Sneakeater

Caldereta de cordonices, a Spanish (I have no idea what region) quail stew. You eat the broth on the side, over fideos (or, if you're in New York, skinny egg noodles). The quail, out of the broth, is seasoned with nothing but black pepper and paprika. You eat it over the onions that flavored the broth (more on that later). This is elemental Spanish cooking near its most elemental. I diverged from what Penelope Casas tells me in one way. Apparently, the Spanish eat the quail only over the onions used as aromatics in the broth, discarding the celery that was also so used. Why would you do that? I'm here to tell you that, having sat in that slightly vinegary broth for a few hours, it was just about the best braised celery I've ever had. On the side (along with the noodles), a Spanish cabbage-with-garlic dish whose name I don't know (don't tell La Theñora Pereth), with Gallileo radicchio once more subbing for cabbage. This time the swap worked: indeed, the vinegar you put into this might have been even better with radicchio than it is with cabbage. And the caramelization that's a big part of this dish tames the radicchio some. You could have a Big White with that quail (and I have one I was thinking about). But that quail could take a very old Rioja Reserva as well. I'm always happy for an excuse to open one. 1982 Viña Albina Riserva I've drunk a bunch of this, and this -- my next-to-the-last bottle -- is the first one that didn't taste positively youthful. Which I guess is a good thing: this dinner wanted an old wine. Not that this is pallid or anything. There's still plenty of fruit -- but for the first time it tastes like old fruit, with a sour tang and a background of what you can only call muckiness. And then there's that calm you get from old wines. No tension at all. Just this cloud of progressing flavors for you to lay down on. The secondaries are all there -- leather, spicebox -- but mellow. And really integrated: you don't taste a lot of things, but one thing that tastes like a lot things (if you know what I mean). I love drinking wines like this.

Holy shit @AaronS knows places in Anaheim.

Did we take Eater NY DOWN?

This one seems highly relevant to @Orik's Instagram post.

I could go on.

Also, the restaurants in the Museum of Natural History are worth reviewing.

Also, Mitica is a steakhouse.

Japanese-Javanese fusion! Smoked wagyu strip steak in a Kecap Manis-based sauce with smoked mushrooms, garnished with smoked egg and raw scallions. On the side, a baked white sweet potato (a new thing to me) (less sweet than an orange sweet potato) with togorashi butter. And ginger-sesame sautéed Tokyo Bekana. Sometime this afternoon I formed the felt certainty that a Radikon RS would go with this meal. 2018 Radikon RS18 I didn't know how right I'd turn out to be. This is a red wine -- not what Radikon is known for. But their reds are great. This one's a blend of Merlot and a local Friulian grape called Pignolo. It was the Pignolo that made me go for this with this dinner. I'd heard that Pignolo tastes like barbecue sauce, which seemed like a good thing to drink with smoked beef. But that's not why this turned out to be a brilliant pairing (through none of my own doing). This was a brilliant pairing becaue, at the last minute, I decided to put a medium hot pepper into the Kecap Manis-based sauce, and to balance that I put a bunch of stuff in that elevated Kecap Manis's characteristic sweetness. So I ended up with a sweet-and-hot smokey sauce. This is an "S" when, meaning it was supervised by Radikon son Saša even before his father died and he took charge of the whole estate. Saša is a somewhat more conventional winemaker than father Stanko was, performing shorter macerations and even adding a little sulfur when he thinks it's warranted (and putting his wine in 750ml bottles). But that's not to say he's not a Natural winemaker and this isn't identifiably a Natural wine. Slight fizz, laser-focused fruit. The fizz was great with the thick rich sauce (and exactly on point with the chili pepper). But what I didn't know is that this wine has a slight sweetness to it that, paired with its Natural funk, was just the thing with a sweet/hot sauce with its own Indonesian funk. It really is kind of outrageous how delicious this wine is. If it came in a 2L bottle I'd probably drink it right down. (Although it's deceptively alcoholic: something like 14 ABV. It sure doesn't taste like it.) The universe came through again!

I'm still wondering what the relevance is of what @Orik and Sivan paid for their building.

They should just not let Siesema go to non-hole-in-the-wall restaurants. He clearly doesn't get them.

I finished my Creole Cassoulet! Now let's see if I wake up tomorrow morning. I still can't believe how well this turned out. Not just that it was good, but that it tasted recognizably like something you'd eat in Louisiana. I want you all to understand something about how I think about my cooking, so I don't seem like a total narcissist. Sometimes things I cook turn out well; sometimes they don't. I don't really feel like I, myself, have anything to do with it. I think it comes from the universe. So when I praise my cooking -- and I hope you can see it's always with surprise -- I'm not praising myself. I'm giving thanks to the universe. On the side, some braised mustard greens that the universe also was kind to. Did I slurp down the pot likker after I finished it? You bet I did. I went with the obvious pairing. Once you've drunk it with this stuff, you can see why it's the obvious pairing. 2018 Domaine Ricard Les Trois Chênes Not just a Touraine Sauvignon Blanc, but a particularly sharp one. So sharp, in fact, that I find you can't drink it immediately upon release. It's too sharp then: the acid is totally unintegrated with the other elements of the wine, and it's not only incoherent but actively unpleasant. A few years in the bottle, though, and it comes together into a bracing treat. Gooseberry and a tiny touch of grass (Touraine, after all, isn't in New Zealand) at the start. Then very damp slate. Then acid. There's actually more here as well, but I don't have words for it. So is this some cataclysmic wine? No, it's a very (very) good everyday quaff. One that was perfect with this meal: more than enough acid to deal with the waning spice in the Cassoulet, more than enough flavor to match the multitude of strong flavors in the Cassoulet. As I said, there's a reason this is the obvious pairing.

Liverwurst on German horseradish rye with onion, Galileo radicchio, and Löwensenf Medium. I followed the lead of some food writer somewhere and crisped the bread by giving each slice a thin smear of mayonnaise and dropping it into a hot frying pan for a minute or two. Whoever had it, that was a good idea. Why I have this liverwurst is, it was sitting in my butcher's display case looking SO good. And I've learned, when these odd items appear, you need to snap them up if they appeal to you. Because there's no guarantee you'll ever see them again. (I have to assume this was housemade. I know from my own purchase for practically nothing a few weeks ago how eager they are to find some way to monetize pig offal.) Syracuse salt potatoes on the side. And some "pickled" cabbage, grape tomatoes, and dragon's tongue beans. Bet you wish YOU had this dinner. I guess an Alsatian white would have gone with this. But the only one I have at hand is kind of sweet, kind of expensive, and kind of ageless: not the sort of thing you'd open with a liverwurst sandwich. Suarez Family Brewery whistlin' This is a "country beer", the label says, brewed with lemongrass. People talk about how candied this tastes, but I think it's remarkably tart. Maybe because of its high acidity. What you get here is LOTS of pineapple and citrus with a saving undercurrent of funk. And that puckery acid -- which makes this beer remarkably thirst-quenching despite all that's going on in it (and cuts through the liverwurst like a knife) (not that you need a knife to cut through liverwurst). Fairly complex -- but immediately enjoyable, too. Very good with liverwurst. Next time you have liverwurst, I recommend it.

I just got a promotional press release about the new Stones album in my email. It contains this sentence: Need I say it?

It was very good!

small h, big deal.

I'm trying to figure out what the phrase "excess of game" might mean. I know what each of those words means independently. But strung together they make no sense to me.

Fried breaded lamb chops. I've always thought this was a Tuscan dish. But I just read somewhere on the interwebs that it's a Roman dish that is "almost Tuscan in its simplicity". So now I'm confused. In any event, this is my favorite way to have lamb chops. Or would be if there weren't Scottadito, and broiled and served with mint sauce, and whatever the Greeks do. But whatevs, it's a great way to have lamb chops. On the side, Roma beans braised in the soaking liquid of some dried porcini I used in last night's dinner. Patting myself on the back because (a) this really tasted good (and particularly complemented the lamb chops) and (b) I'm such a bonne femme. The wine was chosen before I even bought the lamb chops. 2004 Fattoria Viticcio Chianti Classico Riserva "Lucius" Don't let the Chianti Classico fool you. This is the kind of wine that would have had to be labelled an IGT Supertuscan before the Chiantese lost their integrity. It's Sangiovese blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. As I've said enough times to be tiresome, despite my theoretical misgivings, I like Sangiovese blended with Merlot and even Cabernet Sauvignon. For that matter, I like Sangiovese blended with Syrah. When the Brunello scandal about the secretly blended-in Syrah erupted at about the time this wine was released, I was like, yeah, blend that sucker! And I mean, what could be better with a lamb-chop preparation you thought was Tuscan? Sangiovese cuz that's what you drink with Tuscan meat dishes (and I'll tell you what: they drink Sangiovese with lamb in Rome, too). Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot because everyone in the world knows that that's the best pairing for lamb (OK Rioja). And it worked. It worked in practice just the way it worked in theory. Some dusty tart Sangiovese, some meaty suave Cabernet Sauvignon with a ton of secondaries (including eucalyptis for that all-important mint with the lamb), and some Merlot to soften everything up. It loved the lamb chops, and the lamb chops loved it back. The mushroom water (which made itself felt in that bean dish, believe you me) also loved the Sangiovese with the Cabernet. The smart money said to drink this up wine 10 years ago. But I knew it wanted more time than that. I just love where this wine is now. Whatever disjunction could possibly have occurred between these grapes that aren't supposed to go together has long been smoothed over. The word I'd use for this wine is "seamless". Another word I'd use is "delicious". Yeah, this is a totally mainstream wine made in the International Style. But taken in moderation, with proper (over)aging, those wines can be good sometimes.

I'm gonna say it out loud: Cosmopolitans are good.

That looks SO good!

Her original name was Lovella May Borg. Unlike with Phillys Coates, you can see why she replaced it.

A great one.

What would that filter exclude?

Vietnamese pan-roasted quail (a dish that used several things I had laying around needing to be used). Over rice duh, with some Vietnamese style stir-fried vegetables (as far as I can tell, "Vietnamese-style" means nothing more than that you dump some fish sauce into it), also on the rice. The quail was spatchcocked -- by me! You always hear that two quail make a serving. I am hardly a dainty eater, but I have always found one sufficient. But then, I can rarely finish a whole grouse in one sitting. (Also, eating only one leaves me able to make my very favorite quail recipe soon with the other of the set of two this was sold as.) I thought I was being pretty assiduous in patting the marinade off the quail. But it developed a thick char as soon as I dropped it into the pan. I was worried cuz it looked burnt, but I should know myself better: that's just the way I like it! In the eating, the char almost functioned more like a lacquer. This was very good. (The best part was the little quaily helzel -- not gefilte, of course.) I chose a wine that has the reputation of going well with Asian food. 2021 Benvenuto Zibibbo Most Zibibbo comes from Sicily, but this one's from across the strait in Calabria. "Zibibbo" derives from the Arabic word for raisin, an artifact of the time the Arabs ruled Sicily. They didn't make wine, obvs. So guess what they used this grape for? I want to say I've never had a Zibibbo before. But while that's technically true, it's not strictly true. Cuz Zibibbo turns out to be another name for Muscat of Alexandria, and God knows I've had Muscotos. Indeed, Zibbibo is most frequently drunk in Sicily as a sweet passito. But they make some dry as well. This Calabrian one is dry, too. But you can tell it's Muscat. It's weird to experience that burst of grapefruity flavor -- and it really is a burst -- with no sweetness accompanying it. Weird but kind of nice. And it makes this wine great for food. Because it's another wine that won't be dominated. You can throw a fish sauce at it (not literally) and it still keeps chugging along.

Especially when you use poultry sheers.