crw77's Profile
New Yawker going to Cleveland
I'm not from Cleveland, and I haven't eaten there in a while, but I did like Corky and Lenny's deli.
Liked it better than Carnegie Deli, in fact.
Ann Arbor -- looking for ethnic food
There are more Korean restaurants in Ann Arbor than any other ethnicity. Pacific Rim started as Korean but is now, wait for it, Pacific Rim.
There is good Mexican at La Fiesta Mexicana in Ypsilanti and Taqueria La Fiesta, which are owned by the same family.
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Taqueria La Fiesta
4060 Packard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Pilar's - Ann Arbor
Is it in the old Fresh Seasons place?
Pilar's also sells at the AA Farmer's Market. Saw them there yesterday.
Fish in Ann Arbor
Hiller's is okay, but smell it before you buy it. Prices are good, but quality's not always there. If you're going to freeze it when you get it home, ask them if they have it frozen in back, quite often they will.
I buy from Arbor Farms. They are relatively clueless about fish, as most stores around here are, and you want to smell it before you buy it there too (they get deliveries on Tue and Fri) but they carry some fish that I really like that you can't find elsewhere, like skate wing, bluefish, dry pack scallops, and all at reasonable prices, like $5.99 for Lake Trout, $6.99 for bluefish, $9.99 for skate, or thereabouts.
For good oysters, try Plum Market. They have those Japanese ones that are very good for $1 apiece. They also have soft shell crabs but I've yet to find them with a live one so I haven't bought any. They don't know how to keep them alive. The rest of their fish is way expensive and I've never tried any of it.
Great Specialty Markets in SE Michigan
I mostly stick to the Ann Arbor area, and if you need Mexican near there, in Ypsilanti is Dos Hermanos, which has a full butcher area, and which is good. It's in the lineup of stores (the yellow building) at the northeast corner of Hamilton and Michigan Ave. in downtown Ypsi. You may have known that store as a good Korean place a few years ago (which I miss, but DH is a heckuva trade).
Ann Arbor--too many choices! Help narrowing it down. . .
Not only is duty free better than Michigan retail liquor prices, so is every other state in the union.
If you're looking for a taqueria, try Taqueria La Fiesta, 4060 Packard Rd. just east of Carpenter between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Food's as good as any place in Ann Arbor, and I'm not just talking about Mexican.
The same family runs a Mexican Restaurant in Ypsilanti at 529 West Cross St., which is also excellent, and a different menu. Neither place serves alcohol.
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Taqueria La Fiesta
4060 Packard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Avoid Big Buck Brewery In Gaylord, MI if you want an adult beverage
Depends on your point of view, I guess. I find most Michigan beers to be borderline undrinkable, or worse. I remember trying Big Buck's beer years ago and thought it was okay. But then I don't like high alcohol, way hoppy, in your face beers.
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Big Bucks Bar
230 W Paris Ave, West Terre Haute, IN 47885
Pair with 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape?
I would expect the '98 to show somewhat young, if that helps.
In my experience, which includes the '88 I brought to a Christmas party just last night, Pegau tends more toward the rustic side. I would lean toward a traditional, rustic, red meat dish with that in mind, which could be one of the many things already recommended.
As far as cassoulet, that could certainly work, and be rustic, but they're from different regions of France, so it's not something that would have occurred to me right away.
Gratzi -Ann Arbor - Bad meal a fluke or trend?
I've never liked the place. Once they served me quail that, well, let's say they'd been hung way too long.
Most days "mediocre" would be an improvement.
TN: Mass infantacide
Thanks for the notes. That's not infanticide, that's a tasting. :-)
Bonneau du Martray is a reliable source for CC. But seriously carswell, hawthorne blossom? They have those in Canada or something?
Ouch. Clair Dominode is that high now? I had available the '98 a year or two ago for less than $25 USD. Year in and year out as good as it gets in Savigny.
I have to wonder what global warming is going to do to the hot climate places like Ribera del Duero. Other regions are trying to avoid jammy wines (some are trying harder than others), but when you were rich, ripe and borderline overripe to begin with(?).
I give up, what is there about a wine made by a woman that somehow ends up in the final blend? Maybe I don't want to know.
Note from the '09 harvest in Burgundy
They've been raving about the vintage, big time. '49, '59, '69, '79, '89, '99 and now '09. If it ends in a nine, it's a great year.
Well, caveat emptor. I'm sure it's good, but whenever a new vintage is released the story tends to revolve around reasons why you should buy it. Time (and tasting) will tell.
Can you tell me if these wines are any good?
The short answer is 'no', I can't tell you if they're good.
There are (at least) 2 things which determine if a wine is 'good'.
(1) Was it good to begin with, i.e., when it was put in the bottle?
(2) What's happened to it since?
Of course, even if the answer to both is a thumbs up, you might not like it.
Pull some corks and see.
Why would this happen??
I think we agree. Spritz in a wine is fairly rare. Much less common than brett, for example. But in some parts of the world, like in Vinho Verde, in my experience, it's not nearly as rare.
Definitely any New World winemaker would think it was a flaw, and it's hard to tell without having the wine in your hand exactly what was going on with the TX wine, but smelling/tasting bad is always a flaw.
I'm okay with spritz, it disappears pretty quickly. So do fermentation odors, so I don't worry about them too much either. Or a little reduction, which can get cleared up with a healthy does of O2.
Brett and VA are there for the duration, however. A little brett is ok with me, and even a little VA can add complexity and interest to a wine. But more than a little ruins the wine. That's a big difference from a little extra CO2 in the bottle. Cheers.
Why would this happen??
Cary, I think you're reading a few things into my post that weren't there. I did already say that for a TX wine, it was a flaw. I'd throw the rest of New World wines in that category too. Squeaky clean is the goal of New World wines. Do you know any traditional, old world winemakers making rustic wines? Do you like Vinho Verde?
Although Brettanomyces is a type of yeast, you can have substantial brett in a wine and not have a spritz.
Why would this happen??
Carswell did a good job of explaining what it is, but didn't get into the cause too much and how winemakers try to prevent it from happening.
Having a 'spritz' in a wine is not always considered a defect, or maybe I should say not be everyone, though as Carswell said, I would probably think it would be for a TX wine. But when I find a little spritz in a wine where I wasn't expecting it, I think the winemaker tried to make it naturally and to not risk negatively impacting the flavor by fining and filtering it overmuch.
There's been a long running debate about using fining and filtering to clean bacteria and other materials out of a wine to avoid getting the kind of fizzy wine you had, to stabilize it, or sterilize it. Some winemakers won't fine and filter because they feel it not only strips out the offending bacteria, but also some of the taste and character of a wine, leaving it somewhat sterile and squeaky clean, and, well, boring. There are plenty of wines that answer that description in the marketplace -- safe, clean and boring.
There are some people, like me, who like traditionally styled wines, and find them more complex, even if some modern winemakers would say that this complexity is from 'flaws'.
So if you do complain to the winemaker, he might interpret that as a reason he should do more filtering and some of what you liked about the wine previously may be missing in the future.
I've been ignoring the "off taste" that you reported, since I'm not really sure what you mean by that, but I certainly would not be in a hurry to pour out the bottle of wine no matter what else you do. Fermentation odors are common in young wines even if they're not fizzy or cloudy, and they typically dissipate either with aging or just by having the wine be exposed to the air for a time -- sometimes as long as a day or two. If you don't like the taste today, try it in an hour, or 2 or 3, or the next day.
Am I the Only One Who Doesn't Like Pinot Noir?!
Wine is not cyclical. You're talking about marketing and hype. Burgundy has changed very little since the monks first planted vines there over 1000 years ago.
Or maybe you're talking about 1000 year cycles?
For hundreds of years, the Bordelais led the world in hype. But they've been blown away by the New World. It's the Emperor's new clothes phenomenon. Lots of hype and not much in the bottle. Why worry about it? I love Burgundy, but never buy new world PN.
Don't get me wrong, there are good west coast PNs, just not many and not worth the money. Other people like them, and that's great. It'd be worse if they wanted to buy the wines that I like.
Thai ingredients in Michigan
I actually saw kaffir lime leaves at Hiller's not too long ago. Have never seen them at Zi-Zi's. You can get star anise a lot of places, there are a number of Asian stores, like on Washtenaw east of Carpenter (forget the name but it's big and hard to miss) and the place up on Plymouth.
A question about 1959 Moulin Touchais Anjou
Some Anjou AC are sweet. If you go to Google, enter "Moulin Touchais", with the quotes, the 13th entry (at least right now) shows a tasting note for the '59 Anjou (not CdL), which it describes as sweet and very good. The note is from 2003. The link doesn't work so you'll have to read it from the Cached entry.
I tasted the '59 CdL along about 14 years ago and it was killer and yes, timeless.
Here's the note:
Moulin Touchais Anjou 1959 (A New Low): Medium gold color. There is a quick flare of horror at the prospect of yet another tainted bottle, but we're okay, as it's just a combination of bottle funk and old chenin wet-woolliness. Oh my, this is luscious; layered and bright and oh so subtly expressive. The aromas of tea, quince, honey, leather lanolin and orange-apricot all swirl and flicker through my nostrils. Medium sweet, still vivid and bright, lemon-honeyed in the middle, spreading out in light, precise layers on the finish. Could use a few more decades, but drinking wonderfully right now. Drink or hold. (7/14/03)
And here's a link to a sale at Christie's for half a case of it:
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4060891
What's the best way to develop my wine palate?
People who would invent their own vocabulary do their readers a disservice. If you wanted to discuss physics with someone, would you make up new words to describe it? Of course not; no one would know what you were talking about.
The language of wine is there for a reason, so that when you say something about a wine, other people know what you mean.
What's the best way to develop my wine palate?
Taste with people who know more than you do. That's it. The harder part is figuring out who knows more than you and who just talks a good game.
It might mean joining a tasting group, but even then it might be a bunch of people who know very little, or it might mean going to visit producers, but even then it's not a given (although the odds are a lot better).
Reading books is ok, but wine is a liquid, not a piece of paper. You can learn about where wine comes from and how it's made and all of that stuff from a book, but if you want to learn about wine you have to taste.
cheap eats in downtown Ann Arbor
When did Sabor Latino change ownership? I vowed never to go back, but if there's a new owner, I might reconsider.
Wine serving protocol
At some places every restaurant employee who passes the table wants to pour the wine, so you're going to tell all 15 people?
When that happens, I hide the bottle.
RIP Tribute in Farmington Hills, MI
I don't know if you know who Mireille and Edward Giuliano are, but Mireille is CEO of Clicquot U.S.A. (think Veuve-Clicquot Champagne) who had a best selling book: "French women don't get fat" in 2006. Together they also do some freelance writing.
Every year they write a piece for "The Quarterly Review of Wine" talking about memorable meals they've had in the previous 12 months. Remember, these are French people who travel the globe and work at high levels in the food and wine business. Anyways, they said Tribute was the best meal they'd had all year. And yes that was when Yagihashi was there. The following year they also listed Tribute among the top dozen most memorable meals of their year.
Tribute was good.
Detroit Restaurant Week September 18-27, 2009
Thanks for the review. I haven't been to The Whitney for a long time so it was interesting to see how they were doing since they changed ownership.
One thought I had in reading what you wrote - I'd much rather they tell me they ran out of mussels than to eat ones they bought too much of a few days ago.
favorite kimchi recipe?
I bought a very large nappa cabbage yesterday at my local farmer's market. Does anyone have a favorite kimchi recipe they would like to share? Thanks.
wine suggestions for wedding menu
I should just keep a copy of my answers to this question since I've answered so many of these over the years.
Menu and price are two of the considerations. Are your guests wine drinkers? Wine connoisseurs? Where do you buy your wines? What wines do they have? It doesn't help if I recommend a wine that you can't find. Since you should have a wine retailer you go to anyway, you should ask them this question.
First of all, I like your menu. That's the kind of stuff I really enjoy. I agree with Rhone for the red. You can get really excellent Rhone wines for $20 and under. All the food has character, so I'd get a white that can stand up to it as well. That could be a white Rhone too, or an Italian like Gavi di Gavi or Soave. Or sure Groovy.
There are 3 kinds of wines produced in the above named regions, good, bad and indifferent. So buy a bottle of each and taste them. And no one says you should only get one white and one red. I usually recommend getting more than one. There are widely divergent styles of wine in the world. "New World" styles are not my favorite. I prefer "Old World". Other people feel differently.
Best inexpensive Syrah?
Further to what's already been posted regarding the need to narrow the search somewhat, if you could at least specify a country you are thinking of, that would help a lot.
Most recommendations in this thread are new world, which is not what I would look for. If you're interested in old world there are lots of options in that price range as well, some of which are gorgeous. Anything from Georges Vernay, for example. I'm thinking of his Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes in particular which I got for around $17-18 not too long ago, but he also has a St. Joseph for less than $30 too.
Wine suggestions for my frugal father-in-law's visit...
Beringer eh? We used to call that Grin and Bear it.
Buy a decent rose. It might raise his sights slightly over white zin. You can get them for around $10 almost anywhere.
Otoh, the reason he likes white zin might be the sugar. Try a Qba - again, you can find them at reasonable prices.
I'd go easy on item #3.
Romantic Dinner in Ann Arbor, MI
For years the answer has been the Earle, and that would still be my choice. I haven't been in for a while, but the food is country French/Italian, they have arguably the best beverage service in the state (wine, etc.), very good table service, and the lights are low, there's a good live jazz piano trio in the background, etc.
As Jim mentioned, Earle Uptown is about to close, or already has.
I know a lot of people who like Eve, and a few people who don't like it at all. Nice room though.
I would not call Logan's room 'romantic'.
