after dinner sneeze

t says: Ok – it’s been a few more weeks of being ordered to stay at home, so it’s time for an update!

We’ve done a few more places for takeout:
Little Serow: Delicious food done in “family style” with a main entree that is shared between two. We did their roasted chicken (which was solid!) but what really stole the show was some kind of chickpea side and the hummus. That hummus might have been the best hummus outside of Zahav/Dizengoff. Bravo! Can’t wait to go there in person as we’ve been told their vegetables are insane.
Little Pearl: We went for their Mexican dinner with al pastor tacos. They were a little light on the tortillas (only three per order), and in general the food was not quite as refined as Seven Reasons but still quite solid for Covid take-out. But man, their wine choices were incredible (See Winifred below!).
Mandu: Definitely killing it. Ddak jjim, kimchi jige, soon dubu, dukbooki … all delicious! Their mandu, ironically, were not as good as Anju’s – if they just brought those over to Mandu, then Mandu would be be batting 1.000.
Rasika: “Modern” Indian that was quite nice for take-out. I thought of it as a very tasty “normal” Indian takeout (at least by what we ordered). There are some dishes that we still need to try (something about crispy spinach?) – so the jury is still out. I’d give them another chance for Covid-era takeout (and definitely still want to go visit them in-house after all this is over).

And now … for the wine:

Ok – our wine drinking is definitely upping its game since the shut-in started, both in frequency and quality … Sometimes you just need a glass of wine at the end of a long day of zoom meetings … and with dinner … and after dinner … amiright? So here are some notes:
1) Donhoff was a bit disappointing – one-dimensional and too honeyed. Definitely going to be avoiding future “estate” bottlings, and the vineyard designated bottlings are too $$$.
2) Massican was as awesome as usual. We did taste the recently shipped 2019 SB that was as zippy and chalky as we expect.
3) The Albarino was solid but not something I’d seek out again.
4) The NZ SB was actually wonderful. Not at all the one-dimensional fruit-fest that New Zealand SB typically are for me (which are fine! but you don’t need more than one glass of Kim Crawford …). This one had some floral elements, the fruit was tamed, and it had nice length. It was a very pretty SB – not just some over-the-top bruiser.
5) Leah Jorgensen was introduced to us by our last dine-in dinner at Little Pearl. She does a white cab franc that is amazing and the whole reason I literally ordered from the winery the next day! For $26 that white cab franc is quite a steal: great flavor profile, not too heavy, not too acidic, very nicely balanced. It’s one of those whites that would please a crowd as well as a wine snob. The rose is also delicious at $19 which is once again hitting well above its pricepoint. In a vacuum, yes, Clos Solene will be more refined and longer and more nuanced – but when you have two bottles of Leah Jorgensen for one for Clos Solene, it really makes you think … (i.e. it makes you think you need to be drinking more rose!)
6) That Winifred rose was something else. It was a “natural” wine of zwiegelt and blaufrankisch from Austria made in a rose style. Now, I hate natural wines (literally have never liked one ever!), but this one tasted quite unique and I’ll admit that I was impressed. It was a very dirty, earthy strawberry – it was like someone took an Oregon pinot but got really funky with it. I’d gladly buy at least one more bottle of it (if anyone had it in stock!) just to make a few wine friends try it and see what they think!
7) Barbera and syrah made up that Italian wine which I think is quite a crowd pleaser. Good amount of round fruit up front. Not particularly complicated, but also not offensive. Definitely a bold new world Italian wine.

And here we are! Covid is here and not really showing signs of stopping in the DC area (if anything, we’re still on the upswing). So I got a fully stocked cellar and we’re ready to go!