My last night as a thirtysomething

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Today is the last day in my life with a three-handle to my age. It was also my turn to host the MNSC dinner, and I finally got a chance to open up some of the nice wines that I'd been saving up for this occasion.  But the day started off badly... both of the female guests for dinner - within minutes of each other - informed me of their illness from recent travels and bailed out of dinner.  That left me with a party of all guys, and once again it was gonna be a sausage party...

We returned to Caprice after a three-week absence.  The restaurant staff were on their toes tonight as it was the first day for the new menu.  Needless to say I was well taken care of by the team.  Many thanks to Vincent and Sebastien for setting up the menu to match the wines, and of course to Jeremy and the entire staff.

I picked a bottle of 1991 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses from the wine list to start us off.  This was an amazingly beautiful Champagne... Nose was very sweet, with lots of caramel, honey, a bit of citrus fruits, nutty and a little metallic. 

The amuse bouche was a trio of crispy toast with melon, deep-fried raviolo with scallop and cream, and finally a very yummy tomato granité with aubergine purée.

Petits Gris snails fricassée, Japanese black garlic emulsion and parsley coulis - pretty nice... and I liked the fact that there was a mix of textures here. 

1970 Heitz Martha's Vineyard - mint, a little oxidized, prunes, a little pine needle and definitely soy sauce.  I served it at another MNSC tasting 3 years ago, and that bottle also drank pretty well.  This was part of the Californian contingent at the now infamous 1976 "Judgement of Paris". 92 points.

1970 Chapoutier Hermitage - nose was clearly oxidized, with orange and sweetness.  A little flat on the palate.  88 points.

Steam duck foie gras, saffron fennel, liquorice, orange blossom foam - always interesting to have steamed foie... as it ends up being very soft and tender.  The orange blossom foam on top was pretty nice.

1970 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle - mint, a little green and vegetal, followed by sweetness, smoke and a little brett.  Even though I knew which wines were in each pair, I actually thought this was the Petrus... 95 points.

1970 Petrus - nose was a little stewed, ripe, smoky, really sweet with honey, syrupy and cotton candy, later on orange, coconut butter, mushroom and wet sous bois.  Very smooth on the palate.  A beautiful wine.  97 points.

Suckling pig rack, carbonara conchiglie and fondant zucchini in sage jus - the suckling pig was just soooo tender... but unfortunately I am not a fan of herbs like sage, so this does not get a "two thumbs up" from me.  I want the full flavor of the pig!  The fondant was very nice, and I liked the conchiglie, too. 

1990 Vogüé Musigny Vieilles Vignes - mint, sweet fruit, some oxidation, concentrated and ripe.  93 points. 

1990 DRC Echezeaux - wow! Nose was explosive, with lots of smoke and toasted/grilled corn on top of the core of sweet fruit.  95 points.

Roasted Racan pigeon, eggplant caviar and morel mushrooms in smoked jus - I really loved this... the smoked jus made the dish for me, and of course I just love roast pigeon, and the morels... yum!  Couldn't resist grabbing the bones with my hands and stripped them bare.

1990 Chave Hermitage - very farmy, with lots of bacon fat, a little orange and even a hint of floral notes.  A beautiful wine.  95 points.

1990 Chapoutier Ermitage Le Pavillon - I have never tasted a bottle of Le Pavillon that I liked, and all of those bottles have carried the "RP 100" designation.  This bottle was no exception.  Initially I just couldn't get anything out of the nose, except a hint of alcohol and a little brett.  Am I genetically wired to dislike Le Pavillon?  Perhaps.  But one man's junk is another man's treasure... My least favorite wine of the evening turned out to be the favorite wine for Mr. Pineapple.  Go figure...  89 points.

Covaillon melon, biscuit de Gêne and aromatic mint cream - very refreshing to have a cold dessert at the end of the evening, and I do love melon... Interesting combination of textures, too.

It was a very enjoyable evening, at least for me.  I'm glad that the MNSC boys were there to share the evening with me.

A fragrant finish

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I was dragged coerced invited to dim sum today at Man Wah (文華廳).  It's Father's Day and there were two fathers-to-be... one who is actually going to be a father soon, and the other being me as the godfather-to-be.  For some reason, someone keeps trying to prove to me that Man Wah is actually a good place for Cantonese food... and time and again I find something really wrong and unforgivable with the place.  I wouldn't presume to think of myself as an expert on Cantonese food, but the fact that this was only my fourth visit in the 15 years that I've been in Hong Kong says something...

As usual I let the hosts do the ordering and only requested one dish I found intriguing.  The end result was a barrage of dim sum items and I ended up stuffing myself into a dumpling...

We started with a plate of barbecued pork belly (脆皮燒腩仔).  This was very nicely presented, and tasted pretty decent.  The skin was very crispy but I wish it would have been thicker.  Interestingly, there was a dollop of sweet soybean paste (甜麵醬) on the plate next to each piece of pork, in addition to a little bit of yellow mustard.

Organic diced vegetable dumpling (有機上素粉果) - this was pretty nice, and the chervil inside really enhanced the taste.

Wild fungus, wolfberry dumpling (杞子珍菌餃) - less interesting than the previous dumpling, even though they were essentially the same thing.  I think the wolfberries (枸杞子) threw me off.

Tiger prawn, bamboo shoot dumpling (筍尖蝦餃皇) - interestingly mild in terms of taste, which I attribute to the kitchen putting less MSG into the dumplings.  A little bland, perhaps, but ultimately better for my body (and taste buds).

Barbecued pork bun (蠔皇叉燒包) - pretty nice.

Lobster, black bean sauce dumpling (豉汁龍蝦餃) - this was the dish that made me wanna scream "WTF?!!!!"  I was warned about it before taking my first bite, and was careful to only take in part of the lobster on top.  The taste of baking soda was so strong it was almost revolting... Why the #%@# would anyone do that to a piece of lobster that is supposed to be succulent and sweet? I know that restaurants sometimes use baking soda when making prawn dumpling/har gau (蝦餃), but this was obviously a real screw up.  I didn't bother to finish the remaining part of the lobster as I had no intention of swallowing or ingesting it.  The bottom half of the dumpling, though, was superb.  The chopped taro bits were pretty tasting after steaming.

Shanghainese soup dumpling, minced pork (南翔小籠包) - the XLBs were actually a little too large for the bamboo carriages, and as I tried to remove mine the skin stuck to the handles and cause the dumpling to break, spilling all the soup.  The weird thing is that the pork filling was mixed with a little bit of ginger.  Aren't we supposed to decide for ourselves whether we wanted some ginger with this?

Green peppers stuffed w seafood paste - long, green chili peppers were halved and stuffed with seafood paste where the seeds would have been.  Then these were pan-fried.  Not bad.

Pan fried turnip cake, preserved meat (香煎蘿蔔糕) - another dish that tasted a little more bland than usual, but again this could be due to a reduction of MSG.  Actually this was not bad.  I did like the topping of dried shreds of conpoy.

U.S. beef, crispy dough (鬼馬牛肉腸粉) - before I talk about the dish itself, allow me to rant about the stupid naming conventions on the menu.  If I didn't read Chinese and looked at the menu, what the hell am I supposed to think when it reads "US beef, crispy dough"??!!  This is not descriptive at all... and methinks they are trying to adapt some of ways fusion restaurants name their dishes, by just listing the ingredients and not being descriptive at all about how the dish is cooked and/or presented.  This annoys the hell out of me.  Anyway.  The dish was not what I expected.  It's essentially the traditional steamed rice-flour roll stuffed with minced beef, except they also stuffed some crispy fried dough inside to add some crunch.  Not a fan.

Wagyu beef puff (千絲和牛酥) - the puffs looked exactly like the deep-fried turnip pastries one would get elsewhere, except here they were stuffed with cubes of wagyu which had been stir-fried with black pepper and onions.  These were OK.

Stir-fried choy sum (清炒菜心) - I had a few stems as I was pretty much at my limit by now...

Fried rice noodles, beef, X.O. chilli sauce (X.O.醬干炒牛肉河粉) - Tigger was apparently still hungry, so we watched him pretty much single-handedly polish off the plate.  I had a little bit so I could try out the dish.  It was OK, but a far cry from the ones I'd normally get at Tasty Congee (正斗) or its sister outlet Ho Hung Kee (何洪記).

I couldn't fit in any more food and passed on dessert, but Tigger asked for - and got - osmanthus jelly (桂花糕) for all of us.  These were very, very good... only mildly sweet with a hint of savory notes from the osmanthus sauce, and topped with a couple of wolfberries.  I didn't hesitate to consume both pieces in front of me, and left the restaurant with that nice, floral and fragrant taste in my mouth...

A little corner of Brittany

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It's been a while since Lunch Club reconvened, and after talking about it for a few days, we finally got around to visiting La Crêperie.  They've been in Hong Kong for a couple of months now, after first setting up shop in Shanghai.  One of us has been to the Shanghai outlet and wasn't impressed, but we were pretty hopeful.  After all, the restaurant is a stone's throw away from all the froggies working at SG and Newedge, who supposedly treat this as their cafeteria...

Now that we are sitting in our little corner of Brittany, what better way to kick off lunch than by having some apple cider?  We started off with a bottle of Kerné Brut, which went down very well on a day like this.  The color was a nice orange in the custom made cider bowls.

There were simply too many choices on the menu and I wanted to order half of them...  So I settled on the combination of 2 galettes followed by a sweet crêpe. 

La Complète - the classic, with ham and cheese and a sunny side up egg on top.  Pretty nicely done, and the buckwheat flavor was pretty intense...or was it just because it was nicely crispy and browned?  Anyway, I was pretty happy with this.

La Bosco - I've always loved seafood galettes... nicely done with white wine cream sauce, and I always love the extra little something that parsley brings.  Plenty of baby squid, squid tentacles, mussels, shrimps...etc.  Very yummy.

The first bottle of cider disappeared very quickly, so we ordered another bottle of the same, plus a bottle of the Val de Rance Doux.  The second bottle was clearly sweeter, although this isn't a problem for someone who loves drinking sweet and dessert wines.

The restaurant's menu is pretty extensive, but a number of items are still unavailable.  The Resident Froggie and I were very excited about being able to taste far breton here... I had just watched a Bourdain episode on Brittany.  But alas, we were informed that this item was not available.  So I had to make do with La Vague, which was made with salted butter caramel.  As soon as the plate was set down, the lovely smell of caramel brought on that conditioned drooling...  This was really nice.

I think there were a few happy campers today, including the Resident Froggie who promised to return.  I think I will, too... and soon.

A round of American Pinot

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Tonight I finally had a chance to attend a tasting organized by my friend at Altruistic Boutique Wines, after having missed every event she has organized in the past.  Tonight's theme was Oregon and Californian Pinot, and I was curious to see what the small producers were turning out.

2006 Bjørnstad Chardonnay Porter-Bass Vineyard - lots of toasty oak here... pretty ripe on the nose, kinda aromatic with some minerals.  Medium acidity.  Pretty good.

2007 Rex Hill Pinot Gris - nose of green apple, pear, sweet caramel and a little flint.  Very light and aromatic... great to drink on a hot summer day.

2006 Rex Hill Pinot Noir Reserve - pretty sweet and fruity nose, with a little mint and kinda alcoholic.  Definitely felt some of that 14.4%...

2007 de Lancellotti Pinot Noir - first whiff of the nose made me to a double-take... it was so Old World... with lots of farmy, smoky notes, plus mint and a bit of orange.  Eventually the sweetness of the nose came through.  Smooth on the palate but the finish was slightly hot and spicy.

2008 Westrey Pinot Noir Justice Vineyard - really sweet with lots of fruit.  Sooo typical for an American Pinot.  Some mint here.  Definitely a little hot on the palate.

2007 Lucia Pinot Noir - lots of very ripe fruit, spices, pretty extracted and sweet with some apricot.  A little sharp on the nose, and actually burns a little going down...

2007 Bjørnstad Pinot Noir Hellenthal - from a bottle that was opened late, so the nose was a little muted at first.  A little mint with some fruit, some farmy notes and game meats.  Opened up with time and got better.

It was a pretty good evening, although I did have to miss watching the World Cup match between Argentina and South Korea...

Throwing a birthday party in style

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My friend threw a birthday party at her apartment tonight, and invited the lot of us to spend an enjoyable evening together.  Long before I arrived, and indeed throughout the evening, our hostess threatened warned me - on pain of limb loss emasculation death - not to include certain words which she felt derogatory in whatever I would write the next morning.

So, what transpired tonight was a gathering of wine lovers/experts, all of whom were much more knowledgeable than yours truly, since they all met while taking classes in pursuit of a diploma on wine.

Our hostess brought in a caterer who provided us with a variety of Southeast Asian cuisine, starting with a selection of yummy Vietnamese appetizers like deep-fried spring rolls, pork sausage, shredded chicken salad and steamed rice flour rolls.  I was hungry and everything was yummy, so I had seconds of everything.  The hot food arrived, and besides the nice roast pork neck, I was surprised to find the very delicious otak-otak.  Certainly much better than what I'd had at Sh!ok.

There was, of course, a lot of wine.  I actually arrived at the party a little buzzed, having sipped on some 2004 Kongsgaard VioRus in the office.  The wine was not bad but not what I had hoped for.  Nose of honey, straw, apricot and a bit of oak.  It's a funny age for this wine, when the Viognier has lost its freshness and the Roussanne is starting to mature and take over.

1999 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill - yeasty and toasty nose, a little sweet and later a little funky.  Pretty nice.

NV Egly-Ouriet Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru (disgorged August 2009) - I looove this wine from Egly-Ouriet, and in fact anything from this house.  This is a delicious Champagne... a poor man's Vieilles Vignes Français.  Lovely oxidized nose of cotton candy, caramel and lemon...  The acidity is a little higher here.

1999 Leroy Meursault 1er Cru Les Charmes - the nose was clearly oxidized, but I like them like that.  Pretty sweet nose with a light touch of oak and lots of caramel.

1999 Chave Hermitage Blanc - pretty oxidized nose of cotton candy and a hint of minerals.  There was slight ripeness on the palate.  A beautiful wine.

1999 Leroy Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Morgeot - this just blew the Meursault away... A very powerful and huge nose of toasty oak, popcorn, with lots of sweetness.  This is what a 10-year old Chardonnay should be!

1994 Chapoutier Ermitage Blanc De l'Orée en magnum - I brought this big baby to the party, but it had just come out of the office fridge and was too cold to drink.  After letting it warm up a little, I took a sip and was surprised at what I found.  The nose was dominated by plastic and petrol.  Was I drinking a German Riesling?  There was also some lemon, and the nose was a little alcoholic.  A second pour much later continued to show lots of plastic, with enough ripeness and honey.  The palate was pretty well-balanced, but it was still a weird wine.  Not what I expected at all.

1996 Les Forts de Latour - classic claret nose of smoke, mint, sweet fruit and cedar... Very fragrant with a little rose and floral notes.

2001 Marcassin Pinot Noir Marcassin Vineyard - I'd be happy drinking any Marcassin wine on any given day, and this one was a winner.  Very sweet nose as expected, with a little pine needle, very fragrant - almost floral.  Pretty sweet on the palate but there was some acidity to balance it out.  A little alcoholic.

1996 René Engel Clos Vougeot en magnum - very open and beautiful nose, with farmy, toasty oak notes along with sweet, black fruits.

2003 Bouchard Corton-Charlemagne - kinda sweet, toasty with minerals and some popcorn.  Good balance between the acidity and ripeness.

2006 Catena Zapata Malbec Adriana Vineyard - really sweet fruit, a little ripe, with some forest, mint, coffee and vanilla.  Acidity was a bit high with reasonably soft tannins for a wine this young.

2006 Numanthia - funky nose, really alcoholic...so much that it burned my nostrils.  Pretty ripe and sweet, with coffee, smoke and coconut butter.  Surprisingly soft on the palate.

2004 Leroy Bourgogne - what a treat... the gang rushed for the bottle as soon as the cork was popped, and I managed to get the very last few drops.  Beautiful and explosive nose.  Smoky, farmy, a little sweet and floral, and slight acidity on the palate.  The wine was so ready it didn't need any time to aerate.  Our hostess was kind enough to bring out a second bottle since not everyone had enough of this.

Passopisciaro Bianco Dolce - a little ripe, grapey, honey, orange and botrytis.

1985 Noval - a little forest, ripe fruit, a little medicinal, medjool dates, a little nutty, preserved longan (桂圓), and alcoholic.  Naturally the port was sweet on the palate.  Very nice.

1996 Lignier Clos de la Roche - sweet, ripe, a little farmy and minty.  Very elegant and nice.

We kept racking up the bottle count, and there was one more bottle of 1999 Vogüe Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru that was opened.  Unfortunately, I was a little too far gone to partake in it.  Kinda dozed off on the couch there...  I called it a night and left most of the crowd to party on.