Xray Vision and other nonsense
At my friend Michael’s house for an Ardbeg tasting! Michael’s fiend Tim brought over a vertical set of Very Young, Still Young, Almost There, We’ve Arrived! and Renaissance bottlings of Ardbeg. All were delicious however I really enjoyed the fire of the Very Young and Still Young bottles. The Almost There and We’ve Arrived fell a little flat for me, lacking some the the interesting qualities of the younger expressions. The Renaissance was smooth, refined and delicious.
This past weekend I went wine tasting in Napa Valley. Click on the map to see the route we took. We visited Summers, Reverie, Von Strasser, Frank Family, Heitz Cellars and Sullivan.
This week is the Malt Advocate WhiskyFest in San Francisco. There are events all week long leading up to the WhiskyFest at the Marriot on Oct. 10th. I’ve got my VIP tickets and I can’t wait to taste drams from all the distillers. I’m posting a list of all the tastings after the jump. It should be a heck of a time! Let me know if you’ll be there.
After the presentation Chaitan (sp?), a former Digital Domain artist who now runs a facility in Pune, took us out to celebrate at Post 91, a very cool restaurant/bar/banquet hall in Pune. I tried the local whisky called Blue Antiquity. We were joined by the owner Saurabh and he extended his hospitality to us for the evening. It was a great time filled with wonderful food and drink.
This evening is the Idil Fitri (or just ID) celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. It’s a big celebration in Muslim population centers around the world. In India, all the Muslim neighborhoods are out partying and celebrating. There are throngs of people on the streets. Chand and I had a late dinner near a muslim area behind the Taj hotel consisting of liver curry, butter chicken and seekh kabobs with roti. The place was a little crazy. It’s the Indian version of car-hop service. You pull your car up to the curb and a waiter pops the hood and puts a bottle under it to keep it level. He puts some newspapers on the hood to act as a table cloth then takes your order. Pretty soon lots of small dishes come from the general direction of the streetside BBQ and are placed on the hood of your car, serving as a picnic table. Quite a scene. Afterwards Chand challanged me with a beetlenut and beetle-leaf desert called Pan. It was all delicious.
Chand showed me around Mumbai a bit after our visit to R&H. Our first stop was Toto, a really cool Indian pub in a converted garage. The car lifts are still there and they’ve got a fiat jacked up over the bar. There’s a VW van jacked up on the ther side where the DJ booth is. They spin classic hard rock. We headed over to the Boat Club and had some whisky and seekh kabobs then had dinner at Papa Pancho!.Â
My friend Carly occasionaly passes through Bangkok so he stashed a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label at the Big Mango bar down the street from Nana. Stephen and I stopped in after dinner and hung out for a while on Carly’s bottle. It was a nice low-key scene and the hostesses were friendly and helpful. It was really cool to have a drink from my friend’s bottle on a random Thursday in Bangkok while he was still in California.
After the presentation I hung out with Stephen from Massive Software. He took me out for a very nice Thai dinner then we wandered around Nana Plaza and Soi Cowbow. Above is a fine example of some of the street food in Thailand. Yummy crunch frogs, various insects and fried larvae.Â
Ever since I saw Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” episode on Singapore I’ve been wanting to try tulang. It’s sort of a local halal version of osso bucco featuring delicious marrow sucked out of stewed bones with a straw.
Some more intereting flavors from Indonesia:
Dunkin’ Donuts Durian filled donut
Dunkin’ Donuts Melon filled donut
Dunkin’ Donuts Taro donut
Durian Ice Cream
Corn Ice Cream (this, by the way, is excellent!)
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