2004 Paraduxx Napa Valley Red Wine

True. I was drawn to this wine by the label and the name – Paraduxx. Never heard of it but sounded very interesting. It is Napa Valley blended red wine. But what really struck me is that this is a true Californian red wine – the blend is made from Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. Yes, Zinfandel. In fact 2004 vintage has 65% of it. This, I had to try. And the winery is owned by the Duckhorn Family, the owner of the Duckhorn Vineyards, famous of its Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Paraduxx’s label features artist-label series, where different artists are picked for each vintage to show case their paintings of ducks native to the Pacific Flyway. 2004 vintage is the eleventh in this series and Andrew Denman was picked to showcase his acrylic painting of a pair of Wood Ducks in their natural habitat.

According to Paraduxx’s website, it describes the artist as:

“… an artist known for capturing diverse subjects, including wildlife, landscapes, and still life, in an equally diverse range of styles. Whether paining an animal in its natural habitat or juxtaposing it against an abstract background, Denman goes to great length to faithfully portray his subjects.”

The wine has strong fruity aroma – dense cherry and blackberry. At first, you can taste chocolate flavor, and a hint of licorice. Then follows with soft tannin – not overly powering. Medium body and long finish. It did not disappoint and kept me interested till the end.

B. Cafe

B. Café is a Belgium bar and café in the Upper East Side. You walk down few steps from the street and you walk into the bar filled with patrons, even on weeknights. It has the feel of a neighborhood bar where patrons are all locals. Feels very much at home. It is a great place to stop by on the way home from work with your friends. It is also a place where you can drop by on late Saturday night after dinner for few more drinks.

I went there for the first time this past weekend. The bar area is in the front while the dinning tables are in the back. It serves variety of Belgium beers – some from the tap and others in bottles. There are other drinks as well. And best of all, it will not break your wallet – the drinks are reasonably priced (for NY standard). On weekends, the bar area is opened till late so you can enjoy the drinks and company.

Next time, I’ll try out the food menu. Try the mussels and frites.

B. Café
240 E. 75th St.
(bet. 2nd & 3rd Aves.)
Manhattan, NY 10021
212-249-3300

Seoul Garden

There is a lot of Korean restaurants on 34th Street between Broadway and 5th Ave (a.k.a. Korean Town). Last Saturday, it was very cold. So decided it would be nice to have hot tofu soup – and “hot”, both in terms of spicy hot and hot hot. I called my friends and had a group of us try out Seoul Garden. The restaurant is big – take us a huge space on a 2nd floor of a building. No problem getting seated. The place is well known for its natural tofu soup. But the menu is also filled with other Korean food.

We ordered pajun and jap chae for the table. They brought different side dishes, like kimichi, pickles, and potato salad. Each of us ordered tofu soup as the main dish. I also ordered the set menu where in addition to the tofu soup came Korean BBQ (or kalbi). Tofu soup came in different levels of spiciness – very mild, mild, spicy, and very spicy. I tried the very spicy. It was hot, but bearable. It was actually great way to warm up the body in cold New York winter nights.

Seoul Garden
34 West 32nd ST. 2nd Fl. (Between 5th AV. and Broadway)
New York, NY 10001
(212) 736-9002

2003 Peju Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Estate Bottled

As I was browsing through my local wine shop, this bottle caught my eyes. With a name like “Peju”, it is hard to ignore. Peju Province Winery was founded by Tony and Herta Peju in 1982. The winery was named “Winery of the Year” by Wine & Spritis Magazine; and has grown for 30 acre ranch to 380 acres in 1999. The Peru family is looking to grow further.

Peju Province Winery produces a wide range of wines – Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and other rare wine.

2003 Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley was quite pleasing. It was not overwhelming like other Cabs from Napa Valley. The aroma of dark cherry and vanilla welcomed me as I opened and poured the wine. First sip tasted with vanilla followed by toasty oak flavor. It held its tannin through its long finish.

I want to try their Cabernet Franc.

Kanoyama

We met a family in New York some time ago and have gotten to be good friends and hang out together periodically on weekends. Like us, they also love to try out the restaurant scene in New York. So, they have been bugging us for a while to try out a Japanese restaurant in East Village called Kanoyama. It has received high Zagat rating with comments like “still a secret” and “one of Manhattan’s best sushi options.”

We finally decided to check out what the hype is all about. In fact, we decided to go with the family that recommended and another family friend. On weekends, the restaurant does not take reservations. So we decided to go early and arrived around 6:00pm. It was beginning to fill-up. And by 6:30pm, it was a full house. And pretty soon, a queue started to form which seemed to have gotten longer as time passed. Interestingly enough, the patrons were mostly non-Japanese/non-Asian.

I started off with a bottle of microbrew beer imported directly from Japan, which is very rare in New York. The name of the brewery is Hitachino and they served two kinds – classic and white ale. I had the white ale, which was quite nice. Smooth with fruity aroma and taste. It was a pleasant way to start the evening and the meal. Then the group decided to order a half bottle of sake – Sawanoi Daikarakuchi – very dry and quite smooth.

We began with few appetizers. Half of a sea urchin shell filled with sea urchin from Maine – which we ate by dipping them into a bowl of cold salt water, like shabu-shabu. Wow – the sea urchin melted like butter and the salt water actually brought out the sweetness of the sea urchin. Never had sea urchin like this before. Then came what I call the “fatty” salmon. It is the belly of salmon (equivalent to “toro” of tuna). It was grilled. This was wonderful. Crispiness of the skin balanced out well with the meat. It was moist with the fat that did not overwhelm and quite sweet.

Then we order “omakase” sashimi and sushi courses. Although the fish was quite fresh (mostly imported directly from Japan) and very good, I was not overly impressed. It was like any other reputable sushi restaurants in Manhattan. Perhaps all the hype really set my expectation high and was more of a let down. We also order few additional pieces of sushi ala cart. One sushi which I enjoyed very much was nama-dako (raw octopus). It is rare to find nama-dako in Manhattan, so it was a nice way for me to finish the dinner in a high note.

Overall, it was a good restaurant and we’ll go back there again. I’m not sure if we are willing to wait in a queue. The food is good and service was excellent. The staff did tell us that its been difficult to get good fish that weekend. So we will try again and perhaps manage our expectation next time. Hope they have better selection of fish.

Kanoyama Japanese Restaurant
175 2nd avenue (11th street)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 777-5266
http://www.kanoyama.com

New Year's Eve 2006

It is customary in Japan to eat soba-noodles on New Year's Eve. I guess its like how Americans eat roast turkey on Thanksgiving. There are many theories on the origin of this tradition. One theory dates back to the Edo-period in the 1600's. A goldsmith of the period came up with the idea of using soba-noodle dough to clean his shop on New Year's Eve by kneeding the dough to pick up the gold dust and particles. The more popular and well-known theory is that eating "noodles" brings longivity symbolyzed by eating "long" noodles. No matter what the origin of the tradition is, most Japanese families have soba-noodles on New Year's Eve to bid farewell to the year that is about to pass and look forward to the new year that is about to begin.

So every year in our household, we also find a way to partake in this tradition. When we lived in St. Louis, it meant buying packaged dry soba-noodles at Mitsuwa Japanese Supermarket in Chicago, making the soup ourselves, and eating them at home. During the three years that we lived in Tokyo, there were many popular and famous shops that sold their fresh soba-noodles. In most cases, advance reservation was a must. So we did exactly that - placed our order in advance and cooked them at home to enjoy with family. One year, we actually waited in a queue outside of the restaurant for over 90 minutes in the cold weather for one of the best soba-noodle I've had in my life.

New Year's Eve 2006 was no different. We debated whether to go out or order in. We decided to go out. We had heard from friends that "Sobaya" in East Village is one of the best soba-noodle shops in NY Manhattan. So we planned ahead with another family friend and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, this place does not take reservations for dinner. So we went there ready to wait in queue if necessary to have the best soba-noodle in NY. Of course other Japanese and New Yorkers had the same idea. On our way there in the cab, our friend called and said that there is at least a 90-minute wait (and it was still 6:00pm). Fortunately, the restaurant allowed us to leave our names and phone number so that we can do other things while we wait. So we waited at a near by tea house. The wait was actually not that long. We got the call after about 50 minutes.

The wait was worth every minute of it. The soba-noodle is actually made right in the restaurant. There was a soba maker in the restaurant, kneeding the dough. I ordered the "ten-zaru" or cold soba with tempura. Fresh soba-noodle was cooked just right - not too soft and not too hard. It was balanced, the right amount of buckwheat flour ("soba" flour) and wheat flour, so that I can actually taste the "soba" flour. A nice way to close out 2006.

We also ordered some appetizers for the table - tuna wrapped in yuba, shrimp shumai, and goma-ae. We were disappointed that they were out of dashi-maki.

The service was friendly and attentive, in spite of the fact that it was probably the busiest night of the year.

Would go back again - next time try other things on the memu. They all looked good. Ten-don sounded quite attractive.

Sobaya
229 East 9th Street
New York, NY 10003
212-533-6966
www.sobaya-nyc.com

Discrimination at Japanese Restaurants

I've noticed some things about certain Japanese restaurants in NY. They discriminate. Some discriminate against Japanese customers while others discriminate against non-Japanese customers.

It is customary in the States to leave a tip at a restaurant for good service (and lets leave aside the discussion on whether one should or should not leave a tip for bad or no service for another day). However, in many countries, tipping is not something that is part of their daily routine, including Japan. So tipping at restaurants in New York is not easy for many Japanese patrons. And it may be that some Japanese patrons do not leave tips when they go out to eat in New York - whether because they are not used to doing it, or they feel awkward about it, or that they are simply too cheap. What I have heard from my friends is that some Japanese restaurants will "add" the tip on the check if the patrons are Japanese while they do not if the patrons are non-Japanese. There are many restaurants that ill add 18% grantuity for parties of X or more. And they are indicated on the menu upfront. What I'm referring to here is that if the wait person hears Japanese spoken at a table, they will "add" the tip. I have never experienced this personally (as I typically speak English), I have friends who have and they were not very happy about this.

Another discrimination is something that I experienced personally. I had my in-laws visiting from Japan and was trying to make a lunch reservation at a particular Japanese restaurant in Midtown. They responded that they do not take lunch reservation unless we pre-order a set lunch menu at price of more than $35 per person. So I declined. A colleague of mine tried to make a lunch reservation there as well - with the same response. However, another colleague of mine had no problem making a lunch reservation without committing to the $35 lunch. So why the different treatment? My suspicion is that the restaurant will take reservation fron Japanese patrons but not from non-Japanese patrons. When I make the reservation I asked in English, as did the first colleague. The second colleague asked in Japanese.

Completely different kinds of discrimination - one against Japanese and the other against non-Japanese. But it shames me to think that Japanese restaurants owned and managed by Japanese would engage in such discriminatory practices.