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Lab rinse

Maze – My dining companion is unwell. Exceedingly unwell, in fact. Against our better judgment, we go ahead and attempt to keep this (sometimes difficult) reservation, made ages ago and reconfirmed twice. It might be our only chance.

As soon as we walk in, I know we’ve erred. We order a few small plates, hedging our bets despite the increasingly green face across from me. Fifteen minutes later, we’re out the door. In an act of kind generosity, they rebook us for two nights hence.

In between the greenness and the hasty departure, here’s a bit of an aborted mini-meal on my part, which I scarf while paying the check and hastily draining a few glasses of already-delivered wine. The delicious-sounding poached duck egg with Jerusalem artichoke velouté and a persillade of porcini (which initially presents itself, somewhat unfortunately, as a giant bowl of foam) is terrific at bite one, tedious by bite four. There’s no balance here, just incredible richness. I like richness, a lot, but there’s no respite, and this dish needs one. On the other hand, there’s also tea-smoked salmon with cauliflower, radishes, and apple vinaigrette. Here’s all the spare crispness that the other dish lacks as its counterpoint. The flavors are clearly delineated, though of course a plate like this relies much more on quality shopping than it does on high-skill kitchen techniques.

Anton Bauer 2009 Grüner Veltliner Rosenberg (Donauland) – Open, but it’s a small opening, spreading tiny white petals to show the (nicely) vegetal greenness within. There’s just a touch of the lurid to the aroma, but it’s a luridness that exists mostly in a nearby room, rather than right in front of the taster. Simple, nice, not really more than that. (2/11)

Josmeyer 2008 Gewurztraminer “Les Folastries” (Alsace) – Off-dry, with its minerality delivered in a waterfall of crystallization. Sweet lychee verging into peach, but with a clementine counterpoint, even a little mirabelle as it lingers. There’s power here without overt weight, and also without relying too heavily on the common crutch of sugar. Extremely nice. (2/11)

A few nights later, take two. More small plates to start, this time starting with a rabbit and foie gras terrine with accompaniments from both the porcine and dried plum genres. It’s very good, if just a touch dry. Next are quail, kohlrabi, and cauliflower with the spice of the souq and a burnt onion reduction. The combination is extremely flavorful, but suffers from the same issue as the poached egg: too many intense flavors in the same narrow band, which ends up (due to a longer-lingering aftertaste) being dominated by the onion char. Even the kohlrabi doesn’t help. Again, it would be preferable in a smaller quantity than is offered here, and this isn’t exactly a big plate.

The only unmitigated brilliant dish I’ll have here is the next: daurade atop squid Bolognese and garlic, with some sort of citrusy counterpoint and a lump of chorizo. The squid Bolognese is a brilliant idea, frankly, bringing land and sea together, and though I’d have preferred better integration of the chorizo into the dish, everything works in both isolation and tandem. After this, the better-sounding (on the menu, anyway) pork cheek and belly mini-choucroute is a bit of a letdown. I expect the choucroute concept to be taken somewhere individualistic, but other than the meats used, it’s really not. I like choucroute, and I like this. But I wouldn’t have to come to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and pay this much to get one I like equally well, and this isn’t exactly an Alsatian-sized portion.

Rice pudding with mirabelle finishes. It’s quite fine, but at this point I’m suffering from a bit of palate fatigue, so I’m not sure my faculties are in session.

Rereading the above, I see more carping than the restaurant really deserves. It’s good, service is attentive if a touch quick (they turn tables here, and it’s a huge restaurant with a lot of ground to cover), and while it’s expensive it’s not larcenous. But it is not, to borrow the Michelin parlance, worth a special trip. It’s more an “if you’re in the neighborhood” place…though it’s not a bad neighborhood to be in, for sure.

As for the wine list, it holds quality options for both conservative label-drinkers and wild-haired seekers of the alternative (naturalia, not so much), with the former of course being soaked for the maximum number of pounds, and the latter getting the better end of the deal. In other words, the normal state of affairs. Special note goes out to a more than decent by-the-glass selection.

Gosset Champagne Brut “Grand Rosé” (Champagne) – Simple and a little heavy, full of red-berry flavor but extremely linear and literal. Solid. (3/11)

Keller 2005 Spätburgunder “Selection” 38 07 (Baden) – Light-minded, with soft red fruit both yielding and a little plush despite an enveloping tan minerality. Just a touch of brett. Really quite beautiful and approachable, though it’s not blessed with much complexity. Maybe that will come. (3/11)

Trimbach 2008 Riesling “Réserve” (Alsace) – Sulfurous, though mildly so. Yet it does obscure. Underneath that sulfur there’s a heck of a wine…powerful, iron-cored, bracing…but I think this has been treated for the long haul, which it should have no problem enduring. Now, it’s just sulfurous. (3/11)

Disznókő Tokaji “Late Harvest” (Hungary) – Concentrated sweetness, copper, bronze, brass, molten candle wax, and amber. Some extremely concentrated apricot, as well, perhaps more as a honey flavoring than an actual fruit experience. Very clean, devoid of the style’s typical issues with volatility, and delicious. (3/11)

Ledaig 20 Year Scotch Whisky (Isle of Mull) – As broad a peat aroma as I’ve smelled in a Scotch. Not strong, just broad. Drinking this is to experience the sensation of consuming a Scottish woolen blanket. That, since it’s probably not clear, is a compliment. I really love this. (3/11)

Om nahm nahm

nahm – Upscale Thai. I know this exists in the States, here and there, but I’ve never heard anyone get particularly passionate about it. The Thai that foodish ’merican people love, in its restaurant form, is downscale, or at least midscale. And there is, of course, the plethorama of goopy, Americanized Thai places with the four-color-curry pick-your-meat menus, at which everything after the coconut soup is more or less a disaster.

Not here, though. David Thompson’s beautiful boutique hotel restaurant is as classy as any joint, albeit with a bit more wood-toned warmth. (Caveat: the music is excruciating elevator world-jazz, but no one’s perfect.) As for the service, it’s efficient more than warm. Normally, I would prefer this, but part of the game this restaurant plays is that there’s no hand-holding…you’re expected to know, or to not know and guess, rather than be gently guided through a menu that will, for non-Thai-fanatics, be largely unfamiliar…and one can always feel somewhat at sea aboard the truly unfamiliar. In any case, if there’s a question of construction or detail, there’s always Thompson’s parenthetically exhaustive, obsessively pedantic, and fussily brilliant cookbook.

I’ve been warned off the tasting menu, which would be my usual choice at such an establishment, by my frequent-guest dining companion as it apparently over-relies on dessert…rarely the strength of an Asian menu. So we trade off a hand’s worth of choices (i.e. five), covering what feels like a pretty wide range of styles.

And wide-ranging is what we get. First, the crusty caramelized chicken hash (I don’t have a better way to familiarize it) on sliced fruit that serves as an amuse. Then, pigeon larp with thinly-sliced bitter melon, bracingly scudded and about as far outside Western flavor norms as anything I’ve ever eaten. It’s very difficult to eat, to be honest, and yet it’s so different that the intellectual exercise is enjoyable in its own right. (The post-larp burn, however, is a companion for the rest of the night and well into the next afternoon.) Squid with snow peas, each black with the former’s ink, is so much more delicate than what’s preceded it, and perfectly cooked to two entirely different textures. A pair of soups follow, one a rich oxtail broth that plays familiar Thai melodies in a very rich, almost French-reminiscent broth, the other a frankly brilliant gourd soup that dances a very appealing flavor tango between the familiar and the unusual. Finally, there’s a massaman duck curry rich with what I call “baking spices” in the West – this is as close to dessert as we’ll get – and a clarion combination of briefly-seared venison slices with chiles and other Thai aromatics that cleans everything up and ties off the bow with its precise, almost spare, yet intense flavors.

All that sounds good, right? Well, not so much in toto. There are, frankly, way too many flavors in this meal. It’s our fault, not the restaurant’s, but the churning confusion on the palate is very difficult to deal with; rather than the satisfaction of a frontier explored, I’m left with organoleptic disarray, bewildered and a little overwhelmed. Next time, whether or not I choose the tasting menu, I’ll ask for some help with focus and linearity.

The wine list is extensive, and appears to be pretty decent (given the sort of food we’re eating, I scan the rich and aromatic whites, make a quick choice, and ignore the rest), albeit quite expensive. What I choose is a cultish Antipodal wine that I never see in the States.

Dry River 2008 Gewürztraminer (Martinborough) – Sneaky. Starts off very shy, then gradually opens; the ideal temperature, at least from a “cold” opening, is somewhere a little higher-temp than might be ideal for most gewürztraminer. Is what appears to be a lowish alcohol vs. the gewürztraminer norm a factor? It might be. The aromatic range includes rambutan and some stone fruit, nut oils, and roses, but everything is nicely restrained…even delicate…in comparison to the weighty power of which the grape is capable. Off-dry, but just that; this is in no way overtly sticky. Finishes long and a little tingly, with the promise of minerality to come. As the gewürztraminers of Alsace get heavier and sweeter, this is a nice respite. (2/11)

Weinbach Eau-de-Vie Poire William (Alsace) – Extremely intense, round, and fulsome, as stylistically befits any beverage from this house. Ripe pear, salt, minerality, sweat (an oddly regular component of this particular spirit, across producers and appellations). So much going on that the heat, which is not inconsiderable, actually takes a step back. I like this a lot. (2/11)

A narrow escape

The Narrow – Here on a Sunday, with a commanding window view of this fairly slick, newish-feeling (as much as a London neighborhood can be) stretch of the Thames, there’s only one thing to have. Sunday roast? Yes, please. The beef.

It’s Denham Vale cowflesh, and it’s really flavorful. As for the overall dish? Well, the thing is, I grew up eating beef (and pork) roasts approaching this quality pretty much every week in my chilly Norwegian-American home, so where for some culinary adventurers this sort of back-to-the-roots cuisine is somewhat of a novelty, for me it’s more akin to familial comfort that most of the locals are undoubtedly experiencing. It was for me, like it probably is for many here, the sort of meat-as-weekend-reward meal that was more special when it was unique, and is now less so in the deluge of carnivorism that makes up the modern Western diet. Though I can guarantee that my grandmother didn’t roast her potatoes in goose fat to an exquisite crunch, as they do here. The gravy’s problematic…a little too rich and reduced for the dish…the parsnips and Savoy cabbage nonentities, but between the potatoes and the mashed swede (that’s rutabaga for those who speak American English), there’s plenty of contrapuntal goodness on the plate, if one considers heavy, starchy things to be the proper counterbalance to sauced meat.

Lighthouse “Navigator” Doppelbock (British Columbia) – Dark, bitter, dark, spicy, dark, and dense. Very, very flavorful. And sorry, but I have to say it: this would be greatly improved with a little chill. The traditional ambient serving temperature does not suit this particular brew. (2/11)

Penderyn “Peated” Single Malt Whisky (Wales) – A mediocre whisky with a completely tacked-on layer of aromatic iodine. The oak is shockingly buttery, even beneath the peat. Not good. (2/11)

Crusting Pipe – An unexpected last-moment connection via social media (thank you, Mark Zuckerberg) leads us here to meet our French family, who have fallen in love with the city of London and on a whim have decided on a serendipitously simultaneous weekend getaway. There’s a somewhat worn but still interesting atmosphere inside despite the dubiously over-touristed Covent Garden location (though I don’t know about the forced entertainment in the courtyard), and a pretty dismal wine list, but I suppose one really isn’t here for the latter as much as the former. I enjoy myself despite what’s in my glass.

Mount Brown 2010 Sauvignon Blanc (Waipara) – Mineral-driven, which is to the good, with little tropicality and also no overt pyrazines. Unfortunately, lacking either and not having aught other than some rocks in their place, it’s wan. There could, and should, be more. I suppose I’d be kinder were this made from a less aggressive grape, but while I adore mineral qualities in my sauvignon blanc, it’s a grape that I think should bring some of its own expressiveness to the mix. Here, it doesn’t. (2/11)

Rules are made to be broken

British Airways – Along with a typically horrid procession from English breakfast (I’d still like to know how they induce the “tomato” to become a fusion reactor) and some weird sort of pastry that I just can’t face, there’s a little stealth bubbly courtesy of the overbooked business class folks moved to the steerage seats in front of me and a charitable flight attendant, who sighs that she “knew this bottle was going to be trouble” while she pours me the rest and holds a finger to her lips. Their loss, and compensation, is my gain. Despite the frequently dismal food, I do like this airline.

Lanson Champagne Brut (Champagne) – Sprightly with deeper tones. Not complex. Just basic, direct, flavorful bubbly. (2/11)

Rules – The oldest restaurant in London, is it? The oldest restaurant back in Boston is a disaster at which no one should eat, with a reputation (earned or no) for serving inedible food followed by a complimentary dessert of food poisoning. So the fact that this establishment is not only overloaded with character, but actually good, is rather shocking.

Dining late – right off the plane – is a disadvantage in that they’re out of quite a few things. Once the preemptive menu deletions have been dealt with, there’s also a missing oyster among the three we order. Between the duo that remain, the Brownsea Island Dorset Rocks, globular and intense, are so much more interesting than the dull and slightly bitter Wild Cumbrae Rocks oysters.

A rich, rich, rich Cornish shellfish soup follows, thick with ground-shell texture (this is increasingly apparent as one reaches the bottom of the bowl, where the broth is quite frankly crunchy, though I wouldn’t wish to sacrifice the flavor just because I’m afraid of a little chitin) and made even headier by the addition of apple brandy. Then: fillets of red deer with chanterelles and a trio of roasted beets. This is delicious food, but it’s extraordinarily heavy. It does, however, help prove modern English chefs’ argument that the “problem” with English food was never that the cuisine itself was bad, only that the cooking was atrocious.

In lieu of dessert, I choose herring roe on toast. This has to be something a Norwegian would like, doesn’t it? Ah…but this, too, is absent from stockage. After some whispered discussion between our waiter and his manager, we’re offered a compensatory plate of British cheeses, with what must be at least a cup of a delicious, creamy Stilton. The rest – a cheddar, a goat, a double-cream – are mostly forgettable, but the Stilton is terrific, especially countered with quince paste and an intriguing chutney-like condiment.

Service is attentive without fawning, and the décor can hardly be surpassed for mood-setting. The walls are filled with portraits and line-drawings of people that, by their pose and their visage, must have been important in their time, or at least considered themselves so. Now? They’re just art on a wall, forever gazing across the room at someone else who has suffered their lost-to-history plight. Thankfully, the food below has not fallen victim to amberization, and though it remains extremely rooted in the past, it’s full of life. This is a pretty fabulous experience, with an omnipresent sense of eating history that’s more enveloping than it is overwhelming. I kinda love this place.

Pierre Usseglio 2000 Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Rhône) – Aging in a clingy, somewhat sloppy fashion, not bringing much of tertiary interest to replace a fading fruit goopfest. It’s good, but it’s decidedly not very good. Dark berries, soil, black pepper, and simplicity from start to finish. On the positive side of “eh,” but still “eh.” (2/11)

Glendronach 33 Year Scotch (Speyside) – Cream, pepper, spice, old-growth forest. An electric zap of front fades, then re-emerges to a low-level fuzz on the finish. Quite compelling. (2/11)

The kids in the Hall

[windows]The Gorbals – Lacking any good way to describe this funky little hangout – that’s the vibe here, much more than “restaurant” – the chef has, on occasion, fallen back on “Kosher Scottish.” Well, it works as well as anything, I suppose, since there’s both haggis and bacon-wrapped matzo balls on the menu. The latter, much-hyped on the internets, are OK and amusing, but I have to say that pretty much everything else we try is better. The confit beef tongue, especially, is so luxuriant one wants to lick it from the plate in a misguided dalliance with bovine Frenching.

I will note several caveats. First, the wine list (such as it is, and there isn’t much) is absolutely abysmal. Have a cocktail or two from the daily board – they’re clever and very good here – but bring your own wine. Second, while I do successfully navigate a satisfying-to-all meal despite a vegan dining companion, it would be hard to argue that this isn’t a place aimed primarily at carnivores. Having an interest in alternative cuts and “parts” helps, too. It’s not Incanto- or St. John-like in terms of offal worship, though there are certainly organs on the menu, but if minor departures like beef cheeks or sweetbreads seem intimidating and weird, this is probably not the venue for you.

Caveats aside, this is a really fun place, built for grazing and conversation (though I suspect it can get rather noisy at peak times), rather than sitting down and tucking in. It’s casual, quite laid-back, and the sense of comfort and low-key whimsy carries though to the plate. I don’t know if this restaurant could succeed everywhere, just because the vibe is so anti-restaurant, but it certainly works here.

Dettori 2007 Romangia Bianco Badde Nigolosu (Sardinia) – 100% vermentino. Looks, tastes, and feels like an orange wine, though the maceration isn’t all that long (ten days). It’s perhaps that it’s unfiltered and un-everything-else that leads to an orange sort of palate impression, though there is evident tannin. The luxuriant yet not overly polished texture is the wine’s primary highlight (among rather a sea thereof). Dried white flowers, some fresher buds, grasses, herbs, dried citrus, leaves, minerality to spare, and gravity without weight, density without concentration. Brilliant wine. Absolutely brilliant. (11/10)

Dettori 2006 Romangia Rosso Badde Nigolosu (Sardinia) – 100% cannonau (grenache). Subtle, seeming to rise from its lotus position with a slow unfolding of limbs. The subtlety never really goes away, though, and those expecting a more standard Sardinian cannonau – that is, one with a big and fruity palate impact – might be disappointed. Well, their loss. This requires attention to its graceful swirls of dusty berry and rich, semi-volcanic earth. The finish is so quiet that the inattentive will consider it to have departed long before it actually does. Not as showily brilliant as the white, this has more peaceful charms, and they’re more than OK. (11/10)

6.02 * 10^23

[mural]Monte Alban (11927 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles) – Sleepy, despite the widespread acclaim it has received from friends and sources. Though I guess there’s no shortage of Mexican food in LA. As is somewhat typical for the better restaurants of this genre (and to be specific, I believe this restaurant tends towards Oaxacan cuisine), the opening nachos and their salsa are so amazing that much restraint is required, lest the heartily-portioned dishes to follow become impossible to finish. There’s molten cheese, ever-succulent huitlacoche, an Oaxacan mole with chicken…all of it excellent. But where are all the customers? They’re missing out, wherever they are.

Tasting the limits

[historic urn]The Tasting Kitchen – One of a number of restaurants I’ll encounter in LA whose menus are decidedly not designed for the typical course-by-course procedural, but rather for random sampling and plate-sharing. There are some dishes that look like “main courses” just based on their price, but frankly the very form of this sort of menu dissuades putting so many of one’s consumptive eggs in a single basket. I’m not sure if this is the intent or not, but it seems hard to understand what they’re doing here otherwise.

Some plates are a single idea (charcuterie, cheese, oyster), others a brief, tapa-like notion, and still others (mostly the aforementioned expensive items) are a more standard sort of composed dish. It’s a really fun way to eat, especially as – with a few exceptions – rigid adherence to completion while ordering is not required; one can order, eat, order, eat, order again, and so forth, pending the restaurant’s tolerance for table-hoarding.

Despite a clientele that tends upscale hipster and a deceptively simple yet “design-y” interior, the room has as relaxed a vibe as the food, which is very well-executed and yet really all about taste rather than preparation. (Given the fundamental simplicity of most plates, it kind of has to be.) I like this place..

Carballo 2008 Lanzarote Negramoll (Canary Islands) – Diffident. Never gets around to developing. It may be mild TCA that’s below my threshold, it may just be a muted or otherwise damaged wine, but there’s nothing on which to base a note here. (11/10)

Masters of their Domaine

[elements]Domaine LA – I’m here to visit a friend, but end up invited to sit through a few visits from bottle-toting sales reps who, if they mind my presence, don’t make a fuss about it. This plus auxiliary chat means that I don’t see as much of what’s on the shelves as I might like. What I do see, however, is impressive in its pointedness. I don’t mean the point-score kind of pointedness, I mean that there’s a point of view. Since I share it, that’s all to the good. But if you’re looking for wines to provide immediate public validation while drinking with those for whom such things are crucial to their enjoyment of same, you’re in the wrong place. This is a store where both the employees and the wines themselves would prefer to have a conversation with you before you start indulging.

(Given the above, it’s worth stressing: the wines notated below don’t necessarily reflect the offerings at Domaine LA. They’re what I tasted while I was there, but they were brought in by sales guys, not opened from in-store stock.)

Pietratorcia 2009 Ischia Bianco Superiore (Campania) – Sour lime, green apple, and saline solution. Gets right to the point, but then there isn’t any sort of coda. (11/10)

Pietratorcia 2009 Ischia Bianco Biancolella (Campania) – Papery. Grape skins. Not very interesting. (11/10)

Pietratorcia 2008 Ischia Bianco Superiore Vigne del Cuotto (Campania) – A softened version of the previous two wines, and bringing a lot more interest along with its mellow: ash, chalk, and dried lemon rind. Quite long, in stark contrast to its younger brethren. Interesting. (11/10)

La Grotta del Sole 2009 Gragnano della Penisola Sorrentina (Campania) – Strawberry soda pop with a little bite of tannin. Finishes green and somewhat dirty. This is not my favorite from the ever-more-frequently-imported rose-colored froth category. (11/10)

Kopke Dry White Porto (Douro) – Almond, hazelnut, chestnut. A bit hot. (11/10)

Kopke 10 Years Old Tawny Porto (Douro) – Bitter wood with maltiness (that’s a first, for me, in a wine) and raw cane sugar. Weird. (11/10)

Kopke 20 Years Old Tawny Porto (Douro) – Cherry skin, cough syrup, and ash. No thank you. (11/10)

Kopke 30 Years Old Tawny Porto (Douro) – Lush fruit, silken-textured and appealing except for the minor inferno on the nose. (11/10)

Kopke 1997 Colheita Porto (Douro) – Blueberry jelly. Really, this has an exceptionally gelatinous texture, more akin to a Mollydooker than any port of my experience. And while that’s interesting all by itself, it’s a very simple wine. (11/10)

Kopke 1987 Colheita Porto (Douro) – White pepper, raspberry, apple skin, and blood orange. Beautifully acidic, though I should caution that the acidity probably won’t be to everyone’s liking. Me, I love it. This is the most complete wine I’ll taste from this lineup, though for “best” it has some competition. (11/10)

Kopke 1980 Colheita Porto (Douro) – Balsamic-textured raspberry and red cherry, with sweet orange candy the lingering impression. Very, very, very sweet orange candy. High fructose colheita? (11/10)

Kopke 1978 Colheita Porto (Douro) – Mixed pepper dusts, coal-like minerality. Poised. Delicate throughout, and turns very shy at the end. Has the organoleptic appeal of a colheita at a good balance point of maturity, but the physical presence of one many decades past that point. Frankly, it confuses me. (11/10)

Kopke 1966 Colheita Porto (Douro) – One long crescendo of tangy fruit, then there’s some sort of accident due to clumsiness, and the finish dries out to decidedly unappealing wet ash. (This is, I should say, not at all an unusual impression for me to draw from colheitas that are past my preferred drinking age.) (11/10)

Kopke 1957 Colheita Porto (Douro) – Thinning, balding, starting to get a little skeletal, and yet extremely elegant. Brilliant acidity. Long and floral. Despite the fade, there’s a lot here to like. I suspect the price would not, for me, reflect my interest in the wine, but those with more of a taste for this sort of thing should give this a look, because the appeal is undeniable. (11/10)

Kopke 2007 Vintage Porto (Douro) – Black cherry coffee (just typing the words gives me a shudder), alternately sticky and powdery, with smooth tannin up front, then dusty tannin out back. Sort of like a port’s version of a tannin mullet? (11/10)

Kopke Fine Ruby Porto (Douro) – Simple, dark fruit with a touch of green sugar. (Not food-coloring green, underripe green.). An otherwise fine tannic counterpoint collapses into a pile of gormless powder as it finishes. Odd. (11/10)

Kopke Rosé Porto (Douro) – Eww. I say again: eww. Strawberry lime Rickey, ginger, and layer upon layer of makeup that someone in a sleazy off-strip Vegas mall beauty parlor though looked “hott.” Um, no. A world of no. (11/10)

Kimchee whiz

[womens’ commode]Park’s BBQ – Confident, even swaggering. That’s not just the design, nor the wallpapering of awards and press coverage in the entrance, but also the firm assurance of the proprietor that “you’ve come to the best place” as you sit. Well, I can’t adjudicate that, but it’s pretty awesome. Nor can I eat like this every day; I’m completely gorged when I leave. Meat over fire is the thing here, of course, both beef (heavy on the wagyu options, by the way, which is appealing in print but perhaps not best-suited to this particular presentation) and pork. As is traditional for this style of dining, the meat soon becomes almost lost in a vast ocean of accompaniments and accoutrements, many of them decidedly fiery. The meat is excellent, but it’s all the ways to mess with it once it’s on the plate that make Korean barbecue so incredibly delicious (and why I question the utility of Wagyu, which one is almost certainly going to overcook in this environment). Do bring your heat tolerance, because you’ll need it.

Lou, sir

[bar sign]Lou – I have to say this right up front: the aforementioned Lou (a fellow Minnesota escapee, by the way) provides on this night a silly quantity of wine and grossly undercharges me for it.

Anyhoo, this is a little wine bar/restaurant tucked into in one of those corner strip malls that, in any east coast city, would mean culinary disaster…a bad take on the sub/hoagie/grinder genre, mediocre pizza, or horrid MSG-instead-of-flavor Chinese takeout. Here in LA, it very often means something awesome, though that awesomeness is more typically confined to non-western foodstuffs. In any case, I doubt many people are casually driving down Vine, see the sign out front, and opine, “hey, honey, there’s a sign says ‘Lou’…let’s stop there and see about dinner.” Or, I dunno, maybe in LA people do exactly this sort of thing. But I suspect that, to be here, one has to want to be here. Well: I do.

I glance at the menu, which looks interesting, but I’m here on a Monday and so the fixed-price “Monday supper” is offered in its stead. Not in the mood for dessert and such, I fail to partake. Given the amount of wine I’m about to encounter, this is an exceedingly regrettable error of judgment, though I won’t necessarily realize this until the next morning’s head-throb. Instead, I snack my way through the menu’s grazing options: candied bacon, a light and delicious chanterelle and goat cheese tart, salad, bread (both natural and garlic-toasted), cheese, and so forth. Everything is fine to better-than-fine, and serves the wine well…and since wine is most definitely the focus here, that’s OK. Pretty much everything liquid is offered in two tasting sizes and by the bottle. As for what’s on the list: natural, “natural,” alternative, interesting. Not fully-described in most cases, so to know exactly what you’re drinking you’ll either need to see the bottle or have a conversation with one of the staff, and given how often aromas and tastes roam afield from the norm, I would highly recommend the latter. I suspect they would, too.

Laroche “Domaine aux Moines” 2001 Savennières-Roche aux Moines (Loire) – Layers of oxidation. Fulsome with a barky, drying palate. Snow globe-like with its swirling tartrates (and my pour is far from the bottom of the bottle). Copper-jacketed and starting to preserve itself in amber. I spend a good twenty minutes trying to decide if I like this, and never quite come to a conclusion. (11/10)

Bornard 2007 Arbois Pupillin Ploussard “La Chamade” (Jura) – Delicate and sweetly pretty, like a country girl in gingham and braids, or perhaps a Norman Rockwell portrait of same. Succulent. (11/10)

Tedeschi 2007 Monteviglio “Spungola Bellaria” Pignoletto (Emilia Romagna) – Pine and tarragon with a slight prickle, though the latter doesn’t rise to a fully tactile sensation, preferring to remain a background shade. Seems to sweeten or dry as each accompanying food requires, which is a neat trick, and a small glass taken an hour later has grown in both aroma and richness. Fabulous wine. (11/10)

Causses Marines 2008 Gaillac “Les Greilles” (Southwest France) – Lemon and ripe apple, but there’s more going on here than just a few fruit descriptors. It’s a kind of ineffable complexity, though, which is why my note stops where it does. There’s a sheen and a fairly deep core, but I couldn’t put a name or specific descriptor to either. Very good. (11/10)

Giard “Domaine du Manoir de Montreuil” Cidre Pays d’Auge “Cambremer” (Normandy) – Absolutely opaque and luridly aromatic; the Islay Scotch of ciders. There’s more pear than apple, at least to my palate, but the apples are something fabulous and iconic (perhaps reine des reinettes), and there’s a heavy hand with the white pepper grinder as the finish develops. Extraordinary. (11/10)

La Casaccia 2007 Barbera del Monferrato (Piedmont) – Presents itself with a smooth slickness, but soon gives its true self away: vibrant acidity, dark and rough-necked minerality, and a fair bit of churn and motion. It finishes as pristine and poised as it started. Experience suggests that this is a wine that rewards aging, and it is quite primary right now. (11/10)

Los Bermejos 2008 Lanzarote Tinto (Canary Islands) – I’ve never tasted this much spice in a red wine, not even a lavishly-oaked one. If Penzeys released a wine, it might taste like this. The dominant spices include nutmeg and mace, coriander, white pepper, and turmeric. So, so, so exotic. And – pardon the expletive, but it’s needed here – fucking delicious. This is the first quarter-glass that, by the end of the night, turns into a fully-drained bottle. (11/10)

Gramenon 2009 Côtes-du-Rhône “l’Élémentaire de Gramenon” (Rhône) – Firm tannin leftover from creating the leather sofa on which this wine lounges. Blackberry fruit-leather as well, plus an herbal stew. This tastes as much like a chinato as it does a Côtes-du-Rhône, and that’s an interesting conflation of styles. Challenging. (11/10)

Bebame 2009 Red (El Dorado County) – It takes me a long time to move past an active dislike for this wine into a wary tolerance, but ultimately I’m happy when my glass is empty of it. Tart, puckery fruit (not overly acidic, though there’s plenty of that, but without enough generosity to support the acid that’s there), underripe melon, sour greenness, green sourness. I feel like I should like this more, given that my favorite California winemaker is involved, but I just don’t. (11/10)

Barral 2007 Faugères Valinière (Languedoc) – Spicy mixed berries and cumin seeds. Quite tannic, but it’s a beautifully ripe tannin, and everything is both concentrated and in flawless balance. This is terrific now, but the question is whether or not anyone will wait long enough for it to be the even better wine it should become, many years from now. Masterful. (11/10)

Domaine de la Tour Vieille Banyuls “Vin de Meditation” (Roussillon) – Rancio, plum, and caramel. The first sip is enticing, the second tiresome…and that, unfortunately, is too often my reaction to this house’s various takes on Banyuls. So drink it in single-shot quantities, I guess. (11/10)

Primitivo Quiles “Fondillon” Alicante “Gran Reserva” (Levant) – “The best sherry I’ve had all year,” I joke. I’m not even sure if the joke’s true, but it’s a pretty extraordinary wine in that style, volatile, pointing and gesturing at oxidation, and mold-influenced (in a stylistically authentic way). It’s really big, though, and there’s not much subtlety to it at the moment. Maybe that will emerge and maybe it won’t, but it’s hard to ignore, and eventually the din is very slightly wearisome. Another wine for small-quantity consumption. (11/10)

Vin d’Autan de Robert Plageoles & Fils 2001 Gaillac Doux (Southwest France) – Silkily-sweet bronzed apples and syrup-cured citrus. Extremely appealing. (11/10)

Overnoy 2005 Arbois Pupillin (Jura) – Loaded with bretty stench (or maybe it’s reductive; frankly, I’m thirteen jibs to the sheet by this point in the evening and could be drinking stealth Franzia for all that I know, yet my notes indicate surety that there’s brettanomyces, and I probably shouldn’t second-guess). One will either be able to get past that or not. The wine underneath the assreek has the sort of breezy power that lovers of syrupy wines don’t think something this light can actually have. Well, they’re wrong. Potentially fabulous, if one is not sensitive to whatever’s stinking up the joint, or if there’s bottle variation…which isn’t exactly unheard of at this house. (11/10)