.

Overall, Mimi’s was fine (for Mammoth). The service was top notch and very friendly. The food was solid, but hardly “exciting” in a foodie/culinary way. Still, their execution was decent. And it was walking distance from our condo!

For more dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. The New American – Gjelina
  2. From Russia with Love
  3. Book Review: The First American
  4. Mei Long Village – Pig Stuffed Duck
  5. Mountain Time Machine
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , ,

Food as Art – Tempura Endo

Jan04

Restaurant: Tempura Endo

Location: 9777 Santa Monica Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90210 USA. 310-274-2201

Date: January 3, 2016

Cuisine: Japanese Tempura (Kyoto style)

Rating: Like being back in Japan, including the price 🙂

_

My friend Liz Lee of Sage Society invited me to a pre opening dinner at Beverly Hill’s latest high end Japanese restaurant.

Tempura Endo is a new branch of a traditional Kyoto style tempura restaurant. As they say on their website: “Savor our exquisite Kyoto-style tempura in a most traditional setting in the ancient capital of Japan. the ingredients for our delectable tempura feature the choicest seasonal delicacies. Indulge yourself in exquisite Kyoto-style tempura at Tempura Endo.”

The frontage and interior is modern Japanese elegant.

Tonight’s maxed out Omakase menu.

The plate is pre-prepared with a variety of salts, soy sauce, and lemon. “The delicately seasoned original dipping sauce, made with a secret recipe and carefully selected salt, enhance the natural flavors of the tempura. Premium quality cottonseed oil made from the finest guarantees the amazingly crisp, light, healthy tempura.”

Even the toothpicks are artful.

Liz brought: 1999 Bruno Paillard Champagne Nec Plus Ultra. AG 94. Vivid yellow-gold. Potent, smoke-accented aromas of pit fruits, melon and honey, with a sexy floral overtone and building minerality. Lively, sappy and seamless, with intense nectarine and candied ginger flavors and notes of buttery brioche and anise. Shows a compelling blend of richness and vivacity, with no rough edges. A refreshingly bitter note of citrus pith adds lift and cut to the smoky, strikingly long finish, which leaves notes of honeysuckle and poached pear behind. a 50/50 blend of chardonnay and pinot noir that was aged for 12 years on its lees and disgorged in January, 2012.

Cold Tempura Appetizer. Kyoto-eggplant, minced shrimp, ginger dashi gelee. Very Japanese, with that mild savory flavor lent by the dashi. Interesting textural interplay between the jelly, the bits of ginger, and the cool eggplant.

Amuse Tempura.

Corn tempura. A quarter turn of kernels skimmed off the cobb. Perfectly fresh. The frying style here is light and fluffy, with a nice crispy texture, but without any taste of oil. It serves to enhance the ingredients rather than distract from them. The was eaten (as recommended) with the rice salt.

Shrimp bread tempura. Tasted more like a bit of pan fried shrimp toast. Delicious. This was eaten with the green tea salt.

Liz brought: 1992 Louis Jadot Chevalier-Montrachet Les Demoiselles Domaine des Héritiers Louis Jadot. Burghound 92. Deep golden. When this wine is good it’s terrific but these days it often isn’t. After years of being a relatively closed wine, particularly in the context of the vintage, this has arrived at its full maturity and is now wonderfully expressive with ample breadth and depth that complement well the admirably rich and full but delineated flavors that offer better fine acid/fruit balance plus excellent length. While not a great vintage for this storied wine, it still is really quite lovely plus, if well-stored, remains a lovely effort. Still I would suggest drinking up sooner than later as my experience, even from perfect storage, has been very inconsistent with several oxidized examples.

agavin: our bottle was a bit flat. No nose at first, although this blossomed. So did the taste, but it never really reached the heights one would have hoped for.

Sashimi course.

Abalone sashimi. Nice crunch and mouth feel.

Toro sashimi. Melt in your mouth good.

Sea bream sushi. Took this simple fish to new heights.

Wagyu sashimi. The beef is from Miyazaki Prefecture in Japan, one of the most elite sources of genuine Wagyu beef. It completely melted in your mouth, silky smooth. Almost certainly the best beef sashimi I’ve ever had.

Just appreciate the geometry of the sauce tray — ignoring the white blob at the bottom.
From my cellar: 2006 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc. Parker 94. The 2006 Chateauneuf du Pape blanc (80% Roussanne and the rest Marsanne, Picpoul, and Bourboulenc) possesses classic notes of orange marmalade, honeysuckle, and rose petals, a full-bodied, unctuous texture, gorgeous purity and richness, and a stunningly long finish. It can compete with the finest full-throttle, dry whites of France as well as the world. It is difficult to find a better white Chateauneuf du Pape than Beaucastel. Much like their reds, their whites are made in a style that is atypical for the appellation. It is put through full malolactic, and one-third is barrel fermented, then blended with the two-thirds that is aged in tank. Extraordinarily rich and honeyed, it is ideal for drinking with intensely flavored culinary dishes.

Endo’s Tempura, style 1. On the left, classic shrimp. They use a bit of wine in the batter, either Chardonnay or Sauvignon blanc, depending on the type of thing being fried. This tempura is eaten primarily with salt, in this case the yuzu salt.

And the shrimp head, which was certainly the best fried shrimp head I’ve had. It was rich, and paired nicely with the Rhone.

King crab tempura. A great piece of fried crab. Light and delicate — although hot.

Sea urchin (uni) tempura. Santa Barbara Uni, wrapped in seaweed, and lightly fried. The uni was still soft and buttery.

Daikon radish, as a palette cleanser.

Eaten with a bit of soy sauce.

From my cellar: 2011 Veyder-Malberg Riesling Bruck. 92 points. First beautiful straw chablis like color, nose of oil can like and lead pencil, the finish is very long smooth and lasting for over a minute. Awesome wine…

Sillago with shiso tempura. A very crispy light fish wrapped in yummy shiso.

Abalone tempura.

This pure butter was provided.

To top the abalone. The result was crispy, with a wonderful combination of textures and richness.

Pea Croquette tempura. A crispy pea pod.

The next course comes in a bag.

Taro with truffle! Very light and delicate.

Then the Refreshment Tempura.

Flambed sweet potato. Sweet and crispy. Like the ultimate high end version of one of those sweet potato desserts served at some Chinese Restaurants.
Yuzu Granite. Delightfully refreshing.
Caviar for the next course.

The roe was used to top this Tempura Style 2 Scallop with Truffle and Caviar. The truffle is layered in the middle. This was one of my favorites.

Sesame Tofu. Soft and gooey inside with a hint of sesame, with a touch of heat too from some daikon. A delightful ponzu too.

Wagyu tempura. The richest tempura you’ll ever have!

Special Salada. Tempura carrots and various stripped vegetables with a zesty dressing. Delicious.

Green tea.

Tempura Bowl.

Ten Don. Egg and various other bits all fried together over rice. This is a high end version of what they serve at Hannosuke. Another of my favorites. I love the egg yolk on the rice.

Red miso soup.

Tsukemono pickles. Nice with the rice.

Chef Satoshi Masuda works the frier.

Traditional pressed sugar candies to go with the special tea (that’s coming).

Each of us got to pick our own tea bowl!

A specially trained member of the staff prepares the tea in the “tea nook.”

The above video shows the entire ceremony.

The special green tea. It was strong, without any bitterness.

Very soft sesame ice cream. Light and delicious.

A close up of the tea.

Overall, this was some spectacular tempura and a lovely meal. In every way it reminded me of various dinners in Japan: the small intimate room, the friendly staff, the small courses of exquisite food, the high price tag (although it’s also similar in price to Totoraku and Yamakase). I also understand this kind of food is inherently expensive, because the staff is large (relative to the guests) and the technique labor intensive. You’ve never had fried food with this attention to detail! But it will be interesting to see if LA appreciates that.

Also, in terms of experience, once they officially open they plan not to allow corkage, which is something I’d like to see changed. They have a very straightforward wine list, and wine guys like us have way too much interesting wine to go that way. If I were eating here again under those rules I’d go with sake (which I do like), but still, not allowing outside wines precludes this as a wine dinner destination — and that is 99% of my fine dining.

Still, as we have such a fine collection of great Japanese restaurants in LA, it’s nice to have yet another with such a different style of cuisine.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Hannosuke Tempura
  2. Food as Art – N/Naka
  3. Food as Art – Takao
  4. Food as Art: Sasabune
  5. Food as Art: R.I.P. The Hump
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,

California Dreaming

Dec11

Restaurant: Private Club

Location: Somewhere in California

Date: December 9, 2015

Cuisine: American

Rating: Awesome

_

After the Foodie Club met for our epic Truffle Dinner, we hit on the idea of a dinner exploring old California wines. We’re not talking the last 20 years of high alcohol monster wines, but the classic post war California. So this drink covers 1954 to 1998!

And what better location than a true California institution, left nameless, a private bastion of the old California.

They don’t make them like they used to!

And we had a custom menu and this awesome private room.

With plenty of space to work out our wine situation. Check out that ice bucket in the back!

1988 Schramsberg Vineyards Blanc de Noirs Late Disgorged (magnum). 93 points. A beautiful etched 3L bottle, which we opened at R&D’s caroling party. Beautiful golden robe with a persistent mousse. Notes of roasted notes, caramel apple, fresh pear and hazelnuts. Fine bead with flavors of cherry, hazelnut, sautéed apple and pear with a subtle hint of honey and vanilla cream on the finish. Lovely. This actually needed some time in the glass to open and express itself.

And a detail on the label.

2014 Wente Bros Vineyards Pinot Chardonnay. 85 points. None of us know what a “pinot chardonnay” actually was. Presumably, and by taste, there was plenty or all Chardonnay. This 60 year old white was pretty much gone, but it did have a sherry-like quality that was kinda interesting with the foie.

1970 Inglenook White Pinot. 89 points. We aren’t sure what was in this either, but plenty of Chard. It was pretty good too and surprisingly drinkable for a 45 year old Chard. I’ve had 15 year old Cal Chards in worse shape!

From my cellar: 1990 Fabien Coche-Bouillot Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Folatières. 93 points. Unmistakable and typical white burgundy notes of mineral, stone fruit, and saline. Very light in color and what appeared to be a new cork in the bottle. I would guess that these might have been topped off with the latest vintage prior to being released. This definitely showed remarkable freshness for a wine of 25 years of age. In a word, delicious.

agavin: I didn’t have any old Cal Chard, so I brought some old Chard. But positively young compared to the previous two. Nutty and nice white Burg.

Foie Gras with mango. Port ginger sauce. Really nice seared foie, with a very good sweet sauce and lovely mushy mango pairing. Worked well with these old chards.

1975 ZD Wines Pinot Noir. 91 points. Very young and fresh!

1982 Calera Pinot Noir Reed Vineyard. 86 points. Slightly musty, but in pretty good shape and quite enjoyable.

1969 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon. Our bottle was cloudy and undrinkable.

1974 Souverain Cabernet Sauvignon Vintage Selection North Coast. 88 points. Lovely midpalate lift and silky smooth texture. Palate is tertiary. David says full of dill and American oak, can tell it’s not French. Racines.

Scottish salmon. White beans, fume rouge. Another great sauce. This chef is awesome with the sausome.

1976 Burgess Petite Sirah Harvest of the Napa Valley. 91 points. Bright and young!

1974 Freemark Abbey Petite Sirah York Creek. 90 points. 41 years old and still has a tannic punch to it! Brambly, tobacco aromas, reminiscent of rasberries and blackberries. On the palate gently stewed blackberries, red fruits, mineral and a bit of a tannic kicker. This magnificent wine screamed for red meat accompaniment; alas, I had truffled eggs.

1974 Conn Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Family Vineyard. 96 points. Still quite dark in the glass with minimal bricking at the margin. Big and almost brooding, dense mixed black fruit; full mid palate; medium acidity almost keeps up with the fruit; some tannins on the finish; might have guessed that this was a 10 year old petite syrah.

agavin: everyone agreed with was WOTN, a real stunner

1989 Heitz Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon Martha’s Vineyard. 93 points. Highly perfumed bouquet of ripe fruit, flowers, and terroir. Indeed, the sexiest bouquet of the eight wines. Generous mouthfeel, considerable substance, quality finish. In a great place, and though it has several years of life left there is no reason to wait.

Smoked quail and porcini mushroom risotto. Another awesome sauce.

1983 Grace Family Cabernet Sauvignon. 93 points. This was the first vintage with the Dick Grace label, 3.5 years in Limousin Oak barrels, typical Grace nose, rich fruit and terrific bottle bouquet plus hints of more wood than the older wines, concentrated medium fruit plus lots of mouth coating tannins in the mouth, finish is long but average flavors when compared to the other wines tonight.
1984 Grace Family Cabernet Sauvignon. 92 points. Drinking very well for an older Cailfornia. I was under the impression Napa Cabs won’t age so well. This wine has changed my perception. Good levels of fruit, soft mellow tannins and a nose so aromatic of dried rasins. Great wine.
1984 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon. Parker 90. This wine has consistently been a crowd pleaser, with its impressive dark color, rich, jammy, cedary, licorice, chocolatey, cassis, and olive-like aromas and flavors, and full-bodied, unctuously-textured style. It is a big, chewy, flashy, oaky style of Cabernet. Although fully mature, there are no signs of decline.
1987 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon Estate. Parker 98. Chateau Montelena has made so many sensational Cabernets that it seems almost impossible to believe that their 1987 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate could be even more profound than any of the exceptional wines made previously at this property. The black/purple color, the extraordinary bouquet of rich cassis, violets, and licorice, the massive extraction of flavors, sensational depth, super ripeness, and a length that must last over a minute, suggest to me that this is easily the most concentrated and potentially longest-lived Cabernet Sauvignon that Chateau Montelena has ever made. The extract level is incredible, yet the balance is there. Anticipated maturity: 1997-2025.

Roast duck. Red wine and figs. Great duck. Great sauce. Perfect pairing.

1994 Mount Veeder Winery Cabernet Sauvignon. Parker 88. Mount Veeder’s 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon is a sleeper. The wine displays loads of creamy, vanilla, pain grille notes in the nose, to go along with ripe black currants intermixed with truffles and licorice. The tannin is sweet, the wine gives a nice tactile impression on the palate (medium to full-bodied and chewy), and the finish includes gobs of pure black cherry and black currant fruit. This is a delicious, up-front 1994 Cabernet that can be drunk now as well as over the next 10-12 years.

1993 Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon Estate. Parker 94-96. Of all the extraordinary wines emanating from California in recent years, one of the most remarkable achievements must be the two cuvees of Cabernet Sauvignon made by Naoka and Gustav Dalla Valle, with the capable assistance of consulting winemaker, Heidi Barrett. Dalla Valle’s Cabernet Sauvignon is a pure, unbridled expression of this varietal at its most powerful and concentrated. The proprietary red wine, named after the owners’ daughter, Maya, is usually a blend of equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc (the greatest Cabernet Franc I have tasted in the New World). These are wines of immense stature and richness. It seems nearly impossible that one could pack so much intensity and flavor into a wine without either the wine or the tannin coming across as heavy-handed. Since 1990, all of the Maya offerings have possessed extremely well-integrated tannin and acidity.
1993 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Franc Bosché Vineyard. 92 points. Very ready to drink now…window is closing. Very smooth and mildly velvet (velour?) mouth feel. Dark purple to almost brownish color with very little clear spectrum at the edges. Plum with a little hit of apricot and vanilla.
From my cellar: 1998 Heitz Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon Martha’s Vineyard. 91 points. Brown-red. Roses, eucalyptus, flowers on the nose. Very powerful, yet in perfect balance. Tannins and acidity for the long haul. Nice fruit, lots of savory, complexity. This is a deep wine, and I wish I hadn’t just a sip in the tasting room. A wine to be studied and savored.

agavin: Oldest Cal wine in my cellar. lol.

Wagyu hanger steak. Truffle lingonberrie sauce. Truly great hanger steak. Super tender and meaty, fabulous sauce.

1987 Heitz Cellar Chardonnay. Fairly oxidized, but still drinkable.
1978 Joseph Phelps Johannisberg Riesling Selected Late Harvest. 92 points.  It was sweet on the pallete like thin caramel syrup, a dark burnt golden hue in color. Smelled sugary & fresh & delicious. TBA brown in color.

Charles Krug Moscato di Caneli. Not even in cellar tracker. Medium sweet and old. Pleasant.

Selection of domestic cheeses. All three were very nice.

Petit fours. A few random bits of sweet.

All and all a stunning evening. The venue was great. The service was great. Food really exceeded expectations. This kitchen handles an enormous volume, yet these dishes were all really nice, and many fabulous. They aren’t the most modern looking, but they tasted really great and were fabulously paired with the wines.

Speaking of, some very impressive juice considering the age. That Chards and pinots from 40+ years were even drinkable is amazing. But many were very good. And a few of the cabs were just fabulous. I don’t really think these newer high alcohol style California wines being produced today will last like this. These cabs were made to taste like Bordeaux, and to last like Bordeaux. For the most part, they seem to. Now that isn’t to say that every wine in this tasting was young, fresh, and blemish free. These are old wines, and one accepts some fickleness. But they preformed well. More then well, great.

Overall awesome.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Or check out more crazy Foodie Club dinners.

Related posts:

  1. Joe’s Restaurant – California Classic
  2. Memorial Day Pig
  3. Dreaming Along
  4. Fraiche – Ultimo Wine Dinner
  5. Food as Art: Ludobites 7.0
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , ,

ThanksGavin 2015 – Fat Friday

Dec07

As if Thanksgiving itself wasn’t enough, the ThanksGavin food marathon traditionally includes Fat Friday, another feast hosted by one of my cousins.


This year, like last year, my cousin Matt and his wife Andrea hosted.

Matt is not only a great cook, but he does double duty as bar tender. I, meanwhile, handle Sommelier duties.

From my cellar: 2001 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Combettes. Burghound 92. Ripe and extremely opulent intense citrus fruit and white flowers coupled with medium weight flavors dripping with minerality and enough fat to buffer the bracing acidity. There is a subtle underlying complexity and this is remarkably intense, assertive and precise yet there is excellent power and depth as well.

My parents picked this cheese up last month in Portugal. It was a medium gooey, very tasty, pungent cow cheese with a bit of the strength of goat.

My father brought: 2013 Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc. 88 points. Strong grapefruit.

Marinated pickles. As the dinner has a bit of a Korean theme, Matt picked up some artisanal banchan from a place that specializes only in kimchee.

Spicy radish.

Pickled greens.

Kimchee. The classic cabbage version.

Pickled spicy peppers.

From my cellar: 2002 Gros Frère et Sœur Grands-Echezeaux. Burghound 92. While not really intrusive, the oak treatment is still visible on the otherwise expressive nose of spice, earth and black fruit aromas that are still completely primary in character. The big-bodied and muscular flavors are not particularly elegant though there is good size and weight to them, all wrapped in a reasonably long finish where wood tannins can also be discerned on the mouth coating backend. In sum, this is a good Grands Ech.

For the less carnivorous, Italian tuna, hard boiled egg.

And parsley sauce.

Which can be assembled into Nicoise sandwiches.

My father brought: 2007 Cellole Chianti Classico.

Itsuki helps prep the next dish.

Various ingredients.

Sesame sauce (for noodles below). I tuned up the recipe by increasing the sour component (i.e. vinegar) to make it more in keeping with Chinese balance.

Chinese egg noodles.

Sesame noodles. A homemade version of the sesame peanut noodles. This dish is derived somewhat from Dan Dan Mein, one of my favorite dishes. It was quite nice, with a good nutty flavor and a little zing.

From my cellar: 2005 Celler Vall Llach Priorat Vall Llach. 93 points. Quite dark red in color, like black cherry. Nose with subtle notes of plum, camphor, and dark berries. Big flavors of blackberry and spice. Drinking great.

The main event is pork shoulder, shown roasting here.

Midway.

Then finished. It was coated in the most awesome crunchy sweet and salty crust.

And being carved.

Pulled Korean BBQ pork shoulder. One of the best pulled porks I’ve ever had — and I’ve had my share.

Crusty pork. The edge of the meat, with more intense flavor.

Green onion and seasonings to add to the pork. It was used to top the pork inside a lettuce wrap and with a Korean inspired sauce. Ridiculously tremendously delicious.

My father brought: 2012 Celler de Capçanes Montsant Mas Donís Barrica (Old Vines). VM 90. Bright purple. Expressive aromas of dark berries, cracked pepper and violet, with a smoky overtone. Pliant black and blue fruit flavors pick up a licorice nuance with air and show very good, mineral-driven intensity. Finishes with strong stony cut, the licorice and floral notes repeating.

Greens drying.

A bok-choy side.

my father brought: 2010 Clarendelle. 88 points. Red fruit and some slight secondary Bordeaux aromas, tobacco, leather. The ripe red fruit dominates, red raspberry, stewed strawberry. The tannin is soft and round. Velvety mouthfeel. Good initial bouquet but not a particularly long finish. Merlot shows through but with some added subtle features from the Cabs. 82% Merlot, 16% Cab. Sauv., 2% Cab. Franc. Drink over the next 3-5 years.

Rice.

My plate. You can (vaguely) make out the pork wrap in the lower left.

The dessert wines return!

From my cellar: 1983 Bodegas Toro Albala Don PX Gran Reserva. 96 points. Nutty, fig and raisins on the nose, rich and huge depth on palate with figs, raisin and rich expansive tartness that fills the palate. Enormously long finish, 5 minutes of caramel and spice. Outstanding. So good.

My father bought in Portugal: Quinta do Vallado Porto 20 Year Old Tawny. 93 points. high notes of fig, vanilla, caramel and oak and a touch of bright grape. great color. smooth and not heavy with alcohol burn.

Bob made this awesome Derby Pie. A pecan pie with chocolate and walnuts!

And Itsuki whipped up another batch of Grandma’s brownies.

The pumpkin pie return too.

And I literally whipped up some fresh whipped cream, because all the above really needed it.

Plus my mother baked this chocolate chip chocolate icing cake.
And lest the kids feel left out, Matt made these fresh homemade ice cream and melted marshmallow sandwiches!

All and all another staggeringly good dinner, and probably the best Fat Friday yet.

Related posts:

  1. ThanksGavin 2015
  2. ThanksGavin 2015 – Uzbekistan?
  3. Friday Night Feast 2014
  4. Friday Night Lights
  5. Friday Night Feasting
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

ThanksGavin 2015

Dec04

It’s that time of year again, time to loosen your belt buckle and sit down for the annual ThanksGavin!

Let me first introduce the chefs, above. On the left my mom and on the right her sister. They’ve been putting together this feast for decades.

Rising Chef Matt (my cousin) cooks a lot too. One of these days he’s going to inherent the feast. But right now he hosts Friday night.

My father brought the sparkler: NV Casa Vinicola Botter Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Santi Nello. 88 points. Peach, mineral, dry, small bubbles, hint of sweetness, but not overly so. Great value.

From my cellar: 2000 Domaine des Comtes Lafon Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières. 95 points. Razor sharp aromas of wet rocks, earth and white fruits meld into flavors that are crystalline in their precision, purity and transparency. Understated, discreet and fine yet this is painfully intense with buckets of minerality. Quite backward presently but this is a genuinely breathtaking wine that defines class. In two words, absolutely brilliant and consistent notes.

agavin: wow! This is what makes Burgundy so great. Like liquid creme brûlée. Chardonnay from anywhere else just cries itself to sleep.

Olives. Appetizers aren’t the focus of this meal, but we have a few.

And homemade olive tapenade.

Good stuff with the toasts.

First a sneak peak at the main spread. Then on to the dinner wines.

From my cellar: 1997 Maison Roche de Bellene Clos de la Roche Collection Bellenum. 93 points. Quite excellent. Rich, penetrating red fruit up front followed by layers of earth, spice, sous bois and perhaps some violets or lavender. The tannins on the longish finish are still abit on the chalky side but this is displaying lots of subtle depth and complexity without being at all heavy handed. There’s just a little bricking on the edge.

agavin: great stuff. Good thing I have more.

From my cellar: 1970 Bodegas Olarra Rioja Cerro Anon Gran Reserva. 92 points. showed beautifully. orange peel, sweet spices, balsamic. Still youthful and full of fruit.

From my cellar: 1990 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 95 points. I was buying this when I first started collecting wine 20 years ago, I buy it now. Great showing for a bottle in perfect shape. Stinky Mouvedre nose with leather, animal, tree bark and a touch of sweaty saddle. In the mouth, close to fully resolved with spice, tannic tree bark and sweet raspberry fruit, along with a spicy intensity that has huge length and presence but still feels light on its feet. Is this at its peak (for taster who appreciate aged Beaucastel). The wine is in a more structured, “masculine” style than the 1989 or the 1985 – this is more about structure and clarity of expression in a rustic and gamey style. Exceptional.

My father brought: 2011 Quinta da Fronteira Douro Selecção do Enólogo. 89 points. Very enticing nose with lots of lovely red fruit character. On the palate it is initially quite soft, a melding of Valpolicella and Pinot Noir, elegant red fruit and cinnamon but a sound structure to it as well. After a bit of time in the glass, some dark fruit character emerges, and the acidity and tannin become more prominent alongside increased fruit concentration, all of which contribute to the wine really gaining character, much less timid and reserved, much more enjoyable on both intellectual and hedonistic levels.

Bread, in case stuffing isn’t enough.

New this year is this carrot dish. Lovely to look at too.

And also new were Brussels sprouts. Cheese and bacon could be added at will. I willed.

And some savory beans.

Plus fairly usual beets, always good.

A faro salad.

And butternut squash with black pepper.

Cranberry chutney. A choice of two variants on the cranberry theme. My favorite is the spicy chutney (above) which is smooth and slightly spicy.

Cranberry relish. More rough in texture.

And the birds themselves.

Carved turkey. Oh so moist, nicely dressed by the ladies, BBQed to perfection by my father and uncle.

Stuffing of course.

And gravy.

Here is my dad’s plate, giant turkey leg and all.

And mine.

My uncle digs into his own bird.

Dessert wines!

From my cellar: 1983 Bodegas Toro Albala Don PX Gran Reserva. 96 points. Nutty, fig and raisins on the nose, rich and huge depth on palate with figs, raisin and rich expansive tartness that fills the palate. Enormously long finish, 5 minutes of caramel and spice. Outstanding. So good.

My father bought in Portugal: Quinta do Vallado Porto 20 Year Old Tawny. 93 points. high notes of fig, vanilla, caramel and oak and a touch of bright grape. great color. smooth and not heavy with alcohol burn.

To go with all that sugary alcohol, the dessert spread.

Grandmom’s special parve brownies.

Chocolate and chocolate chocolate chip cookies.

My mom’s famous pecan pie. Incredibly gooey in the center.

And cousin Matt’s butternut squash “pumpkin” pie. Nicely spiced.

Chocolate dipped meringues.
And my personal plate.

Too much of a good thing!

This was another spectacular homemade ThanksGavin dinner as usual, quite possibly the best yet. Really, they just keep getting better (and clearly more sleep inducing).

For more ThanksGavin meals, click here.

Related posts:

  1. ThanksGavin 2015 – Uzbekistan?
  2. ThanksGavin 2013
  3. ThanksGavin 2012
  4. ThanksGavin 2014
  5. ThanksGavin 2011 – The Main Event
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

ThanksGavin 2015 – Uzbekistan?

Dec02

Restaurant: Chaikhana Uzbekistan

Location: 12012 Bustleton Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19116. (215) 671-1990

Date: November 24, 2015 & November 21, 2017

Cuisine: Uzbeki

Rating: Tasty fun

_

It’s tradition on the day before ThanksGavin, for us Gavins to go somewhere ethnic.

This year, we ended up at a new place, and a new cuisine (or sub cuisine) for me: Chaikhana Uzbekistan. Seems fitting this year too because I’ve been reading about the Mongol conquest — and well, Uzbekistan was on the menu. But tonight we are the beneficiaries of this crossroads of the world.

My father brought this sparkler. NV Casa Vinicola Botter Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Santi Nello. 88 points. Peach, mineral, dry, small bubbles, hint of sweetness, but not overly so. Great value.

Salad with preserved meat, olives, and cheese. Nice salad actually. Sort of like a Greek salad, but with bits of pastrami.

Salad in the back. A more normal middle eastern salad. Also in the front, those shot glasses of yogurt and tomato “sauce.” These could be drizzled over just about anything to add to the flavor — and they really did. This is a bit similar to Afghan places.

From my cellar: 2013 Christophe et Fils Chablis. 92 points. Limpid color. More orange fruit than the Petit Chablis. Slightly leaner and lighter than that wine, but similar outstanding acidity and limestone. Excellent.
1A0A6746
Tomato salad.

An eggplant salad. Nice, with good smoked flavor.

Uzbeki bread. Nice and hot and puffy.

From my cellar: 2009 Weingut Knoll Riesling Smaragd Dürnsteiner Kellerberg. 92 points. Medium green-yellow. Seductive aromas of ripe peach, subtle blossom honey and mandarin orange. Becomes more exotic in the mouth, adding papaya and lime to the mix. Sweet peach and papaya fruit is lifted by extraordinarily elegant lemony acidity. Finishes with palate-staining fruit and intense wet rock minerality. Wonderful to drink now, but should be even better between 2014 and 2024.

Herring and potatoes. Marinated cut herring in front. Like some saba sashimi — with potatoes!

Potato dumplings. Very soft succulent gnocchi like things.

1A0A6758
Chicken dumplings. Don’t look like much, but were very tasty.
1A0A6753
Bread with spinach and cheese. Sort of Uzbeki spanakopita.

From my cellar: 1993 Pierre Damoy Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. 93 points. Elegant, extremely pure and spicy with austere black fruit notes and understated, powerful, densely concentrated and superbly well focused flavors that deliver superb mid-palate punch and terrific finishing complexity. This has always been impressive, even since release and it continues to develop well. It can be approached now but it will certainly be better in a few years. That said, it’s so close to its peak that there would be very little left on the table to open a bottle now. Multiple, and consistent, notes.

Rice with lamb. One of these typical pilaf dishes found in central Asia, and north India, and China (as fried rice). Delicious.

Turnovers. Meat and cheese and spinach. The Flat one is the cheese. Both were good, and the meat one was a serious bomb, but quite delicious with the yogurt and tomato.
T

Kabob. Beef or lamb and ground beef. I really liked the ground beef kabob (kobideh or similar), even if it looked like a big turd. Delicious.

Meat stew.

Potatoes. Like home made potato chips. Excellent.

Cheese pie. This was crazy gooey with a melted form of fresh cheese and a light flakey dough.

Check out the cheese pull!

Chicken kabob.
1A0A6763

Lamb rib, lamb, and beef kabobs.

Salmon kabob. From those Oxus river salmon.
2011 Torremoron Ribera del Duero. VM 89. Bright ruby. Perfumed, expressive bouquet of black and blue fruits and candied rose. Ripe and generous on the palate, offering fleshy cherry and blackberry flavors and a touch of black pepper. Dusty tannins add grip to the sweet, nicely persistent finish.

Manti. Why exactly these came at the end is anyone’s guess, but these giant dumplings, clearly influenced by China, were stuffed with a chewy meat and onions. Tasty, but I prefer the Afghan version.


1A0A6786
Honey cake and baklava. Not the syrup covered Middle Eastern kind, but more dry.

Tea with sugar and candied fruit.

Lights from the front of Chaikhana Uzbekistan “coat” the adjacent building.

I’d never had Uzbeki food before, and while it’s certainly closely related to Afghan and Russian, but has its own unique personality. The place was fun too. Very lively and there was even a young guy at a nearby table (see below) playing traditional songs on a guitar. Clearly a place mostly visited by Russians and Uzbeki.

Food was quite good too. Perhaps leaning a bit on the heavy meats and pastry, and I would have liked to try the Borscht and some other dishes too, but everything we had was pretty good. Enormous amount too. We took home bags and bags of it, and the bill was very very reasonable.

Great fun.

For more Philly dining reviews click here.

1A0A1683

Related posts:

  1. ThanksGavin 2014
  2. ThanksGavin 2011 – The Main Event
  3. ThanksGavin 2013
  4. ThanksGavin 2011 – The Third Wave
  5. ThanksGavin 2012
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

Eating Philly – Tiffin

Nov30

Restaurant: Tiffin Indian Cuisine

Location: 8080 Old York Rd, Elkins Park, PA 19027. (215) 635-9205

Date: November 23, 2015

Cuisine: Indian

Rating: solid Indian

_

Our annual ThanksGavin trip always begins with a big Wednesday night dinner out in Philly, but this year we were out a day early so there was a Tuesday bonus.

Tiffin is a local (to Elkins Park) Indian restaurant.

The usual kind of casual decor.

From my cellar: 2004 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. 93 points. Again, sulphur evident on the nose, although with plenty of bright and acidic fruit beneath. It is delicate, clean, minerally and has tingly acids. Then it seems softer, more gentle, not so much substance, with lots of bright character. Good potential.

Chutney and sauces are included which is nice.

Cauliflower with a coconut sauce. Very nice.

Fried fish. Like fish and chips with black pepper.
Samosas. Certainly a decent version of this classic.

A light creamy curry with potato balls (not unlike matzah balls in texture).

Saag. Creamed Indian spinach.

Chickpeas with a mild curry.

Shrimp curry. Again the slightly sweet goopy curry.

Tilapia with tomatoes and onions. One of the few without the smooth curry treatment.

2009 Bodegas Domeco de Jarauta Rioja Solar de Castro Vendimia Seleccionada. 89 points. Very healthy bright red, cherry and chocolate on the nose, great balance of concentrated but not overpowering fruit, tannins with good structure, giving it a long finish. Very yummy, great wine.

Chicken Tikka Masala. Dark meat. A credible version of this dish, but from the smooth and sweet school of Indian curries. Akbar’s is so much richer and more flavorful.

Chicken Tikka Masala. White meat.

Lamb in a coconut curry sauce. Again the sauce is very sweet with the spice blend being fairly mild and blended into the rich sauce.

Chicken Tikka. My uncle goes nuts over this “BBQ chicken.”

Bismatti rice.

Naan, plain and garlic.
Galub jamun. Perfectly nice syrup soaked cheese/dough balls.

Overall, Tiffin was a good meal, and decent Indian. All the curries have that smooth, creamy, and sweet thing going on, which is common enough at Indian restaurants. They were pretty good too, this wasn’t like the tomato sauce boring Indian. But it was also just too sweet, without the intensity of “spice” (and I don’t mean heat) that better places have. Now, I’m sure a good bit of that is catering to the Americans, but still. The smooth, sweet, creamy thing made all the curries run together, even though their colors and flavor profiles technically varied.

Still, I fully enjoyed it.

For more Philly dining reviews click here.

Or check out the full ThanksGavin feasting series.

Related posts:

  1. Akbar – Curry not so Hurry
  2. Eating Saigon – Hoa Tuc
  3. All Things Akbar
  4. Deep South – Mandovi Goan Cuisine
  5. Eating Senigallia – Madonnina del Pescatore
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Elite – King Crab Custard

Nov23

Restaurant: Elite Restaurant [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 700 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 282-9998

Date: November 21, 2015

Cuisine: Cantonese Banquet

Rating: Elite!

_

Elite is well known as one of great LA’s top dimsum places, but less well known is how great a Cantonese banquet place it is.

But Charlie chose it as the site for his legendary birthday feast, not only because of how good the food is (and it is good), but because they have a nice private room, great service, and are very Burgundy friendly.

They actually have a couple private rooms, but this time we had the small one, although it was certainly big enough for the 10 of us.

NV Jacques Selosse Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut V.O. 2006 disgorgment. VM 95. The NV V.O. (Version Originale) presents slightly darker, more burnished tonalities of Chardonnay. Almond, marzipan, dried rose petals, spices and anise blossom in an ample, generous Champagne built on volume, but supported by insistent veins of minerality. Hints of trademark Selosse oxidation make the V.O. a bit more eccentric, especially for readers who might not be familiar with these Champagnes. V.O. emerges from parcels in Avize, Cramant and Oger, all Grand Cru villages. The vintages are 2006, 2005 and 2004. This bottle was disgorged on October 15, 2013 and bottled with no dosage.

agavin: delicious. Super rich and tasted more like a 90s Champ.

Peanuts on the table is a Chinese staple.

2001 François Raveneau Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos. Burghound 93. This is a big step up in power and weight with a gorgeously complex nose of minerals, white flowers and minerals that leads to pure, muscular, fantastically detailed and precise flavors just oozing with sappy extract. This is quite concentrated and there is a certain regal classiness that separates this from all of the prior wines plus the length and vibrancy are simply incredible. This will require a few years of bottle age to completely integrate as the finish is very firm and quite dry for an ’01 but all of the requisite material is here for this to evolve into a superb Les Clos.

agavin: a little closed and reductive at first, but opened up into a green apple monster.
Suckling pig. We preordered this little fellow. He’s kinda sad, but he sure tasted great. Really just a fabulous bit of pork and cracklings. The sweet sauce on the side is great too.

After we ate all the easy bits they took away the pig face and limbs and chopped them up for sort of a “piglet: the return” dish. A little too boney and nasty for me.

Charlie brought: 1995 Coche-Dury Puligny-Montrachet Les Enseignères. Burghound 88. Golden color though with no hints of browning. As one would reasonably expect, the nose has now gone completely secondary fruit though there is no sous bois or undue exotic notes in evidence and introduces flavors that are classic Puligny in style with their understated, delineated and pure character and clear minerality that shapes and defines the mid-palate plus a crisp, intense and fine finish for a wine of this level. This has always been a somewhat lean effort for a ’95 and it remains that way and to my taste, should be drunk up over the next few years as the acidity may begin to dominate the finish if held for much longer. To be clear, there is no danger of this falling over the edge, just that the balance may become compromised in time.

agavin: our bottle was a bit oxidized. Old enough not to be premoxed, but heading downslope. Still, it had a lovely complexity and brulee.

We also went all out tonight and got the giant crab! Here he is alive!

From my cellar: 1996 Coche-Dury Meursault Les Chevalières. Burghound 91. Coche always seems to be able to coax another dimension out of his array of villages level vineyards and the Chvalières is no exception with its completely mature nose of hazelnut, orchard fruit and hint of reduction that doesn’t carry over to the precise and mineral-driven middle weight flavors that offer a fine sense of focus and energy on the punchy and lingering finish. This is lovely juice that has arrived at its apogee but should remain here for at least another decade.

agavin: Charlie opened a bottle of this exact wine at his birthday 2 years ago and I immediately bought some. Expensive, but a total stunner then and now. Reductive, with a staggering nose and real depth. Most in the room agreed it was one of the two best whites of the night.

And in his first prep: Garlic fried ginger crab. Leg sucking yummy.

2002 Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet. Burghound 94. A supremely elegant nose of white flower and limestone notes are followed by sweet, pungently mineral and ultra precise middle weight flavors that offer simply incredible focus with an almost painfully intense, stunningly long finish. This\nhas just now arrived on the front edge of its peak drinkability though some may prefer a few more years in the cellar first. In sum, this is really lovely juice that should age gracefully for several decades.

agavin: a young monster, but fabulous.

But nothing compared to prep 2: Garlic steamed crab. This was incredible. Just plain 15 minute old crab steamed with garlic. Oh so good.

2008 Domaine Leflaive Bâtard-Montrachet. Burghound 96. Here the nose is notably tighter and more reserved with aromas of citrus blossom and zest, spice, smoke, fennel and hints of acacia that introduce big, muscular and wonderfully complex broad-scaled flavors that culminate in a long, focused and explosive finish of breathtaking length and intensity. This should reward at least a decade in the cellar and drink well for a similar period thereafter. This too is terrific and very Bâtard and like the Combettes, the ’08 version is one of the very best young examples from Leflaive that I have ever seen.

agavin: The group joked that this was premoxed. But no, it was nice, young and fresh but dominated by reduction and will almost certainly be even better in a few years.

And version 3: King Crab Head Custard. This crab gave great head. The custard was amazing, soft and tofu-like with bits of crab mixed in. About as perfect a white Burgundy pairing as exists.

Fred brought: 1996 Domaine Roulot Meursault 1er Cru Charmes. Burghound 94. Ultra pure and refined white flower and hazelnut notes introduce crisp, delineated and wonderfully refined, linear and nuanced middle weight flavors that culminate in a bright, racy and extended finish. This is incredibly youthful at 9 years of age and should age for 25 years. A great, great ’96 of uncommon elegance for Charmes.

agavin: another stunner. Got better and better through the night too.

Then garlic fried lobster. A truly great lobster prep. Crunchy, salty, and oh so garlicky.

Amanda brought: 1996 Domaine Ramonet Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet. BH? In its youth and up to 2003 or so, this was a brilliant wine and one of the best examples of Bienvenues that I have ever tasted chez Ramonet with an almost painful intensity and superb cut and detail. However, the last 4 bottles that I have tried, and from multiple sources have all displayed unacceptable levels of oxidation and were essentially undrinkable. It’s not clear whether good bottles exist or not but my luck with it has not been good.

agavin: well, our experience jives with Meadows because this was super oxed. 🙁

Another super special. Winter melon soup. Served fresh in the winter melon!

This doesn’t necessarily look like much, but it was an amazing mild soup. I had 2-3 bowls of it. Delicate lovely broth, and all sorts of bits of goodness in there. More like one of those traditional Japanese soups. There was pork, chicken, seafood bits, crab from our crab of course, mushrooms, and this fibrous soft yummy thing that might have been melon. Hard to say.

Amanda brought: 1969 Camille Giroud Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Pruliers. 93 points. A late release from the domaine. This was showing quintessential Nuits, with a simply massive dose of rustic earth on the nose and palate. The mushroom note was also quite prominent, though I think it’s more reasonable to chalk that up to its age. This was showing amazingly fresh for its age thanks to some bright acids. I’d never be able to call this as an almost-50-year-old wine blind. The ripe and prominent fruit makes this taste a lot younger than it is.

agavin: very fresh for its age. Browned out in the glass after about an hour.

String beans with sausage. A richer version of the usual prep.

1996 Domaine Robert Arnoux / Arnoux-Lachaux Romanée St. Vivant. VM 94. Deep red-ruby. Knockout nose combines raspberry, violet, coffee, licorice, spice and smoky oak. Superb richness and volume without excessive weight. Thick for a ’96, but kept bright by tangy Oriental spices and a lively floral nuance. Extremely long on the aftertaste, with noble tannins. Classy juice.

agavin: good stuff. Very much in the house style.

Roast squab. Succulent little birds, heads and all.

Erick brought: 1990 Domaine Dujac Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Aux Combottes. Burghound 92. A beautiful and now fully mature, complex and pure red berry fruit nose that has taken on secondary nuances is trimmed in noticeable oak that continues onto the supple, rich and still fresh middle weight flavors that offer excellent detail and plenty of finishing vibrancy. This is carrying a bit more oak than I personally like but there is no question that this is a quality ’90 that delivers a high quality drinking experience and should continue to do so for another decade, perhaps longer.

agavin: very nice, but at a sufficient level of maturity (bricking) that I’d drink up.

French style beef. Good with the reds.

2005 Domaine Marquis d’Angerville Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Ducs. Burghound 96. The magnificently pure and airy essence of notably ripe dark pinot fruit, cassis and menthol remains reserved and cool with its exceptionally rich, classy, sweet and vibrant mineral-driven and large-scaled flavors that are shaped by powerful if buried tannins. While magnificently long, this stunning Ducster is completely shut down at present and it would be a vinous crime to open one at this very early point in its development as the ’05 is built for the very long haul, indeed 20 years may be too soon. In my view, the ’05 Ducster is destined to take its place alongside the greatest vintages of the past, and while the words “best ever” are presumptuous in a wine with such a distinguished history, the mere fact that it has the potential to be among the very best ever is praise enough.

agavin: we decanted for a while. Even so, while there was tons of fruit, there was so much tannin that it needs AT LEAST another ten years.

Pea greens. Not the pea tendrils, but the older version of the same. With garlic of course.

1994 Vega Sicilia Unico. Parker 96-98. The 1994 Unico is a blend of 80% Tinto Fino, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Merlot (presumably 2% is unknown varieties) that was picked from September 28. It is very intense with notes of raspberry, wild strawberry and mulberry with sensational minerality and vigor. There is a Margaux-like florality to the 1994 that blossom with aeration. The palate is rounded and supple on the entry with great weight and backbone. There is real substance here, similar to the 1996. It expands in the mouth with ravishing notes of blackberry, strawberry, citrus lemon, orange peel and a touch of cedar. There is enormous weight on the finish, a behemoth of a Unico. This is very potent, but it still requires several years in bottle. 96,280 bottles produced. Drink 2019-2040.

agavin: We decanted, very nice.

Dried scallop fried rice. Salty with a lot of umami.

1983 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. Parker 90-94. A stunning wine, Pichon-Lalande’s 1983 has been gorgeous to drink for a number of years. It is one of the finest 1983s, especially for a northern Medoc. The color remains a dark ruby/purple, with slight lightening at the edge. The knock-out nose of roasted herbs, sweet, jammy black currants, and pain grille is followed by a full-bodied, gorgeously concentrated and well-proportioned wine with low acidity, plenty of glycerin, and a savory, highly extracted, fleshy mouthfeel. This has always been one of the stars of the vintage. Anticipated maturity: Now-2008.

agavin: in really great shape and lovely

Seafood chow mein. I love these crispy noodles.

The sauce soaks into them and softens them up. Oh so good.

1991 Domaine Bertheau (Pierre et François) Bonnes Mares. Burghound 87. Bricking now though still showing a bit of elegant cherry/berry fruit influence on the nose leading to slightly sweet, somewhat light flavors that offer good complexity but not much density. There is good complexity and overall, this is pretty rather than profound and performs more like a good but not special premier cru rather than a big grand cru like Bonnes Mares. In short, this is perfectly good but frankly a bit disappointing for a wine at this level.

agavin: a third bottle left over from the night before.

Dessert buns. These fluffy buns are shaped like peaches, which have traditional happy symbolism in China. They had a bit of sweet paste inside. Perfectly nice (for Chinese desserts).

Another awesome Chinese feast. A lot of these dishes were stunning, like the pig and all the crab dishes. The private room was great and we had a stunning lineup of (mostly) Burgundy. Only one wine had any serious issues (the 96 Ramonet) and this dinner showed the power of high quality producer Burgundy — particularly in context of a dinner without too many big reds (only really the Unico and older Bordeaux). I feel that Burgundy shows off by far at dinners where it dominates (although it can mix fine with Champy). You can’t easily go back and forth between the big extracted wines and the more subtle Burgundy.

Fu really knows how to celebrate!

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Elite Wine Night
  2. Elite Dim Sum
  3. Elite New Years
  4. Chili Crab Craze – Starry Kitchen
  5. More Awesome Dimsum – King Hua
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Day of the Truffles

Nov06

Restaurant: Laurent Quenioux [1, 2, 3]

Location: Near Pasadena

Date: November 4, 2015

Cuisine: Modern French

Rating: Truffles!

_

Four and a half years ago Foodie Club co-organizer Erick and I put together one of our more legendary dinners, the Bistro LQ Trufflumpagus. Now it’s time for the return!

Chef Laurent Quenioux grew up in Sologne, France, where he developed a passion for food. As a young boy, Quenioux and his father would hunt duck, partridge, and rabbit. Then, he and his mother would prepare her favorite recipes in the kitchen. Eventually, Quenioux left home to embark on an apprenticeship where he trained in some of Europe’s finest kitchens. Quenioux spent time at Maxim’s, Bistro De Paris and La Ciboulette in Paris, before moving on to Negresco in Nice and LaBonne Auberge in Antibe.

In the early 1980s, Quenioux made a move to the United States with a team from L‘Oasis at La Napoule to open The Regency Club in Los Angeles. In 1985, he introduced the celebrated and award-winning 7th Street Bistro in downtown Los Angeles. In the early 2000s, Quenioux debuted the cozy Bistro K in Pasadena and in 2009, Bistro LQ in Beverly Hills. At Bistro LQ, Quenioux set new standards for cuisine in Southern California with his Farmer’s Market-driven kitchen and an emphasis on value and fun.

Returning to Pasadena, Quenioux continues to delight patrons and critics alike in his role as Executive Chef at Old Pasadena’s celebrated Vertical Wine Bistro.

For this special dinner featuring fresh white truffles the chef hosted us at his house, out on the back patio.

Our epic menu.

Will brought: 1998 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut. VM 94-5. Bright gold. Ripe orchard fruits, peach pit, toffee, marzipan and dried flowers on the pungent, smoky nose. Broad and fleshy on entry, then tighter in the mid-palate, offering palate-staining pit fruit nectar, apple pie and brioche flavors, enhanced by a toffeed quality. Closes spicy and very long, with resonating smoke and toasted hazlenut qualities.

agavin: Krug is always great.

From my cellar: 2006 Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée. AG 94. Mint, white flowers, pastry and yellow orchard fruit meld together in Krug’s NV Grande Cuvée. This is one of the very best versions of the Grande Cuvée I can remember tasting in recent years. The impression of total silkiness on the palate is classic Krug. Even though this release is exceptional today, I would be tempted to cellar a few wines for the future, as the best Grand Cuvées age effortlessly. This release is based on 2006 and includes wines from 11 vintages going back to 1990.

From my cellar: NV Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Rosé. VM 92. Pale orange. High-pitched red berry, orange zest and jasmine aromas, with suave mineral and smoky lees notes adding complexity. Spicy and precise on the palate, showing very good punch to its strawberry and bitter cherry flavors. Opens up smoothly with air and picks up a bitter rhubarb quality that lingers onto the long, tightly focused finish. This bottling showed more brawny character than many past renditions of this cuvée, but with no lack of vivacity.

On the left, Buckwheat truffle blinis, ankimo, caviar de Sologne, wagyu.

On the right, Bone marrow, sopes, hutlacoche, truffles.

Interesting and rich flavors.

Mark brought: 1983 Joseph Drouhin Chevalier-Montrachet. agavin 93. Very nutty and drinking rather lovely for its advanced age. Some reductive notes still.

Mark brought: 1983 Louis Latour Montrachet. BR 95. Golden. Deep and sweet nose with butterscotch and lanolin. The palate is intense without weight. Very nice acidity though lower than some – but that doesn’t seem to have harmed it. Overall a very impressive wine that has depth and still plenty of ripe fruit, but just missing an extra zip for the absolute top prize.

agavin: our bottle was just a touch inferior to the Chevy, but was still in very good shape.

“La ratte” potatoes, melted 24 months Comte cheese, H8 vinaigrette, truffles.

Very yummy, with a rich velvety quality.

Will brought: 1990 Domaine Michel Niellon Bâtard-Montrachet. Burghound 96. Wonderfully expressive, ripe, forward and complex white fruit and honeysuckle aromas explode from the glass leading to incredibly rich and powerful, massively proportioned flavors of simply incredible depth and awesome length. One of the greatest examples of this vineyard I have ever had and it should be capable of living for a long time to come. A genuinely terrific wine of uncommon breed, class and power.

agavin: great bottle!

Will brought: 1991 Domaine Michel Niellon Bâtard-Montrachet. Burghound 88. Fully mature aromas of honey and a lovely roasted bread quality lead to fat, rich, slightly heavy flavors of good length if not necessarily the best balance. To be sure, a perfectly good wine that is drinking perfectly now and should probably be drunk over the next 5 years.

agavin: much more mature than the 90, but rounded out in the glass and was still impressive for 91

Maine diver scallops crudo, bottarga, chanterelles, escabeche.

This dish had some unusual flavor notes going on. Perhaps it was the bottarga.

Veal tartar, sun choke chips, pickled onions, truffles brioche, celery leaves.

A really nice integration of all the classic tartar elements. Truffles and pickles, how can that not go with raw meat?

Truffle soup VGE. Rabbit albondigas.

Inside this buttery pot-pie pastry was a traditional kind of soup with “meat balls” made from rabbit. Quite lovely.

Trish brought: 1999 Domaine Ramonet Chevalier-Montrachet. Burghound 96. This is now knocking on the front door of its full maturity with the classic white flower, green apple and limestone aromas all framed by a touches of citrus and spice components as well. The flavor profile combines intense minerality and marvelous detail plus fantastic depth and breadth, all wrapped in a hugely long and powerful finish. This just oozes class and while it could be approached now because of the superb mid-palate fat, for my tastes, I would give this another 2 to 3 years in bottle and then drink over the next 10+. Note that I have upgraded my score as the wine has added notably more depth than I originally envisioned.

agavin: another great great bottle.

From my cellar: 2001 Domaine Leflaive Bâtard-Montrachet. Burghound 93. Big, rich and muscular yet this offers excellent definition with explosive fruit trimmed in obvious anise notes and luxuriant, sappy, dense flavors of uncommon depth and complexity. The finish is rather linear presently yet offers wave after wave of mouthwatering extract, all beautifully framed by more than sufficient buffering acidity. A Bâtard worthy of the name and a great success for the vintage.

agavin: still very fresh and reductive.

Truffle congee, poached hen egg, crispy basil snails Karaage, uni.

Wow! This was an amazing dish. One of the best congee I’ve had. The thing that looks like a bao or burrata was actually a poached egg. The fried snails were amazing too.

Celery root risotto, king crab, truffle air, aged parmesan, uni.

Another wonderful dish. Very harmonious. And that crab was fabulous.

From my cellar: 2000 Domaine Jacques Prieur Montrachet. VM 93.  I tasted a sample of this wine from tank; the real bottling was scheduled for the next day) Bright but reticent aromas of iodine, clove and nutty oak. Fat, round and silky, with superb weight and volume. By far the richest and longest of this set of wines, with the most volume. Very suave and mouthfilling, but with plenty of underlying backbone and power. Very tightly wound but also very long on the aftertaste.

agavin: I was nervous since I had a corked bottle at the Locanda dinner, but this bottle was a stunner. Incredibly powerful.

Trish brought: 2002 Marquis de Laguiche (Joseph Drouhin) Montrachet. Burghound 94. The bottle in the tasting displayed definite notes of premature oxidation. I last tasted this in 2011 and that note is: Astonishingly pure fruit aromas of very ripe pear, peach, honeysuckle and lovely green fruit are nicely complemented by a subtle hint of oak spice that merges seamlessly into powerful yet exquisitely delineated, strongly mineral laden flavors of incredible length. This has an amazing depth of sève and it completely stains and coats the palate. This combination of a silky palate impression yet driving intensity makes this an extremely impressive and very classy effort. For my taste this has just arrived on the front end of its peak drinkability and this beauty should be capable of holding at this level for years to come.

agavin: another great white.

Pacific lobster, Malaise, Truffle vichyssoise, nest.

More shellfish goodness.

Santa Barbara prawn, truffle creme brulee, brussels sprouts, xo.

This had interesting autumn notes of spices and such.

Amanda brought: 1991 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bonnes Mares. Burghound 92. Big, rich and explosive, still very primary fruit nose that displays only the barest hints of secondary development followed by big, powerful, classically robust and structured flavors that offer superb depth and exceptionally good length. Still youthful, this should benefit from another 3 to 5 years of cellar time but live for a long time after that. A first-rate effort that will probably always possess a slight tannic edge to the finish yet the power and depth make it easy to overlook this.

agavin: Our bottle was cloudy and funky. Not undrinkable, but not really pleasant either.

Larry H brought: 2005 Domaine Robert Groffier Bonnes Mares. Burghound 94. I was frankly shocked to find that the aromatic profile here was even more elegant and arguably finer than that of the Amoureuses with its bright red and blue pinot fruit, minerals and spice notes, particularly anise that complement to perfection the sleek, taut, brooding and focused flavors that explode on the hugely long and deep finish. This is an impressive wine that has that ‘wow’ factor.

agavin: a young stunner. Really good.

Halibut, truffle granola, hazelnuts, chanterelles, brown butter vinaigrette.

The granola was crazy good. Chewy crunchy and a bit sweet.

Larry H brought: 2000 Château d’Yquem. Parker 90. The millennial 2000 Chateau d’Yquem is a valiant effort in one of the most challenging Sauternes vintages in recent memory. The 2000 is quite deep in color. The nose is crisp and well-defined but not the most complex, as you would expect from a truly challenging growing season in Sauternes. It is pleasant in its own way with delicate scents of tangerine, yellow flowers and Mirabelle. The palate is well-balanced with marmalade tinged opening. I like the acidity here, an Yquem with good race, although it does feel a little tapered toward the finish. Drink now-2025.

agavin: very nice sticky in a good spot.

Corn veloute, apple wood bacon, foie gras, truffle Soubise.

A fabulous foie. That corn veloute really notched it up too.

Pintade hen, crispy truffle potato crust, salsify, quince.

Nice interplay of textures.

From my cellar: 1971 Maison Roche de Bellene Volnay 1er Cru Santenots Collection Bellenum. agavin 87. Weird menthol notes.

Erick brought: 1988 Domaine Georges Mugneret/Mugneret-Gibourg Clos Vougeot. 87 points. Pretty tannic.

Amanda brought: 1995 Domaine Dujac Echezeaux. Burghound 90. Beautiful black fruit aromas laced with Vosne spice leads to medium weight, elegant, sappy and quite dense flavors that offer beautiful complexity and terrific length. What it isn’t at this point is especially complex but the tannins are well-integrated and this should drink well for all its life. I would give it another 10 years and drink over the next 10. Really pretty juice of evident class.

agavin: a great bottle. Powerful, fruity, and delicious.

Liberty duck breast, figs, vinegar jus, truffle confit rutabaga.

Here we have sweetness, and more than a little of those autumn notes. That jam like stuff was “spiced.”

From my cellar: 1989 Domaine Leroy Nuits St. Georges Aux Lavières. 94 points. Absolutely beautiful bottle. Floral scents with violets and roses, a lovely earthy underbrush tone on the nose. Bright red toned fruit, cinnamon and spice with a cherry backbone. Just got better and betterover time. Perfect balance, luscious fruit and a long finish. Plush yet sharp. A terrific effort.

Amanda brought: 1991 Domaine Leroy Pommard Les Vignots. 93 points.  tart red cherry, candle wax, sl spice nose; full bodied, red raspberry, red pie cherry flavors, body matches promise of the nose; tannic, oaky in a new world way, finish all about barrels, not fruit; need rich sauce, meat to cover the tannins in the finish.

Veal sweetbreads, porcini, carrot emulsion, truffle.

I’m not a sweetbreads fan, but this was amazing. Rich too.

Amanda picked up these two old Italians in order to replace some we had lost in a “guest shuffle.”

1958 Oddero Barolo. LF 94. This was sauvage and untamed as a Barolo I’ve experienced. This was all black tar, dark cherry/berry fruits and a little horse on the nose with some macerated flowers and rotting forest floor. Lovely deep, sauvage nose. Sauvage Piedmont style though. The palate was big and concentrated. Apparently alot of the fruit that went into this was from Vigna Rionda which would explain the massive palate presence still at forty plus years old. This really opened up and became much more of a complete wine after around an hour. Definetly a bit less finesse than the Fiorina but compelling in a differnt way for itas singular character within the context of Barolo. Fantastic wine that really seemed four or five years away from full maturity.

agavin: this bottle was pretty nice, very Barolo!

1971 Gaja Barbaresco. VM 93. Angelo Gaja’s 1971 Barbaresco, takes a few hours to open up, but when it does it is fabulous. Still deep and quite intense, the 1971 is a testament to how well Nebbiolo can age.

agavin: ours was a bit on the “mature and cloudy” side.

Painted Hills Beef Hanger, vadouvan, eggplant mole, truffles.

Very rare. More autumn spaces too.

Emil brought: 2003 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg. Burghound 93. his too is very aromatically reserved with only glimpses of spicy and exotic perfume that speak of very ripe, even slightly surmature crushed berries, plum and spice because even though the nose is reticent, the intensity of the fruit is magnificent. The flavors are opulent and sumptuously proportioned with massive amounts of sap and dry extract that completely stains and coats the palate before exploding on the hugely long finish. Yes, this is a big, indeed enormous wine but one that never loses its sense of balance and the velvety backend largely buffers the very firm tannins. There is not necessarily great complexity yet but this is the one wine in the range that could easily surprise to the upside as the raw material here is exceptional and while the style is clearly particular relative to what it normally delivers, it has that “wow’ factor.

agavin: we decanted at the start of the dinner. Wow! Very nice massive powerful and complex bottle of Riche.

Erick brought: 1990 Gros Frère et Sœur Richebourg. JG 92. Starts off a bit meaty and sweaty but breathes up beautifully. Almost looks like an aged DRC with all of its hoisin and soy action. It has notes of mushroom and meat. It is full, rich and intense with acidity that is gentle and length that is superb.

agavin: oh Richebourg, how I love thee!

Scottish wild Hare ravioli, chestnut truffle nage, pecorino.

Great texture combos.

Vacherin cheese, truffle honey.

Tiny, but lovely. And the honey was amazing.

Epoisse flambee!

I love epoisse, but I was a bit disappointed by how much the alcohol in the “flambee” dominated the cheese.

From my cellar: 1977 Dow Porto Vintage. 95-100 points. Wonderful dusty cherry, prune/plum, and raisin aromas. Generous on the palate with more fruit and subtle, tawny-like carmel. Long finish.

agavin: a powerhouse. Next one I’m going to give some more years and then decant.

Chocolate Marquise, Thai basil, mango, macaron.

A really nice bit of chocolate with the mango brightening it up.

Tonka Cremeux, butter ice cream, caramel, granola.

And another great use of that granola.

Overall, this was one of those supremely epic dinners. The food was totally over the top, and delicious at that. Lots and lots of truffle. Not every dish was perfect, but many were very very good. Standouts include the congee, the lobster, the sweetbreads (I have a hard time saying it), and the foie.

The wine was particularly great. Almost all the whites were superb and many of the reds stellar like the Dujac, the Leroys, and both Richebourgs. The Krugs and dessert wines were no slouch either.

Certainly worthy of being called epic.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Or for more Foodie Club reviews.

Related posts:

  1. Truffles at Saam – I am
  2. Pistola with a Bang
  3. Babykiller Birthday
  4. The Power of Providence
  5. Sauvage Spago
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Saint Joseph at Maison G

Nov02

Restaurant: Maison Giraud [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 1032 Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, Ca 90272. 310-459-7562

Date: October 21, 2015

Cuisine: French

Rating: Classic French “home” cooking

_

Maison Giraud is the closest fine dining to my house. Pacific Palisades doesn’t have a lot of great food, but this restaurant/bakery is from acclaimed LA French chef Alain Giraud. This wine dinner, featuring the wines of the Northern Rhone’s Saint Joseph region was hosted by a friend of mine, Merv Hecht, author of The Instant Wine Connoisseur.


And it should be noted that the Swathmore Ave frontage might not be there for too much longer, as the whole street is slated for massive construction in 2016 when developer Rick Curuso starts building his new “Palisades Village” project.


Anyway, as it was a lovely warm (late October in LA) night, we dined outside.

With a generous staging area for the wines.

Tonight’s special menu.

2012 J.L. Chave Sélection St. Joseph Céleste. VM 91. Light gold. Pungent, mineral-laced aromas of dried pear, fig, honey and fennel, with a hint of jasmine in the background. Fleshy and dry on the palate, offering incisive orchard and pit fruit flavors and a touch of waxiness. Smoothly combines richness and vivacity, finishing with firm mineral bite and strong floral persistence.

agavin: I’m not sure I’ve even had a Saint Joseph blanc before. It tastes very much like white Hermitage, and that means Rousanne. Not sure it’s my favorite grape. A bit hot.


2013 J.L. Chave Sélection St. Joseph Circa Clos Florentin. 90 points. Obviously young. This is probably getting more serious and I think has more sulphur. Very rich, concentrated and that slightly oily texture that you get with white rhone. I’m sure this will get better, and probably will leave for another year before approaching again. Good value.

2013 Domaine Coursodon St. Joseph Blanc Silice. 92 points. 100% Marsanne this had a fruity honey quality. Vinified without oak.


Maison G bakes its own fabulous bread.

Classic french pate with toasts.

2011 Domaine Faury St. Joseph Vieilles Vignes. VM 92. Opaque ruby. Intense, mineral-driven aromas of dark berries, candied licorice and potpourri, plus a sexy Asian spice quality. Tangy and sharply focused, boasting impressive purity and depth to its sweet blackberry and cherry compote flavors. Silky tannins build on the persistent, incisive finish, with the floral and spice notes repeating.

2013 Domaine Faury St. Joseph. VM 89-91. Bright purple. Lively black and blue fruits on the spicy nose and in the mouth. Nervy and focused, showing no excess weight and a subtle sweetness. Shows good clarity and siky tannins on the gently gripping finish. Very fresh, in the style of the vintage.

2012 Domaine Coursodon St. Joseph Le Paradis Saint-Pierre. VM 92-94. (made from 80-year-old serine vines and raised in all new oak): Dark purple. A complex, highly perfumed bouquet evokes ripe blackcurrant, cherry pit, potpourri and olive tapenade, along with smoke and mineral accents. Stains the palate with intense dark fruit liqueur flavors and suggestions of candied violet and licorice. Closes on a smoky note, with superb clarity and lift and slow-mounting tannins.

Lobster bisque. Jumbo crab, asparagus, brioche croutons. One of my favorite soups. This version didn’t disappoint and was full of chunks of crab meat.

2011 Domaine Coursodon St. Joseph L’Olivaie. VM 91. Bright ruby. Fresh blackberry and floral scents are complemented by deeper-pitched notes of dark chocolate and licorice. Supple and open-knit, offering gently sweet black raspberry and cherry flavors that become spicier with aeration. Closes tangy and quite long, with sneaky tannins adding grip.

agavin: these Coursodon’s were in general my favorite wines of the night.

2012 Domaine Coursodon St. Joseph L’Olivaie. VM 91-93. Inky ruby. Fresh blueberry and candied violet on the highly perfumed, spice-accented nose. Fleshy, seamless and broad, offering intense black and blue fruit flavors and a sweetening note of vanilla that gains strength with air. The spicy quality comes back on the finish, which clings with excellent tenacity and just a hint of tannins. These vines are now over 60 years old, according to Coursodon.

2012 Domaine Coursodon St. Joseph Silice. VM 90-92. Brilliant ruby. Spice-accented black raspberry, mocha, pipe tobacco and licorice on the nose, with a sexy floral topnote. Sweet, spicy and penetrating, displaying a silky texture to its dark berry and spicecake flavors. Shows pinot-like character–or at least pinot from a warm region. Finishes round and supple, with soft tannins, good breadth and a lingering suggestion of violet.

Spanish Turbot. Slowly backed, forest mushroom, porcini emulsion. An absolutely lovely fish and a killer sauce.

In the back is chef Alain Giraud.

2012 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave St. Joseph. VM 93. Bright violet color. Explosive aromas of black and blue fruits, smoky Indian spices and minerals, with a suave floral quality in the background. Fleshy and expansive on the palate, but with excellent clarity and spicy lift to its blackberry and licorice flavors. The dark fruit element recurs on the long, seamless finish, which is framed by supple tannins that fold smoothly into the wine’s lush fruit.

2012 Paul Jaboulet Aîné St. Joseph Domaine de la Croix des Vignes. VM 92. Deep ruby. Explosive aromas of black and blue fruits, smoky Indian spices, licorice and minerals, with a suave floral quality building in the glass. Fleshy and expansive on the palate, showing excellent clarity and breadth to its blueberry and cherry compote flavors. The floral quality repeats on a long, seamless, fruit-dominated finish that’s framed by velvety tannins.

2012 Domaine Boissonnet St. Joseph.

Rack of Lamb. Roasted, Fall baby carrots, lamb Bordelaise. A perfect pairing for the wines.

2011 François Villard St. Joseph Reflet.

2010 Domaine du Tunnel (Stéphane Robert) St. Joseph. VM 90. Inky ruby. Spicy black raspberry and cherry aromas are complicated by notes of black pepper and dried flowers. Deep, chewy dark fruit flavors are framed by dusty tannins and become spicier with air. Shows very good energy and focus, finishing with strong cut and grip.

2012 Domaine Blachon St. Joseph Hommage. 91 points. Deep purple to rim. Barnyard earth, pepper spice and a sweet floral tone on the nose. Sweet cherry, toasted bread and rhubarb on the palate. Medium to medium-plus tannins. Medium acidity. Medium-long to long finish.
I’m thinking this would be great with braised lamb and cassoulet. Also a good cigar wine.

Cheese Plate. Selection, grapes, fruit-nuts bread. This was both a generous and awesome little trio of cheeses. I loved the buttery one in the middle.

2012 Domaine Durand St. Joseph Lautaret. 89 points. Gamey.

Lemon Tart. Meringue, berries, raspberry coulis. Also classic, but perfectly executed.

This was a great dinner. The food is very classic, but these special menus show off Giraud’s cooking even better than the regular menu. Each dish was superlatively executed. The wines were fun, and solid, if a little young and not quite up to the refined heights of Syrah at my recent LaLa dinner.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Saint Martha Modern
  2. More Maison Giraud
  3. Maison Giraud at Last
  4. Burgundy at Bouchon – Faiveley
  5. Maison Giraud
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

Stick It – Feng Mao

Oct30

Restaurant: Feng Mao Lamb Kebab

Location1: 3901 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90019. (323) 935-1099

Location2: 414 S Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90020. (213) 388-9299

Date: October 26, 2015 & April 25, 2016 & October 14, 2019

Cuisine: Korean

Rating: Really tasty

_

Los Angeles is blessed with America’s largest Korea-town, and as such we have so many fabulous Korean dining options.

Feng Mao has a tremendous menu of Korean and Korean/Chinese items, including a vast array of things available for grilling.


Notice the built in ducts! (Olympic location).

And the pop up wood charcoal grills.

7U1A9680-Pano

The private (side?) room at the Western location.
7U1A9691
7U1A9692
7U1A9693
7U1A9694
7U1A9695
7U1A9696
7U1A9697
7U1A9698
7U1A9699
7U1A9700
7U1A9701

The vast menu.

2010 Kistler Pinot Noir Kistler Vineyard. VM 93. Ash, game, tar licorice, incense and dark cherries are some of the notes that emerge from the 2010 Pinot Noir Kistler Vineyard. A pretty soft, understated wine, the 2010 also has a hint of wildness running through it. Today, the 2010 is a bit compact, but I very much like the sense of grace here. Sweet floral notes reappear on the finish, adding a burst of freshness and vivacity to a finish underpinned by lovely streaks of saline minerality. In 2010 yields were too low for Kistler to bottle the Cuvee Elizabeth Pinot. The little fruit that came in was blended into the Kistler Vineyard Pinot.

agavin: not bad for a “fake” pinot

Some flavored salt for dipping and a little mini salad.

And various other banchan. Broccoli and garlic.

Bean sprouts.

Shredded pickled spicy radish.

Peanuts.
1A0A5243
More banchan.

1A0A5245
Garlic cucumber. Marinated and with a nice texture.
7U1A9703
Beef and cucumber.
7U1A9715
Numbing stew. Very good with mala.
7U1A9717
And looking close, pig’s blood!
7U1A9725
Spicy beef tendon, but we wondered if tripe, too chewy.


From my cellar: 2000 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage. VM 94+. Saturated ruby. Superripe aromas of blackberry, blueberry, clove, minerals and black licorice. Very ripe but precise and penetrating. At once lush and powerful; seamless but with terrific thrust. Black fruit, flint, spice and dark chocolate flavors offer considerable density and verve. Finishes with substantial noble tannins that arrive very late. Has all the elements for longevity. Give this 10 to 12 years before pulling the cork. This comes across as a bit denser than the young 2001 but not finer. The Chaves clearly did a superb job of harvesting in 2000.

agavin: WOTN for most of us, although the competition wasn’t fierce.

Plate of raw stuff ready for grilling.


And more skewers.

Beef on the left, lamb on the right. The beef was a bit sweet and fabulous. The lamb full of flavor.

2012 Alain Voge Cornas Les Chailles. VM 91. Deep ruby. Smoky, oak-spiced blackberry, licorice pastille and olive paste on the nose, with subtle floral and mineral nuances adding complexity. Velvety, sweet and nicely concentrated, offering dark berry liqueur and fruitcake flavors that slowly tighten up with air. Supple tannins come on late, giving shape to a long smoke- and spice-tinged finish. As approachable as this wine is today, I think that it has the material for cellaring.

They do most of the grilling here, which makes it easy.

Pork belly. Eventually this chars down to carbonized bacon.

7U1A9734
Pork belly and lamb spareribs. Both good.

Squab or some other small bird.

Getting there.
1A0A5252
Pork belly wrapped around enoki mushroom.
1A0A5253
More meat and sausages.

7U1A9737
Sausages were great. Squid was icky.

1A0A5254
Sardines!

7U1A9739
Condiments for the skewers.


Steamed egg. I love this kind of simple dish.

2009 Bibi Graetz Testamatta Toscana IGT. VM 91. Deep red with ruby highlights. Reticent aromas of raspberry, red cherry and chocolate. Then large-scaled, fat and chunky on the palate, with highly concentrated red fruit and herbal flavors showing creamy depth and noteworthy persistence. This rather powerful wine stains the palate on the long, ripely tannic finish. I would have liked a bit more finesse, but many drinkers will love this.

Jellyfish salad with meat, veggies etc.

The mustard sauce is mixed in. Great stuff.

2004 Torbreck Descendant. Parker 98. The 2004 Descendant, an old oak-aged blend of 92% Shiraz and 8% Viognier from a 12-year old vineyard, offers up notes of blackberries, ink, sweet truffles, and acacia flowers. There are 1,000 cases of this full-bodied, intense, rich blockbuster. It will drink well for 10-15 years.

Bean curd “pasta” with chili. Delicious.

Stir fried mushrooms.

Steamed pork dumplings. Good, although I’ve certainly had better.

Sauce for the dumplings.

2005 Favia Cerro Sur. 93 points. Cherry, bell pepper, cedar, and licorice on the nose. Lot’s of strawberry and cherry jam on the palate which heat/spice from the alcohol. Beware, this is a fruit bomb.

Fried sweet and sour pork. Almost certainly the best sweet and sour pork I’ve had. We got 2-3 orders. Super scalding and delicious.

Purple rice.

Eggs and zucchini. Light and mild.

2004 Sean Thackrey Petite Sirah Sirius Eaglepoint Ranch. 92 points. Color is very dark. Medium legs with a silky mouthfeel. This is the oldest Sirius in my cellar and is drinking really well right now. A classic Thackrey version of petite sirah. Always one of my favorites.

agavin: more balanced and not as overwhelming, good.

Spicy fried eggplant. Yum!

Pan fried pork dumplings. Doughy, but I liked them even better than the steamed.

2010 Saxum Terry Hoage Vineyard. Parker 95+. The 2010 Terry Hoage Vineyard is a blend of 46% Syrah, 33% Grenache, and 21% Mourvedre that comes from Jennifer and Terry Hoage’s west side Paso vineyard. Less gamey than when tasted from barrel, it offers up a pure, beautifully fresh bouquet of red and black fruits, spring flowers, ground pepper, leather, and wet stone-like minerality that flows to a rich, fabulously concentrated, and textured palate. Showing the savory, mineral characteristics of the vintage, as well as noticeable underlying tannin, this gorgeous effort needs short-term cellaring, and will thrill for over a decade.

agavin: needed about a decade more time!

Fish filets boiled in chili oil. Feng Mao’s take on this classic Szechuan dish was awesome.

Lots of numbing chili oil heat! Great with rice.

Glass noodles. Mild and good.

Crispy potato pancake. Like a Korean latke.
1A0A5256
Seafood pancake. Yummy!

7U1A9752
Egg with chives. Awesome. Seems so simple, but tons of flavor.
7U1A9757
Cumin chicken bones. Just ok.

7U1A9767
Shredded pork with cilantro. pretty good.
7U1A9769
Clams with brown sauce.

1A0A5255
Spicy noodle soup. Very nice, with a pleasant, medium spicy broth and nice thin egg noodles.

Fried chicken. This was actually from next door at Da Jeong. Many in our party claim this is the best fried chicken ever.

Overall, this was a great meal. Really tasty and nearly every dish was good. The price was right too, as it was $30 each all in (including tax and tip). Service was great and they have a big menu, so I’ll have to return to sample even more goodies.

The food is partially Korean, partially Chinese — or at least from the border realms between the two areas. Since I love both, that’s all good!

After all, we didn’t even order the bull penis (it’s on the menu).

For more LA dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!
7U1A9690

Related posts:

  1. Nanbankan – Stick with It
  2. Shin Beijing Cubed
  3. Gwang Yang – Beeftastic
  4. San Fran – Feng Nian
  5. Little Sheep Hot Pot
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , ,

Sauvage Spago

Oct28

Restaurant: Spago [1, 2]

Location: 176 N Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 385-0880

Date: October 23, 2015

Cuisine: American

Rating: Great

_

Nothing like a Friday afternoon for Grand Cru Burgundy Lunch — and this time at LA classic Spago.

The whole restaurant is lovely, but the private room is the real way to go.

Our special menu.

From my cellar: 2007 Simon Bize Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru Aux Vergelesses. Burghound 90. As would reasonably be expected, there is just more here in every dimension with a more complex and more elegant nose that is layered and very fresh and this refinement continues onto the nicely concentrated middle weight flavors that display evident minerality on the sappy, intense and mouth coating finish that lingers and lingers. This is a terrific Savigny blanc and recommended.

agavin: our bottle was a bit advanced.

1986 Domaine Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet “Morgeot”. 94 points. A single vineyard village, almost 30 years old, and stunning! Lots of nutty richness and good acid.

Buttery puffs filled with country ham. Delicious.

Spago staple, sweet sesame cones with ahi tartar.

Bread.

1996 Domaine Ponsot Chapelle-Chambertin. Burghound 85. Lightish cherry/pinot fruit without much structure or body. Good finesse but that is about the best that can be said for this.

2000 Domaine Robert Groffier Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. Burghound 92. Much more forward and evolved than any of the preceding wines as the malo finished almost 3 months before the others. Elegant, rich, extremely ripe with somewhat low acidity that is barely able to buffer the powerful flavors yet the wine is also able to effortlessly carry the elevated alcohol. The wine finishes with a touch of warmth but it is not unduly intrusive. This is a surprising wine in that it’s extremely ripe, lavishly rich with very high alcohol yet somehow it remains beautifully balanced. It’s not clear how well it will age but there is enough tannic structure to require 7 to 10 years to resolve.

agavin: spice, lovely.

1999 Bouchard Père et Fils Bonnes Mares. Burghound 93. This is still quite youthful with ever-so-mildly toasty dark berry fruit, earth, wet stone and underbrush-infused aromas leading to rich, full-bodied, powerful and appealingly intense flavors that are blessed with ample amounts of tannin-buffering dry extract that both coats the palate and confers a sappy texture to the beautifully long and still notably structured finish. This may turn out to be even better than my score suggests because while there is not yet outstanding complexity, the underlying material is present that could very well allow the additional depth to develop.

1999 Frederic Esmonin Chambertin. Burghound 89. A noticeable step up in size and volume though not necessarily in intensity or complexity. Earthy and rich with solid power and length to go with medium weight flavors and relatively fine tannins. While this is certainly not disappointing, I was hoping for more.

Grilled Lobster Tail. Herbed Oat Porridge, Glazed Baby Carrots. A big portion of juicy moist lobster. A very lovely dish.

2002 Faiveley Mazis-Chambertin. Burghound 91-93. Always one of Faiveley’s best wines and the ’02 is no exception with an incredibly complex nose of damp earth, minerals, game and a slightly wild fruit component followed by wonderfully sappy, deep, broad, muscular flavors and knock-out purity of expression. I very much like this and the finish is long and strikingly persistent.

2001 Louis Jadot Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. Burghound 91-94. As it should be, this is easily the biggest wine of the entire line up with robust, intense, broad-shouldered, supremely complex, solidly structured flavors introduced by deeply spicy, quite aromatic and expressive aromas and dramatic finishing intensity. An altogether superb effort that delivers knock out quality.

2003 Louis Jadot Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Clos St. Jacques. Burghound 90-92. Interestingly, this is also quite ripe but not necessarily any more elegant though there is perhaps slightly better depth of material and certainly better overall purity of expression and intensity, especially on the superbly long, firm and punchy backend. While this is not classic in style, there is so much explosive energy and verve that this may very well surprise to the upside with time in bottle.

agavin: best wine of the flight right now.

2002 Louis Jadot Chapelle-Chambertin. Burghound 89-91. Noticeable wood spice frames pretty and pure earthy red fruit that highlights the rich, sappy and elegant medium weight flavors that deliver fine length. This is quite elegant yet altogether serious and blessed with plenty of old vine sap and enough structure to suggest that this will benefit from the better part of a decade in bottle.

Cacao Pasta Matlagliatti. Braised Oxtail Ragout, Pecorino Romano.

2002 Domaine Bertagna Clos St. Denis. Burghound 93.  Rich, even extravagant and exotic black fruit leads to round, supple, forward and generous flavors with excellent richness and fine detail. The superbly long finish is impressive for its sheer depth and wonderful complexity and as many of the best ’02s reveal, the tannins here are extremely fine. In sum, this is an absolutely stunning wine with serious potential.

2002 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. Burghound 91. A spicy black fruit nose that remains reserved and completely primary leads to rich, full and solidly concentrated flavors that have better definition than what Girardin usually produces and in particular, this is a good deal less fruit-driven as well. Good juice here and one that should age very well yet be accessible relatively early on.

agavin: drinking great now

2001 Domaine Méo-Camuzet Richebourg. Burghound 94. A spicy, elegant and very pure nose is just beginning to display the initial hints of secondary development. There is superb precision to the racy, intense and mineral-driven medium-bodied flavors that exude a focused power on the driving and explosive finish. There isn’t the mid-palate fat or velvety texture of the 2002 but this has its own personality and charm and overall, this has arrived at a place where it could be drunk now with immense pleasure or held for another 5 to 7 years. Note that I have had several bottles that did not show as well as the one described above though most bottles have showed most impressively.

agavin: really great right now, prob best of the flight

1996 Geantet-Pansiot Charmes-Chambertin. VM 94. Saturated deep ruby; one of the darkest ’96s I saw in November. Multifaceted nose combines black fruits, violet, licorice, espresso, smoke, gibier and sweet butter. The class of the cellar in terms of concentration, sweetness, finesse and length; in fact, today this wine makes Geantet’s ’95 seem almost heavy in comparison. Lovely roundness and clarity of flavor. Really explodes on the palate-staining finish.

Roasted Rack of Lamb. Cauliflower Flan, Wild Mushrooms savory cabbage, Cabernet Savignon Reduction. You can never go wrong with lamb chops. Well you can, but not when they are done correctly like this.

1990 Domaine G. Roumier / Christophe Roumier Bonnes Mares. VM 98. Good deep, dark red. Explosively ripe aromas of plum, raspberry, mocha, mint and fresh herbs. Wonderfully fat and voluminous; in fact, this is downright massive for Bonnes-Mares, offering extraordinary palate presence. Finishes with huge, dusty tannins, outstanding breadth and palate-staining length. Unquestionably the most impressive wine of the tasting, but to my palate not the most interesting wine, as the vintage dominates the terroir But this will go on in bottle for many more years.

agavin: Maybe WOTN, or certainly close.

From my cellar: 1993 Louis Jadot Bonnes Mares. Burghound 92. Earthy, deep and wonderfully fresh fruit leads to dense, solidly tannnic, beautifully delineated and focused, rich flavors of exceptional purity and length. While the finish is firm, it is by no means hard and there is excellent buffering sève all underpinned by vibrant acidity. There is plenty of wine here but this is a wine for the patient and it should live for years to come.

agavin: this bottle was sadly just a little corked, not undrinkably so, but enough to steal away the fruit and ruin the experience.

From my cellar (replacing BM above). 1990 Gros Frère et Sœur Clos Vougeot Musigni. 93 points. Powerful fruit, great structure. Just the beginnings of secondary flavors. Rich nose of bright fruits with a smoky undertone. Tastes incredibly fresh for a 19 year old. Bright cherries smoothed by tannins. Very nice. Great burgundy from a great vintage.

agavin: a great wine, in the top 3 or so of the day.

Chef’s selection of artisanal cheese. Nice cheeses, although not enough of them for my taste.
Great fruit bread for the cheese.

I needed a macchiato, it was after all only 4pm when we finished.

Sauvages lunches are always great, but this one like the previous Burgundy lunch was particularly fabulous. Spago is one of the few white table cloth restaurants left in town, and it’s been around for a while, but remains fresh and contemporary. It doesn’t embrace the loud new ambiance like Republique or Bestia, but it does knock the food out of the park, while keeping the look up to date and timeless. The food these days is more Japanese inspired, and less of the California whimsy that Puck originally introduced, but it’s equally fabulous.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Or check out other Sauvages meals here.

Related posts:

  1. Sauvage Republique
  2. Sauvage by Moonlight
  3. Spago – 2005 White Burg part 1!
  4. Babykiller Birthday
  5. Pistola with a Bang
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

Cotsen’s Again!

Oct26

I was lucky enough to be invited again to a absolutely fabulous wine dinner hosted by Eric Cotsen at his lovely Malibu pad. The group was mostly Hedonists, with a few other pals of Eric’s mixed in. Eric has these diners regularly and they feature an awesome setting, great company, wonderful food, and amazing wines provided by both him and the guests.


You can see the ocean is right there! Like under the house.

The chefs slave away to make us dinner.

Eric has these crazy high tech nitrogen dispensers that preserve (and aerate) the wines. He even has sets of glasses with etched number and letter combos so you can pair to the wines. Tonight there were two white wines in here and a set of 6 reds.

During this early phase of the party all the wine is served as a blind free-for-all. Eric himself served up eight wines (blind) as follows, with the red’s having a secret theme of “1990”.

2013 Aubert Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard. VM 97. The 2013 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard is translucent and weightless, yet also magnificent in its depth. Graphite, slate, smoke, incense, lemon and white peach emerge from the glass, but only with great reluctance. The Ritchie is the most reticent wine in this range, but it is in many ways the most intriguing. Intensely mineral and nuanced, the 2013 Ritchie will thrill those lucky enough to own it for another decade-plus. I can’t wait to see how this develops in bottle. The 2013 was done in 100% new oak, yet there is virtually no trace of oak at all.

2010 Brewer-Clifton Chardonnay Cuvée Blanche Sta. Rita Hills. 89 points.

1990 Joseph Drouhin Pommard 1er Cru Les Épenots. 84 points. Slight dried blood and beef but just a taint. Stillmostly brambly crush berries and dark red cherries. Showing medium bodied chewy tannins that would help it age another few years easily. Rough and more musculine on the palate than the volnay. This has more structure and extract that does contrast nicely with the volnay. Sappy dark red cherry fruits with pith.

2005 Cos d’Estournel. Parker 97-98. The 2005 Cos d’Estournel is another great success from this property, which is owned by Michel Reybier. A superstar of St.-Estèphe in this vintage, this wine has a dense ruby/purple color, beautiful, sweet cassis and blackcurrant fruit, some floral notes, spice and a touch of oak in a full-bodied, layered, impressive multi-dimensional style. The tannins are surprisingly sweet and well-integrated, as is the acidity, alcohol and wood. This is a beauty and certainly the top wine of St.-Estèphe. Drink it over the next 25+ years.

1990 Lafite-Rothschild. Parker 96-97. Interestingly, a bottle of 1990 Lafite Rothschild I pulled from my cellar for a video blog on my web site was still buttoned down, tight, and even with extended decanting was not showing as much as I would have hoped. However, a bottle tasted, of all places, in Seoul, Korea in February, was only a few points short of perfection. That amazing performance motivated me to pull another bottle out of my cellar and follow it over the course of two days. Sure enough, by the second day the wine was roaring from the glass. The 1990 Lafite has turned out far better than my early assessment. While it still possesses some firmness, and performs like a late adolescent in terms of its evolution, it boasts gorgeous aromas of cedar, tobacco leaf, cassis, and lead pencil shavings. The explosive aromas are followed by a fleshy, full-bodied wine that should hit its peak in 5-8 years, and last for 25-30 more.

1990 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. Parker 87. The 1990 is not as well-endowed as the 1989. It displays medium dark ruby color and an attractive bouquet of vanillin from new oak, ripe blackcurrants, and spices. Although not as concentrated as usual, the wine does exhibit medium body, some glycerin, and fine ripeness, as well as an overall sense of grace. This stylish wine would have benefitted from more length and intensity. In the context of the vintage, it could have been better.

1990 La Tour Haut-Brion. Parker 85-86. A disappointing example of this wine, the 1990 exhibits a smoky, herbaceous character, medium body, and neither the depth nor richness of La Tour Haut Brions made in the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and the monumental 1982. The 1990 needs to be drunk up as it is not likely to get any better. The color is already showing considerable amber and brick at the edge. The wine is somewhat superficial, but it offers complex aromatics of roasted herbs, meat, smoke, and spice.

1990 Beringer Chardonnay Private Reserve. Parker 89. Beringer continues to do everything right. Its staff of talented professionals may rank as the best in the business. Beringer’s Chardonnays take advantage of the rich, opulent fruit the warm growing climate and rich soils provide. Since 1991, the top Chardonnays have been 100% barrel-fermented and put through a malolactic fermentation. Both the Private Reserve and Proprietor Grown Chardonnays have soared in quality, with exceptional vintages in 1991 and 1992.

The gang mills around during the early phases.

And the wines that everyone brought are hidden in socks and served in a giant blind free-for-all.


2012 gripes of wrath.

From my cellar: 2001 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Pucelles. VM 91+. Nose hints at spicy oak and flint. Extremely closed and inexpressive today; in a dry style but quite pure and delicate, with brisk acidity. Best today on the subtle, long finish. A very stylish wine but still stunned by the recent bottling.

2004 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Auslese **. VM 89+. Pale golden-yellow color. Tangerine and apple blossom on the nose. Delicate yet rich in spice and decidedly floral. A salty minerality rather than obvious sweetness graces the finish, but there’s a creamy quality to balance the mineral character. Good length.

2003 Faiveley Corton-Clos des Cortons Faiveley. VM 93+. Dark red-ruby. Nose shows a slightly porty ripeness, with aromas of candied blackbery, violet and licorice pastille. Huge, velvety and thick, with a candied, liqueur-like quality and great concentration. Distinctly different from the rest of these 2003s, with utterly black flavors of berries and violet. A brooding and very primary wine with a huge structure for aging and rather penetrating acids. This will need many years in bottle to become civilized but may well be a monument of the vintage. The alcohol here is 15%.

agavin: whacky, didn’t even taste like a pinot, almost Syrah-like.

1964 Ducru Beaucaillou. Parker 78. Solid, rustic, amiable, and pleasantly full and firm, the 1964 Ducru-Beaucaillou lacks complexity and character, but offers a mushroom-scented, robust, round mouthful of claret. The fruit is just beginning to fade. All things considered, this was a success for a 1964 northern Medoc.

agavin: our bottle was in great shape, really nice and mature.

From my cellar: 2000 Domaine de la Vieille Julienne Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve. Parker 99-100. The 2000 Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve (15.5% alcohol; 100% Grenache) is a wine of magnificent intensity as well as majestic texture and richness. Layers of concentrated fruit cascade over the palate. Opaque purple-colored and extremely full-bodied, with a gorgeous nose of minerals, white flowers, black fruits, pepper, and garrigue, this sumptuous, seamless 2000 Chateauneuf must be tasted to be believed. I have had this wine a half dozen times in blind tastings that included some of the finest 2000 Chateauneuf du Papes, and it consistently ranks as one of the top 2 or 3 wines in the tastings. Then again, I’m looking at its overall potential as it is not the most forward or evolved of the 2000 Chateauneuf du Papes. It is a magnificent tour de force in winemaking. Anticipated maturity: 2007-2025.

1994 Michel Ogier Cote Rotie. Parker 89. Ogier’s 1994 Cote Rotie is one of those elegant, finesse-style wines offering an intense, seductive, sexy, smoky, bacon fat, and cassis-scented nose. The wine hits the palate with a delicate, sweet ripeness, enough crisp acidity to provide definition, and a medium-bodied, well-knit personality. A slight shortness in the finish kept this wine from meriting a higher score. Readers should not be surprised if it fills out over the next several years, elevating my rating. It will offer attractive drinking now and over the next 12 years.

2004 Alvaro Palacios L’Ermita. Parker 98. 2004 was a superb vintage in Priorat and the three entries from Alvaro Palacios are stunning. The 2004 L’Ermita is harvested from a 5 acre parcel of 70-year-old head-pruned vines of which 85% is Grenache, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 5% Carignan aged in 100% new French oak. The color is purple/black and the super-expressive nose offers toast, minerals, kirsch, and blackberry. The wine is full-bodied and seamless with complex flavors and the tannin totally concealed. The finish is very long and pure in this powerful yet elegant offering. It should drink splendidly for 15-20 years.

agavin: our cork was oddly dry and crumbled.

2006 Lewis Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Cuvée L. 95 points. Dark blackish red with fruit-forward blackberry, delicious and robust with dark chocolate, some oak, spice and deep black coffee Excellent complexity and structure to the wine with delicate tannins. Beyonce power in a more elegant lady.

1995 Turley Petite Syrah Hayne Vineyard. ST 93+. Brilliant ruby. Outstanding floral lift to the primary red berry and dark chocolate aromas. The palate combines superb thickness of texture and mineral lift, with a flavor of raspberry coulis complicated by coffee and leather nuances. Still remarkably youthful, communicating an exhilarating balance of sweetnes and acidity. Finishes with plush, sweet tannins and terrific floral length. This is still evolving and may ultimately merit an even higher score.

1999 Harlan Estate Proprietary Red Wine. Parker 94. Very deep garnet-black colour going brick at the rim. Complex, maturing nose with notes of warm blackberry, game, dried plums, moss, white pepper, Provence herbs and a whiff of iron ore. The palate reveals a concentrated, medium to full bodied wine balanced by medium acidity and a medium to firm level of velvety tannins. Very long finish departing with lingering savoury and mineral flavours. Drink now to 2018. Tasted November 2008.

2008 Torbreck The Pict. Parker 94. Very deep garnet colored with a hint of purple, 2008 The Pict offers expressive notes of ripe mulberries, kirsch, dried plums, Ceylon tea, tobacco, spice cake and fertile earth. Full bodied, concentrated and firmly structured, it has a firm level of chewy tannins and racy acid supporting the generous fruit, finishing long. This vineyard clearly coped extraordinarily well with the heat-wave and produced a superb wine! Drink it now to 2020+.

2007 Kapcsandy Family Winery Estate Cuvee State Lane Vineyard. Parker 96. The 2007 Estate Cuvee State Lane Vineyard (a 750-case blend of 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 46% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot) boasts an inky/plum/purple color as well as a complex bouquet of melted licorice, chocolate, creme de cassis, mocha, and sweet forest floor aromas. Full-bodied and layered with exquisite purity, texture, and length, this large-scaled offering reveals a supple texture along with 20-25 years of drinkability. It is a seductive yet extraordinarily complex wine that should prove to be a future super-star.

2001 Paul Hobbs Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard. Parker 97-98. From the undeniable first-growth quality site comes the 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To-Kalon Vineyard. When the fruit from this vineyard is handled properly, the resulting wine often flirts with perfection. Hobbs’ 2001 boasts a dense blue/purple color along with an incredibly pure nose of spice box, cedarwood, creme de cassis, blueberry pie and subtle smoke as well as graphite notes that could easily pass for a first- or second-growth Pauillac. Broad, expansive, full-bodied flavors reveal stunning purity, amazing depth and richness, and a finish that goes on for nearly a minute. Still youthful, but oh, so impressive, it is hard to resist now, but it should be even better in 5-8 years, and keep for 30-40+ years.

2008 Clarendon Hills Astralis (Shiraz). Parker 97. Also deep garnet-purple in color, the 2008 Astralis is a little reduced and brooding on the nose showing aromas of dark berries, meat, licorice and dark chocolate. Big, full-bodied and rich in the mouth it has balanced acid along with medium-firm grainy tannins. It finishes long and balanced. Drink it now to 2028+.


1990 Mayacamas Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. 92 points. Another good, mature Cabernet from Mayacamas, showing peppermint, cassis, licorice, oak, pine needles, molasses, pepper, leather, dirt, and plum. Still plenty of tannin to resolve. I’d say it’ll go another 10 years or so.

2011 Peter Michael Winery Les Pavots Proprietary Red Wine. Parker 92. The 2011 Les Pavots (3,086 cases) is composed of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Cabernet Franc, 10% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot. Its chocolaty fudge-like notes intermixed with espresso roast, black and red currants, smoky barbecue and underbrush are followed by a deep, rich, full-bodied, outstanding red wine that should drink well for 10-15 years.

1977 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon York Creek. 91 points. Very cool. Color was dark red/ black. Classic Cali cab with smooth tannin. Cassis and red fruit with some tertiary development. I really love 70s Cali cab.

During this early phase, there are a variety of munchables:

Various cheeses.

An homage to Spago, with crispy sesame cups filled with salmon tartar, caviar, and bonito flakes. Delicious.

And a slightly different version with grav lox. Stronger in flavor, but equally delicious.

Ham and cheese panini with manchego and jamon de Iberico!

A white fish with yuzu, cilantro, and red peppercorns. Bright and delicious.

Mushroom ravioli.

Sun dried tomato ravioli.


Dinner itself was enjoyed here at the outside table and its warming firepit.


Mushroom soup.

Wasabi mashers.

Grilled vegetables.

Beef. Tasty, but salty. There were two types.

Gravy. Super salty.

2007 Château Coutet. VM 92. Full medium gold. Pineapple, orange, toffee, nutty oak and a whiff of spun sugar on the enticing nose. Sweet but youthful and tangy, with lively acidity and underlying minerality giving an incisive quality to the bright core of pineapple and apricot fruit. At once rich and sharply focused, finishing with excellent length and verve. This should evolve slowly.

Berries.

Whipped cream.

And deconstructed smore.

Finished out with graham cracker and seared marshmallows.

Then topped with the fruit and cream.

Just a bit of wine — 27 bottles!

Overall, another fun evening. Lots of great wine, company, and food. What more can you ask?

For more LA dining reviews click here,

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. Big and Bold on the Beach
  2. Wine on the Beach
  3. Epic Ocean Party 2015
  4. Memorial Day Pig
  5. Oceans of Wine
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,

Little Sheep Hot Pot

Oct21

Restaurant: Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot

Location: 140 W Valley Blvd #213, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 307-1901

Date: October 18, 2015

Cuisine: Mongolian Hot Pot

Rating: Middling quality hot pot

_

Hot Pot is an ever popular style of Northern Chinese / Mongolian food. Basically a pot of boiling broth is used tableside to cook various foods.

Little Sheep is a small chain, the name refers to the prevalence of lamb in Mongolian cooking. Fortunately it’s not, “Little Marmot,” as the squirrel-like rodent is common on the Mongolian steppes and has been known to end up on the cook fire.

The interior is fairly modern.

The menu, somewhere in the middle of our markup process. You have to understand that you basically order plates of stuff, which you add to your hot pot.

Little Sheep does have a sauce bar. It’s not nearly as extensive as the one at Hai di Lao, particularly as the left and right halves are the same, but it’s still more than sufficient to make a great sauce.


These are my sauces. On the left is a richer sesame paste one, on the right a lighter ponzu style.

There are two broth types here, “plain” and “spicy.” This is spicy, which isn’t actually that spicy unless you eat the chilies — but good luck avoiding them all!

2009 Sea Smoke Pinot Noir Ten. VM 89. One of the Sea Smoke flagships, the 2009 Pinot Noir Ten impresses for its depth and sheer power. Layers of flavor flow through to the huge, dramatic finish in a full-bodied, intense Pinot. Once the intensity of the fruit fades, there is not much development in the glass, which results in an overall impression of one dimensionality. The Ten is one of Sea Smoke’s flagships. It is made from all ten Pinot clones planted on the property. While a solid effort, I expected more from this offering, which also happens to be the wine through which I discovered Sea Smoke years ago.


Supreme lamb shoulder.


Premium Lamb leg.


Supreme angus beef.

USDA Choice rib eye.


Beef of an indeterminate nature.

Pork belly. Look at all that fat.

Free range chicken. Surprisingly good, for chicken.

2009 Aubert Pinot Noir UV Vineyard. VM 93. The 2009 Pinot Noir UV Vineyard once again shows the richness and heft of the clay-rich soils in this site. This is an especially dense Pinot, even by Aubert’s standards, that needs another year or so in bottle to start shedding some of its baby fat. Despite the wine’s richness, there is more than enough underlying minerality to give the wine a sense of proportion and harmony.

Lamb meat balls.

Beef meat balls.

Pork meat balls.

Luncheon meat. A.k.a. spam. Delicious.

Pork sausages. Little wieners.

From my cellar: 2004 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. 92 points. #1; COLOR-nice golden; NOSE-burnt BMX tires meets peaches, apricots & pears; spritzy; TASTE-beautiful bluestone; gorgeous dried Apricots; viscous & oily; gorgeous peach juice; very polished; great, great wine; very delicate; nice floral aspects; subtle cactus juice & on the finish; a concoction of Cantaloupe & dandelion dancing on the back-end; very complex; great balance of acidity & fruit; great structure; absolute elegance at it’s finest; DS-92; GV-92.

Scallops. Total fail here, these were not fresh.

Shrimp. These were fine.

Calamari (squid).

Crab legs. Got a bit mushy in the pot.

Fried fish cakes. Pretty tasty, with an interesting chewy texture.

2010 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Meursault Les Narvaux. Burghound 89-91. An elegant, pure and cool nose of white flower and citrus leads to minerally and well-concentrated middle weight flavors that possess a racy, intense and well-balanced finish. This dry and relatively forward effort should offer 2 to 3 years of upside development if desired.

Miscellaneous vegetable plate.

Miscellaneous mushroom plate.

Soft tofu. I love it, but hard to get out of the pot.

Hot Pot Dumplings. Chewy, tasty. Not sure what if anything was actually inside.

Udon noodles. Again hard to get out of the pot.

Fresh egg noodles. I loved these. Mixed with the sauce they made one of those tangy/spicy Chinese noodle dishes.

Glass noodles. Also great.

Chinese donut. Not actually sweet at all, but with a very nice crunch.

Mongolian bread. Hot from the oven and nice. Who says Chinese don’t make bread?

Mongolian beef pie. This one was delicious. We had a second that was a bit overdone and wasn’t so great.

2010 Copain P2. 89 points. Neither red, white nor rose. Slight tannins from red give body and structure while the pinot gris gives a fragrant juciness that allows it to go with so many modern foods, especially on a warm day with a slight chill.

Lamb dumplings. A little weak.

Pork dumplings. Same. Just kinda soft without too much flavor.

Lamb skewers. With the usual cumin.

Beef skewers.

Chicken skewers.

At the end, the cooling sauce is starting to congeal.

Overall, Little Sheep is a decent hot pot place. The broth was good, the sauces good, and many of the ingredients like the meat and breads quite good. The seafood was fairly lousy, and the dumplings weak. They also don’t have a ton of broth choices and you have to share the pot with about 4-5 people.

Now I’d place it about Hot Pot Hot Pot (with a 8+ person per pot and no sauce bar), but below Hai di Lao. However both of the first two have a bit more variety of non hot pot ingredients than Hai di Lao.

After, we wandered downstairs in this monster Maxi-mall (which also includes Spicy City) and checked out this bakery.

A couple of us got this layered Crepe Cake. It’s just crepes and custard, chilled. Mild, sweet, milky and delicious — like a sort of crepey tres leches cake.

Another mild cakey thing.

And they also have various teas and slushies. On the left a milk tea, on the right a mango slushie.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. Pecorino – No Sheep is Safe
  2. Hot Pot Hot Pot
  3. Happy Table – New Bay is Old Bay
  4. Heavy Noodling at JTYH
  5. New Bay Seafood
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,

More Meat at Totoraku

Oct16

Restaurant: Totoraku [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

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

Date: October 14, 2015

Cuisine: Japanese Yakiniku

Rating: Best beef in town!

_

About twice a year my Hedonist group makes a regular pilgrimage to Totoraku, LA’s “secret beef” restaurant.  Toto (as its affectionately known) serves a refined version of Japanese Yakiniku, which is Beef BBQ originally from Korea but filtered through Japanese sensibility.

We often oscillate between 30 person mega dinners — quite the madness — and more intimate 10-15 person affairs. This was the later, with about 10-12 drinkers, and I much prefer this size. You can talk to everyone, bottles go all the way around, and the quality of the wines is generally more consistently higher.

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!

The interior is a tad “minimalist.”


Here, chef Kaz Oyama, himself a part time Hedonist, sharpens his knives. Uh oh!

Bonus from my cellar: NV Vilmart & Cie Champagne Grand Cellier Brut. VM 92. Lemon peel, white flowers, mint, crushed rocks and almonds are some of the notes that meld together in the NV Cuvée Grand Cellier. The flavors are brisk, nuanced and pure in this refreshing, saline-inflected Champagne. Chardonnay plays the leading role in the Grand Cellier, and that comes through in the bright flavor profile. This release is 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir, 50% vintage 2010 and 25% each 2011 and 2012.

The appetizer plate. Lots of yummy little tidbits.

Uni risotto balls.

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

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

Fish with tomatoes.

2005 Aubert Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard. VM 95. It’s interesting to taste the 2005 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard next to the Lauren. Here the flavors are quite a bit more mineral-driven, with plenty of graphite and crushed notes. Hints of orange peel and white truffles add the final layers of nuance. The 2005 Ritchie is a bit more forward than the Lauren, and has also aged with a bit less overall finesse, but that is a pretty small critique at this level.

Egg with pear, potato, and some kind of crisp.

Foie gras, some kind of fruit.

A white fish sashimi.

Shrimp with caviar.

Sesame tofu with pea.

Scott brought: 1977 Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia Vino da Tavola. 91 points. I’ve never had a Sassicaia this old and at first it was a touch thin, but it really opened up and was quiet nice and interesting.

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

1988 Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia Vino da Tavola. 90 points. Perfectly matured yet fresh Cab nose, lovely red fruits, mineral, also cassis, lead pencil, strong presence of iron which is different than the last bottle, a hint of ash and tar and flower. Medium concentration, silky palate, strong presence of iron/mineral, nicely integrated tannins and seamless long finish. Other than a hint of tar, I would guess it as a perfectly mature classic cab if served blind. Lovely.

agavin: consensus at our dinner was that the 77 was a bit better than the 88

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: 1986 Leoville-Las Cases. Parker 100! The late Michel Delon always thought that this was the greatest vintage he had produced. We often tasted it side by side with the 1982, because I always preferred the latter vintage. Of course, the two vintages are quite different in style, with the 1986 a monument to classicism, with great tannin, extraordinary delineation, and a huge, full-bodied nose of sweet, ripe cassis fruit intermixed with vanilla, melon, fruitcake, and a multitude of spices. The wine has always been phenomenally concentrated, yet wonderfully fresh and vigorous. The wine still seems young, yet it is hard to believe it is not close to full maturity. It is a great example of Leoville Las Cases, and another compelling reason to take a serious look at the top Cabernet Sauvignon-based Medocs of 1986. Anticipated maturity: 2005-2035.

agavin: really fabulous. Super smooth and balanced, mature with a youthful power. Long way to go here.

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.

The tabletop grill we cook the rest of the dishes on.

Mark brought: 2000 Vega Sicilia Unico. Parker 93-98. In the absence of a 2001 Unico, Vega Sicilia has re-released the 2000 Unico which I reviewed in Issue 189. The 2000 Unico is deep crimson-colored with an ethereal perfume aided by its extended upbringing. Aromas of Asian spices, lavender, incense, truffle, and confiture of black fruits are compelling. Sweet, forward, rich, and hedonistic, it nevertheless has the balance and structure to continue evolving for another 5-10 years. In strong vintages Vega Sicilia drinks well at age 50 and I would expect the same of the 2000.

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

Don’t put your tongue on the grill!

Larry brought: 2001 Penfolds Grange. Parker 98+. It is always a treat to taste Australia’s most famous wine, Penfolds’ Grange cuvee (the word Hermitage has been dropped because of legal issues). The 2001 Grange is one of the few vintages of this cuvee to be composed of 100% Shiraz (the others being 1951, 1952, 1963, 1999, and 2000). Aged 17 months in 100% American oak, and tipping the scales at 14.5% alcohol, the 2001 is undeniably one of the top examples of this wine. At this stage, it appears to eclipse the 1998 and 1996. Inky/blue/purple to the rim, with a stunning perfume of blueberries, blackberries, chocolate, graphite, and earth, it boasts good acidity, huge tannins, magnificent concentration, and a multilayered, textured mouthfeel. It is a big, but impeccably well-balanced Shiraz that should shed some of its structure and tannin over the next 4-5 years, and be at its best between 2010-2030+.

agavin: regarded by most at our dinner as the WOTN!

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

Filet on the grill.

2008 Penfolds Grange. Parker 100! Very deep garnet-purple in color the 2008 Grange reveals a truly decadent nose with tons of spices, fruit cake and black & blue fruit compote notes along with nuances of chocolate and potpourri. The full and rich, multi-layered palate has a little oak still showing, it is going through a little bit of a structural stand-out stage, but it doesn’t detract on the long and complex finish. It still needs a good few years to develop, though this very opulent, expressive Grange shows the very best of this vintage and the vineyards it hails from.

The “salad.” Cucumbers, carrots, daikon. The vegetables do help to move along the fat and protein heavy meat.

They are served with this spicy sweet miso dip.

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.

Brock brought for Crystal: 2007 Vietti Barolo Riserva Villero. VM 96+. Vietti’s 2007 Barolo Riserva Villero is a flat out stunner. Dark red fruit, Villero spices, leather, tobacco, smoke and menthol come alive in a rich, sensual Barolo that captures the essence of this site. Rose petals, mint and sweet red berries flesh out on an inviting wine loaded with class and personality. Over time, the powerful, explosive style of the year becomes more evident. The fruit turns darker, more balsamic and also more intensely mineral.

agavin: too young, but you can tell it was an enormous and balanced wine.

Outside rib eye with special salt and garlic.

The outside rib eye on the grill.

After being flipped, green onion is added.

Yarom brought: 2001 Hundred Acre Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Kayli Morgan Vineyard. Parker 98. Having performed spectacularly well last year in the retrospective of ten-year old Napa Cabernets, this 2001 remains incredibly young, with all of its potential waiting to burst forth. Its dense purple color is followed by notes of mulberries, creme de cassis, blackberries, licorice, graphite and subtle smoke. The wine reveals fabulous fruit along with full-bodied power and a seamless integration of acidity, tannin, alcohol and wood. Forget it for another 4-5 years and drink it over the following 25-30 years.

agavin: really nice “for a California.” Very balanced and smooth.


Inside rib eye.

The inside rib eye on the grill. Probably my favorite cut.

Another bonus from my cellar: 2010 Dominique Lafon Meursault. 92 points. The 2010 Meursault emerges from the glass with notable elegance and class. This is a slightly more restrained, nervous style than fans of Comtes Lafon have become used to over the years. The 2010 is made from parcels in Petit Montagne, Charmes and Narvaux that belong to Dominique Lafon and that were once used in the Comtes Lafon Meursault.

As any regular Totoraku goer knows, any new dish is a big deal here, as the menu is very consistent. This is one of TWO new specials chef Kaz whipped up for us tonight, Sawara, a kind of Spanish Mackerel. It is considered the best kind of Mackerel in Japan. Not only it is a big variety, but its comparatively white flesh is succulent in almost any kind of cooking! Here we have it miso marinated and raw. We lightly seared it on the grill and enjoyed!

Awesome and very rich! One hell of a piece of grilled fish.

Kirk brought: 2002 Abreu Cabernet Sauvignon Madrona Ranch. Parker 100! The 2002 Madrona Ranch possesses an opaque blue/purple color as well as an extraordinary, enveloping, massive aromatic profile consisting of spring flowers, charcoal, lead pencil shavings, blueberries, raspberries and blackberry liqueur. In the mouth, there is sensational texture, full-bodied intensity, and terrific freshness, precision and vibrancy, despite what is undeniably a massive, rich, intense wine that should age well for another 25-35 years. The 2001s were about as profound as I have ever tasted from Abreu, but the 2002s may be even sexier since they are slightly more evolved.

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

Grilling.

Brock brought: 2003 Chateau Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape Hommage A Jacques Perrin. Parker 95-98. The 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape Hommage a Jacques Perrin is a blend of 40% Mourvedre, 40% Grenache, 10% Syrah, and 10% Counoise (normally this cuvee includes 60% Mourvedre and 20% Grenache). A 50-year effort, it is closed, backward, and formidably tannic at present, but the color is a deep ruby/blue/purple, and the nose offers up scents of graphite, blueberries, black truffles, earth, smoke, and licorice. Ripe, full-bodied, and powerful, but searingly tannic, it will need at least a decade of cellaring. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2050. The irony is that in spite of the much higher percentage of Grenache, it is still extremely tannic and backward, even more so than the 2001, 2000, 1999, or 1998.

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

On the grill.

One hell of a chop.

We char broiled it.

So much so that ash rained down from our efforts.

Brian brought: 2012 Sine Qua Non Grenache Stein. Parker 97-66. Starting with the Grenache release, the 2012 Grenache Stein is a blend of 76% Grenache, 16% Syrah and 8% Mourvedre, aged in 14% new French oak (15% was in concrete), that comes mostly from the estate’s Eleven Confessions Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills, but also includes grapes from the Cumulus, Third Twin (Syrah) and Bien Nacido vineyards. Checking in at 15.7% alcohol, it’s no lightweight, yet it has considerable elegance in its sweet blackcurrants, white pepper, licorice, baking spices and hints of violet-like aromas and flavors. Possessing the hallmark purity of the estate, it’s full-bodied, concentrated, rich and textured, with sweet tannin barely noticeable on the finish. I don’t think it’s one of the greatest Grenaches from the estate, yet it’s still an incredible effort that will benefit from short-term cellaring and have 15-20 years or more of overall longevity.


Skirt steak.

On the grill.


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.

To show the epic white chocolate raspberry, I had to turn around the plate.

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 evening was quite awesome. We had a smaller party (12-15), with a few non drinkers. Thus every wine easily made it all the way around. Additionally, everyone really stepped up and we had some pretty epic grapes. At least 3 official Parker 100s!

More crazy Hedonist adventures or

LA dining reviews click here.


Related posts:

  1. Totoraku Double Meat Madness
  2. Totoraku – Hedonists Beef Up
  3. Totally Totoraku
  4. Epic Hedonism at Totoraku
  5. Totoraku – Secret Beef!
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

Renu Nakorn

Oct14

Restaurant: Renu Nakorn

Location: 13019 Rosecrans Ave #105, Norwalk, CA 90650. (562) 921-2124

Date: October 11, 2015 & September 16, 2018

Cuisine: Thai

Rating: Far, but really great Thai

_

I’m always up for some Thai adventures and Renu Nakorn, although very far and deep down in the inland empire off the 5 is the seed restaurant that gave birth to Lotus of Siam.

The strip mall they used to be in rebooted up into this bigger 2006 mall. The Chutima’s ran it back in the 90s and in 1999 solid it to their friends Pharchumporn Shonkeaw and Umpa Sripetwannadee. Named after the Renu Nakhon district of northeastern Thailand, it serves up Northern Thai cuisine.

2011 Domaine des Baumard Savennières. 89 points. Quite creamy on the nose with subtle, slightly funky aromas of animal hide, papaya and fennel. Medium-bodied and slightly soft with savory, flinty flavors of grass, hard lemon candy and tangerine.

Fried sweet corn special. They made this up for us special. Absolutely delicious. Crunchy and sweet.

Rose

Renu Nakorn Sausage. Grilled sour rice sausage, served with fresh chili, ginger & peanut. Sausage was super tasty, although very salty.

1A0A7478
Northern Thai Sausage (9/16/18), a slightly different more aromatic variant.

2005 Dönnhoff Schloßböckelheimer Felsenberg Riesling Spätlese. VM 91. Pale golden yellow.Subtle bouquet of pineapple, nut oil and lemon zest.The luscious yet crisp papaya fruit is brightened by a refreshing mineral character.Deceptively light and wonderfully drinkable.A charming riesling with a sweet/salty finish.

Nam-Prik-Noom (Green chili dip). Roasted green chili, garlic, onion and tomato pounded in mortar. One of the most popular dip of Northern Thailand, eaten with sticky rice, fried pork skin and fresh vegetable. Lots of flavor, not super hot by my standards.
1A0A7471
The red chili dip (9/16/18) version of the same dish.
1A0A7475
Some kind of special beef salad (9/16/18).

1A0A7483
Larb koong (9/16/18). A northern style larb.
1A0A7484
Stuffed chicken wings (9/16/18). Super awesome, we ordered 2 or three times!
1A0A7493
Classic papaya salad (9/16/18).
1A0A7494
Coconut chicken soup (9/16/18).
1A0A7497
In the bowl.


2001 Weingut Johannishof (H.H. Eser) Rüdesheimer Berg Rottland Riesling Spätlese. 89 points. Peach, grapefruit and brown spice in the nose. Enormously rich and peachy in the mouth, expansive and bright across the palate. Effusively fruity, honeyed and spicy in the finish.

Special apple salad with salmon. The salmon was perfectly cooked, very mild yet flavorful.

2000 Erben von Beulwitz Kaseler Nies’chen Riesling Auslese**. 93 points. Sweet but not cloying.

Nam Kao Tod. Minced Issan sausage mixed with green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, crispy rice and lime juice. Super delicious, but incredibly salty.

2003 Le Haut-Lieu Vouvray Moelleux. 93 points. Sweet, with perhaps a touch of funk.

Nua Yum Katiem. Charbroiled spicy beef topped with fresh garlic and spicy sauce. Super delicious, and our spicy one actually had some heat (from those peppers). Lots of good garlic and acidic flavor too. The texture of the meat reminded me of tongue (in a good way).

2002 Inniskillin Vidal Sparkling Icewine. 93 points. Very nice. Few bubbles left, but what was left added just the right spark. Deep color. Flavors very concentrated. Probably near it peak, but showed zero hint of oxidation, so it may last quite a bit longer.

Northern Larb. A completely difference from the Is-san larb in taste, this Northern style larb (ground pork) is cooked with Northern Thai spices and no lime juice. Garnish with fresh herb and vegetable. Lots of flavor, a bit of heat, and extremely salty again.

2010 Rhys Pinot Noir San Mateo County. VM 94. The 2010 Pinot Noir (San Mateo County) is simply fabulous. Rich dark cherries, crushed flowers, mint and spices burst from the glass. This is a hugely delicious wine from Rhys. The 80% whole clusters are nicely balanced by the sheer depth of the fruit. This is a flat out stunning wine from Rhys. In 2010 the San Mateo is the entry-level Pinot. The 2010 is bottled under San Mateo appellation, as it includes fruit from Bearwallow (in Anderson Valley) rather than the more typical collection of sites from the Santa Cruz Mountains. Once again, one of the appellation-level Rhys Pinots shines.

1A0A7506
They prep the next dish.

Khao soi. Northern red curry with chicken and flat noodles.

In the individual bowl. I loved this, but I LOVE red curries, and I love noodles, so go figure.

Condiments for the curry.

2012 Horsepower Vineyards Syrah The Tribe Vineyard. 96 points. Total rocks rockstar. If you want to show someone Rock terrior, this is about as good as it gets. Super clean, but showcasing that ethereal burn olive and blood flavor. Good acid on the palate for being obviously higher PH. Long finish.

Drunken noodles, combination. Good stuff, we went through the noodles fast.

2007 Carlisle Syrah Bennett Valley. 91 points. Drinking quite well. Most of the group enjoyed it even more than I. Plums, black raspberries and some black pepper on the nose. Tannic. Good fruit but certainly not uber ripe. Starting to show some complexity, but certainly no hurry at all. It really is a beautiful wine.

 

1A0A7499
Pork stew Northern Style (9/16/18).
1A0A7503
Spicy Young Jackfruit Curry (9/16/18). Interesting flavors.

1A0A7510
Seafood Chili Mint Leaves (9/16/18).
1A0A7512
More fried rice (9/16/18).
1A0A7514
Red chicken curry (9/16/18). Classic and delicious.


Special green curry (2015 & 9/16/18) with pork, extra spicy. Loved this stuff, with a nice coconut flavor.
1A0A7517
BBQ beef in spicy sauce (9/16/18).
1A0A7522

Pad See Ew (9/16/18).

1A0A7529
Catfish (9/16/18).
1A0A7534
Crying Tiger Beef (9/16/18).


Bannana fritters with coconut ice cream. I only ate the ice cream, which tasted like ice milk or frozen coconut milk. It was okay.
1A0A7543
Made by me for 9/16/18.

Cherry Cough Syrup Sorbetto – Amareno Cherry and Creme de Cassis Sorbet! — so intense — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #SummerTime #cherry #amareno #Sorbet #cassis

Passionape Sorbetto – Passion Fruit and Aperol Sorbet — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #SummerTime #Sorbet #PassionFruit #Aperol


Food was excellent, if a touch salty. Service was excellent. Only minus was the drive.

I still like Jitlada a bit better. Renu Nakorn has a different, more northern style, however. It also isn’t nearly as spicy. We asked them to give us nuclear hot dishes and they were only “hot”. My scalp never got sweating like it does at Jitlada.

For more LA dining reviews click here,

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!
Extra wines from 9/16/18:
1A0A7463
1A0A7464
1A0A7465
1A0A7466
1A0A7467
1A0A7468
1A0A7469
1A0A7470

Related posts:

  1. Hedonists Noodle over Hoy-Ka
  2. Ruen Pair Rules
  3. Hedonists in Vegas – Lotus of Siam
  4. Jitlada Overkill
  5. Quick Eats: Chan Dara
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: , , , ,
« Newer Posts
Older Posts »
Watch the Trailer or

Buy it Online!

Buy it Online!
96 of 100 tickets!

Find Andy at:

Follow Me on Pinterest

Subscribe by email:

More posts on:



Complete Archives

Categories

Favorite Posts

Archives

All Things Andy Gavin
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Programmed by Andy Gavin