Category — food_and_drink

This is just a quick post to show off the Nestle Aeroccino milk frother in case any of the readers who have landed here searching for my Illy Francis Francis X8 vs Nestle Nespresso posts need some info about the frothers.

Just some background- I don’t really need an auto-frother (or semi-auto) but a friend picked one up so I grabbed one too on a whim.

Short review: The frother is actually pretty fun and froths milk for cappuccinos much better that I thought it would. Perfect temp, and perfect foam. If you have a pod machine and you don’t have a frother, I’d definitely recommend picking one of these up- especially if you have guests over who like milk drinks.

On to the vids!

note- I was really really tired this morning. I have no idea why I decided to make these vids, but did anyway. Yes I look and sound like crap. Thanks

Vid 1

Vid 2

The other night I met fellow ex-pat San Antonian Jeff H. at Cav Wine Bar on Market St. to catch up and chat and to have some good wine and food.

The last wine I tried really stood out and I wound up buying a bottle to take home (the bar sells retail bottles). It was a Jenke Merlot, and I really recommend it. I think it was under $25 if I recall correctly.

Just a warning though- it has a funky/leathery/earthy bouquet that I love with my wines, and especially with my “food” wines. But I know some of you don’t like those qualities, hence the warning.

Keep an eye out for it- or let me know what you think if you’ve already had it.

thin mints and a cappa? why not?

I went to a Gigondas/Vacqueyras  tasting at Kenny & Patrick’s recently and thought I’d throw up some notes from the evening in case any of you were interested.

The wine is mostly Grenache blend and is referred to a lot as “The Poor Man’s Chateauneuf du Pape”. Good enough for me as I like Grenache, and I’m poor! For those that aren’t familiar with the name or style, take some time and grab a bottle or 12 the next time you’re shopping. There are some good deals out there- especially if you’re a Grenache or Frenchie fan.

We did a blind tasting again and rated wines on a 100 point scale. The top 3 wines in the night were all $20, and there were a few in the $15 range.

My chicken-scratch scrawled notes:

-would like/prefer any of these with food (as opposed to just coming home for a glass)
-in a straight-up tasting they weren’t distinctive from each other greatly and will probably have a very tight scoring range
-similar characteristics were: slight astringency in the finish, thin but well-structured with good balance – good old-world characteristics

The top 3 (out of 18) were:
2007 Domaine Notre Dame des Pallieres ($20)
2007 Andrieux & Fils ($21)
2007 Domaine Le Couroulu *
*I brought this last one, it’s a Vacqueyras, and was $19 at K&L

I recommend all of them - although I did write down that I prefer them with food a lot more, so take my notes with a grain of salt (or side of lamb)

OTHER STUFF:
Personally, I’m trying to get away from scoring wines I did in the past- I prefer Dave’s method of “recommended” (or not) that he has on his blog.

Last night I opened a sparkling Torrontés and was quite impressed with it. It’s light and sweet. It would go great with dessert, but it was a nice & fresh way to start off some appetizers of cheese and other things. There was just enough acidity to complement the cheese well. I’m a big fan of Torrontés in general and hadn’t heard of a sparkling version. It was an interesting change of pace.

2008 Familia Schroeder “Deseado” Sparkling Torrontes Neuquen Patagonia $15 – recommended

I’ll have some more notes soon, but these were the most interesting standouts for February so far.

I met up with my friend Brandon after work today for some vino at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant. Tried some various wines, and I thought I’d pass along some recs from some of the ones tonight as well as some I’ve had recently.

Unfortunately the FPWM’s wine list on the site seems a bit outdated, so I can’t link to their descriptions.

Anyway I liked an Argentinian wine called El Porvenir de Los Andes Laborum Tannat. I thought it was pretty balanced but had a uniqueness to it on both the nose and palate. I’m going to go back and buy a bottle to try with dinner some time soon.

Brandon had a really nice petite sirah from Switchback (pretty sure it’s - Switchback Ridge Petite Sirah Peterson Family Vineyard)… I have a feeling that a bottle may be out of my price range based on a quick search on CellarTracker but I’d *definitely* like to get a bottle of it and decant it with a really nice meal. It was big and complex and had a lot of stuff going on.

Other recommendations-

A NZ Sauvignon Blanc called Southern Lights (K&L has it). You might as well get a few bottles while this Indian Summer lasts… (very very affordable)

An affordable Aussie pinot noir called “Permutations” from R Wines (also at K&L). I really liked this a lot. It’s hard to read the label on the shelf (blurry phone pic over there). I was looking for it and walked right by it multiple times until Gretchen pointed it out. So either talk to the wine merchant or hang out with Gretchen. I prefer the latter… ;-)

Also- tomorrow the FPWM is hosting an event with Mollydooker Wines. I can’t make it, but if you’re in the area, you should go. Mollydooker wines are good and they’re also responsible for creating the “Mollydooker shake”!

Check it out (it works on a lot of different wines too, even those not bottled in nitrogen sometimes):

So I went to a well-known (and good) SF Restaurant recently with my parents and some good friends and had an annoying experience at the very end of our meal (we had just signed our bills).

At our table, while we were chatting and talking and the table behind my parents ordered a sparkling wine. During one of my mom’s stories, it suddenly felt like we had all been sneezed on by a great dane.

I could see that it had something to do with the waitress who opened the sparkling wine behind my parents, but couldn’t tell what had happened – and that table was all smiles and laughter.

But I looked down at some of the splashed liquid and realized it wasn’t just wine, it was grimy poo.

My immediate thoughts were:

1. damn, that’s a lot of poo in that wine, they should send it back. It’s either spoiled and they don’t know it, or the waitress knows and isn’t going to say anything. I couldn’t tell if it was wine poo (like lees) or rotting cork poo.
2. wait a sec, I bet this POO just went all over the back of my parents

Sure enough… my dad noticed and was pretty hacked off.

I was looking at the waitress who opened the bottle and had sprayed us- I was about to motion her over. She looked right at me and walked off. Our waitress saw this though and walked over and said she’d get the manager who came over and apologized and got some Wine Away to spray on my dad’s shirt.

Fyi- Wine Away is for red wine removal… not wine poo lees and cork poo.

The manager was trying to tell my dad about the wine needing to be opened upside down because of a sediment cap and then mentioned it had to be opened in water because of sediment cap yadda yadda, it needs a special tool, the waitress who was opening it hadn’t opened one before…. (that last tidbit annoyed me having worked in restaurants before, it’s a lame excuse)

My dad said that if that’s the case, it should have been opened in the kitchen, and by someone who had opened one before.. .

Anyway, we left… we weren’t going to get in a throwdown or anything – I’m not suggesting that, it was an accident, they apologized and I’ll leave it at that…

But my wine geekiness came out and I wanted to look up what the hell the manager was talking about. Because I had no idea what she meant by a “sediment cap” and thought her saying they needed a tool… under water… and sediment cap were … fishy at best.

But first, some background on champagne and sparkling wine. Please bear with me.

I’m oversimplfying here- but there are just a few ways to get the kick ass bubbles in your sparklers:

1. Injecting CO2 (like in soft drink production… lame)
2. metodo italiano (what they use making prosecco… 2nd fermentation in tanks, bottle under pressure) much better
3. méthode champenoise – a bigger pain in the ass, but the rewards one gains! that’s why we love well-made champagne!
4. just to list #4…. there are other ways, but meh

(read  the wikipedia article about Disgorging)

When you make sparklers… especially with the méthode champenoise (or methode traditionelle)… there’s a stage where you add yeast and sugar in the 2nd fermentation.

Well, this produces cloudy poo. The makers will then store the bottle so the poop falls into the neck (riddling or remuage in French). They then will freeze the wine and uncap it so the poop flies out and the bottle is quickly capped (disgorgement).

So what was the deal with what happened at the restaurant from part 1?

It turns out that there *is* a sparkling wine from a Slovenian winemaker called Movia (Movia – Puro) that does NOT do disgorgement before shipping their wines.

They’re meant to be stored cork down so the lees (poop) are collected in the neck of the bottle.

And as a consumer *you* actually do need to remove the lees before consuming it (or your waitperson must). And in some cases you *do* need a special tool to open the bottle (this may vary by year/bottle though according to my research)

And the manager of the restaurant was correct, the winery says you should store and open them upside down. And you really do need to open them under water.

Here’s a pic from The Gray Market Report blog of Movia’s owner opening one of his bottles so you get a better picture of what I’m trying to describe:

this pic is from the gray market report blog, I didn't take it

notice that water’s not clear anymore… looks like a homebirth in a tub

(that pic was near my office in SF, probably at an event at the Americano across from the Ferry Bldg) I’ll also post some youtube vids below.

But here’s where my questions come up

1) Isn’t this a giant pain in the ass from a drinking-it-at-home consumer standpoint? (Maybe I wouldn’t think that if I owned big glass punchbowls).

2) From a restaurant standpoint, I don’t know if I would stock this wine if it meant that
a) my staff needs a special process/tools to open it
b) my staff needed special training on the process
c) even at the cost of retail (about half of what the restaurant charges) there may be better (both from a quality standpoint and *yield* for my business standpoint)
d) I may need to *store* it differently

3) Does the novelty outweigh the quality of the wine?

#3 is a big one for me.

What’s going to sway me to try the Movia If I can go to K&L and get a direct import Frank Bonville champagne (or any other sparkler/champagne from K&L that they recommend) for the same price.

Yes I know I’ll try the Movia at some point (in a glass as opposed to having it sprayed on me…. ) and maybe it is better than some cremants, sparklers and other champagnes I can get… but

4) doesn’t it seem like lazy wine making? Is the producer asking too much from the consumer? — oh, buy a special tool to open this… watch this video first… okay, you’ll need a tub of water too… oh and uhh, yeah, you need to store this bottle in a way that you may not be able to do.

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for reviews and scores on CellarTracker and other wine sites. Hopefully they’re objective about the wine only and not the showy opening/disgorgement.

What do you think?

Oh here are two vids- an Italian Sommelier opening a bottle (quite deftly) and a video from the owner opening one– and in this video he has a 2nd generation “tool” that he’s not using in the pics I linked to earlier.

via Dobianchi.com:

and

I don’t think Il Cantuccio over in the Mission (on 16th @ Guerrero) gets enough credit and more of you should go there. I just got back from eating there with my family and everyone’s dish was spectacular.

A few weeks ago I helped Paul & Stef and their crew harvest chardonnay grapes down in Woodside at the Chain d’Or Vineyard. I posted a few pics here on flickr.

But Paul & Stef have kept their blog up to date with the progress of the winemaking. Today’s post shows the status of that same chardonnay grape harvest as it moves from tank to barrel. Go check it out.

Oh, and as in this post, they have updates on the “exploding baby poop carboy”.

Here’s a pic of Paul moving stuff with the magic pump from their blog:

I think I underestimated how many people were interested in the Francis Francis X8. The post I wrote called “Update on the Illy (Francis Francis X8)“  is one of my top-read posts and easily is tops in google search referrer terms according to my getclicky.com tracking stats.

I still get a lot of emails and questions about that post and comparing the Illy coffee  to the Nespresso coffee and questions about comparing the two companies’ machines.

But I got an email from my dad that may help some of you googlers out there who were still on the fence about which machine they want to buy.

Yes, his Francis Francis X8 machine died broke again:

If you were thinking of buying an Illy (and I don’t think you were) – don’t. Mine broke again.  Same problem, water leaking out of base instead through brew head. They are going to fix it again – however, I think that they have a design flaw and I will probably try to get rid of mine before the warranty period is up. The customer service person said that my type of machine was not built to the same standards as their more costly machines – not her words – but my inference. That one of the hoses was just fasted to another area with a clip and that pressure could force it loose

When he was speaking to Customer Service above he was speaking to Francis Francis’ Customer Service- and again, to their credit, they’re really nice and have handled his issues promptly. (I work in Customer Service btw).

He did talk to Illy’s Customer Support too:

Today I called Illy customer service (different from Francis Francis customer service that I called earlier this week, but I don’t know their financial ties) and told them that they should look into this design flaw because if my machine broke again they would be losing a customer for their coffee. Nice person, but who knows if she will pass it on or not

Again, I hope this helps any of you comparing pod machines.  I had said before that I’m still a Rancilio Silvia guy, but I do like some things about pod machines at times. (see also comment #4 ). So *if* I were buying one, I’d get a Nespresso like my dad’s, and even though the Nespresso had the slight edge before, it now has a huge gap…

So I spoke about this in the videos, but the recipe I kind of followed the most was from Homesick Texan’s Dr Pepper Sticky Ribs Recipe.

The main differences though-

1) The rub- the main difference was that I didn’t have brown sugar, so I used the cane sugar I like for my espresso, and I didn’t use too much. I’ll list my rub ingredients below.

But the main thing in the rub was that I was running out of pepper. As in, lame shaker pepper. I just have peppercorns. So I put a bunch of them down on my table and hand-crushed them using the back of a ramekin. A lot of the peppercorns weren’t too crushed because of this, they were chunky- and that carried over to the ribs – it surprisingly even added some heat.

2) I didn’t use Dublin Dr. Pepper and

3) I made big changes in the glaze/sauce. Why did I do that? Because I was about out of all groceries and didn’t feel like going shopping, so I improvised.

Her glaze (which I’m sure is damn good):
2 cups of Dr Pepper
1 cup of ketchup
1/2 cup of mustard
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons of molasses
2-4 teaspoons of chipotle powder

Mine:
2 cups of Dr Pepper
1 cup of ketchup
1/2 cup of mustard
**1/4 cup of wine/rice & balsamic vinegar (I was out of almost all vinegars)
**3-4 tablespoons of Agave Syrup (I didn’t have any molasses)
**4 teaspoons of chipotle powder (I maxed out on this)
2 teaspoons of ancho chile
1 Tablespoon of Comino (Cumin)

Rub:
1/4 cup of salt
**1/4 cup of black pepper – see pepper comment above
1/4 cup of brown sugar cane sugar
4 teaspoons of mustard powder I ran out of mustard powder making this, I think I added more chipotle
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne ancho chile powder
2 teaspoons of chipotle powder
1/2 teaspoon of allspice out of allspice, I used cumin

Again, I think that the 1/2 “shaker” pepper and 1/2 peppercorn mix turned out pretty well, I should think about getting a mortar and pestle though (or a much bigger pepper grinder).
And just a warning – if you don’t like spiciness, back off on the chipotle- I like it spicy and love that smoky pepper taste and smell though.