Steve Plotnicki

When I was there in 1999, they had Chave's from the late 80's on the list. In fact I think we drank 1989. They also had some older Bandols. I can't remember if it was Pibarnon or Tempier. But they always had a good selection of Kermit wines.

It's all a matter of how they sell it isn't it? They can make you feel good in the way you described or they can act like you're in a dormitory and have no choice. It all comes down to the graciousness of the service.

One should never order a Bandol in a restaurant that is less the 12 years old and 18 is probably better advice. Considering the location of the terroir, those grapes are constantly baking in the hot sun. And like Mike Rijkin at Beaucastel taught me, grapes that ripen early from excessive sun are hard and tannic. If you drink the syrah they make in Chateauneuf it fits that description. That is why you need to go 150 miles north to Hermitage and a cooler climate for the syrah to show its best. But fortunately the Bandol grape is a tough sucker. And even with the deluge of sun, with time it overcomes those hard tannins to show a great wine. But its a good wine for fathers celebrating the birth of a child. The wine should be ready to drink when they graduate high school.

It's that hard left authoritariansim thing. In the process of making people do things "the right way," they eliminated choice and defeated a cornerstone principal of democracy. It would be nice if instead of automatically adding 15% to your bill for service, they would post a notice on your menu that while they do it, they would be happy to remove the charge if you are unhappy with the service.

Good post Tim.

Is there no recipe for babka in Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America? Oy that would be a shanda.

I had lunch at Lupa yesterday with Jaybee and Suvir and I liked it much better then Babbo. Aside from some of the food being overly salty, all of my food was good. I had a raw fish platter, a salumi platter, shaved brussel sprouts with pecorino and ceci and leeks. I also had the bitter greens but I could have done without that. We also had a crispy duck with those garganzo raisins and I liked that too. Cheeses were sort of ordinary except for the fresh ricotta with honey. Dreamy stuff. And Suvir ordered all of the desserts! They were mostly fair. Best one was a cardemon panna cotta. I've had better cups of espresso. This proves out the lunch is better then dinner theory for Italian food. This was a much more interesting meal then anything at Babbo. In Italian, simple is better. Nice bottle of 2001 Sylvio Felluga Collio Tocai Fruiliano for $34. Went great with the food I thought.

My father used to bring home a babka every weekend. I like those sugary and buttered crumbs on the top of the babka. But chocolate is okay as well. But isn't babka just a yeast cake? I might be wrong but isn't Kuglehopf from Alsace the same dough as babka? Koug Amman from Brittany as well I believe. It might be easier getting a Kuglehopf recipe and using that dough with cinammon, sugar and chopped walnuts (yum).

Well that might be the case as well but I think the chefs had to come before the baltis don't you think? Unless chefs from a different part of the sub-continent started using baltis and thought they were originally from that region. I've been to Lahore Kabob House and it didn't make quite the impression on me that it seems to make on other people. But that was many years ago, maybe 5. I should go again when I'm in London next. A few years ago I did business with a company in Birmingham and when I asked them about Balti cuisine, they sent me a balti as a gift and I have it hear somewhere. But it looks like a small wok. I think in order to have the real deal you need to go to Birmingham.

I always understood this to be the case. But I understood that the reason they called it Balti was because the chefs were from that region. We had the same thing in the U.S. with Cantonese Cuisine. The chefs might have been from Canton, but the original cooking style they invented was Cantonese/American. But Americans used to think of things like Shrimp in Lobster Sauce as "Cantonese."

Well that's the thing isn't it. The amount of money spent on Sketch has nothing to do with how much was spent on The Library which is where the Gagnaire cuisine is. One could review The Library without ever mentioning Sketch or the amount of money they spent on the decor.

Macrosan - The only thing satirical are your priorities. If I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to identify with those people. It would serve you well to be identified with the group of people who are interested in the serious eating aspect. But if you insist, the next time they open a new Hockney show, or a show by some other artist of that caliber in London, I'll make sure you get the broadsheets that poke fun at the prices and the people who pay them instead of reviewing the art.

Sounds like Adam's right. Except if it is the plain Leroy Bourgogne, one would think that the oak would have integrated by now. But that is likely what caused it. Sometimes it tastes like toasted almonds.

You're not talking about that "Rose d'Anjou" stuff that Dressner sells are you?

Marcus - I find Rovani pretty useless at this point. He is good at rating the estates that make huge wines. If Ponsot happens to get it right one year, Rovani and Parker are your men. Same with Leflaive. But if you want to drink producers who feature terroir, you're better off with one of the other publications. In general for the type of Burgundys I like, there is much better info out there with Meadows being the best. By the way, on this thread we have been talking about on eRobertparker.com, someone talks of how his 1996 Verget La Romanee are shot and taste like sweet wine. I sold mine a few years ago . Bushey - The '98 Beaucastel is going to be legendary. When it was first released, I bought a bottle and opened it. I left it on the kitchen counter for 4 days and it didn't oxidize at all. It kept getting better. To me, 2010 is too early. I think we are talking 20 years here. MikeC - That's my point exactly. A score of 68 only antagonizes Burgundy drinkers. And then when they criticize the WA for "knowing nothing" Rovani posts a rant. It's all ego and hubris with no substance to back it up.

First of all you're a chicken. Secondly, I expect him to have the same humility that Allen Meadows has. He brought this on himself with that ridiculous and arrogant rant of his. When everyone started piling on, he should have figured out a graceful way to exit the thread. But he stuck it out and got clobbered and now he looks even worse.

I hate bretty wines. Blech. I had a 1990 Beau at Jacque Chibois a few years ago and I could hardly drink it. I think the '89 is far too young and in time it will be a better wine then the '90. But again it is atypical Beau. Nothing like the '98 which I think is monumental. Meanwhile, isn't that thread with Rovani unbelieveable? A famous Burgundy importer who I had never met before emailed me blind and said that they think they are in love with me.

Well considering I had 1953 Leoville Poyferre last week and it was great. Yes I agree that 1973 isn't a great vintage in St. Julien but that wouldn't make me discount that wine. I can recall being at Clementine and the couple at the next table brought a bottle of wine with them to celebrate their anniversary. It was 1967 Lafite which might be the most derided First Growth since they did the 1855 classifications. Well they gave us a pour and the wine was delicious. And there are other examples of unheralded wines like 1980 Margaux that drink well. I think that there are two aspects to drinking Bordeaux. One has to do with the individual characteristics of the producers. But the other has to do with the magic that a mature bottle of Bordeaux exhibits. And many less then good wines, even what we might call bad wines, are worth drinking because they have the attribute of maturity to them where the fruit hasn't dried out yet. So the '73 LP will never be a great wine or even a good one. But could it be a good drink with some charm to it? Sure.

I have it pretty much written. But I'm trying to fine tune the annoyance factor. When I have calculated the best way to get Pumkino's head to explode on screen, it will only be a matter of moments until it's posted. Anyway, I though Adam Balic said that pasta and pie were the same things, or derived from the same place. One of his Pie = Paste = Pasta rants.

MikeC and MartyL - Did you find that the older Beaucastels have lost their typicity? This is something I have found to be the case in most Rhone wines that last for more then 20 years. At my friend Dwight's Guigal La Landonne tasting (which I unfortunately missed,) where they tasted the wine going back to the 60's I believe, they concluded that after about 20 years they lose the character of Cote Rotie. And indeed this has been my experience with 1976 and 1978 Landonnes that I poured from my own cellar. I've also had this experience with Chave where I once bought a case of 1978 in absolutely mint condition and the wines were either past it or lost the aspect that made them uniquely Chave. La Chapelle is the only Rhone wine where this doesn't happen on a consistant basis. And wines from 1972, (if you can find a perfectly stored case) 1978 and 1979 drink perfectly and taste of La Chapelle.

But most newpaper writing about expensive things (meaning more then most of their readers will spend) is written from the envy/jealousy perspective. It's one of the worst things about newpapers and even the New York Times falls prey to it on occassion. I can never understand why other people spending large sums of money on whatever has much interest for other people. Yet time and again you read articles that sensationalize it. Can you imagine if there was a newpaper that made fun of the things middle class people did? How many stupid purchases are made by your average person? They buy tinned foods, they put plastic on their furniture, they buy silly, mass-produced art made from velvet on their walls, they eat pie for god sake. You can make a list a mile long but you will never see the newpaper using it in a way that derides them.

Of course Wingding is right. The wait staff at Babbo probably viewed me as a pain in the ass. Not as someone who has any knowledge about eating in restaurants. And I have to say that isn't really unusual. But if I had to read the staff, our waitress was just unknowledgable and nothing I was going to say to her would make her come to that realization. And the management is probably not encouraging her to identify people that way. But the sommelier is a disappointment because he could easily have engaged me in the typical sommelier/customer game of, find the esoteric and appropriate wine that your knowledgable customer hasn't had. It's not very hard to do if you take a little time. And it's the best way for a restaurant to gain a little knowledge as to who their customers are.

It's the Cindarella edit function. Your post turns into a permanent pumpkin at midnight.

Marcus - No, I can get you a case of '81 Beaucastel from the U.K. delivered to your door for $105 a bottle which includes $84 a case in shipping costs and excise tax. And don't listen to Parker. The wine is drinking fabulously. A couple of years ago I thought it was near it's end but it has sprung to life again. Do you listen to Parker? I used to but I don't listen to him very much anymore. I don't buy Bordeaux, I already have my favorite producers in Chateauneuf, Cote Rotie and Barolo, and he isn't much help in Burgundy. Occassionaly he discovers a new winemaker who is going to be important. But aside from that, Mm need for the publication is waning.

Feh.