Here is the customary look ahead to the month on the blog. Things will continue as they have been for the last few months. Three whisky/booze reviews per week, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. These will be loosely themed (see below for this month’s possible themes). On Tuesdays I will have restaurant reports from the Twin Cities metro. On Thursdays I will post a restaurant report from my travels. On Thursdays I will also promise to post two more travel reports on the weekends, and then I will usually not post them or at the most post one. It’s awful, I know—I don’t know how you put up with my lies. Speaking of those travel reports, in April I finished up all my reports of meals eaten in Delhi in January and February. I also made good headway in my reports on meals eaten in Goa in January and in Seoul in March. I now only have two of the former left, and probably three of the latter—depending on how I divide up the roughly 5000 pictures I have of Gwangjang market. At any rate, I will be done with those reports in May. But I won’t be done with all travel reports as last week I accumulated a few more in New York and New Jersey. Continue reading →

We got a blizzard last evening and then a big blast of snow around midnight; so April is already looking good. I’m also back to teaching after being off on sabbatical since last November. You’d think I’d be well rested after the sabbatical but it’s been a crazily hectic few months with travel all over the place. Anyway, all this to say that I am busier right now than I have been in a while and as a result don’t have the coming month mapped out as clearly as I usually do. I have no whisky reviews already completed and ready to go. And while I have a huge backlog of food reports—the last couple from Delhi, a bunch from Goa and a bunch from Seoul—I don’t have any of those prepared either. So, all I can tell you at this point is that in April on the blog I will have some whisky reviews and some food reports. (Oh, I can also tell you that I won’t have any recipes this month either—you should look to my Instagram for those.) Nonetheless, I do invite you, as always, to weigh in on my possible whisky reviews—remember, I do themed weeks these days. If any of the possible themes below interest you, write in to the comments. Continue reading →

This blog will turn 10 years old at the end of this month. I have nothing special planned for this anniversary but you can expect some tedious navel gazing at more than one point in the month as I look back at the last 10 years as both a whisky reviewer and a whisky drinker; and also as I look forward to the future of the blog. No, I won’t be pulling a Sku and suddenly hanging up my virtual hat (sorry to disappoint!) but there probably will be some changes to the blog going forward. I did already make one change in February: I did not post any recipes on Thursdays as I usually do. Those of you who come here primarily with an interest in my recipes will be disappointed to know that I will probably not be posting recipes on the blog in March either, as I continue to work to clear my backlog of restaurant reports. This task is all the more urgent as I am going to be leaving for Seoul on work in a few days and will be there a week—which means Seoul dining reports could join the stack soon as well. You can, however, at least for March, expect the whisky reviews to continue on the same schedule: three days a week in most weeks, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I have a list of potential review themes below and you can tell me in the comments if any of these particularly catch your eye or if you’re fine with whatever pops up. Continue reading →

I’m afraid I don’t have much of a look ahead to February on the blog. I am in Delhi as I type this—I’ll be back in Minnesota on Friday—and have not put much thought towards the blog for the last few weeks. January’s whisky reviews were scheduled before I left along with a handful to get a jump on February before I got back. And so I can tell you that the first whisky review of the month will be of a very old whisky from a closed distillery and that next week’s reviews will all be of casks of Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn that were hand-filled at the distillery in late October. Beyond that, I have very little idea of what I might review this month. I had a large cache of samples scheduled to come in earlier in the month but they met with a bad fate in transport and are no longer on the horizon. I am also supposed to be receiving a batch of samples of 25+ yo sherry monsters bottled by G&M and if those show up in one piece I might review them. And there’s a good chance there might be a week of Glenallachie as well. Let’s see how it goes. Continue reading →

Yesterday I posted a look back at 2022 on the blog; today I have the customary look ahead to the coming month and also a little bit beyond. As I said yesterday, the blog will hit its 10th anniversary in late March. Contrary to public demand I will continue to blog into my 11th year. I feel the blog should at least make it into its teens. Maybe I’ll shake things up in year 13 but in year 11 you can expect pretty much more of the same. Three spirits reviews, one restaurant report, and one recipe post per week in most weeks. From time to time a bonus weekend report that looks at immigrant markets or catches up on restaurant report gluts from my travels. There’ll be a bunch of both in January: I have two reports coming on major markets in the north metro of the Twin Cities, and I have seven or eight reports to file from our recent trip to southern California. What there won’t be much of in January is reports on Minnesota restaurants. That’s because next Monday we are scheduled to leave for India for three weeks. What this means is that you can also expect reports on restaurants in Delhi etc. in January and February. My booze reviews for January are mostly already completed and so I won’t as usual be asking you to nominate reviews below—though I will be inviting some feedback.  Continue reading →

Please join me for a trip into my navel as I look back at 2022 on the blog.

I am approaching the 10th anniversary of the blog (which will be marked in the last week of March ’23). As per my old pal, Sku, you’re supposed to end your blog after 10 years and so I am on the clock. If 2022 ends up being the last full year of the blog [it won’t] then it was a pretty successful year, with the most traffic by far (up by another 10% this year). Where did all that traffic come from and what was read most? Well, one thing I can tell you is that the most popular post of the year in terms of page views was not a booze or restaurant review or a recipe. What was it? Well, let’s take a look at the larger picture first. Continue reading →

2022 is almost in the books. The end of this year and the beginning of 2023 are going to feature a lot of travel. We’re headed back to Los Angeles at the end of the month for 10 days or so. And we’ll spend most of January in India. And in March I’ll probably be off to either Hong Kong or Seoul for another 10 days on work. Keeping up with the regular schedule of posting on the blog is going to be a slight challenge. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Looking back to November, here are the top 10 posts in terms of page views, from #1 to #10: Eating at Hmong Village; Shopping at Hmong Village; Hyacinth III; Chicken Curry with Fennel; Shrimp Curry with Tomatoes; Las Cuatro Milpas; Double Dragon Foods; Christmas Lima Beans with Coriander and Roasted Cumin; Desi Vibes; Bukhara. Once again, that’s 10/10 food posts with five restaurant/meal reports, two food shopping reports; and three recipes. The most-viewed booze post was once again ranked #11 (my review of the George Dickel 13, Bottled in Bond) and there were a total of 15 booze posts among the top 50 most-viewed posts. It’s very clear what my readership is trying to tell me: post more about booze! And so I will. The usual long list of potential reviews for the month is below—as always I welcome your nominations (in the comments) to the shortlist. Continue reading →

And so it’s November. Before looking ahead to the month to come, let’s take a look back at the month just past. October was once again a busy month on the blog, traffic-wise. Which were the top 10 most viewed posts? From #1 to #10 they were: On’s Kitchen VIII; Favourite Dishes Eaten in the Twin Cities Metro: July 1-September 30, 2022; Bolé; Demi II; Mushoor Dal (No Tadka); Eating at Mercado Central; Baingan “Bharta”; A Highly Subjective Ranking of Indian Restaurants in the Twin Cities Metro Area; A Guide to Ordering at Grand Szechuan; The Red Death. That’s 10/10 food posts, with four restaurant reviews, three more posts about restaurants, and three recipes. The first spirits review came in just outside the top 10 with the Kilkerran 8, Batch 6 sitting at #11. All told there were only 14 spirits-related posts (13 reviews and one post on some shenanigans at Loch Lomond) in the top 50. But I didn’t get where I am today [nowhere] by following trends and so I will continue to post three booze reviews a week. You can, as always, help me select them by nominating what you’re most interested in to the shortlist via the comments below. Continue reading →

There was a lot of traffic to the blog in September. What were people reading? The top 10 most viewed posts were the following: 1) Ha Tien Super Market; 2) Dosa; 3) Los Ocampo Restaurant and Bar; 4) Baingan “Bharta”; 5) Restaurant Alma, August 2022; 6) Terzo; 7) Black Caviar Dal; 8) Quetzal; 9) A Highly Subjective Ranking of Indian Restaurants in the Twin Cities Metro; 10) Owamni.

That’s 10/10 food-related posts: six restaurant reviews, two recipes, one look at a grocery store, and one ranking of restaurants. The first whisky review comes in at #17 (Undisclosed Island, Water of Life Film). And there are only three whisky-related posts in the top 25 and only six in the top 50 most viewed posts. Despite the evidence, however, I still consider this a whisky blog. Accordingly, I will have the usual slate of reviews for you again this month: three a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The usual long list of candidates is below and you are, as always, invited to nominate things you’re interested in to the shortlist. It was noted last month that there were no official releases in that long list. This month has quite a lot of them. This is merely coincidental. Continue reading →

The summer comes to an end soon and the high season at work is about to kick off. On the blog, though, little will change. I’ll still have three whisky reviews a week interspersed with recipes and restaurant reviews. Minnesota reviews will be posted on Tuesdays as usual; on the weekends I’ll be posting meal reports from my travels in the summer till I’ve caught up with that backlog. It might take the whole of this month to do that. I have, however, caught up with my Minnesota restaurant review backlog. We have no reservations yet for dinner out in September and no set plans yet for even this coming weekend. So it’s an open book there. On the cooking front, there will be four recipes again this month, on Thursdays. I’ll be posting the poll to select those recipes in a few hours time—it’ll stay open through the weekend. To help me choose the whiskies to review this month all you have to do, as always, is respond in the comments below and let me know which ones you’d like to promote from the long list that follows to the short list. I think I got to all the requests in August and will try my best to do so again in September—as long as I can construct coherent themed weeks from the candidates. Odds are good though that I will do a Caol Ila week as I’ve been wanting to review that trio for a while. The rest are all up in the air—so have at them. Continue reading →

It’s been a busy summer of travel so far. We were in Los Angeles and then Hawaii from early-mid June through early July. And then I was off by myself on work in Ireland for a week. But I’m back in Southern Minnesota now and not planning to go anywhere for the next several months. My vegetable plot in the community garden is the place I’ll be spending most of my time outside the house in August. By the end of August I should have mostly caught up with my backlog of meal reports from Los Angeles and Hawaii. A good thing too as I have a few lined up from Ireland as well. And, of course, we’ll be eating out here in Minnesota too. I’m planning to keep things mostly casual on that front this month. Thursdays will see recipe posts as usual. If you haven’t yet voted in this month’s poll, you have a few more hours to register any preferences. Continue reading →

Another month in the books, another to look ahead to. I’ve spend most of June outside Minnesota (and won’t be back for a few days yet). I’ll then be staying put for about two weeks before taking off again—this time for work. On the food front I’ll finish catching up on my backlog of Twin Cities restaurant reports: my second dinner at Khaluna, lunch at Orale and dinner at Myriel are what remain of that backlog. Not sure yet what the fourth Twin Cities restaurant report will cover. And at some point, I’ll also start posting quick roundups of some meals from our June travels. Also coming soon is my next quarterly round-up of favourite dishes eaten in the Twin Cities, from the beginning of April through the end of June. And one final food-related thing to keep an eye out for: this weekend I’ll post the poll to select the recipes I’ll post in July.

On the booze front there’ll be the usual complement of three reviews a week. As always, you can help me finalize that list by making nominations from the long list below. Continue reading →

Here is your customary look ahead to the coming month on the blog. We’ll be traveling for a big chunk of the month, heading off soon to Los Angeles for a bit and then to Hawaii for another bit before returning to Minnesota in early July. There probably won’t be much sign of that on the blog this month though—maybe a quick restaurant report or two from Los Angeles. I still have a backlog of Minnesota restaurant reports to work through and those will probably take me through all the Tuesdays of the month. Recipes will be posted on Thursdays as usual (see the poll I posted this weekend for the five recipes that’ll be coming this month). I’m also hoping to get to the next edition of my round-ups of writing on South Asian food. And, of course, there’ll be the usual three whisky reviews per week. I have a bunch of potential themes—single distilleries, regions, cask types, profiles, age—and as always I invite you to help me select the month’s reviews by nominating the ones you’re most interested in from the long list below to the short list. Continue reading →

Yesterday I posted the poll to select recipes for May—that’ll be up for a few days if you haven’t yet voted. Here now is the usual look ahead to the month in whisky reviews and restaurant reports. It’s a mixed bunch of potential booze reviews this month—all single malt Scotch but otherwise pretty varied. Unusually for me, there’s not much peat—and no heavy peat—in the list (there was a fair bit of that in April); and also unusually, there are quite a few official distillery releases, some of fairly recent provenance. Lots of potential themed weeks here: single distillery runs for Ben Nevis, Craigellachie, Highland Park and Mortlach; a week or two of offical releases; a week or two of Glens; a week of whiskies in their 20s; a week of young whiskies; etc. As always please make your nominations to the shortlist in the comments below. On the Twin Cities restaurant front you can expect reports on meals at Khaluna, and 112 Eatery. St. Paul will probably be represented by Kyatchi and possibly Mryriel. There’ll also be a report on the return of my favourite lunch deal in Minnesota. And I’ll try to finally finish up my Delhi reports from March as well. Continue reading →