Wine & Food Things

[gothwalk]

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

There’s a pile of food things I wanted to post about, and I keep forgetting. So here’s a burst of them.

First, Fallon & Byrne is open in Exchequer Street. It’s pretty damn good - not quite the range of foods I was hoping for, but not as expensive as I feared, either. They have some excellent spice mixes - the gyros one is very, very good, and a competent and conversational French butcher. I’m not sure how seasonal their cheeses are, but they probably still have an Epoisses Bert AOC, which I advise you to go and get. You almost need to eat it with a spoon. We had it on lemon-and-almond biscuits with quince jelly, but I’d recommend it even on its own.

Second, there was a wine fair, sponsored by O’Briens, in the RDS last Saturday, and since they sent us free tickets, we wandered along for a look. I tried fifteen different wines, and by tried, I mean drank. My estimates of their worthiness were rising by the end, but I do recall a few of them as being great. Two actual honest-to-Gods champagnes, a Bauchet NV, which was nice and light, and a Bauchet Vintage 1998, which was the most solid, manly sort of champagne I’ve ever had. And they were the first I tried, so I was sober then. A Domain de Saint-Lannes Blanc tasted of nettles, and I will be acquiring some of it for the barbecue, to have with cheese. If you bribe me with more cheese, you can have some too. And then there’s a Rust en Vrede (don’t ask me to pronounce that; it’s Afrikaans or something, and I keep heading for French) Shiraz, which was absolutely excellent for my tastes, and the same vineyard’s Estate Wine, which Nina really liked, though it was too liquorice-y for me. And finally, a Chilean one, Chocálan Carmenère 2004, which I am going to consume with dark chocolate next time the mood hits me. I had better actually buy some to have in stock, I think.

A guy involved in the Fairways chain in the US has a most excellent food blog, which you should go read. It’ll make you hungry, though.

And finally, I have fresh pineapple chunks here, and you probably don’t. They’re very good.