There are three dedicated Vietnamese restaurants in the Apple Valley-Lakeville area (that I know of): Pho Everest, Simplee Pho and Pho Valley. I’ve reviewed them all in the past and am now in the process of checking in on them all again. I re-reviewed Pho Everest last year and here I am now with a second look at Pho Valley. It is very conveniently situated for us for lunches on the way back from the Burnsville Costco—though the opening of Kumar’s Mess in the same mega-strip mall has cut a bit into the amount of custom we’ve been giving them of late. Still, in the Minnesota winter it’s hard to pass up a good bowl of noodle soup and Pho Valley’s pho broth has in the past been superior in our estimation to that at their local competition. Is that still the case? Continue reading
Tamdhu 19, 1999 (OMC for K&L)
Another week, another K&L exclusive. This here is a 19 year old whisky from another distillery I haven’t had a lot of; again because there hasn’t always been such a huge amount of its malt out there, certainly not in the US. I’m one of the few people who enjoyed the old Tamdhu 10 from 10-12 years ago but haven’t followed it since it got the Coke bottle-style redesign. Actually, I just looked up the official website and it appears the current 10 year old is a limited edition being sold for the very reasonable price of £120. For reference, the old 10 yo used to be available <$30. (In fact, as I think about it I may still have a bottle of the old 10 yo—perhaps I’ll open it next month.) The regular lineup now includes a 12 yo and a 15 yo plus a couple of NAS releases. If you have tried any of these please write in below to let me know if I’m missing an experience I shouldn’t miss. Meanwhile. I have reviewed a few indie Tamdhus of this approximate age before (see here and here for the two most recent). In fact the last one I reviewed was also in the Old Malt Cask line—part of the release commemorating the 20th anniversary of the label—and I quite liked it. Will this be as good or better? I hope so. Let’s see. Continue reading
Jamun (Delhi, Jan 2020)
We ate at Jamun—located in the Lodhi Colony market—the night after our dinner at Eat Pham. We met a different set of friends here. I’d suggested Cafe Lota but one member of the party nixed it on the grounds of the absence of alcohol and suggested we try Jamun, which had apparently been recommended highly to her. Being of a generally agreeable disposition, I put aside my misgivings—she is the notorious fantasist I’ve had cause to mention before—and we showed up for what in Delhi is a very early dinner reservation, at 7.30. The restaurant was fairly empty but not quiet for long. This because another member of the party—in from New Jersey—can normally be heard from two states away and that when she is not excited. On this occasion she was highly excited even before she got to the restaurant (was there alcohol involved? I don’t like to speculate). With ear plugs fastened we got down to perusing the menu. Continue reading
Kabob’s: Beyond the Weekday Lunch Thali (Bloomington, MN)
Late last year I posted a couple of reviews of lunches I’d eaten at Kabob’s in Bloomington (here and here). Those were the best Indian meals I’d yet eaten in Minnesota, I said; indeed, I went so far as to say that I’d be happy to eat those meals in India as well. Having just got back from four weeks in India, I’ll admit that last is slightly hyperbolic—there are far better South Indian thali meals to be had even in Delhi, which is not exactly in South India. But only slightly hyperbolic. It would be far from the best South Indian restaurant in Delhi (and yes, I know “South Indian” is an overly general category) but it would do well enough. I say this with confidence because a couple of weeks before leaving for Delhi I finally ate a non-thali meal there with some friends, and I can tell you that the weekday thalis aren’t the only reason to eat there. Continue reading
Aultmore 21, 1997 (Maltbarn)
I’ve only reviewed three Aultmores prior to this one, all in 2017 (here, here and here). I’d love to say that 2020 will be the year when I get my Aultmore review count into the double digits but there’s not very much Aultmore out there to be reviewed—very little that’s available in the US at any rate. A pity, as I’ve liked all the (few) Aultmores I’ve tried, even if none have gotten me very excited. Will this—the oldest I’ve yet tried, from the reliable indie outfit, Maltbarn—be the one that gets me very excited? I certainly hope it won’t be the one that I don’t like at all. Let’s see.
Aultmore 21, 1997 (50.7%; Maltbarn; bourbon cask; from a bottle split)
Nose: Fruity ex-bourbon goodness with apple cider, pear and lemon. On the second sniff there’s some malt and a slightly grassy note along with a bit of candle wax and a touch of white pepper. The fruit gets muskier as it sits (pineapple). With a few drops of water there’s a sweet floral note to go with the pineapple. Continue reading
Scenes from the Thursday Market in Assolna (Goa, January 2020)
I still have a few restaurant reports to post from our two weeks in Delhi in the first half of January but I cannot resist first posting this gallery of images from what was one of my favourite outings during the following week we spent in Goa: shopping for fish/seafood at the local village market in Assolna in South Goa. We spent a week in the lovely home of old friends in the even smaller* village of Velim. We spent most of almost every single day there on the beach and ate lunches out. We hired a cook from the village to prepare our breakfasts and dinners (we were the only ones in the house). Quite apart from not wanting to spend too much of the day on cooking, this allowed us to eat Goan food twice a day, and in particular it allowed us to eat a lot of local fish and shellfish. Continue reading
Linlithgow 28, 1982 (Mackillop’s Choice)
Last month I reviewed whiskies from Port Ellen and Brora. Here now is a whisky from another distillery that closed in the early 1980s but whose post-closure releases have not developed the aura, on the whole, that the whiskies from Port Ellen and Brora have: the Lowlands distillery, Linlithgow/St. Magdalene. I’ve only reviewed two other Linlithgows (and not had very many more than two). At the time of my first review (also of a 1982 distillation), I noted that I did not know if anything distinguished the malt released under the Linlithgow name from that released as St. Magdalene. Almost six years later, I still don’t; if you know the answer, please write in below. This particular Linlithgow was released in 2011 or 2012 by Mackillop’s Choice. I’m not entirely sure if Mackillop’s Choice is still on the go (another question for the better informed to answer)—at any rate, I don’t see any 2019 releases from them on Whiskybase and there were only a handful in 2018. Anyway, let’s get to the whisky! Continue reading
Park Lot 18, Borderies (Cognac)
A cognac to start the month. This is also a K&L exclusive but is not, I think, a very recent release. Based on when I got the sample—from Florin, the Man with 10,000 Faces—I would guess it was released in 2016 or 2017. Perhaps this means that if I don’t like it very much K&L staff will not take it very personally. As you know, if you’ve followed my brandy reviews, I know even less about cognac production than I do about whisky. As such, I have no idea about the reputation of this producer. I do know that the Borderies is the smallest of the Cognac regions and I’ve read that cognac made here is reputed to be at its best at younger ages than those made in Grande and Petit Champagne. And this one is not a super old cognac. Some producers use the “Lot” nomenclature to signal year of distillation—for example, Vallein Tercinier’s Lot 70 or Lot 90. I assume in this case “Lot 18” refers to the age of the cognac. I guess the French don’t care very much about the looseness of the use of these kinds of designations. Continue reading
Coming Soon…
As our time in India comes to an end here is a look ahead to February on the blog. On the food front there will be a lot of reports from this trip. I still have about five reports to come from Delhi, about eight from Goa and then a few from Calcutta. I do have a few in the backlog from the Twin Cities but it’s entirely possible we won’t eat out for at least a month after we get back home—this has been an excessive four weeks of eating. On the whisky front I will try to finally finish up with my reviews of the recent run of K&L exclusives. I’m sure K&L staff—who seem to have a lot of time to spend on policing reviews of their whiskies online—will be very pleased with my opinions. Other than those, the long list of possible reviews includes mostly a bunch of things that have been on the list for a few month and some bottles that I’ve been planning to open for a while. And there are a couple of brandies and a rum on there too. Let me know if there are any you’d like to nominate to the shortlist. Continue reading
The Singleton of Glen Ord 12
The Singleton of Glen Ord is the Singleton release Diageo sends to the Asian market. Or at least it used to. Does it still do so? Is the Singleton series still on the go? These are questions for more informed people to answer. I did note that Diageo put a Singleton of Glen Ord 18 on their special release roster last year—though I don’t believe I’ve read any reviews of it. Anyone know what it was like?
I’d planned to review it when I first put it on the possible reviews list a few months ago. But LV33’s comment denigrating it put me off—I am a very impressionable sort, you see. But the sample sat around making sad eyes at me and I was no longer able to avoid it. Here, therefore, with some trepidation is my review.
Continue reading
Nimtho (Delhi, January 2020)
Sikkim, which became an Indian state in 1975, is counted as one of the eight northeastern states of the country. It is not, however, contiguous with the other seven northeastern states, being separated geographically from them by parts of northern West Bengal that lie further east than Sikkim. The population is of largely Nepali origin with the Lepchas and Bhutias among the other major indigenous ethnic groups (there are also Bengali and Marwari communities). My family lived in northern West Bengal in the early 1980s and I went to boarding school in Darjeeling in the mid-1980s. We went on many hiking trips to Sikkim and I had Sikkimese friends in school. Sikkimese food is, therefore, not largely a blank space in my culinary map as is the case with most of the other northeastern states (the other exception is Assam). Unlike Manipur—whose food I know only from our recent meal at Eat Pham—or Nagaland—whose food I know only from meals at Dzükou and Hornbill—I’ve eaten a fair bit of Sikkimese food in my adolescence, though not a whole lot of it since then. As on this trip to Delhi we were trying to eat a greater regional variety of food than we usually end up doing, I was pleased to learn that there is a well-regarded Sikkimese restaurant in Greater Kailash-1: Nimtho. We ate lunch there in between our dinners at Eat Pham and Hornbill. Herewith some details. Continue reading
Littlemill 29, 1988 (OMC for K&L)
This Littlemill is one of the older casks in K&L’s 2019 run of exclusives. As a 29 yo from 1988 the latest it would have been bottled would have been in 2018—I guess it just took a while to get to California. It may also be the oldest Littlemill I have had from the large parcel of late 1980s/early 1990s casks of Littlemill that began appearing from independents in the first half of the last decade (see here and here, for example). Most of those have been very good, with a big dose of fruit balanced nicely with oak and malt, with none of the funkier notes that can sometimes overwhelm Littlemill. Let’s hope this one is in that vein as well.
Littlemill 29, 1988 (55.%; OMC for K&L; refill hogshead; from a bottle split)
Nose: A little spirity to start. After a few beats there’s a funky mix of malt, a light rubbery/plasticky note (a new beach ball) and lime peel. As it sits some sweeter fruity notes begin to emerge but don’t quite pop—some vanilla with them too. With more time there’s cereal and the fruit gets muskier. Less funky, more fruity with a few drops of water. Continue reading
Magic Noodle (St. Paul, MN)
Magic Noodle, which opened on University Ave. in St. Paul (the Twin Cities’ true Eat Street) last summer, represents a small step in the evolution of the broader Chinese food scene in the Twin Cities. The local Sichuan scene is already pretty strong, with a few restaurants that would be viable propositions in much larger metros with larger Chinese populations. But beyond that there’s been little: our dim sum scene hovers around the edge of dismal, there’s no real Cantonese food of quality or any other regional Chinese restaurants for that matter (that I’m aware of at any rate). And so to have a decent hand-pulled noodle shop open up feels like a big thing. Yes, similar noodle soups are available at restaurants like Grand Szechuan as well but it’s good to have a specialist. Based on our meal at the start of the month I wouldn’t say that they’re very much more than a decent hand-pulled noodle shop at the moment but I’m not complaining too much. Continue reading
Bowmore 14, 1996 (A.D. Rattray for BevMo)
Last month I reviewed a Bowmore 14, 1996 bottled by A.D. Rattray for BevMo. This is not that Bowmore 14, 1996. It is another one bottled at the same time but which for some reason does not show up on Whiskybase or have much of any other kind of trail online. I purchased a bottle in the Hollywood BevMo not too long after it was released and finished it not too long thereafter (before starting the blog). As per my spreadsheet I liked it a lot. Reviewing the other one reminded me of this one and the likelihood that I had saved a 6 oz reference sample of it—as used to be my practice back then with all bottles I owned.Sure enough, when I looked there it was. And here now is a formal review.
Bowmore 14, 1996 (59.1%; A.D. Rattray for BevMo; bourbon cask 960029; from a reference sample saved from my own bottle) Continue reading
Bagundi 2 (Delhi, January 2020)
From the North East to the south and to a restaurant I first ate at on my trip to Delhi in December 2018. Bagundi, located in M block on the Connaught Place outer circle, features the food of Andhra Pradesh. The state in fact split into two in 2014, or rather a new state, Telangana was carved out of the north-western parts of the old Andhra Pradesh. As far as I can make out, Bagundi’s conception of Andhra food is not affected by these border re-drawings: their menu features most of the dishes I would have expected to see on an Andhra menu prior to 2014.
Continue reading
Yoichi 26, 1987 (SMWS)
Okay, let’s make it three full weeks in a row of reviews of peated whiskies. Like Monday’s Ardmore and Wednesday’s Brora this does not feature full-throated Islay-level peat. In fact, it’s not from the Highlands or even Scotland. But it’s from a distillery whose whisky these days is as scarce as Brora’s: Yoichi, all the way from Hokkaido in Japan. Bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, this is easily the oldest Yoichi I’ve had—and it’s another sample that I have sat on for a really long time, for no reason that I can determine. I really liked the last 1987 I had (this 23 yo bottled by La Maison Du Whisky) and am hoping that this will be at least as good. The only thing giving me pause is that it was matured in a virgin oak puncheon: 26 years in virgin oak (if this wasn’t a finish) seems like a really long time. My suspicions of of the last virgin oak cask I reviewed (this Glendronach) were proved accurate and this one spent a decade and a half more in the cask. Let’s see if it somehow escaped the curse of over-active oak. Continue reading
Hornbill (Delhi, January 2020)
Back to Humayunpur, back to another restaurant featuring the food of a North Eastern state. On Sunday I reviewed a dinner at the Manipuri restaurant, Eat Pham—a dinner we really enjoyed. A few days later we went back to the same market and embarked on a very similar hunt for another restaurant, Hornbill, which serves food from Nagaland. While our Eat Pham outing was our first encounter with Manipuri food, Hornbill was our second Naga meal in Delhi in as many trips as a family. We were last here all together in January 2016 (I’ve come on my own in between a few times) and on that trip one of our favourite meals was at Dzükou in Hauz Khas. Dzükou has since closed in that location. I’ve heard tell it has reopened in Vasant Kunj, but we didn’t need to go quite that far from Noida when there are a number of Naga places in Humayunpur and environs, and Hornbill particularly well-reviewed among them. We descended on them with the same friends we’d eaten at Dzükou with four years ago. Here is what we found after we found the restaurant. Continue reading