One of my very first Los Angeles meal reports on the blog was of a dinner at Shanghai #1 Seafood Village, a then relatively recently opened and somewhat snazzy restaurant. I noted there that the strong reviews it had received particularly made me want to eat there as there are no Shanghai restaurants in Minnesota. This is still true (as far as I know); but, of course, it is not true that Shanghai #1 was in any way a Shanghai cuisine innovator in the San Gabriel Valley. My report today is of a meal at one of the mainstays of the Shanghai scene in the area, the very far from snazzy Mei Long Village. Continue reading
Port Ellen, 1982-2011, “Royal Wedding Reserve” (The Whisky Exchange)
I’ve had this sample of Port Ellen from a single sherry cask sitting around for a couple of years now—I’ve no idea why I haven’t reviewed it yet. The Whisky Exchange bottled it in 2011 to commemorate the marriage of Beyonce and Jay-Z. It’s a little odd that they did this three years after the fact but maybe they were waiting to see if the marriage would stick. It is an odd choice of distillery to commemorate a wedding though—you’d think they’d pick one that’s still a going concern, not one that had to be shut down. Maybe Sukhinder Singh is more of a Nas fan?
Port Ellens from the last couple of years of the distillery’s life don’t have quite as high a reputation as those distilled in the 1970s but I quite liked the one I previously reviewed (this one from Old Bothwell). Let’s see if this one is as good and if it does the royal couple proud; and if it makes me regret not purchasing a bottle when it was released—I’m not sure how much they asked for it back in 2011 but doubtless it was a fraction of the current going prices for Port Ellens of any quality.
Sushi Tsujita (Los Angeles, July 2015)
Tsujita, the famous Los Angeles ramen and noodle specialists, opened four years or so ago, taking the city by storm just as the ramen craze was beginning to crest in the US. A branch of an apparently well-respected Tokyo restaurant, it has set the standard for ramen in Los Angeles (and its own branch, Tsujita Annex, opened down the street on Sawtelle not too long after). And it’s not just American ramen enthusiasts who raved about it: a few years ago when we asked Satoshi Kiyokawa (of the eponymous Kiyokawa) where he likes to eat Japanese food when he’s not in his own restaurant, he said unhesitatingly that Tsujita was the place for him. Continue reading
Tomintoul 45, 1968 (Chester Whisky)
This is the oldest single malt whisky I’ve ever had, or am about to have (I’ve had an older grain whisky). Of course, this does not mean that this will be the best whisky I’ve ever had. Still, it’s hard to resist the experience—especially when European retailers sell 60 ml samples for such reasonable prices. By the way, there has been a fair amount of Tomintoul of this general age/vintage around in the last few years. I guess some broker found or came into an old parcel of casks that were surplus to blending requirements. As Tomintoul is not one of the most storied distilleries in Scotland, prices for these casks have been relatively reasonable. (In fact, the last two Tomintouls I reviewed were also very ancient ones, though one was overpriced.)
And as Tomintoul makes a light, fruity spirit its malt also seems theoretically well-suited for overlong maturation—though as alluded to above, the odds of whisky being good tend to reduce once they get past the 40 yo mark; after a point, unless a cask goes dead, odds are high that the oak will overpower the whisky or that it will just go “flat”. Well, let’s see how this cask fared. It certainly hasn’t dropped as close to the minimum allowed 40% abv as you might imagine it would have by this point. Continue reading
On Preparing to Re-Read To Kill a Mockingbird
The first and last time I read To Kill a Mockingbird was in 1983 in Darjeeling. Well, I read it many times that year but I haven’t read it since. I was in class 8 at St. Paul’s, a once-great boys’ boarding school set up in the 19th century by the English as “the Eton of India”—a claim that must have rung hollow long before I got there (these days the school remains in firm decline and no one bothers to recycle the claim). Our English teacher, the formidable Mr. Bhatnagar, had single-handedly decided to make us read books that probably very few Indian thirteen year olds were reading in school. Tragical, Comical Historical, Pastoral, a compilation of extracts from Shakespeare was one; To Sir, With Love was another, and very thrilling in its account of unruly student behaviour of a type we couldn’t even dream of perpetrating (I remember we were all very confused by the scene featuring a burnt sanitary napkin). But the one that made the greatest impression on most of us on whom books made any kind of impression was To Kill a Mockingbird. Continue reading
Pineapple Chutney
I bought a pineapple for a fruit salad for the younger brat’s birthday party. In the chaos of preparing for the party—which included an extended wrestling session with an inflated and partially filled kiddie pool that could have been the showstopper in a Buster Keaton film—I forgot to cut up said pineapple for the fruit salad. I then forgot about the pineapple until the day before we were to leave for Los Angeles. Admittedly, this is a hard thing to do; not forgetting in general: any fool can forget all kinds of things and I often do. But it is difficult to forget a pineapple because, unless you actively hide it, a pineapple is a very visible thing, almost flagrantly so; tends to catch the eye—there’s a reason Carmen Miranda didn’t put a pineapple on her head (didn’t want the competition, you see); and if she did, it also proves my point. So unless you hid a pineapple—and who could forget hiding a pineapple?—it would be hard to forget a pineapple. But I did. And then I saw it and I had to do something with it that didn’t include eating it as we had lots of other fruit to finish before leaving and when it comes to the frantic overeating of fruit it is mangoes and not pineapples I am partial to. The effort of making jam from one pineapple—not to mention the uncertainty about canning said jam given that pineapple is a high pH fruit—did not appeal. Chutney then. Continue reading
Amrut 4, 2009 (Port Pipe 2712)
This is the last of the four Amruts I opened for a special Amrut tasting for some members of my local tasting group back in May. I’ve already reviewed the two other single casks we drank that night (one from a bourbon cask and one from a PX sherry cask). Those were both distilled from unpeated Indian barley. This one, from a port pipe, was distilled from peated barley (the provenance of the barley is not mentioned on the label; I assume it was Scottish). We drank this one alongside the Portonova, which was our consensus favourite on the night (and I liked it the most then too). However, in the last couple of weeks I’ve really been enjoying this peated version a lot more than I did that night and am looking forward to taking some formal notes.
This was bottled exclusively for the European market, by the way, and the cask saw a whopping 43% evaporation loss during maturation. Continue reading
Szechuan (Roseville, MN)
At the end of my review of Tea House in Minneapolis I noted that I was considering finally trying Szechuan in Roseville. It opened at about the same time as Grand Szechuan but early reports had made me wary and somehow we never went. A friend who shares my view of Tea House, recommended it as worth a try after reading that review and so off we went. Once again, my visiting parents (who are always willing to eat Chinese food, and Sichuan food in particular) rounded out our party, which meant we could once again try a bunch of things without the risk of being stranded with lots of leftovers of food we didn’t care for. Continue reading
Maker’s Mark, Cask Strength
I reviewed the regular Maker’s Mark a while ago and didn’t particularly care for it. In the wake of that review, a number of people noted that the new’ish cask strength Maker’s Mark was far superior; and Eric Burke, of the excellent Bourbon Guy blog, offered me a sample from his bottle. I’m always willing to drink free whisky and a bonus, of course, is that if I liked it the batch it came from would be locally available—Eric is a fellow resident of the satellite regions of the Twin Cities (though his address is not quite as rural as mine). I offered him a single malt as a token of appreciation—he agreed gingerly (he’s apparently really not a Scotch guy) and eventually we met up drug dealer/customer-style in a Costco parking lot to exchange what anyone who saw us closely probably thought were urine samples. That was almost three weeks ago and here I am now with a review. I did not look at Eric’s own notes till I’d gotten mine down but here is the link to his own (far less verbose) review (at the bottom after an account of a distillery visit). Continue reading
Karuizawa 13, 1999 (Cask 869 for K&L)
The Karuizawa I reviewed on Tuesday didn’t impress me overmuch; will this one, a single cask bottled for K&L in 2013, be better? This came with one of the striking “Noh” labels usually associated with much older single cask Karuizawas—it doubtless helped justify the cost: about $150 at the time (which would, of course, be a steal now, just two years later, for a 13 yo Karuizawa). Let’s get right to it.
Karuizawa 13, 1999 (57.7%; cask #869 for K&L; from a sample received in a swap)
Nose: Oh, this is much better to begin. Rich, nutty sherry with hints of chocolate, leather and earth (I was gardening today) with some orange peel and gunpowder behind it. The gunpowder starts getting stronger and then transitions to rubber and then, alas, to the sharper kind of sulphur. But most of it burns off soon enough, leaving behind tobacco and a growing fruitiness (marmalade, apricot). With more time there’s some cola concentrate and some beef stock. Water brings out some toffee and some caramel and cream and knocks the sulphur back even further. Continue reading
Star Anise-Scented Pluot Jam with Apple Cider Vinegar and Cointreau
This jam is merely a variation on the pluot jam I posted a recipe of a week or so ago, but what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t make entirely superfluous posts? I was moved to make it for three reasons: 1) quality apricots are not in season/available here yet; 2) the local co-op had a different variety of pluots in which made this seem like it could count as a different fruit (though for some reason they didn’t list the variety); 3) after the Galliano experiment I wanted to play around with other liqueurs/liquors as well.
As it happens, I think this jam is better than the previous. It also recycles an element of another pluot/plum jam I made a few years: the use of star anise to scent the jam. The star anise doesn’t actually get jarred with the jam, by the way—it just makes for a more arresting photograph; though I don’t know if it would be a problem if it was jarred. If anyone has any opinions on whether it would be a problem from a spoilage perspective if it were to stay in there please chime in. I’m inclined to think it might be a problem from a flavour perspective anyway as the star anise might get too woody and/or assertive.
Restaurant Alma II, Summer 2015
Alma was once our absolute favourite fine dining restaurant in the Twin Cities. My first review was of our fifth or sixth meal there. This one comes more than a year and a half after that meal. This is not because that was a bad experience (as you’ll see if you read the review) or because Alma’s reputation has gone downhill since—in fact, they’re on the verge of a major expansion. It’s just that it was shortly after that meal in January 2014 that Doug Flicker did whatever strange hoodoo he’s done on our brains and palates, and Piccolo has since become our regular rotation place (we’ve eaten there five times between my two Alma reviews).
Continue reading
Karuizawa “Asama”
This is the first of two Karuizawa reviews this week. This is of one of the “Asama” releases that came out right around the time that Number One Drinks purchased all remaining casks of Karuizawa. The big money releases at the time were the single casks, but a few vatted releases emerged as well. The Whisky Exchange had a “Spirit of Asama” at 55% and another of the same name at 48% (I believe, though I could be wrong, that this was the same whisky at different strengths), and there was also an earlier release for the EU at 46%. To make matters even more confusing it’s also possible that the EU release at 46% was from the same vatting as the later ones at higher strength. At any rate, what I do know for sure (I think) is that this sample is from the EU release and that all these Asamas were from whisky distilled in 1999/2000, right before the distillery shut down for good. These were priced quite reasonably at the time—about half the price of the 1999 that K&L sold in the US a couple of years ago (and that’s the next one that I’ll be reviewing later this week).
Tomatin 21, 1991 (C&S)
I purchased these samples almost a year ago and have been meaning to get to a review pretty much every month since. Here it is now. I know very little about the bottlers, C&S. I believe they’re another German outfit, but unlike their more bespoke fellow citizens, The Whisky Agency or Malts of Scotland, they offer pretty fair value. And my small sample size would indicate that this is not because they’re bottling any damn thing. I enjoyed very much the Glenglassugh 40, 1972 that they put out a couple of years ago, and if the only other of their bottles that I’ve reviewed (a Tullibardine) was nothing great, it was also not bad. And I’d say the same of Tomatin: my experience of their whisky has also risen on occasion to some exceptional peaks but has not fallen into the valley of regret.
Let’s hope this whisky—from a sherry cask—keeps my streaks with both the distillery and the bottler alive. Continue reading
Glenlivet 16, “Nadurra”, Batch 0112R
A year and a half ago I reviewed another batch of Glenlivet’s Nadurra (1109I) and there was some discussion in the comments about batch variation. In fact, in that review I’d linked to Jordan D.’s review of sample from this very bottle, which he did not like at all. And the source of that sample, Florin (a notorious Albanian diva), also chimed in the comments on both Jordan’s review and mine to note that he too thought it was very poor. Well, even though I am by nature suspicious of narratives of decline, this didn’t make me very excited about the prospect of opening this bottle.
But open it I eventually did—for one of my local group’s tastings. And none of us thought it was objectionable in the slightest; indeed, one person had it as their top whisky on the night. I didn’t give it a particularly strong score on the night, but I did think it was hot (it had been opened for the tasting) and needed to breathe a little longer in the open bottle. As it happens, I thought the couple of tastes I’ve had of it since were much better. The bottle is now in the last third and destined to be finished quickly and so it’s finally time for formal notes. Continue reading
Port Askaig Harbour 19 (Speciality Drinks)
Port Askaig is the name under which the Whisky Exchange has bottled a number of Caol Ilas. Why it is that they release some Caol Ilas with the distillery name under their Single Malts of Scotland label but also have this parallel Port Askaig line, I don’t know. Generally, when bottlers do these “mystery malt” labels it’s safe to assume that it’s partly because they want to leave themselves wiggle room if the source of the malt changes. So your random Islay malt with a non-distillery name could be peated Bunnahabhain most of the time and Laphroaig some other time. And, of course, by not publishing the actual distillery’s name they’re also able to coyly suggest or not discourage you from believing that what you have is a malt from a distillery you might prize more than the one it is actually from. To be fair, it’s also true that some distilleries may ask particular bottlers to not identify them (for fear of diluting their own brand) and that some bottlers may wish to create and promote their own brands.
For what it’s worth, the received wisdom is that all the Port Askaigs have been Caol Ilas, and based on the few I’ve had, I’d not disagree. Continue reading
Coming Soon…
Here is my long list of potential whisky reviews in July. The plan is to make as big a dent as I can in the backlog of previously listed but not yet reviewed whiskies while also sneaking in some recent acquisitions (in sample format or otherwise) that I really want to try. In terms of specifics I’ll probably keep my streak of one old Longmorn a month going a little bit longer and I also expect this will finally be the month that I get a couple of Karuizawa reviews up (nothing too exciting, alas). Feel free, as always, to nominate any others for short list consideration.
On the food front you can expect the recipes to keep coming at a steady clip. We’re also off to Los Angeles in the second half of the month, which means a lot of eating out but most of those write-ups will probably show up in August. I am looking forward to eating good sushi again and also some proper dimsum—hopefully, Sku and family will be around and up for the challenge of once again consuming vast amounts of dumplings etc.. I’m also looking forward to lunching again with Michael K.—perhaps this time we’ll do less violence to the lining of our stomachs.