Monthly Archives: March 2011
Gourmet Underground Detroit's content archives are organized by date and catalog the aggregated content of our Features pages as well as our blog.
Coffee with the Roast Master
Nice video by Matt Dibble at Final Five Productions of Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company’s roast master, and Gourmet Underground contributor, James Cadariu. You can practically smell the coffee roasting through your monitor.
Pssst. I Don’t Like Oberon.
Not the King of the Faeries. The beer. I don’t like the beer.
Today, Monday the 28th, marked the release of Bell’s Oberon, which has become such an event that bars in Michigan hold Oberon parties, tapping the kegs at midnight — almost as though beer geeks were waiting in line for the latest Justin Beiber album.
I imagine it might seem needlessly contrarian to pick on such a widely loved beer on such a widely loved day, but someone has to mention the obvious: Oberon is one of Bell’s worst beers.
Yes, it’s citrusy. Yes, you can put an orange peel in it. Yes, it’s a wheat beer with a summery flair.
I care not a lick.
Because Oberon isn’t actually refreshing or subtle or graceful or any of the things I look for in a summer beer. It’s rather the opposite: heavy, sweet, overly hopped, yeasty on the finish. Give me a Kapuziner Weissbier or a Ayinger Weisse over Oberon any day of the week. These are beers that have stood the test of time, recipes refined to be more elegant platforms for the esters and phenols that make that uniquely fruity, spicy flavor that I enjoy in a real wheat beer.
Oberon has none of that. It’s simply better than most bad beer.
Of course, you’d never know that from the excitement over today’s release and the catchy signs that Bell’s has printed over the last half decade. Watching the hysteria, you’d think each bottle contained a personal invitation to come party with Beyonce and Jay-Z. But it doesn’t. It’s just beer. And not even great beer. As Todd pointed out on Twitter earlier today, Oberon is generally occupying a tap handle that could be occupied by a better Bell’s product — anything from the Amber to Two-Hearted would be preferable in my book — and that’s a shame, because Bell’s makes some fine beer. Just not this one.
I’m anti-hype, and I’m anti-Oberon. But not the King of the Faeries. Just the beer.
Trial Bikram = Cocktail Night
Suz went to try out Bikram Yoga somewhere tonight on some sort of trial basis. She enjoyed it. Sounds like living hell to me. Free or not, my ass is remaining firmly planted on the couch or behind the home bar.
Regardless, while working on some freelance projects, I decided that her extended absence meant it was a perfect night to experiment with some drinks. After all, I’ve been writing about natural meats, traveling in Texas, and cellared wines. It feels wrong to go two weeks without a blog post on making cocktails. Really, really wrong.
Bitter Kitty
- 1.5 oz white rum
- .75 oz Campari
- .75 oz lemon juice
- .5 oz limoncello
- .5 oz falernum
I had a great campari swizzle in Austin, TX, and I wanted to make something similar but a bit more citrusy, since that’s what first drew me to cocktails. This is the result. It’s tart and bitter with a crazy bit of spice at the end. I shake it and strain it over crushed ice like a swizzle.
Silk Boxers
- 1.5 oz Zaya aged rum
- .75 oz Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot
- .75 oz lime juice
- .5 oz falernum
The first thought I had when trying this drink, shaken and served up, was that it was surprisingly silky for a drink with three-quarters an ounce of lime juice in it. So the “Silk Boxers” was born. A quick Google search found a few disgusting party shot recipes with the same name, but screw those guys. You deserve to have your drink reclaimed if your drink sucks. I’m a sucker for all of these ingredients, and they’re working for me together.
Cheers!
Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Sleet: Wine Lovers Shall Not Be Deterred
Wine can make people do crazy things: spend too much money, consume too much alcohol, or in the case of me and some friends, drive 35 miles in a blizzard that ultimately produced 10+ inches of snow. Of course, these weren’t just any wines. Nine-dollar bottles of Grenache aren’t worth spin outs and 90-minute car rides.
No, these were older wines.
Properly stored, old wine offers a unique and wonderful experience. And while writing about that wonderful experience on a blog is inherently self-indulgent – outright braggotry, really – it’s also a chance to explore one of those aspects of wine that can be intimidating and seem out of reach. Perhaps more importantly, it’s an opportunity to provide some much-needed context for the mythos and aura of inscrutability that seems to surround cellared wines.
Among all the supermarket wines that have immense popularity among broad audiences and among many of the lighter, so-called natural wines that have justifiably obtained a cult-like status with many aficionados, one thing that’s often missing is the potential for aging – that is, an intense structure of tightly coiled flavors that can unfurl into unparalleled elegance over time.
So when our good friends Steve and Robin invited a number of us over to open some cellared bottles (mostly Steve’s), neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night could have deterred us from that enjoyment.
The line up, in the order we tasted them:
1999 Drouhin – Volnay, 1er Cru, Clos des Chenes
You know that your day is off to a good start when you’ve “warmed up” on Farnum Hill hard cider and your first act is a burgundy with ten years of age on it. Notably floral on the nose with some hints of berry. Nicely structured with surprising tannin for such a lightly colored wine.
1985 Breton – Bourgeil, Les Perrieres
While not the most electrifying wine of the night, this cabernet franc from the Loire Valley proves to be quite illustrative of the concept of what happens to nicely structured, well made wine as it ages. Many younger bottles of this wine are delicious but are so heavy with astringency from tannins and with flavors of tar that it can be a chore for newcomers to cab franc to enjoy it. Over time, though, this wine hasn’t lost any of its oomph, but the tannins have relaxed a bit. There’s a spicy, poignant quality to the finish and a lot of very bright fruit flavors up front. This would have tasted much different in 1988 than it does today. I’d guess it would have been more like a knife on the palate – hard and sharp – than so broad and flavorful. Delicious either way but truly elegant later in life.
1986 Chateau Talbot – St. Julien
Great Lakes roastmaster James Cadariu and his finely honed olfactory senses immediately noticed that “this wine smells like poop. But,” as he went on to explain, “in a good way.” It definitely begins with a very dirty, very barnyard, very fecal nose. Brettanomyces, perhaps? In terms of flavor, however, any hint of that flaw is gone. Instead, it’s elegant and layered with chocolatey black fruit and smoke. Nicely balanced with acidity. There’s still some tannic structure, but a lot of it has faded to let that delicate fruit flavor through.
2001 Voge – Cornas, Vielles Vignes
Pours with just the slightest purple hue, and the aromatics are quite expressive. Berries and flowers hint at what’s to come: While there’s still plenty of tannin and some pepper, it’s fundamentally a feminine and pretty wine.
1988 Fattoria dei Barbi – Brunello di Montalcino
Wines can sit too long, of course. While they can develop complexity, the various reactions taking place inside the bottle can also free up sugars or create off flavors or aromas. I’m not precisely sure what happened to this Brunello, but it tasted like brown sugar and had a very syrupy mouthfeel despite its age. It had a funny, herbal nose, and while it was drinkable, the only descriptor I can come up with is “strange.” This certainly illustrates two of the common myths with cellaring wine – that any red wine will get better with age and that wines can age indefinitely. It’s a living thing that evolves in the bottle. The number of years of age matter, but so does the original juice put into the bottle, itself a product of climate, technique, and the blend of grapes. Wines have a peak, and this wine was looking at its peak in the rear view mirror.
1970 Cappellano – Barolo, Serralunga d’Alba
I might be biased since I brought this to the party, but this was one of my favorite wines of the night. Aromatically complex, this wasn’t nearly so fecal as the 86 Ch. Talbot, but it definitely carried a funk to it that smelled to me like decomposing grass clippings and some funky cheese. That lessened as the wine opened up, but some element of that aroma was always there. On the palate, though, it was remarkably bright with some pleasant acid and lots of tannic structure left. While it was bone dry, there was still enough fruit to keep it in balance. A very elegant but powerful, masculine set of flavors. Surprisingly, while this was expectedly light and transparent, it was also very much reddish in color. Older red wines tend to develop a brick-ish brown color over time.
1995 Vieux de Telegraphe – La Crau, Chateauneuf de Pape
Another standout in an evening full of them. This is arguably the most pleasing wine of the night aromatically speaking, still showing quite a bit of fruit and pleasant herbal qualities in the nose – fresh coffee, pepper, and just a bit of funk compared to some of the much older wines from earlier. Very spicy and fruity on the palate. These wines can be delicious but very closed down early, but this is at its peak, so to speak, just full of flavor that lingers and surprisingly, almost light on the tongue. This is what happens when top flight producers with good grapes make wine that doesn’t force wine media-approved blackberry flavor down your throat.
1997 Luciano Sandrone – Barolo, Cannubi Boschis
While this event wasn’t really planned to be an illustration in the various aspects of older wines, nor a showdown between classic winemaking and modern winemaking, it has certainly turned out that way. This Barolo is from a storied property, but you’d never know it was Barolo. While it’s not poorly made, it only tastes like berries and oak (more specifically, it tastes like vanilla and lotion). It may shed some of the obvious vanilla flavor over time, but this will never show that kind of elegance we saw in earlier wines.
1976 JJ Christoffel – Urziger Wurzgarten, Trockenberenauslese
In contrast to red wines, which get lighter as sediment falls out of the wine, whites get browner and darker as they age. And instead of tannins helping to preserve the wine and breaking down to provide flavor, the high sugar and acid content in Rieslings like this tend to be the preservative element that lets them age so well. And this is a perfect illustration of both: It pours a dark brown, caramel color, a stark contrast to the highlighter yellow of a younger wine, and it is holding up very well. Tastes like toffee and tart mixed fruit jam. Very sweet but still in balance and drinkable. This isn’t a dessert wine; it’s dessert, period.
* * * * *
Wines made for keeping aren’t inherently better than other bottles, but they’re unquestionably different. Tasting notes, no matter how descriptive, can’t really convey the nuance and elegance of properly stored, cellared wines. And a single blogger living on the outskirts of Detroit with a modest history with aged wine can’t possibly do them justice.
But hopefully, he can convince you they’re worth seeking out.
Without a cool, dark space with relatively consistent temperature in which to store wines for 5, 10, 20 years – or more importantly, without the patience to wait that long – the only way to try old wines is to buy them from a trusted retailer that specializes in holding on to bottles, buying other people’s cellars, or buying up library releases (i.e., when a winery sells older stock that it has kept at the winery for aging).
Locally, our choices are limited. I’m sure that there are other stores of which I’m not aware, but a Detroiter’s best bet is to stop in and see Elie in Royal Oak or perhaps to ask another retailer to special order something if you have knowledge of a library release coming to town. I know that both Western Market in Ferndale and Cloverleaf in Royal Oak have purchased one or two older vintages of Rieslings in years past.
Alternatively, hit the Internet. Places like Cellar Raiders and Chambers Street Wine have a good track record of finding properly stored wines and selling them off. A good retailer will probably offer suggestions or tasting notes – Chambers often does – but if one is uncertain as to a particular vintage or producer, an hour or so of poking around Google will reveal a lot of the information one could need to get started.
Cost becomes a factor for buying cellared wines or library releases, of course. But these aren’t daily drinkers, and the way I’ve hurdled the expense barrier is to (a) only buy a tiny number of these per year, (b) do research, wait patiently, and buy very selectively, and (c) start a tiny side business that gives me a little leeway to blow on a $100 or $125 bottle. Any or all of these are a good way to avoid timidly asking your local bank for a wine mortgage.
Finally, if you’re really desperate to try some older wines and don’t have a penny to your name, you could always come to the next Gourmet Underground Detroit event, hope Steve shows up, and suck up to him. He likes good food, wine, and scotch. And he accepts gifts.
Cheers to Fermenting at Home
Human beings have benefit from the results of fermentation since before recorded history. Natural and local microorganisms, such as mold, yeast and bacteria are capable of transforming organic matter into all sorts of tasty pleasures that support general good health, can be stored for extended periods, and when made at home cost a fraction of their typically less flavorful store bought brethren.
Home fermentation is the opposite of homogenization. The conversion that occurs on your kitchen counter is unique. It has only been relatively recently that the commercial pursuit of consistency and speed of production above all else has turned much of our fermented food (or its substitutes) into hollow shells of the natural things they once were.
It’s simple to start fermenting at home. In some cases you’ll need only buy the ingredients and avoid placing them into the refrigerator. The microorganisms required to ferment foods are either all around us or easily purchased. And once you acquire the taste and appreciate how easily and cheaply it is to ferment your favorite foods, there’s no going back.
Fermentation of fruit and grains into alcohol for pleasure and ceremony dates from the beginning of civilization itself. The ancient Egyptians made at least seventeen varieties of beer and at least 24 varieties of wine and even stored beverages in tombs of the deceased for their use in the after-life. At around 1,100 B.C., a Chinese imperial edict plainly states that the use of alcohol in moderation was believed to be prescribed by heaven. Presumably the gods turned an occasional blind eye during house parties.
Home brewing beer is a tradition that spans eras and societies and recently propelled the craft brewing revolution here in America. There are a few shops in Metro Detroit that cater to the home brewer and with a little research and a small investment in equipment you can create top-quality beer for a third the store price. It’s the same with mead (honey wine). Making grape wine is a bit more challenging to do on the cheap unless you have a vineyard in your neighborhood willing to part with some of its juice. But what you do have local and available are apples.
In this region, cider is the easiest way to start fermenting alcohol. Locate a mill that offers fresh, unpasteurized and unpreserved juice in gallon jugs. Drink about a fifth of the contents of the jug to allow some space as the fermenting juice will bubble and foam — the word “fermentation” is derived from the Latin meaning “to boil”. Cover the opening with paper towel and in about a week you should see the juice lighten and clear. At this stage you can drink it or put it into another container with an airlock for aging. The cider will be mild and dry, around 5-7% alcohol, and smell of fresh apples.
Wine and cider can go through even another stage of fermentation. With the help of oxygen, acetic acid bacteria will convert alcohol into vinegar.
An ancient ferment of sweetened tea by a kombucha “mushroom” creates a fizzy beverage with some similarity to vinegar but much milder in flavor and ready in weeks. Looking something like a ghostly ham steak, the “mushroom” is actually a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, SCOBY for short. Though the internet is rife with fantastical fitness claims, the fact is a properly brewed kombucha drink is healthy, tart and tasty, especially when allowed to carbonate with the sugar from your favorite fruit juice. Like vinegar, a mother of kombucha is easily split and shared and it’s common to find communities where a single culture has spawned dozens of “babies”.
Vegetables are also easy home ferments. Requiring nothing but a simple salt water brine to prevent unwanted microbial growth, vegetables come with their own fermenting microorganisms. Lactic acid bacteria that convert vegetable sugars into acid give home fermented pickles their characteristic sourness more profound than the flavor of distilled vinegar typically found in store bought pickles.
A large, nonreactive crock made of glass or ceramic can be packed with any vegetables you like, cucumbers, carrots, turnips, cabbage, radishes, etc… Cucumbers with dill and spices make classic pickles. Shredded cabbage alone or with apples and carrots will eventually turn into sauerkraut. You can even add seafood and red chili for a Korean-style kimchi. Wild Fermentation has a few recipes posted on their website.
These are just a portion of food ferments that can be done at home. Some of the more popular ferments like sourdough, yogurt, kefir, cheese, and soy ferments are also possible and in many cases preferred over commercial versions.
In ancient times fermentation joined smoking, drying, and freezing as essential food preservation techniques. Today, besides being an economical means of producing healthy and uniquely flavored food, home fermenting is a way to reach out across time for a connection to our ancestors. There’s little on the grocery market shelf that can make that claim.
Is DIY fermenting beyond your abilities? Think again. Read this post on the simplicity of fermenting at home.
Also, check the Detroit Zymology Guild for information on local fermentation workshops.
Austin Dead Blog: The Finale
Tuesday: On Which We Eat Like Kings
Unquestionably the best meal I’ve had so far was at Congress. My colleague Rachel and I closed out our trip right with three great courses plus some dessert and drinks. After a sweet pea custard with Parmesan foam amuse bouche – sounded kind of showy, but the flavor was all there – we had our first course: I had a beef tartare with fried oysters, cheese, and black truffle, and Rachel had an arugula salad with beets, grapes, and a ball of burrata cheese. Both were as good as I could imagine, and the presentation was gorgeous. While it’s a little over the top to have specialized plates for virtually every possible food configuration, it’s impossible to deny that the plating induces some awe and head-shaking.
Second course. Veal shortbreads for Rachel and braised oxtail with garlic and chive gnocchi for me. Again, both amazing. For the main entree, Rachel had two preparations of veal and I had lamb chops over salsify with candied oranges and a cardamom yogurt.
Desserts produced more “wow” moments: I had sweet potato beignets that were fluffy and covered with lightly salted chicory and set aside some pecan brittle and salted butter ice cream. It’s one of the best desserts I’ve maybe ever had. Rachel’s strawberry shortcake was perfectly fine, but it was the Green Chartreuse ice cream with homemade pop rocks that had us in fits. I’m going to try and make the former.
The drinks were so good that they deserve their own post after I’ve experimented with some of them and can try to replicate them for posting, so watch for that. A few of them use some pretty outrageous ingredients — like tamarind gastrique — but they’ll be worth the effort.
It’s hard to even mention lunch with a dinner like that, but I also had lunch at Coreanos, a Korean taco cart that does some awesome stuff. I think the photo kind of speaks for itself, actually. Two bucks a pop, so four dollars total for these delicious bites.
Wednesday: On Which I Get to Sleep in My Own Bed
With SXSW Interactive now completely over, I took the morning before my flight to go walk around the U-Texas campus, which is BEAUTIFUL. Very cohesive, very classic – a little too classic in some cases, namely the Jefferson Davis statue standing near statues of George Washington and Woodrow Wilson.
They also have a great campus art museum – the Blanton Museum – most of which I covered in about an hour. Two hours would be ample time to see the whole thing, I think. Completed in 2003, there’s a contemporary installation piece done in blue acrylic that serves as the centerpiece of the whole building.
We ate lunch at Frank – the artisan hot dog place I’d been to a few nights prior – so Rachel could try it, and while sitting there eating our dogs, Jack White of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, Dead Weather, et cetera walks right by us – no more than a foot away – and ends up hanging out at a table across the room the entire time we were there. He seemed pretty open to the dozen or so people who came over for photos and quick chats and all that, so I found it all the more hilarious that these hoochied-up two girls were literally stalking him while he was in there.
Then we got on a plane and came home. Now I get to go to bed. Thank goodness.
I imagine none of this is terribly interesting to anyone other than myself, for any readers, sorry. 
But I know that I’ll personally enjoy going back and reading over this in the future, so pardon the self-indulgence!
Austin Dead Blog: Post 5
Monday Night: On Which I’m Determined to Sleep
I didn’t stay out too late last night, trying instead to get some rest. But some weird combination of factors – noise outside, people in the halls, some sort of weird allergy thing, the time difference – has been waking me up early every morning since I got here, and last night was no exception.
So tonight, I’m determined to get some damn sleep.
As such, it’s been a pretty low key night. More drinks at Haddington’s, this time with dinner. The food there’s pretty damn good, and I just ate a pork chop almost three inches thick that was impressively moist throughout. I also drank a brand of bourbon of which I was not previously aware.
Balcones is a distillery based in Waco, Texas, which I didn’t know when I ordered their True Blue whiskey, but I do now thanks to some fine reporting.
(Interestingly enough, about an hour before I ordered it, I saw an incredibly large man out of the corner of my eye. He looked familiar. With good reason, I think. I’m about 90% sure it was fellow Michigan alumnus and NFL football player and TV star and all-around good dude, Dhani Jones. True Blue, indeed.)
Compared to my friend’s whiskey – another small batch booze, this one from Colorado – the True Blue was markedly lighter. As it turns out, that’s because it has very little age on it. You’d never know it, though, from the nose, which is initially full of cocoa to me. Unlike other young whiskeys I’ve had, this manages to imply sweetness in the form of caramel and tiny bits of vanilla flavor. I wonder if part of that is the blue corn? Either way, there’s a lot going on here for a young spirit, yet it remains dry (and drinkable, despite the 122 proof).
It’s hard to say much of anything after one glass, but these Texans at Balcones are making some solid whiskey. I have to imagine it’s impossible to get, even in a less-than-legal way, in Michigan, but if you’re a boozehound, search this one out.
Austin Dead Blog: Post 4
I suspect that as I grow weary of posting about my various adventures in Austin while half asleep (see figure 1 and figure 2), these blog entries will grow shorter. By Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I very well may just copy a tweet for my blog post. Maybe something like “omg, #sxsw is awesome, love #austin food and drink, and I zzzzzzzzzzzz”
Sunday: On Which Meat Becomes Thy Watchword
There’s no more rousing start to one’s day than an hour-long panel on relational databases. Except, I suppose, caffeine in the form of excellent coffee. I chose to merge the two, starting with the former and ending with the latter. One of Austin’s many street side carts is Patika Coffee, which features roasted beans from Texas’ own Cuvee Coffee Roasting Company.
I thought their El Salvador single origin brew was remarkable on two levels: It was only $1.75 for a 12-ounce cup and it just smacked me across the face with cocoa flavors. I have no idea what experienced coffee tasters would describe with this brew, but this particular cup, to me, was rife with caramel and chocolate flavors with minimal bitterness. There was a fruitiness to it, but to me, it played second fiddle to this overwhelmingly powerful cocoa flavor. What a treat after walking past two or three Starbucks with lines to find a quick cup of coffee that was exceptionally good.
After more panels and discussions — including one about Detroit featuring several well-known local activists and artists (we’re everywhere, apparently) — it was time for a late lunch, and my colleagues Lara and Rachel and I decided it was time to try some BBQ. So we headed a few blocks north to a tiny cart operated by “the Simms brothers.” The others in my party had a couple of sandwiches, but I opted for the full-sized two meat meal plate consisting of ribs, brisket, potato salad with pickles, beans, and a couple of slices of the cheapest semi-local white bread money can buy. I’m far from a BBQ expert, but I make some damn tasty spareribs and really solid pulled pork in my estimation, and the stuff here was top notch: The brisket was tender and buttery, and the spareribs were remarkably moist. The sauce wasn’t as vinegary as a Carolina-style sauce, but I was a bit surprised to find a bit of tang in there. That’s the not the perception I had coming from Michigan.
Then, 3:30-6pm… Time for more panels and sessions.
Afterwards, I elected to catch up on sporting news — most importantly, a nice seed in the NCAA tourney for Michigan — before meeting up with colleagues Lara and Patti for a meal at Frank, an Austin artisan hot dog joint. I had the most amazing sausage, which they call the Jackelope, a medley of antelope, rabbit, pork, and sage, topped with a huckleberry compote and smoked cheddar.
I finished off the evening back at Haddington’s, part of my absurdly long, alcohol-fueled first night in Austin. It was a much less intense evening this time around, though I tried a few new drinks, including a frothy egg white drink based on rum, chartreuse, orgeat, lime, and Peychaud’s called the “Dover to Calais,” which was absolutely excellent.
Another rock star caliber day. I even had a few random, interesting, even inspiring conversations with other attendees along the way. Though sadly, unlike some other SXSW participants, I have not run into Eliza Dushku or Jake Gyllenhall or Conan, though I will say that I did attend a moderator-led discussion with Paul Reubens today that was informational, touching, and hilarious. Still, as much as I loved that, and no matter who I might have seen, I think the highlight was always destined to be the BBQ.
Can anyone blame me?
Austin Dead Blog: Post 3
Saturday: On Which the US Government Ruins My Sleep
Saw some incredible panels today at the conference ranging from integrating better business measurements into design practices to a panel with Rainn Wilson about his upcoming movie, Super (the trailer for which looks fantastic). Walking between a couple of sessions, across the river, I ran into a parade consisting of an Irish marching band, virtually every firetruck in the city, a mounted division of some military or police unit, and a few police cars. Couldn’t really find any info online about it, but they were headed toward the capital building.
After all that action, some colleagues and I hopped a cab up to a restaurant called Fino.
Very cool little menu with lots of Mediterranean-inspired dishes. It actually felt a lot like a sexy, west coast-version of Ferndale’s Assaggi back home. Unfortunately, we were’t terribly hungry as a group, so we didn’t sample more than a couple small starters and some entrees, but my Wagyu beef cheeks were pretty awesome. Whatever they put in the sauce, presumably beyond the braising liquid, was delicious – very savory and herbal but smooth in terms of texture. They also had a killer cocktail (e.g., a fantastic Campari swizzle with rum and falernum) and wine (e.g., Occhipinti, R. Lopez de Heredia) program.
We rode the bus back, and I spent most of the rest of the night at a rooftop bar with some other colleagues.
Detroit needs rooftop bars. Spring, summer, and autumn with a nice cool breeze? Must happen. Must.
We ended the night at the Driskill Hotel, which gets an A+ on its old-school, classic interior design and a firm D for the Old Fashioned with a big ass chunk of orange peel and a pile of undissolved sugar in the bottom of the glass. It’s hard to convey just how many people were in the streets, which the city closed off to allow people to roam around a bit, and how many people were packed into some of the more popular area bars.
Everything came to a screeching halt for me when a colleague remembered that today was the switch to Daylight Savings Time. Some noise outside my hotel early on and an air conditioning unit that won’t quite ever get to the near frigid temperature I want conspired to wake me more than an hour early despite the time change, so I’m now running on about 5 hours of sleep. Thank you, time change. Now go to hell.
Before bed, I did notice that someone Tweeted to the entire #sxsw hashtag that the restaurant I went on my first night for cocktails, Haddington’s, was a good place to go. I fear a return there may be impossible if the word is out.
Finally, I leave you with this inspirational ad, posted on the wall in an Austin bar:
Austin Dead Blog: Posts 1 & 2
Last night, while stumbling the streets of Austin, TX, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. I should have known it wasn’t brilliant because brilliant ideas fueled by a freight container of alcohol rarely hold up to the scrutiny of sober eyes.
Live and learn.
Wanting to catalog my culinary adventures in town for posterity and to share with (read: brag to) my friends at home, I thought a nightly blog post about my misadventures would be appropriate. But – and here’s where my “brilliance” comes in – rather than calling it a live blog, I’d call it a dead blog. Because by the time I got back to the hotel, I’d possibly be dead to the world – drunk, tired, or otherwise in no position to form complete, properly punctuated sentences.
Terrible idea, right?
But I’m going to roll with it anyhow.
As it turns out, I’m writing my first post 20 hours late because there was no way my fingers were ever going to find the proper keys yesterday evening.
Austin is a truly awesome city. If the weather didn’t suck so badly in the summers, I’d add it to my very short list of places I’d want to live other than Detroit.
One of the reasons? A pretty solid food and drink scene.
Thursday Night: On Which I Drink My Weight Twice Over
Wine bars usually suck. Either the food isn’t any good or the vibe is too pretentious or the atmosphere is one of reverence rather than conviviality. Mulberry in Austin strikes just the right balance. The food is spectacular, the wine is decent, and it’s got all the charm of a great neighborhood bar. In fact, the staff greeted half the incoming customers by name. Seating only about 25 people inside and maybe another 20 outside, it qualifies as cozy in every sense of the word. So I was genuinely surprised when they managed to prepare some really nice food – including a roasted cauliflower salad with celery root puree, golden raisins, red onion, and crispy prosciutto that was just killer. The wines were good, and I took notes, though most of the really interesting stuff was on the bottle list, which I didn’t try, so I won’t offer any comment on them here.
I also had an interesting drink that is probably worth duplicating at home as a summer refresher. Called the Portonic, it combined white port, fino sherry, lemon, and tonic water. Very quaffable but still interesting and a little funky because of how much sherry flavor comes through.
One particularly helpful woman behind the bar, clearly a food and drink lover, clued me in to some spots to check out beyond the research I’d already done, and I headed off to one of those recommendations — a place called Haddington’s — for some cocktails.
First, I had a sazerac in which the rye had been infused with duck fat. I couldn’t really taste anything too different, but the nose was screaming with both duck and smoke from the flamed lemon peel. A very solid, well-made drink.
Electing to forgo the restraint I told myself I’d get two more before moving on, and one of those was a Haddington’s Word: single malt scotch, maraschino, strega, and lemon, presumably in equal parts. Crazy combination of smoky, sweet, and herbal.
Finally, a drink I may try to make at home some time — the Smoking Jacket. Aged rum, porter beer, amaretto, scotch, and an egg served up with fresh grated nutmeg. Seemingly disparate flavors really ended up being complimentary, and if anything, I’d say the dominant resulting flavor was “mocha latte.” Very unique, very delicious drink.
From there, I walked about a mile and a half to a local dive bar the woman at Mulberry told me about — The Liberty Bar. I was still too full from dinner to take advantage of the food cart (East Side Kings) parked behind, but apparently the chef of the high-end Japanese restaurant in town owns that cart, which allegedly kicks out some pretty amazing Asian-style street food. Austin has an lively street food and cart-based restaurant culture that, as it turns out, I’d be exploring the next day.
At Liberty, I had a Manhattan and a beer, and the bartender bought me a shot, which was a terrible idea. But how does one refuse a free shot? It can’t be done.
On the way back, I stopped in for a Vieux Carre cocktail at a place called The East Side Showroom, which is one of the coolest, most ornately decorated cocktail bars I’ve ever seen with an exceedingly eclectic mix of industrial, Victorian, and French/New Orleans-type influences. All the beer taps come from a tube that looks like it was pulled from a submarine and installed in their ceiling. Need I say more?
Friday Night: On Which There’s Dancing in the Streets
I’m in Austin for SxSW, the conference famous mostly, I think, for its long-standing history with amazing musical acts. But they also run an interactive conference full of sessions on design, the web, social media, and tech stuff, all things in which I have a great professional interest. The first sessions were set to start Friday afternoon, so I slept in a bit and then hit the conference running. After the final session for the day, I met my colleague and her friend to head to dinner.
The previous night, I’d passed these open lots with tons of food carts in them — almost like a trailer park for cooks. We decided to avail ourselves of these for dinner.
Detroit has plenty of food carts, and I’ve heard about the many stands and carts in L.A. these days, but I’ve never seen anything like this – a dozen different food cards in a semi-circle (itself only 200 yards west of another grouping of similar places).
I had grilled rice balls and some absolutely delicious takoyaki, made traditionally with octopus. Interestingly, it was a young couple running the stand and only their second-ever night doing so.
But the best part wasn’t the food. It was the street band festival we just happened to stumble into. HONK is a yearly festival of street bands, and now they’re popping up in multiple cities. We ended up seeing some of the bands that came to Austin to play for HONK Tx. (If the concept sounds familiar and you’re a Detroiter, it’s probably because you know the Detroit Party Marching Band went to play in a similar festival in Boston last fall.)
We enjoyed the tunes for a while and in looking around a bit for another colleague and her friend who were trying to meet up with, we discovered a food cart that made ice cream sandwiches to order. 5 kinds of homemade cookies with about a dozen kinds of crazy ice cream: candied bacon and brown sugar, Mexican chocolate, balsamic fig and marscapone, et cetera. So,so good. I opted for ginger cookies around the Mexican chocolate ice cream, which had a nice cayenne kick at the end.
(The woman who was working the cart demonstrated another thing I love about Austin – the people. She was so very genuine and nice, riding high from serving an ice cream sandwich to Elvis Costello earlier in the day, and she had a really great story. She and her husband moved out of Austin a year ago and now run a farm north of the city, and she works the cart a couple of nights a week now serving amazing ice cream.)
We went back to the East Side Showroom for some more cocktails before calling it a night. One particularly balanced digestif-style drink was called the “attaboy!” Not at all the same as the classic Atta Boy, theirs featured Amaro Nonino and Campari.
I’m really digging this town. With a population of fewer than 800,000, it’s just a bit bigger than Seattle and not all that large by major city standards, but the downtown area along the river is vibrant and full of interesting places to eat and drink, and the amount of convention space in the convention center and hotels is ridiculous. I’ve heard that there are 11,000 people here just for the interactive conference alone. Don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, I’m stunned, because things are running so smoothly.
Tomorrow, we have dinner reservations after the final sessions. I’m geeked.
