Summer is well and truly here in Southern Minnesota, as is some down time after a peripatetic and rather exhausting first six months of the year. January, February and March found us in Bombay, Seoul and then Delhi. In May I made a trip to New York and New Jersey. And we just got back from two and a half weeks in California. But now we have no plans to go anywhere for a while. I’ll be spending most of my time for the next few months either in my community garden plot or at my desk finishing up a writing project I’ve been working on for a while (more on this at a later date). Of course, I’ll also be cooking and we’ll be eating out regularly in the Twin Cities metro. Reports from the latter will show up on the blog; to track the cooking you’ll have to follow me on Instagram. In July I hope to finally finish up with my mealreports from Seoul (three to go) and New York (one to go), and to make good headway on the reports from our recent time in California. But first let’s see what was popular on the blog in June.
Here are the top 10 most viewed posts for the month:
- Eating at Mercato Centrale (Florence, June 2023)
- Bukhara (Delhi, March 2022)
- Trattoria Monti (Rome, June 2023)
- At Namdaemun Market, Pt. 2: Eating (Seoul, March 2023)
- Ha Tien Super Market (St. Paul)
- Lagavulin 11, Offerman Edition, Rum Finish
The list has a lot of repeats from May. My reports from 2023 on Mercato Centrale in Florence and those two restaurants in Rome continue to get a lot of views, as does my report from earlier that year on eating at Seoul’s Namdaemun Market. I was glad to see my more recent report on Mangwon Market also climbing up the charts in June as that was one of my favourite market visits on this 2024 trip. My 2021 report on Ha Tien, the excellent Vietnamese market in St. Paul also continues to be popular. The only other Twin Cities report to make it into the top 10—and the only entry on the list to have actually been posted in June—was my report on lunch at Hot Grainz, the small, new’ish Northern Thai restaurant in St. Paul. We’re hoping to eat there again soon. The perennially popular report on Delhi’s Bukhara was back near the top last month and was unexpectedly joined by a report from 2017 on a far less ballyhooed restaurant: a branch of Desi Vibes.
And speaking of unexpected, a whisky review actually cracked the top 10 list. My review of the latest iteration of Lagavulin’s Offerman Edition was posted in mid-May but got more attention in June. There were only two other whisky posts in the top 50 most viewed posts: the one on Loch Lomond’s grasp of history and, yes, another Lagavulin Offerman Edition review (of the previous release). Just outside the top 10 meanwhile, were my reviews of Kim’s and Oro in Minneapolis and my piece on the place of curry in Indian food (and the blinkered account of it given by Indian-American food writers).
So, what can you expect in July? Tomorrow I’ll finally have that report on dinner at Tenant in early June. Other Twin Cities meal reports will include returns to Alma, Oro and 112 Eatery. We’ll also be eating outside the high-end but those reports will probably show up in August. And as I said, I’ll be trying to clear out as much of the backlog from my/our travels as I can. On the booze front, I’ll have a review tomorrow of an old Scotch blend. My remaining reviews in July (only one a week) will likely feature brandy, Armagnac to be precise. Hopefully, you’ll find something of interest in all of that. If not, there’s always my back pages.