October 2009 Archives

2 oz Sauza Hornitos

Tomorrow starts Halloween weekend, which of course means three days of boozing - hopefully not all Yankee choke-induced - in addition to the prerequisite costuming.

This year, the biggest game in town is the Halloween Pub Crawl, which will span over 100 bars. Tickets get you free entry to all participating venues, cheap booze and more. Get them in advance here. $15 for one day or $30 for three. Just be sure to read the FAQ on the website since you have to print your own tickets and then register at a specific place to get a beer cup, bracelet and map.

New York Vintners (21 Warren Street, Tribeca) has a tasting of over 30 Italian wines on Tuesday November 3 from 6pm - 8pm. Tickets are $45 and available through their website.

The wines of Chile are generally labeled "up and coming" but in our opinion they have already arrived. And they also happen to be a great value. Today, a Chilean wine two-fer:

Astor Wines' (399 Lafayette Street) weekly "Astor Tuesdays" promotion features the wines of Chile today. Get 15% off their list of 36 Chilean wines, today only.

New York Culinary Alliance and Women Chefs and Restaurateurs are holding a "Chilean Wine Tasting" tonight that's open to the public. Take part in a seated, guided tasting of some of the top wines coming out of Chile, including the boutique wineries such as Aquitania and Neyen. In all, wines from seven wineries will be tasted along with a selection of cheeses from Murrays. The tasting will be led by the Chile-based wine and culinary expert Liz Caskey.

Chile Wine Tasting: tonight 6pm - 8pm, Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) at 50 W. 23^rd Street. Tickets are $35 and can be bought at the door.

Brooklyn Brewery is expanding production capacity and has just received a grant of $800,000 from New York State. The grant will help start the $6.5 million renovation that will allow for a tremendous increase in production - from 8,000 barrels annually to 50,000 - not to mention the creation of 15 permanent jobs and installation of solar panels on the roof.

See? We told you beer was good.

Austrian wine has been a rising star in NYC restaurant circles for several years and now the Austrian Tourist Board has kicked off the first Austria Wine Month, running through November 22.

Fourteen restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including Wallse, Thomas Beisl, Seasonal, Klee, Cafe Katja and more, will be offering special prix fixe menus, wine flights and pairings, as well as some rare Austrian wines by the glass during the period. Some of the highlights:

·         At Wallsé and The Upholstery Store, guests can design their own four-course tasting menu for $68. For an additional $45, Austrian sommelier Leo Schneemann will pair each course with Austrian wine.

·         Café Katja offers a mixed flight: a trio of Austrian white, red, and dessert wine for $18. With 24 hours' notice, Café Katja will also set up a wine tasting with meat, cheese, and Schnapps, for $42 (minimum four people).

·         Seasonal Restaurant & Weinbar will pour a rare 2001 Smaragd wine by the glass: Prager Riesling Smaragd, Kaiserberg ($19/glass).

·         Klee Brasserie will have a special three-course menu featuring the rare Austrian Mangalitsa Pork, with an optional pairing of three Austrian wines ($93 with wine; $58 without).

·         At Thomas Beisl, guests can design a three-course meal that includes a choice of soup, wiener schnitzel, paprika chicken, cucumber salad, fresh strudel, and white, red, and dessert wines ($28/person, including wine).

·          Café Steinhof will offer $4 glasses of two Lower Austrian wines: Fritsch Grüner Ventliner and Berger Zweigelt (check website for times). On Mondays, the restaurant serves goulash ($6) and apple bread pudding ($3).

Even better, you can enter to win a 9 day trip to three of Austria's wine countries. Enter at www.austria.info/wine by answering a short three question quiz.

Soho standby Cafe Noir (32 Grand Street at Thompson) was the subject of some tense lease negotiations this past summer, mainly chronicled on Grub Street. But have no fear, it's not going anywhere - they signed a 10 year lease over the summer and now they're ready to celebrate.

Tonight there will be an open bar with free beers, mojitos and sangria from 6pm - 8pm along with free tapas. From 8pm till late drinks will be buy 1, get 1 free. Expect a live band and a revolving set of DJs. Not a bad way to start off the week.

Daily Candy today introduces the world to the Accidental Wine Company - a website that sells wine bottles that have damaged or discontinued labels at prices from 20 - 40% off. Companies generally can't sell wines with damaged, smudged or poorly aligned labels so now these folks have procured the wines to sell to you in themed packs of 3, 6, or 12.

The only problem is if you like a wine you get, you have to order a minimum 6 bottles of it the next time, assuming they have it. But at these prices, who can complain?

Momofuku Ssam Bar (207 2nd Ave) is our favorite (accessible) David Chang joint and we'd been trying to get drinks there for a while. Of course, the rule is you must order food if you want a cocktail before midnight. Finally we were in the hood after midnight so we swung by for a drink. We're happy to report the endeavor was quite a success though worker productivity the following day took a nosedive.

We started with an NCL (tyrconnell single malt irish whiskey, carpano antica and aperol) and the Celery + Nori (nori-infused laird's applejack, celery syrup, celery bitters). Both came in oversize rocks glasses with a giant ice cube. The NCL was rich and delicious - not being Irish whiskey drinkers, we were impressed with the drinks complexity. The Celery + Nori was perfectly adequate but left us a little flat after an intriguing start. Ssam's rendition of the Brooklyn (rittenhouse rye, dolin dry vermouth, maraschino, amer picon) was even better than the NCL. We have no idea where they got amer picon in the U.S. but we're happy to see it. Cocktails are $12 - $13.

Recently the Village Voice had a round-up of the 10 "best wine bars" in the city, which oddly did not include Terroir. Comments ensued, prompting the paper's restaurant critic Robert Sietsema to take readers' comments to heart and visit the 18-month old Terroir. Apparently, he'd never been.

Sietsema dislikes Paul Grieco's (not that he knows - or thinks he needs to know - who Grieco is) quirky winelist, mostly for being pricey and deceptive (way too many rieslings listed - they couldn't possibly have all these bottles in the cellar!), and sniffs at the house-cured charcuterie "because they tend to be about the same everywhere." Then he orders an auslese riesling without knowing what it is. And, as a reviewer reviewing a wine bar, he does not think he should know what an auslese riesling is, this being such an elitist, arcane wine knowledge term and all.  Cue all heck breaking loose in the comment section.

How bad did the smackdown get? Some highlights after the jump...

Of the many booze options we tasted at yesterday's Food Network gala tasting, the most surprising was Lanson Champagne. Apparently very popular in other countries - it's the #2 champagne in the UK and the house bubbly at Wimbledon - Lanson is largely unknown here even though it is one of the oldest champagne houses, founded in 1760. But we highly recommend both the NV Black Label Brut and the light, dry delicious rose - both among the best champagnes in the price range.

Lanson Black Label Brut retails for around $30 - $35 with the best price we've found being $30.95 at Sherry-Lehman. The rose is much harder to find but if you do it's well worth the price, generally $10 more a bottle.

The FTC has clarified those incredibly vague, seemingly ominous rules about disclosure for bloggers - they will not go after blogs but rather the "advertisers" and they don't impose fines anyway. "We've never brought a case against somebody simply for failure to disclose a material connection," says the FTC. People who run afoul of the regulations can be fined as part of a court action but since these are not laws but just guidelines, any enforcement at all seems unlikely. Certainly food & booze bloggers can happily go on accepting free stuff. Further details at PRNewser.

Another week, another festival celebrating the food and drink of some place that is not New York. This time it's called Sud de France and it promotes the wines of Southern France - specifically the Languedoc Roussillon region. Restaurants such as Bouley, Bar Boulud, Hearth and more are doing special menus and tons of tastings are being held at wine shops around town.

Tonight Maslow 6 (211b West Broadway) in Tribeca has a tasting from 6pm - 8pm of several wines including reputedly the world's first sparkling wine.

On October 8, Columbus Circle Wines (1802 Broadway) will be tasting organic wines from Southern France from 5pm - 8pm.

And on Friday October 9, Chambers Street Wines (148 Chambers Street) will have a tasting from 5pm - 8pm.

More info on the rather poorly conceived website. Note to festival organizers, make your websites easier to navigate and give the restaurants some love. We couldn't find a list of who was doing what and that's just wrong.

Listen up bloggers and food writers - the FTC has revised rules governing "endorsements" and other forms of writing that are basically considered reviews. In short, if you get something for free (or are paid) and then endorse it in any format, including blogs, you have to state you were paid or got it gratis. For example, if we get something for free - BoozyNYC does not take free meals but sometimes get product samples - we are required to disclose this.

From the FTC themselves:

"The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that "material connections" (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers - connections that consumers would not expect - must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other "word-of-mouth" marketers."

More details here (short version) and here (super long version). In reality this will be hard to police since it relies on people to file complaints. But if someone does and you are guilty of non-disclosure, you can be fined. No word yet on how draconian fines will be.

Today is Nihonshu No Hi (Sake Day) in Japan and Sakaya (324 E. 9th Street) will be commemorating the day with tastings of 6 sakes from Prestige and Nishimoto Trading Co. Tastings will be held from 6pm - 8pm at the store.