My last two Twin Cities restaurant reports have been from the high end (Tenant and Saint Genevieve). Let’s go towards the other end of the range for this week’s report: all the way to the 5-8 Club in South Minneapolis, a decidedly casual spot that specializes in burgers. And not just any burgers: the 5-8 Club is the primary rival of Matt’s Bar (a little further up Cedar Avenue), both claiming to be the originators of the Jucy Lucy, or as the 5-8 Club spells it, the Juicy Lucy. This is, of course, one of Minnesota’s iconic foods. I have to confess that I am not a major fan of the genre of burgers with unfeasible amounts of cheese oozing out of the patty (I don’t even like too much cheese on the patty, as in a classic cheeseburger). But I’d managed to spend almost 15 years in Minnesota without eating at the 5-8 Club and it seemed like it was time to fix that. Especially since the boys love burgers and the younger one particularly likes Jucy/Juicy Lucys. And so on a weekday in May, when the whole family had an appointment to keep in the Cities, we stopped in for an early lunch. Herewith a quick account for the benefit of those who have not been. Continue reading
Ben Nevis 20, 1996 (Single Cask Nation)
Let’s do another week of Ben Nevis. Another?, you ask. Yes, I did a Ben Nevis week back in April. That was a trio of 20 year olds: two distilled in 1997 (one from Exclusive Malts and one from Berry Bros. & Rudd), and the other was distilled in 1999 (and bottled by the Daily Dram). We’ll start this week with another 20 yo, this time distilled in 1996 and bottled by Single Cask Nation. Like the Exclusive Malts and Berry Bros. bottles, this one is from a sherry cask—a refill oloroso puncheon to be exact. Even though I generally prefer bourbon cask Ben Nevis, I did like both of those. Let’s hope this one is in their vein.
Ben Nevis 20, 1996 (55.6%; Single Cask Nation; refill oloroso puncheon; from a bottle split)
Nose: Opens with brown sugar, dried ginger and roasted nuts. Orange peel and orange juice as it sits and then whiffs of muskier fruit (tart-sweet mango, a hint of passionfruit). The muskier fruit never quite arrives fully. With a few drops of water there’s some light caramel and some cocoa and then more of the musky fruit. Continue reading
Unnamed Orkney 14, 2006 (Signatory)
Okay, let’s bring to an end this week of reviews of recent’ish releases in Signatory’s Un-Chillfiltered Collection. The week began on Monday with an Ardmore 11 that was matured in ex-Islay casks. It continued on Wednesday with a bourbon cask Glenrothes. Both those casks were unusual expressions of those distilleries’ profiles but neither got me very excited—though I did like them both. The final whisky for the week is more in line with the distillery’s official profile: this is a Highland Park from a refill sherry butt. Yes, it says it’s an “Unnamed Orkney” but unless word emerges that casks from Scapa are also being sold under these “Unknown/Secret Orkney” appellations, it’s safe to assume these are all Highland Parks. I did a whole week of Highland Park reviews last month (here, here and here). I liked two of those quite a lot and was only a bit disappointed by the one official release in the lot (though I didn’t think it was bad). Let’s hope this one is more in line with the two indies from the last go-around. Continue reading
Thick Chicken Curry
I’ve posted a lot of chicken curry recipes over the years. Keep in mind that the name “chicken curry” doesn’t refer to a specific dish but to a genre: chicken cooked with spices in a thick or thin gravy/sauce. Variations in the spices and proportions and ingredients make for results that are subtly or wildly different. And this is home cooking: while there are canonical forms of many dishes (sliced by region, religion, caste, community etc.) in the home cooking repertoire, there are as many, if not more, that arise out of playing with what is at hand (or what catches your eye as you are cooking). Those of you who’ve made a number of my recipes know that this is the genre in which most of my recipes fall and this recipe is no exception. I improvized it when I first made it and it was a big hit at home. And so here it is for you all to try as well. Continue reading
Glenrothes 11, 2010 (Signatory)
From Ardmore in the eastern highlands we move a bit north and a bit west to Glenrothes in the Speyside. Like Monday’s Ardmore this Glenrothes too was bottled by Signatory in its Un-Chillfiltered Collection series and was also matured in a bourbon cask—albeit, unlike that Ardmore, this was not an ex-Islay cask. And like the Ardmore this is a recent release—both were bottled in 2021. Bourbon cask Glenrothes is not very common—most of the official releases from the distillery, past and present, have involved sherry casks in the vattings. As a result, Glenrothes is one of those distilleries—Highland Park is another—whose official profile is associated with sherry maturation, and it is to the independents we must go to get a sense of what their spirit is like when matured entirely in bourbon casks. I think I’ve mentioned before that I rather like bourbon cask Glenrothes and also that I have samples of a few ex-bourbon Glenrothes bottles on my shelves. And I think I may also have been promising reviews of those samples for almost as long as the blog has been active. Well, if I like this one maybe I’ll actually get around to digging those out and reviewing them as well. Continue reading
Tenant VI (Minneapolis)
Tenant was the first restaurant we dined indoors at after the pandemic started. That was back in July of 2021. At the time things were threatening to look up on the pandemic front and we’d begun to think hopefully of a return to something approaching normalcy. Then the delta wave hit…and soon we were not eating in again. Just when we got started again there was omicron… When we finally got comfortable with the idea yet again at the start of the spring, Tenant was one of the first places we’d hoped to return to. But between the need to make reservations more than a month out and the need to cancel the first set of reservations I was able to make, it was not until the end of May that we got back there. It was both a happy return to a familiar space and a new experience of the restaurant for us. Details follow. Continue reading
Ardmore 11, 2009 (Signatory)
Last week featured malt whiskies from three different Indian distilleries (Kamet, Amrut and Paul John). This week will feature malt whiskies from three different Scottish distilleries. In a further connection, they’re all bottled by Signatory—and to be more specific, they were all bottled in Signatory’s Un-Chillfiltered Collection. Bottles in this series, usually but not always at 46% abv, were a major part of my malt whisky education more than a decade ago. I lost track of them for a while after that but was very glad to see a bunch of recent releases in the series on the shelves of a local liquor store in early May. I bought two of those and both will be reviewed this week. First up, is an Ardmore 11, 2009. I am—as is no secret—a big fan of Ardmore’s peated profile, with its emphasis on pepper, mineral notes and fruit. I didn’t realize until I got home that this cask might not display those qualities. Why? Well, because the label says “Bourbon Barrel after Islay” which I take to mean an ex-bourbon barrel that had previously held Islay whisky. If a heavily peated one, those notes might easily overpower Ardmore’s more delicate profile. Did that in fact prove to be the case? Read on. Continue reading
Paul John Oloroso Cask
This week of reviews of Indian whiskies started out on an unexpectedly strong note with the new’ish Kamet single malt and picked up even more steam with the triple-distilled Amrut 7 yo bottled for Spec’s in Texas. The Kamet was put together from a mix of bourbon, sherry and wine cask matured spirit; the Amrut was from an ex-bourbon cask. Here now to close out the week is a sherry cask whisky from the Goan distillery, Paul John. I visited the distillery in 2020 (read about it here) right before the pandemic hit. I remember seeing sherry casks in the warehouse but didn’t hear anything about their plans for that spirit—I was on the basic tour; it’s possible they say more about their cask programs if you sign up for the tasting following the tour. Anyway, I don’t know if they’ve released any full-term sherry matured whisky. This is a oloroso finish bottled at 48% (there’s also been a release of a cask strength 7 yo oloroso finish). As per Whiskybase, there have been at least four numbered batches in this series and their Whiskybase scores are all over the map. I have to confess that I don’t know which batch this sample is from (I will check with the source). I do hope that it will provide a good end to this week of Indian whisky reviews. Let’s see. Continue reading
Rajma, Take 5
Yes, this is my fifth recipe for rajma—what’s your point? I am forever tinkering with my rajma masala. And when I recently saw dried pomegranate seeds on the shelf at my local desi store (here in the wilds of southern Minnesota “local” means “20 miles away”) I grabbed some just for this purpose. A good rajma masala needs some sourness and pomegranate seeds are a good way to get it. If your local desi store doesn’t carry them, or if you don’t have a local desi store, you can find them on Amazon [affiliate link] or doubtless at many other online outlets. Or I suppose you could sub amchur/dried mango powder. It’s also true that you could save yourself a lot of hassle and just use a good commercial rajma masala—there is no shame in that. Of course, if you’re going to do that you don’t need to read further as the main thing that distinguishes my rajma recipes from each other is the masala I use for them (well, there are other differences too but this is the one that really counts). Continue reading
Amrut 7, 2014, Triple Distilled (for Spec’s)
A week of reviews of Indian malt whiskies began with one from a new distillery: Kamet. I’ll continue now with the distillery that really put Indian whisky on the single malt aficionado’s radar: Amrut.
Over the course of the last decade Amrut has added to its core roster of malts—the Fusion and the unpeated and peated variants of its base malt—with a number of special releases. They’ve also bottled a large number of casks both for specific markets and for retailers across the world. This is one of the latter. It’s a 7 yo bottled for the Spec’s chain in Texas. It is made from unpeated Indian barley, triple-distilled and matured in an ex-bourbon cask—a far cry from the last Amrut I reviewed, the Naarangi, which featured an infusion of oranges. Not very many Scottish distilleries triple distill. In Ireland, of course, it’s far more common and I’ll be interested to see if there are any Indo-Irish crossovers here. And speaking of Amrut’s core roster of malts, I’m quite out of touch with the current state of all of those. I should look into some recent releases at some point—especially as it appears that I’ve never reviewed the Fusion. Continue reading
Saint Genevieve (Minneapolis)
A few weeks ago we were scheduled to eat at Myriel in St. Paul with friends. But just a few hours before our reservation they had to close suddenly because of you-know-what. Rather than cancel our plans entirely we cast around for other places that might have tables and were happy to find that there was room at Saint Genevieve in south Minneapolis. Though I have not reviewed them before, this was not my first meal there. I ate there at a work-related engagement some years ago. I enjoyed that meal but somehow they fell off my radar and I never got around to going back with the missus. And when they came back on it they had switched to requiring full payment at the time of booking. While I don’t object per se to this model of dining, it’s a bit of a no-go for parents of small children like us. But on this occasion they had tables freely available and—not that it would have been an issue that evening—I wasn’t asked to pay ahead. As to whether that’s because they’ve changed that reservation model or whether the policy is relaxed when last-minute tables are available, I don’t know. I do know that we all enjoyed our meal very much. Continue reading
Kamet Single Malt Whisky
The month in whisky reviews started on Friday with a 26 yo Speysider (from Dufftown). Let’s take a bit of a left turn for the first full week of June. This week’s reviews will be of whiskies from three different Indian distilleries. This first one is from a distillery whose existence I literally did not know of until I saw this bottle on a shelf at Total Wine in Burnsville, MN: Kamet. They’ve apparently been around for a few years, though I’m not sure how long their whisky has been available in the US. Unlike Amrut and Paul John, and like Rampur, Kamet is located in North India—the name comes from the Himalayan peak (so it says on a label on the back of the bottle, which contains a rather large amount of marketing twaddle—a “tale told by a parrot” and whatnot). Despite knowing nothing about the distillery, I was unable to resist the impulse purchase. With tax it cost me about $70, if I recall correctly, and these days that’s almost a reasonable price. This is, of course, like most Indian malt whisky, an NAS release. It was matured in a mix of ex-bourbon, ex-sherry and ex-wine casks and is bottled at 46% without artificial colour etc. I fully expected to regret this bout of cultural nationalism but the first couple of pours were decent enough. The bottle has sat for a few days since I opened it and I’m interested to see what I make of it now. Continue reading
Dufftown 26, 1988 (Cadenhead)
As the last review for May was of a 20+ yo Speyside malt, I might as well begin June with a review of another 20+ yo Speyside malt. This one too is from an unglamorous distillery, Dufftown and at 26 years of age is easily the oldest Dufftown I’ve yet tried. It’s not a recent release, having been distilled in 1988 (not 1987 as I mistakenly listed it as in my “Coming Soon” post) and bottled in 2015 by Cadenhead. I don’t know if it took a while after that to finally make it to the US or if I just didn’t notice it before because that’s roughly when I started paying less and less attention to whisky release news. Anyway, I noticed it in a local liquor store a month or so ago, along with a few other interesting-looking bottles, and managed to convince some friends to go in on splits of all of them with me. I kept 9 ounces of each bottle and they took the rest between them. This is the oldest of the three and in some ways the one I’m most intrigued to try. Though it’s in Cadenhead’s squat bottled “Small Batch” series, I suspect it’s from a single cask as the cask type is a bourbon hogshead and the outturn 228 bottles—which is more or less what you’d expect from a single hogshead of this strength at this age. Continue reading
Alur Dom/Dum Alu, Take 2
Alur dom/dum alu was the top vote getter in this month’s recipe poll, which closed on Monday. I was not expecting it to be as popular as it turned out to be—I guess it’s a dish with a lot of Indian restaurant name recognition. I have actually previously posted another recipe for alur dom (which is the Bengali name, whereas dum alu is the Hindi name). That recipe—which came to me from one of my aunts—is very good in its own right; of late, however, I’ve been making it more often in this style which adds a few spices and leaves out the yogurt. In both recipes the final dish has a thick, sticky gravy/sauce that clings to the potatoes. The only challenge here is to get it to that point without scorching anything. A heavy-bottomed pan will help tremendously with that and I also have a cheat in the notes below the recipe which will not give identical results, probably, but will probably give you greater peace of mind. Either way, you’re likely to like this. And, oh yes, of course I made a Reel on Instagram the last time I cooked this. And of course you want to watch it. Continue reading
Coming Soon…
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
Bangkok Thai Deli, May 2022 (St. Paul, MN)
It took more than two years but we finally ate in at Bangkok Thai Deli again. Our last visit was in February of 2020. During the pandemic we got takeout from them a number of times and enjoyed all those meals very much (here, here and here). But it’s not the same as eating in—and not just because some dishes don’t take so well to being reheated after a 50 minute drive. Some restaurants mean more to people than others and for us Bangkok Thai Deli is one of the cornerstones of our Twin Cities dining life. We’ve been eating there since we arrived in 2007 (which is when they opened, as per their menu; I would have guessed it was earlier) and it would have been a big blow if the pandemic had claimed them as well. All this to say, we were very happy to eat there again in person. Continue reading
Glen Keith 24, 1993 (The Glasgow Whisky Co for K&L)
Last week’s theme was 20+ yo whiskies from distilleries from different production regions of Scotland. They included an official 20 yo Arran and two indies; a 23 yo from an unnamed Speyside distillery, bottled for Costco; and a 25 yo Tomatin bottled by Hunter Laing. Here now to close out the month is another 20+ yo whisky. This is from the Speyside but the distillery is not a secret: it’s a 24 yo Glen Keith bottled by The Glasgow Whisky Co. for K&L (or at least they got part of the cask). Glen Keith is an un-storied distillery around which there is no romance. As with most distilleries in Scotland, it pumps out malt for its owner’s blends. And as with most distilleries in Scotland, individual casks from the distillery can be rather good indeed. I’ve liked a number of indie Glen Keiths in the past—when their mix of malt, fruit and oak comes together well, it can be rather good indeed. I hope that’s the case with this cask. Continue reading