I know I promised the last of my formal Bombay restaurant reports today but it is has long been established that I am a liar. Also, do you really care? I’ll have that report on Thursday. Possibly. In the meantime, here is a report on a one-dish meal eaten on one of our program outings from Seoul in February. During our second week here we woke up bright and early one morning and headed off in a coach to the DMZ. Early rising and some snow-related delays aside, it was a fascinating day—though I never need to go into that cramped North Korean tunnel again. But this is not a travel blog and so I am not going to tell you about what you can see if you go on one of these DMZ trips from Seoul. All I am going to tell you about is the lunch we ate. Fittingly, it was centered on budae jjigae or “army/military” jigae. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2024
Ardnamurchan AD/ 04.21:03
March began with a week of reviews of single casks from Ben Nevis (here, here and here). Let’s keep things in the highlands for a second week. This week’s reviews, however, will be of whiskies from three different distilleries. First up, a release from a distillery I don’t have any prior experience with: Ardnamurchan. It is actually located only about 45 miles from Ben Nevis, a little to the southwest. It’s owned by Adelphi, the well-known independent bottling concern. The distillery was constructed in 2013—this is around the time, I think, when a number of the major independent bottlers began to get into the whisky production game, as the continued supply of casks from the usual sources began to look more questionable in the future. The first batch of spirit at Ardnamurchan was distilled in 2014. I believe the first official single malt was released in 2020, at the age of 5. If I’m understanding the release numbering system correctly, the one I’m reviewing today is the third release and came out in April, 2021. As to whether this is a year older than the 2020 release or distilled a year (or more) later, I don’t know. I do know that it’s a vatting of 65% ex-bourbon, 35% sherry (px and oloroso) casks and that it contains equal partsof peated and unpeated spirit. I am very curious to see what it’s like. Continue reading
Bukchon Kalguksu (Seoul, February 2024)
After yesterday’s image-heavy (and then some) report from Bombay’s Sassoon Dock fish market, I have for you today a relatively restrained report from Seoul. This was one of our earliest meals in the city, eaten on the go just a couple of days after arrival. As with our first two meals (only one of which I’ve yet reported on), this was eaten in a restaurant on Insadong-gil, the main tourist drag of Insadong (the neighbourhood we’ve been living in). The main street is lined with souvenir shops and the like and is a magnet for tourist shopping. The alleys that branch off to the sides are filled with cafes and restaurants. I don’t know if anyone has tried to eat at them all, or if anyone has tried to provide a comprehensive guide to the restaurants on the street. But our experiences suggest that you can’t go very wrong just choosing a place at random. Though not all restaurants in Seoul are great, or even very good, I’m yet to eat at one that comes anywhere close to being mediocre, leave alone bad. Bukchon Kalguksu falls, I would say, in the “quite good” end of the spectrum. Continue reading
At the Sassoon Dock Fish Market (Bombay, January-February 2024)
As my reports from Bombay wind down, I finally have for you a look at the place I went back to more often than any other: the Sassoon Dock fish market in Colaba. At the time that I booked the flat in Colaba in which we lived for five and a half weeks I had not realized that it was so close to one of the city’s premier fish markets. But when I did I was very excited. As it turned out, it was just about a 7 minute walk from our building. Reading up on it, I learned that it’s best to go very early in the day. Thanks to jet lag this was not going to be a problem and so I was there before sunrise on our first morning in the flat. Over the next few weeks I went there a bit later each time, but never very far past sunrise. Predictably, I took a lot of pictures on each visit—both of what I bought each time (we ate a lot of excellent fish and shellfish over our stay) and other things at the market that caught my eye. As being a blogger means being able to inflict your excesses on the world, you too can look at almost all the pictures I took across those visits. You’re welcome! Continue reading
Ben Nevis 24, 1996 (Single Malts of Scotland)
Ben Nevis week has so far featured two young casks from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Monday’s 9 yo was from a first-fill hogshead; Wednesday’s 8 yo spent its last three years in a second-fill oloroso hogshead. Here to close out the week now is another bourbon hogshead, this time from the Single Malts of Scotland. This is older than the previous two combined. It was distilled in 1996 and bottled in 2021. As per Whiskybase, the bottlers seem to have got their hands on a large parcel of these 1996 casks of proximate age bottled across both their Single Malts of Scotland and Whisky Trail lines. This one was bottled for the American market. Let’s see what it’s like.
Ben Nevis 24, 1996 (48.8%; Single Malts of Scotland; hogshead 1730; from a bottle split)
Nose: Everything Ben Nevis: salted nuts, powdered ginger, Makrut lime, a hint of mineral peat, sweet floral notes. Continues along these lines, with the fruit becoming more acidic as it goes. With water the acid recedes and there’s more floral sweetness. Continue reading
Ben Nevis 8, 2012 (SMWS 78.53)
Ben Nevis week started on Monday with a 9 yo from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society; it continues today with a 8 yo from the same bottler. Monday’s 9 yo was from a first-fill hogshead. Today’s 8 yo, dubbed “Death in the Afternoon” by the society’s tasting panel, also started out in a bourbon cask but after five years was transferred to a 2nd-fill oloroso hogshead. So probably more of a double maturation than a finish. I do enjoy bourbon cask Ben Nevis a lot—as the less assertive wood lets the distillate’s idiosyncratic character take centerstage. But I’m not opposed to a good sherry cask either. Let’s see if this is one of those.
Ben Nevis 8, 2012 (60%; SMWS 78.53; 2nd-fill oloroso hogshead finish; from a bottle split)
Nose: Rubber gaskets, roasted malt, orange peel and that nutty-beany thing. On the second sniff the citrus begins to brighten and come through to the top. Gets more mineral as it goes. As it sits the citrus and the mineral notes blend into something like orange soda with a Dispirin tablet dissolved in it. Not much change with water. Continue reading
Imun Seolnongtang (Seoul, February 2024)
Imun Seolnongtang, located about a 5-7 minute walk from where we’re putting up, is avowedly one of the oldest, if not the oldest formal restaurant in Seoul. Some sites list the year of opening as 1904, others as 1907—either way, it’s more than a century old. And I believe it has been at the same location since the beginning, though the old premises have been replaced by a concrete building. Said building looks deceptively small as you approach but then when you go in you realize that the large white, windowless block that you’d taken to be a neighbouring storehouse is actually where the dining room of the restaurant is located. I apologize for rhetorically making you the one taken in by this when it was in fact me. It’s a very functional dining room, with lots of tables pretty close to each other. There are also a few group dining rooms along one side, one of which has traditional floor seating. No matter where people are seated, however, they’re likely to have a bowl of steaming soup in front of them. We certainly did at the quick lunch we ate there last week. Continue reading
Ben Nevis 9, 2012 (SMWS 78.59)
Okay, Ben Nevis to start the month. First up is a young one from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, bottled after 9 years in a first-fill hogshead. They gave it the name “Burning berries”, which is both downright prosaic by their usual whimsical standards and also, I must say, promising. Let’s see if that promise is kept.
Ben Nevis 9, 2012 (57.8%; SMWS 78.59; first-fill hogshead; from a bottle split)
Nose: Quite closed at first, with none of that Ben Nevis funk in evidence. After a bit of airing some fruit begins to emerge: lime, tart-sweet apple; some wet concrete as well. Opens up further as it sits: the lime expands and here finally is some of that Ben Nevis powdered ginger and yeasty dough; a bit of roasted malt in there too. With a few drops of water there’s a fair bit of vanilla and cream but the lime is still quite strong (and mixed in with some floral sweetness). Continue reading
Coming Soon…
We’re now into the third month of our extended time away from home. We’ll be in Seoul for another couple of weeks and then in Delhi for a bit before returning to Minnesota before the end of March. The blog will have hit its 11th anniversary just a few days before we get back. There will be some changes to the blog in its 12th year, which I’ll announce at the start of April. For March, however, things will proceed as they have for several years now: three booze reviews a week and a food post or two. Well, the food posts will show up more frequently than usual, as I’m trying my best to get done with my Bombay reports (three more to go) and then catch up with my Seoul/Korea reports (running a little further away from me every day). I’ll probably wait till I’m done with all of those before starting on any reports on the inevitable Delhi eating out—so those will probably not show up on the blog till April. As for the booze reviews, I cannot offer you the usual choice this month. I’ve not been reviewing anything while on this trip, and now I’m at the end of my banked reviews. So all I can tell you is what you can expect this month. Continue reading