Super Typhoon

Happy typhoon Usagi!  This is our third or so typhoon this year, but apparently the worst storm on the planet earth this year (as quoted by CNN).  Great.  Hong Kong doesn't seem to have any major problems with typhoons, a few blown down branches and limited flooding in the New Territories, but outside that we just get off work and stay inside drinking wine.  Oh but the poor Philippines and little islands to the East. They're getting dumped on!  And now a quick catch up as I am weeks behind.

Last Saturday I hosted my first tasting with Ginsberg + Chan.  We had ~10 or so people come in between 1 and 4 pm to try one of our 'inexpensive' 'everyday' wines.  This cracks me up because they were all $190-$800.   Ahhh one day $800 will be a Tuesday night wine...one day when we hit the lottery.  Anyway, it was really great for me to try some of these wines and good to show off my new work digs to friends Nina and Jon.  My favs of the day were the La Dame de Montrose (second wine from Chateau Montrose), a really funky natural wine (Clos des Camuzeilles) from the South of France, and the Brunello di Montalcino. 

But the best part was....

Taking all of the leftover to Derek and Laura's (10 bottles!) for wine tasting part 2.  The perks of having a wine friend.  We rather quickly ran through the wines and then head over to Tapaella Grill for a tapas dinner.  I won an online contest (" who would you take to dinner?"  "my friend Laura because she won a ski house in Niseko and brought me." Thank you HK Mag!) for a $500 gift voucher.  The tapas were alright, nothing really to write home about, but I did enjoy the Rioja wine from Ramon Bilbao.  And it's always great to get over to Ktown to visit.

The next AM we were up early for an excursion to the islands.  Patrick, Courtney, Nina, Kenny, Will, Sarah, Tom, Caroline, Matt, and Hailey joined Paul and I for a 45 minute ferry from Stanley down to this little island Po Toi for some seafood lunch. We'd been once before with Nina's parents and LOVED the food.  Now that the weather is finally nice it was time to go back for some salt and pepper squid, fish, clams, shrimps, and noodles all appropriately paired with New Zealand Sauv Blanc (Oyster Bay), Chilean Cab (William Fevre), Pouilly Fume, and some Prosecco.  Lovely little day out on the water.  Followed by the opening of the Island East Market!! My favorite, and my favorite especially now that I don't work it!!!

 

At work on Monday Jay took out an important client to lunch and had the above leftover for us to try.  Ohhhhh this is definitley my favorite white wine I have ever tried ever.  Kind of funky- err I suppose just not 'classic' Burgundy, but ultra concentrated and rich, and strangely reminded me of bees...I suppose it was a pollen-esq flavor and the richness that reminded me of honey, but bzz bzz loved this!  This is from Bernard Van Berg who is this insanely awesome guy in Burgundy who hand prunes and cares for everyone of his vines.  He even hand bottles the wine.  Hand bottles each and every wine.  Crazy.  This bottle retails with us for $2,800 and his wines are the most expensive wines on the world's best restaurant, Noma in Denmark.  No wonder I liked it so much.

And we're making some progress with the suits...One arm is the new hot thing in Asia this year.

Thursday evening I met up with Will, Sarah, Nina, Kenny, Derek, Laura, Paul and David for some nachos, quesadillas and brews at Stone's, our Tai Hang go to.  Friday was mid-autumn festival (no work) so the night before the dragon dance commenced.  We lined up with the million other people to see the Tai Hang dragon dance, but lo and behold could not.  Too crowded and turns out it wasn't a parade but more of a stationary smoke fest, so we went back to an open roadway, met Court, Patrick, Jackie and her brother for some roadside drinks.  Clock struck 12 and we called it a night.

Paul, moon, Will

Friday I made an amazing breakfast of whatever we had in the fridge; broccoli spinache garlic pesto stirfry with peas and green pepers over rocket all topped with Parmesan and a fried egg.  Twas a good one.  A really exceptionally good one.  Mmm peas.

loved this salad.

Friday and Paul and I hung around catching up on errands and reading.  Me wine, him 9th grade essays.  Then Will, Sarah, Nina, and Kenny came over for some Cards Against Humanity (thank you Chetta, we LOVE it!!!) ,Wii (thank you Mom, we LOVE it), and Jacomaxx Pizza (thank you Jaco, Paul LOVES it). 

Will, Carbonara, meat plate, anchovy, veg, and meat/olive pizzas

Nina-ish, Kenny, Sarah, Will and Paul getting shocked

And then Vanessa came!! She got in late so we just chatted for a bit and called it a night.  Saturday Paul had to go to some school orientation so Vanessa and I hit the streets in search of some HK Matzu temples.  Matzu (Mat-jou in Canto) is the goddess of the sea and she protects the fisherman.  Well turns out she really wants Vanessa to stay in HK. More on that.

We went to this amazing temple in Tin Hau (which is named after the temple- Matzu is also known as Tin Hau) and felt very welcomed by the people working there.  It's so much fun going to temples with Vanessa!  I had never enjoyed visiting them very much, but she's so passionate and excited by them and was able to explain the different gods and notions to me, that I too got into it.  We donated some money, offered some fruit, lit some insence, and connected with Miss Matzu herself, who I strongly believe is totally connected with Vanessa.  This sea goddess seems to have followed Vanessa here...super typhoon!!!

Sesame noodles <3

And then we met Paul at another temple (Man-Mo) in Shueng Wan.  We were told by some random girls we were bugging that this temple was for students and teacher to go and wish for a good year in school.  Religion is so funny here.  No one seems to have a deep knowledge, or at least just can't communicate it in a clear way, but more of a superficial understanding of what's directly relevant to this.  This is for students.  I go and pray.  The end.  I suppose I just don't know about it, but find it odd how people just accept things at face value with no interpretation of analysis...or again...maybe its just lost in translation.

Great sea cucumber and pork dumplings

But then we had some sick noodles and dumplings and life made sense again. 

 

Temple street vendor

After a brief respite at home we were off to Temple Street in search of yet another Tin Hau temple.  Alas, this temple was closed at dusk, so we wander back through dildo alley (who knew) to find some grub.  We went and had a horrible seafood dinner (grease, grease, and gross), and hoofed it up to Kwai Chung (ie middle of nowhere HK) for what promised to be an adventure.  Vanessa had read about this project- Keep the Silence- in Time Out magazine.  The premise was to pay what you want to see these artist who all play acoustically, or not, in an experimental deconstuctionalist way.  Or something.

So hipster

The first act was this really great acoustic band.  The second was less impressive, for what I would call noisy.  I get that he was trying to deconstruct sound and the norm, but it was just annoying and went on about 6 songs too long.  Eeeee aahhhhh squeek some weird singing that you couldn't make out, and them more noise.  1 for 2.

First great band

Then the last act (that we stayed for at least) came on.  As we sat on the floor, crossed legged, judging the band members and French people drinking Smirinoff ice (seriously, what the hell?), Yan Jun came on stage.  He had a noise amplifier and what looked to be a huge power strip of electrical things.  And then the 'noise art' began.  Noise.  and different noises.  Some totally appalling and offensive noises, and some melodic and quiet noises.  But at some point we all got transfixed and lost in the noises drifting off into emotion.  Or something.  And then it just went on too long.  Probably 15 minutes too long.... I tried, I really did. 

Emo.

As Vanessa and I analyzed the performance in the 45 minute cab ride home, I realized I was moved by it.  I don't think 'enjoy' was the word.  Perhaps 'enthrall.'  But generally moved and opened up to a new form of art I hadn't considered, or even heard of, before.  Interesting indeed, and the warehouse added and extra cool factor.  Certainly a first and hopefully not a last.  Small doses....

Seriously dude? S Ice??

 

Woke up Sunday to threats of the worst storm of 2013.  In the world!!!!!  Vanessa's flight was obviously cancelled and nothing is left available until Tuesday....hopefullly!  We went and stocked up on some food and wine (duh) and then hit up one of the only places nearby for some unexpectedly delicious Pho.  Now we're currently at a T8 warning expecting nothing but a full typhoon day tomorrow.  Movies, wine, and cousin bonding.   Vanessa just made an orange offering to Matzu, so hopefully this won't be as bad as predicted....come on Matzu.  







"Fall" Is Here

Meaning only that the sun has actually decided to come out for more than one day!  The weather has cooled to a crisp 30 degrees and the humidity is down below 80%, wonderful!

Pulling out of Central

 

Last Sunday Paul and I head out for some island hopping.  We ferried over to the south port of Lamma Island, hiked up 40 or so minutes to the beach, jumped in the surprisingly clean and cold water, and met Courtney and Patrick for some ciders and beers.  Does anyone else love cider as much as I do?

Paul <3s Lamma (and Michigan)

Then we booked it to Sheung Wan to pick up our dinner from Secret Ingredient.  I don't know if they have this in the US, so if you're there and they don't- steal this idea.  You purchase a meal online.  Generally there are 4; a chicken, beef, fish, and random and you can either have it delivered to your door or you can pick it up.  We went with a 'chef collaboration' meal that was from the chef from Boqueria, a tapas joint. All of the ingredients to cook your meal come prepared (sliced and diced) and labeled alphabetically.  See below:

 

All you have to do it follow the directions and cook it.  I did like it for several reasons, including really high quality ingredients, the total of 15 minutes from the bag to the plate, and the generous portion size.  BUT, I  still found it kind of annoying.  I rather like cooking and found it restrictive to have all of the creativity taken away.  With that said we ordered another one later in the week (they're running a $100 off promotion) that was really tasty too.  And they delivered to my office right at 5 which was uber convenient.

Prawns, chorizo, octopus, potato, and grainy bread.  Served with a German Chardonnay.  Nice foot powder in the background...

Monday was devoted to studying Whiskey.  I've never sat down over a glass of whiskey before and really thought about what it tastes like (except at Glenlivet events- amazing!).  And I've certainly never sat down with 4 different glasses of whiskey to think about how they are different, but wow are they.  The Jameson was definitely the most oily.  The Macallan 12 year was obviously the most complex and delicious, but I was surprised how much I really enjoyed the fragrant and floral Chivas.  I suppose this is like anything, the more you learn and taste, the more elevated your tastes get, but for now I'm still digging the cheapo stuff. 


Next up, Rum!  (note the Champagne flutes for tasting- not so good for detecting aromas- it's all about the white wine glasses these days)

Tuesday was the most event I've been to in a long time.  Crown Wine Cellars, this amazing cellar and event venue up in the mountains of HK, held a tasting for the Cape Winemakers Guild.   Every year the top chateau in South Africa take their best barrel of wine and use the contents for wines that go off to auction for charity.  I've always enjoyed SA wine, but generally find they smokey and pretty simple.  Oh these wines were not.  They were lovely.  There were big Chardonnays, Grenache Gris, 2 sparkling, 3 Pinot Noirs, many Bordeaux blends, beautiful Syrahs and Shirazs, and we capped the night off with a Chenin Blanc noble rot dessert wine.  Devine.  I didn't end up bidding on anything because you had to buy in parcels of 24, and really, where will I keep that? 

36 wines, don't mind if I do

I went with my friend Simone (The Happy Wine Woman) who is just wonderful to taste with!  She's a dear friend, but aside from that she has a wonderful palate, and hailing from NZ, London, and Australia, a totally different set of vocabulary from me.  And the people at the tasting were all lovely too.  Apparently they have regular Tuesday sessions, and I was told I'm on the list for the next one...which ironically is on a Wednesday...

My favorite!

Wednesday was Secret Ingredient parte dos.  This time was another 'chef collaboration' with Christian, one of the guys behind Mana.  Mana is a great to-go place (fast slow food), that is vegetarian and full of great salads and flatbreads.  Our dinner was a tofu/haloumi/onion/capsicum(why do veg have different names in different countries?)/tomato fry, over an avocado/walnut/craisin salad.  Twas delish a ton of food and came in cute little boxes that I could use to wrap up my lunch for the next day.  <3 leftovers---I put it over quinoa and rocket-again with the different names...for lunch the next day


Yum and strange this is the first Chinese-style take away box I've seen in Asia

 

Thursday at work is our office meeting day which means it's also office tasting day.  Dear friend Bill came in to say hello and was greeted with this full and rich Pouilly Fuisse.  This was a Thanksgiving white.

 

Next up was a 2005 from Eddie Feraud in Chateauneuf du Pape, one of my favorite regions and this was a lovely lovely a-typical example.  Medium to light bodied (usually quite rich and heavy) with amazing animally and pepper flavours.  Loved this!

And of course we finished with a wonderful Morey St Deni from Des Lambrays.  This, again, suprised me, as it was very full and ripe.  Wine continues to amaze and impress me, especially with Ginsberg + Chan, where they have impeccable and elevated taste.  I've already learned so much here.

 

Thursday evening was a whole thing....where I ended up crashing boys night with Paul, Patrick and Michael, and continued the party on with Court up at their place.  We stayed out til 12:30 on a school night.  haha which is way later than we made it Friday...or Saturday night.

 

Friday after work I went over to Csilla (my wonderful Hungarian friend)'s place with Simone for a meeting for our new website.  We're still working on defining our objective and certain rubrixs, but I will be in touch soon with our official 'launch.'  Then Paul met me and we went home at ripe old 9:30, for poor Paul lives up in the NT on Saturdays...

And I get to go running in this!!  Sometimes I forget how incredibly amazingly gorgeous it is where I live.  The above running path is 3 minute walk from my front door.  I'm in a new routine where I run between 8-10k every morning.  I've decided that I should run while I can thanks to some horribly sad stories about some neighbors back home.  It's a daily celebration where I feel like I'm doing what my body was made to do.  It's not about being fast, or even being skinny, but pushing myself to be active.  Everyday when I stop my RunTracker I feel a huge sense of pride and accomplishment, and it's only 8am.

And the Tastings Roll On

After Tuesday's Port evening, the tastings continued....

First in the office with a 1er Cru from Vosne Romanee from Sylvain Cathard.  I didn't get a chance to try to the Gevrey  before it was gone, but the Vosne was just wonderful.  My bosses are super into Burgundy.  I never drank much (good) before as it's a bit price inhibitive.  I don't generally (ever) shell out $1,000 for a wine, so when my bosses pop one, I jump.  We all jump!

And we had this; Bernard Van Berg's de-classified Burgundy.  This was super strange and I would have in no way ever guessed it to be from Burgundy (Meursault, which is a white wine appellation and this was a Pinot, hence the de-classification.)  My note for it said 'plastic-y, meaty, fruity' but in all of the very best pf ways.  Jay told me that this producer is very avant garde; super tiny production and very original winemaking techniques.  Well, done Bruno, I'm a fan.

And then I left for Restaurant and Bar.  I've not been to an expo (outside of China) as a visitor, well, ever.  I've always worked them, and wow is it so much more fun to go NOT work one.  I met with Simone and Julia and we walked around catching up with wine friends, F&B friends, and of course, trying wine. 

This was super heavy on the acid- would have been great with shellfish or sushi

I had met this winemaker, Paul from Australia, a few months back when he introduced his new wine 1,000 candles.  He brought it back this go round, with some of his other more 'commercial' wines, and let us all have a try.  Again, just a really interesting wine.  He said it really polarized people, but I'm of the 'love it give me more' camp.

Some Champagne?  Why, yes please.

Jon and Julia enjoy some chips and beers

This guy had some wonderful Chard and Cabs from Oz

 

My new favourite Japanese brew master.  Wonderful Kagua beer!

I had perhaps just enough to drink between wine tastings and beer, but deemed it necessary to go meet Allison and Courtney for some "Drinks for Good."  I don't know who organized, or where the money was going, but 40 bars around HK participated, and I suppose for every drink bought a portion of the $$ goes to charity.  Nice little bonus because we had been planning on catching up anyway.  Allison is off to the US for 3 weeks and the only way to prepare is with two bottles of wine....

And Thursday I had a bit of a headache.  The girls made me stay out til midnight.  On a school night! So I had sushi for lunch.  Pretty, no?

 

A little hair of the dog later, Jay and Mandy popped open our newest line of wines.  We only have a few brands that we distribute exclusively (Van Berg and Matchbox being two), and the rest of our wines are bought on the secondary market.  These Matchbox wines are from an artisanal producer in the Clare Valley, Australia.  There's a Riesling, Malbec, and Syrah.  They're all really fruit forward and quite simple, great for summer on the porch!  The Riesling went particularly well with my salmon salad on Saturday afternoon. 

Cool label

After work I popped into an HKU Space WSET alumni party.  It was great to catch up with some people from my class and try some wines from ASC and Golden Vintage.  I had a nice sparkling from Australia, a Chardonnay, and a rose from Italy, but I was tired and called it a night at 8. 

Tersina in the middle and Christophe from ASC on the right

Friday and there was no wine opened in the office.  Say what?  I suppose we had our fill earlier in the week.  After work I walked from Happy Valley to Tai Hang.  It's a lovely little back street walk with trees, birds chirping, and most importantly, very very few people.  I LOVE working in Happy Valley.  It's just so pleasant. 

I met Will and then Paul and then Sarah and then KC and then Patrick and then Courtney and then Jon, and then we'd had enough and went home.  This place Stone's is great though.  Run by an American, Joel, with real American food and really fantastic beers and wines by the glass.  Tai Hang in general is just a really cool, kind of out of the way neighborhood.  Lots of restaurants (Japanes,e Chinese, Vietnamese, American, French...), gourmet shops, an awesome wine shop, and then best of all, Lab Made.  Lab Made uses nitrous to freeze their ice cream, and it really has no rival in terms of awesome deliciousness. 

Saturday I got BAGELs from Schragels.  Ohhh the things we used to take for granted.  Then worked on my wine paper, for like a minute, and then went on a lovely afternoon run/hike.  It was absolutely gorgeous out yesterday!  I made Paul some delicious little bagel sandwiches, myself a salmon salad, and then we were off for the initial Craft Brewer of HK meeting at the Globe.  Many of the top craft importers got together and decided to start an association that abides by certain quality standards.  Then they asked all of us beer loves to join in.  Each importer brought a nice selection of their craft beers for us to try.  Yum.  The Iron Fist, Kagua, and one of the German ones really stood out as amazing. 

Iron Fist, Chipotle Beer, monk beer x 2, Stout, and German beer.

Apparently HK likes beer!  So many people and there was a good buzz about some local brewers.  Lets hope HK catches up with Korea in terms of our own local brewing scene. 

It being such a beautiful day and all, we decided to stroll along the harbour in the always surprisingly vacant Wan Chai park. 

 

Then had the brilliant idea to go to our favourite tapas place.  We love Taverna del Mar and every time we go in owners Kim and Domenec make us feel so welcome.  They always have something new to show us too.

Sherry. Estrella on draft, baby eels, and homemade bread.  Yum.

 

Anchovies!

And the new fun selection of the night was paella....made with noodles.  My go-to is generally the squid ink rice, but followed Kim's suggestion of the noodles.  Oohh so delicious and seafoody

 

And then being the old people we are, went home at 9pm to watch Into the West.  Does anyone remember this mini-series from like 10 years ago? It's fantastic and I definitely recommend you go download it. 

 

Sunday Funday and I'm up at 7:30.  Debating a run or eating leftover seafood noodles.  Debate may not be the right word there...trying to convince myself to run before eating the noodles.  Run you don't stand a chance...

Holy Wine Season

It must be September because the wine tastings have commenced.  Everyday wine tastings wooh.

Sunday funday meant catching up with old co-workers at Stone Nullah Tavern.  Free wine (yey industry night!), amazing arancini and maple bacon chips, and Julia and Florian.  Sounds like things are same old same old back at HOFWs, prepare for an event, follow up event, prepare for event.  Repeat.  And Julia is enjoying her new job at Telford, one of the top 10 booze importers- emphasis on boozey booze.

Then I ran out to go meet my artistic friend KC for a glass of wine at Enoteca.  KC studied in the US and then came back to HK after college to open his own art studio, conveniently located just near my apartment.  One of these days I will get my act together and get the girls in for some bubbles and paint.  One day...until then I need to get home before 11pm on a school night....one day...

So studious; Titus, Julia and Csilla

Monday was Italian wine tasting day!  My friend Titus who is in my diploma intake has an Italian friend who is interested in importing wines to Hong Kong.  His friend isn't really into wine so he wanted some industry prospective into the commercial potential for some of the wines.  Oh wow.  First of all, Fabio foot the bill for this whole schindig.  I got to invite my wine friends.  And we all got to imbibe on 9 wines and multiple courses of food.  Well done, Fabio, well done.

Simone, Kat, Thomas, me, Vivian, Fabio, Wilson, Titus, Julia and Csilla

Thomas- from my dip- owns(?) a plastic company and is at every tasting
Csilla- my lovely Hungarian friend and wine importer
Julia- from HOFWs and now Telford
Simone- The Happy Wine Woman and dear friend
Kat- also in my dip and an absolute dear, who incidentally was googling something about wine the other day and came across this here blog.  Famous.

Our host Mr. Fabio

My oh my, did we all not know what we got into!  Cheese!  Meat! Shrimp salad! Grilled veg! Smoke salmon!  Delicious cold starters to go with our 'white' selection:

1. Brut Rose (100% Pinot Neto)- twas good but shocking to learn that it has aged on it lees for 36 months- didn't taste very yeasty or bready, instead was quite fruit driven

2. Extra Brut (100% Chardonnay)- twas ok, again shocking that it aged for 48-60 months

3.  No dosage 100% Pinot Noir- this was definitely the tastiest of the sparklers, and with 42 months aging you could finally taste some of that autolysis character.

Umm did I mention the food? Blue cheese and Pecorino all night long....

4. Chardonnay- fat and a bit flabby
5. Petite Manseng- interesting, but still quite flabby

Then the main course which none of knew was coming, and certainly hadn't planned for given all the cheese and salads....fettuccine with beef and cheese.  Delish, but waaaay too much.  And onto the reds...

Too much food.

6. Cab Sav- fruity, easy, would be a commercial hit
7.  Super Tuscan- delish!  Finally something that tasted Italian- kind of ironic....
8. 85% Shiraz and 15% Petite Verdot- this was totally my favorite as it was balanced with some layers of fruit, spice, and wood. 

And finally we wrapped it all up with some almond cookies and

9. Ripasso Petite Manseng, Viognier, and something else. I can't read my handwriting... Too sweet...and too late.  We were in TST (my first time back to Kowloon since I left HOFWs in July!) and coudn't get a cab!  #firstworldproblems.  So we MTRed it home, just before midnight....

Poor Paul misses his roommate. 

Tuesday was Port day!  But first Jay opened up some wonderful! Riojas in the office.  Have I mentioned I love Ginsberg + Chan?  First we had a 1994 Lopez de Heredia Gran Reserva- nose was full of red fruit- cherry, vanilla, meat/leather, burnt toast (from the producer- love that!) and on the palate sour cherry, old school, traditional, and oh so not what you would expect from a Rioja.

Wonderful

The next wine was amazing.  I had a Lopez de Heredia 2003 not too far back and it was funky.  In a cool, weird, interesting, weird kind of way.  Emphasis weird.  This 1981 (1981!) Blaco Gran Reserva was amazingly fresh and vibrant, and older than me!  Aromas of dandelion, lemongrass, a deep nuttiness, marzipan....and on the palate honey, yeast, apple core, green apple...again you wouldn't have ever guessed a 34 year old Viura.  Mmmmm.

Delicious

Then Port! Nick of Fladgate was in town to lead a group of us through 6 different ports; one Taylor's Late Bottle Vintage (invented-ish by Taylors), Taylor's Vintage 2007, 2009. 2011, Fonseca 2011, and Croft 2011.

Jean my fortified friend with her back to us, Tersina who finds out her MW results tomorrow!! and Nick of Fladgate

I don't know how much you know about Port, but I read an entire book about it (Port and the Duoro by Richard Mayson) and it's amazing.  There is just so so so much history.  And so much deliciousness.  This is a booze beverage that traveled and was known world wide in a time when it was really not easy to get around world wide.  And let's be honest, it's crazy tasty.  High booze burn, but layers of caramel, fig, vanilla, spice, strawberry, blackberry, jam, juice, cherry, and it just gets deeper and more complex the longer you leave it in the basement (note- vintage port only.  Tawny, ruby, LBV, drink now, not for storing!).  Yum, yum, yum. 

So studious.  And soooo cold.  Turn down the AC Cliftons



Which reminds me of a time when I had a bottle of Port at my parent's house in NJ whilst waiting to go to Asia.  I left it on the counter and my unsuspecting dad poured himself a glass thinking it was red wine.  haha as delish as Port is, you probably don't want to take a huge mouthful of it...or maybe you do...

You know what's even better than Port?  Sherry!!!  Get in on it.   The wine tasting week continues...