Here are some of the wines I had and restaurants I went to past week... It was another eventful one.
We were invited to a "wine inventory" party at our friends' house in Pasadena. They are moving to Seattle...:-(, I'll miss them! The husband has a HUGE wine collection, so the friends gathered to help him taking inventory of hundreds of cases of premium wines. Meanwhile, he opened so many nice bottles, and we enjoyed tasting wine and eating yummy appetizers.
This is my friend's donabe collection! And, since I couldn't stay for dinner, they generously opened 1985 Joseph Drouhin, Nuits-Saint-Georges, "Les Roncieres" for me. As soon as the wine was poured into the glass, I smelled the beautiful bouquet of roses. It was so elegantly smooth with the flavors of berries, earl grey, and earthiness. Really gorgeous.
In the evening of the same day. I was invited to another friend's birthday party. She, who is the birthday girl, kindly cooked the dinner for the guests! The theme was Persian and the dishes were so authentic and delicious.
Then, we drank more wines. 2004 Domaine de Courcel, Pommard 1er Cru, "Les Rugiens" was one of the wines I brought. Despite the vintage, the wine was so dense and perfumy. After all, it's the "manly" Les Rugiens by Yves Confuron. It could've be cellared for more years, I thought. Big, yet beautifully balanced Pommard.
Udon lunch at Oumi Sasaya in Lomita. They make authentic "Kansai" style udon dishes. Their homemade udon noodles are made from the specially selected flour from Japan. Dashi stock is made with the kombu, and bonito from Shikoku region of Japan. I had the "Tori-nanban Tamago-toji" (egg and chicken) udon, and it totally hit my spot. Jason had the curry udon and shrimp tempura and mochi. He loved it! Their homemade udon had the very nice smooth texture and great. They have the udon-suki (udon hot pot) menu, as well as donabe tagine dish for dinnertime only. So, I would love to come back here for dinner next time (although it's a drive from where I live)!
Back in Robata Jinya with different friends for lunch. They didn't have the "Premium" tonkotsu ramen, this time. I had the tonkotsu ramen with cha-shiu and gyoza dumpling toppings. We also had some robata skewered items. My ramen was another impressive quality, and skewers were good, too. I also feel the good vibe in this place. Good job!
Yakitori dinner at Kokekokko in Downtown Little Tokyo with a girlfriend. This place has recently celebrated its 23rd year anniversary, and it's always packed. We sat at a counter and enjoyed the yakitori with the wines we byob'ed. My favorites were liver yakitori and quail eggs. My friend knows the owner, "Tomo-san", very well, so he gave us some special treats including the chicken ramen from their "secret menu"!
The wines shined so well with the their yakitori cooked over binchotan charcoal. 2006 Domaine Paul Autard, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, was meaty, spicy, and aromatic. This is 70% Grenache, 15% Syrah, ant 15% Counoise. No Mouvedre. 2006 Vieux Chateau Saint-Andre (AC Montagne St-Emilion)...85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc. My friend in Bordeaux personally knows Jean-Claude Berrouet, who makes this wine (now his sone Jean-Francois has taken over?) and had been a winemaker for Petrus for over 40 years. The wine was so elegant and did reminded me of Ch. Magdelaine. Dark berry, mocha, milk chocolate, earth, on the nose. Palate was so smooth with the long finish.
Dinner at my friend's house in Silverlake. Escargots were really nice with 2002 Domaine des Comtes Lafon, Meursault. The wine had the elegance and weight with the ripe fruit aroma and nutty bouquet. She also made coq au vin in donabe! It was beautiful with 2005 Domaine Maume, Gevrey-Chambertin, "Aux Etelois". The wine was a bit tight in the beginning but started to open up in 15 minutes or so. Juicy dark berries, chocolate, and rich tannins.
Cheese dinner at another friend's house in Los Feliz. She just came back from Paris with a lot of cheese! There were comte, livalot, camembert du Normandie, etc. They were superb, and 7 of us enjoyed the treat with different kinds of salads and side dishes. 2003 Domaine Rollin Pere & Fils, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru, "Les Fichots" was showing beautiful with the candy fruits, tea smoke, berries, and round texture.
2008 Burgundy Tasting (Part 1) at Palate Food + Wine...we tasted 11 wines by Benjamin Leroux and Camille Giroud, both of whom I visited this past April. I tasted most of their 2008 vintages with them in Burgundy, but wanted to revisit. Very interesting.
On the same evening, I returned to Palate Food + Wine for Halloween dinner party. We were a group of 6 friends and all showed up in costumes. I had a blast! Chestnuts risotto, and chicken leg were fantastic. 1996 Ceretto, Barolo Bricco Rocche, Prapo was so showy after decanting, and I was so excited about it.
October ended nicely...
