Category: Food and Wine

In-flight wine review

I’m typing this aboard Lufthansa flight 455 from San Francisco to Frankfurt; I’m actually on my way to Finland for a week’s worth of meetings.  I had hoped to try out the “FlyNet” service and blog this live from the air, but they are using an old plane for this flight, so there’s no FlyNet, and when the guy in front of me reclines, I only have a couple of inches of legroom (it could be far worse — I could be in coach!).

Fortunately, the food and wine didn’t suffer from using an old plane; the meal was nothing special, but it was pleasant.  I tried all of the wines on offer (the glasses are small, and what the hell, I’m not driving anywhere for a week!), and thought I’d write up my thoughts while they’re fresh.

The first wine I tried (before any food arrived) was the 2004 Sonnenwind Riesling Spätlese trocken from Weingut Motzenbäcker in Germany.  I liked it; it was sweet, but not too sweet, with a definite flinty character. 

I had an Austrian wine with my salad, a 2004 Grüner Veltliner Spiegel, from Weingut Sonnhof Jurstchitsch.  The first taste was sweet, but it had a very strong mineral aftertaste.  I liked it less with every sip, and didn’t finish it.

They had two red wines available, and I tried a little bit of both with my main course (even though it was chicken).  The first was French, a 2001 Cháteau Castéra Cru Bourgeoise Médoc.  It was fruity and pleasant, but very simple.  One sip was all I took; instead, I tried the German red, a 2003 Dornfelder Classic, from Wingut Anselmann.  This was a winner — complex, fruity, with quite a bit of tannin.  Very drinkable, so I had a full glass, and would happily buy a bottle to drink at home.

I was shocked when I saw the desserts — there was no chocolate.  Fortunately, they remedied the situation by passing out little boxes of Peters pralines, which I’d never had before.  I would have preferred dark chocolate (these had mixed dark, milk, and white chocolate coatings, and the dark chocolate is only 59% cacao), but it’s a long way to the nearest See’s.

I should arrive in Frankfurt about 10am German time; my flight to Helsinki leaves about 2, so I hope to have time to do a geocache at the airport (there’s only one that I could find in the terminal).

Now it’s time for me to sit back, relax, and read something.  More later.

Kushi Tsuru for lunch and a 61st birthday party for dinner

Diane had to pick up a “Book Club in a Box” this afternoon from the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco, so we all drove up together, planning to have lunch somewhere nearby.  The people in the library recommended a place called King of Falafel on Divisadero, but they didn’t answer the phone, so we went with our original plan: go to Japantown and look around for a place.

We found parking easily enough at Japan Center’s garage.  Diane and I had stayed at the Hotel Mikayo there once, before we moved to California, but we didn’t remember any restaurants, so we just went into the Center itself and looked around.  We saw one sushi bar which looked quite appealing, but they didn’t have anything Jeff would eat.  We saw a Behihana (it didn’t say “Benihana of Tokyo”), but moved on.  Eventually, we chose Kushi Tsuru — it looked busy, though there wasn’t a line, and their menu had something for all of us.

Jeff, as usual, got the chicken teriyaki, and he was pleased.  Diane and I got bento boxes with salmon teriyaki and maguro sashimi.  The salmon teriyaki was good; the sashimi was blah, and there didn’t seem to be any wasabi available.  I’d try somewhere else next time.

After lunch, we drove home and got ready for a friend’s triple-threat party:  her 61st birthday, her near-retirement, and the burning of her mortgage (and she had a separate cake for each of the three events).  Besides friends, family, and food, she also supplied a balloon-maker and a magician, Tye the Magic Guy.  I’m not much of a balloon guy, but I enjoyed Tye’s show, despite (or maybe because of) the groaners in his patter.  All in all, a good evening.