Text 4896, 75 rader
Skriven 2006-08-25 19:53:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: wine, dinner, booze 145
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A to Z Pinot Noir 2003 (Oregon) - surprising lack of
nose; good cherries and other fruit on the palate, a
touch of that meatiness, cherries, apricots, mint on
the finish. A pleasant but not a characterful wine.

Sassoregale 2004 (Maremma, Tuscany) - this was $34 at Lia's
restaurant in Friendship Heights; it retails at 12 to 15 and
can be had at TJ's for 8 or so. But given that it's a plummy
and rich Tuscan wine one step up from Chianti (it has a
substantial proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in with the
Sangiovese), it was not a horrid buy. The midpalate was
really nice, with cherries, plums, and blackberries, and
the mouthfeel was appropriately rich and smooth; where it
fell from being a wine that deserved $34 was in the nose,
which after a fair amount of acidity tamed down, was mostly
cherrylike with a touch of pepper, and the finish, which
was perhaps slightly chocolaty and berrylike, but you
wouldn't notice as it was so short. I had ordered a plate
of "risotto balls with fontina" (an authentic place would
call them "suppli" or "suppli al telefono" - telephone
wires, as you break them in two with your fingers to let
the steam out, and the cheese (usually with mozzarella in
the mix, but here no) comes out in long thin strands),
wherein the cheese was all fontina, which tasted oddly like
Camembert and thus buttery with a tiny moldy undertone; the
risotto was nicely done, tender but still pearly. This came
with a tomato-pepper puree for dipping, a little bitter. I
offered this around the table (there were 5 at this point);
people liked them by and large, but they were distinctly
street-vendor food and not the mushroom or meat enhanced
ones I've generally had at better restaurants. Crusty bread
came with decent olive oil (perhaps Trader Joe's). For main, I
had grilled pork loin medium rare with "pancetta chive smashers,
garlic spinach, and sweet corn with red wine demi." As we were
tucking into our main courses, who should trundle by but my
brother. I gave him about a third of mine to tide him over so
he wouldn't be bored while waiting for his main course. I
should have waited until after he ordered, but in fact he ate my
food while keeping the waitress waiting. He eventually got
salmon, of which he didn't offer tastes, but scarfed it down
so fast that he was finished before everyone else.

My pork was quite good - brined and roasted medium rare. The
potatoes didn't show any discernible pancetta and very little
chive, but the garlic spinach, plopped on top, was hugely
garlicked and lent its flavor to the potatoes. The corn was
strewn over the whole and provided a little accent to every
bite: I would have preferred a pile of the stuff by itself,
as it was fresh Silver Queen recently cut from the cob and
pretty good, what there was of it. The sauce was insignificant.
I also tasted Uncle S.Y.'s roast chicken, which was pretty
tasty for white meat, and my father's gnocchi with mushroom
cream and fontina, which were excellent, very fluffy and with
good potato flavor - he was especially impressed with the
sauce, which was merely heavy cream and mushrooms reduced by
half and then dosed with cheese, a bit too rich.

I had pretty good white peach and blueberry sorbets for afters.
S.Y. and my father split a sizable plate of cookies - three or
four each of very hard biscotti, quite good soft chocolate
cookies, and pretty good crumbly amaretti.

... and booze ...
Gosling's black seal rum (80 proof, Bermuda) - don't believe
all the hype. This stuff is nasty rotgut. Pleasant medium
brown, clear, pretty in the glass. A horridly sharp alcoholic
nose, solvent-like, more like a 100+ proof than the 80 that
the label says. A bit of coffee and burned sugar comes out.
On the palate, searing heat with a bit of coffee underneath,
sweet-and-sour. Finish, caramel. On a whim I took the Cruzan
Black Strap and cut it with an equal amount of cheap white rum
- the effect was much the same, only somewhat better, with
coffee and soy sauce notes and a much more pronounced finish.
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