SteveTimko's Profile
Standardisation in bottle sizes and shapes?
Sounds like you had the Riesling. The silvaners I've had are never that austere.
Standardisation in bottle sizes and shapes?
There's some bottles from Provence that are kind of funky. And bocksbeutel from Franken are still unique. I've had some tasty Italians that have a bulge at the top.
Even Alsace bottles vary. Some of the Austrian bottles are extremely long. I notice when I have to stack the suckers in my wine locker.
So I have to agree, there is quite a variation.
The only thing that annoys me are the trophy wines that use especially thick glass to try to make the wines seem different.
wine pairing for pasta with ramps?
Just pasta and ramps? No sauce? The sauce could change it.
How about a nice white wine, like a Rhone or something from Italy?
Wine in Vegas [moved from Wine board]
I opened this thread to recommend Lotus of Siam, but someone beat me to the punch.
There's a couple of restaurants at the Cosmopolitan that are supposed to feature excellent wine selections, more food friendly wines than trophy wines, but I don't know which ones.
Valley Cheese and Wine in Henderson had the best selection overall of any wine store I've been to in the Las Vegas area,but that's because it carries importers like Kermit Lynch and Louis/Dressner.
Total Wine & More sucks for imports but it can get some gems from California, like Ridge, at good prices.
If you go to Lotus of Siam be sure to ask for Bank.
Reno: More authentic Chinese food at 101 Taiwanese Cuisine
Wow, Reno now has a second restaurant with mostly authentic Chinese food. I don't know if this is proof the Mayans were right, that the end times are near.
101 Taiwanese Cuisine opened in a strip mall on Fifth Street just east of Ralston Street. It's the same strip mall that has a Starbucks, a Subway and a sushi place. My food here was excellent and I look forward to exploring many of the items on the menu. It joins 168 Café as offering a menu full of authentic items instead of just a smattering of dishes among the sweet-and-sour pork and General’s chicken.
I ordered the braised beef noodle soup, the shrimp roll and a melon smoothie.
The restaurant won me over with the first bite out of the shrimp roll. Fresh shrimp taste. In so many places the shrimp has no flavor and serves as a vehicle to deliver other flavors, like deep-fried fattiness. This shrimp roll had some nice delicate flavors. The sweet-and-sour sauce has a different take, too. First off, it's Day-Glo orange. The sour part has a different tang to it. It was interesting and I liked it.
The soup was also pretty good, too. The chunks of beef looked black, like dark chocolate. They tasted nice and there were plenty of them. There were peppers but it wasn't that spicy. Nothing like the great spicy soup at Jia's Wok. I wonder if there are options to give it more zing. Maybe I got the gringo version. The noodles are egg noodles and were tasty as well. I think egg noodles do better with this dish than rice noodles.
It looks like my melon smoothie was premade. It was still okay.
There are lots of other things on the menu that look interesting. I don't think I've seen dan dan noodles on a Reno restaurant menu before. They have stinky tofu on the menu. I've tried that once before, with Yimster of the San Francisco board at a place on the peninsula. I think all foodies should try it. At the end of their meals. But once was enough for me.
This restaurant is operated by the guy who was (maybe still is) chef at the Dynasty restaurant near Keystone and Booth streets. I'm glad he decided to open something with authentic food instead of another sweet-and-sour chicken joint. Hopefully, Reno's dining community will embrace the difference and support the place.
101 Taiwanese Cuisine
400 W 5th St
Ste 104
Reno, NV 89503
(775) 657-6144
http://www.facebook.com/101taiwanese
http://www.101taiwanese.com/
When do ethics come to play in your dining decision?
The restaurant allowed the event to be held there.
Supposedly it was scheduled in another place and got the boot and he allowed them to have it at his place.
By the way, I'm not 100 percent certain it happened. I haven't talked to the owner myself. If I could confirm it, I would post more specific details.
When do ethics come to play in your dining decision?
That's the $64 question. When will you cross the line., That Chinese restaurant I referred to had routine food. Nothing to distinguish it from all the other Chinese restaurants in town. So the shrine to Chiang Kai Shek was mildly offensive to me and that was the deciding factor. Bu if the food had been good, I would have eaten there.
When do ethics come to play in your dining decision?
I've been mulling this over for a couple of weeks. I thought maybe I'd toss it out on Chowhound and see what other hounds think.
I couple of years ago I heard a rumor that a local restaurant allowed a celebration in honor of a highly despised world figure. The person who first told me about it seemed reliable. I didn't give it much thought. I haven't eaten at the place in years because of food quality issues any way.
Then I heard the story again from another person. The explanation attached to it this time is that it was a one time thing. Apparently the owner knew in advance what the celebration would be.
I help coordinate dinners for a dining group and this restaurant has been suggested as a destination.
Even if it was a one-time thing, if it was true that this restaurant knowingly hosted a dinner for this figure is enough to get them crossed off my list forever.
So where do hounds draw their ethical lines?
Some people make a big deal out of free-range chickens and how they want to eat only free-range meat. Most chickens go to market at age 7 weeks. So if you take away the time they are protected when they are young and the final two weeks of their life when they are kept penned up to fatten them up, a typical chicken has about 2 weeks to spend on the range, and most are too stupid to walk out the door. So free range chickens mean nothing to me, but obviously they do to others.
One Chinese (Americanized, otherwise I'd say Taiwanese) restaurant here used to proudly display pictures of Chiang Kai-shek. It reflected the owner's anti-Communist attitude. It turned me off because I considered Chiang Kai-shek to be corrupt (he was a Communist himself when it suited him politically) and because I was unhappy that he used all the American aide during World War II to prop up his own government and not fight the Japanese. But truthfully, if the food had been special there, I would have overlooked those objections and happily eaten there.
So when do ethics come into your choice of places to eat?
Are there any good Reno restaurants with patios?
Not sure if it's Pet friendly, but the Grill at Quail Corners has a nice patio and good food.
The Stone House Cafe has a patio, but the food is inconsistent. I would also check ahead to see if they'll let you bring your dog.
775 Gastropub has outdoor seating, too. I would also check with them.
None of these are especially close to the hotel.
BevMo 5 cent sale Feb 2012- anything worthwhile?
I've heard the Gruet Pinot Noir isn't bad. Two bottles for $25 sounds reasonable.
The 2003 Les Mines Priorat looks interesting, too.
What are your favorite online wine websites? Where do you shop?
+1 for The Wine Country.
Trip from Carmel to Santa Barbara
I've only had a few bottles of Peter's wine, both pinots and chards, and liked all of them,. I love Mark's Rhones (I think they're under his Jalama labels). The pinots were kind of tight or from a difficult vintage and were tough to judge.
Trip from Carmel to Santa Barbara
By the way, one of the Cargassachi brothers runs Jalama wine in the Lompoc wine ghetto. If you go, you might see Oscar vigilantly guarding the tasting room wines.
Also in the Lompoc wine ghetto is Palmina wines, which are nicely done Italian varietals. There's also Fiddlestix for pinot and sauvignon blanc. And Evening Land, which is the winery started by some guy with Hollywood connections. He's the one who got the Seven Springs Vineyard in Oregon and booted St. Innocent, among others. They also make wine in Burgundy that they import. I liked the Evening Land wines I tasted.
Trip from Carmel to Santa Barbara
Talley in Arroyo Grande for pinots
Tablas Creek, cold Heaven and the Cargassachi brothers too
Wine for a traditional chinese dinner?
White jasmine is always nice. But wine can be nice too
Wine for a traditional chinese dinner?
Anything with spice is going to be trouble for a dry wine, especially if it has tannins.
Champagne and rose would be my guesses if you don't like riesling. A good wine store like K&L or William Cross Wine Merchants can help you pick a good rose, if you need help.
One of my favorites is a Basque rose called Ameztoi Rubentis. They usually have it at The Spanish Table in Berkeley, but I have it say it's a love it or hate it wine. I have friends who hate it, but I can't get enough.
white Bordeaux for laying down.
The Fiezual, for instance, was out of his price range with the 2001 vintage.
http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=998905
The Carbonnieux is only slightly out of his range
http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1080188
He can buy a whole three bottles of the Chevalier
http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1066894
Laville-Haut-Brion underwent a name change. At the current price, he could afford a 375ml bottle with $300, if he found it on sale.
http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1055150
Sheesh.
white Bordeaux for laying down.
Sorry, I know next to nothing about Bordeaux. I remember sitting in on conversations where wine geeks complained that a middling Sancerre aged better than white Bordeaux and it was a fraction of the price.
By the way, in mentioning top-notch Sancerre producers I neglected to mention Hippolyte Reverdy.
white Bordeaux for laying down.
Do you want a sweet wine or a dry wine?
Dry white Bordeaux is not known for being a good ager.
The only sauvignon blanc I like is from St. Bris in Burgundy or from Greystack Vineyard in Bennett Valley. If I were going to try to age dry sauvignon blanc, I'd look at stuff from Sancerre in the Loire. Producers like Cotat, Boulay, Mellot and especially the late Didier Dagueneau, which is from Pouilly-Fume, not Sancerre. Since he died, $300 will get you about three bottles of Didier's wine now.
Cooking Wine - 1990 Chateau Lafite Rothschild!!
The Squires Board used to have one or two stories a year like this. One time a wine geek's wife grabbed a Sine Qua Non bottle because it had the prettiest label.
Recommendations for Wine Magazines
John:
Roy Hersh was offering a free issue of For the Love of Port on his Facebook profile. Anyone who likes wine could read that and learn a lot about wine, not just port.
Claude Kolm also discusses entire regions. It's educational.
Recommendations for Wine Magazines
Are you advanced enough to know what kind of wine you like? There's lots of niche publications.
For Burgundy, Rhone and Germany, there's Claude Kolm's Fine Wine Review:
http://www.finewinereview.com/
For Rhone Varietals, there's Jeb Dunnuck's Rhone Report:
http://therhonereport.com/about-3/
For Port and some other stickies, there's Roy Hersh's For the Love of Port:
http://fortheloveofport.com/
K&L sells wine but they also send out a monthly flyer for free that has some interesting articles.
http://www.klwines.com/
For general circulation, there's also The Wine Enthusiast
Allen Meadows writes about Burgundy and some California pinot noir in Burghound. He's arguably the most respected wine critic in the world (since Robert Parker has so many enemies).
http://www.burghound.com/bio.php
Decanter has more of a British skew on wine:
http://www.decanter.com/
Good red wine to cellar for 5 years and drink on an anniversary
I'm assuming you will want a vintage 2012 wine? Reds picked in 2012 will hit the shelves beginning in late 2013. Revive this thread then.
You'll probably have more luck with New World wines.
Reno: Delicious food at Thai Nakorn III
The Greater Reno Grub and Gripe Group gathered at Thai Nakorn III in Reno for a nice Thai meal. Just about everything tasted good to me. This restaurant opened in the location of the former Siamese Hut at Mill Street and Kietzke Lane.
The group of five ordered tom kha gai soup, avocado egg rolls and satay for appetizers and entrees of hangover noodles (usually called drunken noodles at other places), a chili shrimp dish, an avocado curry, a pumpkin curry and one dish with cashews, peppers and beef.
The tom kha gai soup, which is coconut milk, lemon grass and chicken, among other ingredients, was excellent. Bill thinks maybe the best he’s had in Reno. I love this soup and I love the version they have at Thai Nakorn III. It seems each Thai restaurant has their own version of this soup. I wouldn’t be surprised to find different versions at the Thai Nakorn in Truckee and South Lake Tahoe. Overall the meal was good but this may have been the highlight.
The avocado egg roll had a nice mix of ingredients but the real revelation here was the tamarind sauce for dipping. I’ve had egg rolls before at Thai restaurants but I never remember a sauce so tasty that I asked about it. The satay was good, but it was also fairly routine. I’d get it again but I wouldn’t go here just for the satay.
Everyone seemed to like the entrees, which we shared. The only one I didn’t like was the avocado curry, largely because I don’t like avocado that much. The avocado egg roll had a nice mix of ingredients so the avocado didn’t dominate. Avocado dominated the curry. The surprise seemed to be the pumpkin curry that everyone liked so much. I’d get the cashew dish, the hangover noodles and the chili shrimp dishes again.
They sold a nice hefeweizen to go with the spicy food.
We were there on a Thursday night and business was slow. Too bad for such good food.
Thai Nakorn III
1774 Mill St
Reno, NV 89502
(775) 786-7747
http://www.thainakorntruckee.com/
$30 and below sparkling wines
Hard to beat the Loire for value. Huet is right around $30. Call Wine Country in Signal Hill/Long Beach to see what they have. They have good selections, usually.
Also, Wine Expo has one of the largest Champagne selections in the country. See what Roberto has in your price range. He started carrying Spanish wines a couple of years ago.
The payola scandal at the Wine Advocate
Bill:
You don't seem to mention that a major problem with getting the whole story here is the silence from the Parker side in general and Miller specifically. Miller wouldn't comment on The Associated Press original stories. Miller certainly has the right to remain silent, but he can't use his silence to hold the story hostage. If his response to this are the limited comments from Parker and from him, he deserves his fate.
Tamales in Reno
That Mexican-oriented market on Wells Avenue had them under a previous name. I don't know if they still do. The lady Tamales in Carson City was awesome, but it has been 5 years since I had them. I don't know if she is still open.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/87805
The payola scandal at the Wine Advocate
I've found just about every other critic for the Wine Advocate useful. I generally disagreed with Miller and I couldn't calibrate my palate to his.
