The perils of single cask scotch

For some reason, which I have yet to investigate, Montgomery County liquor stores have a couple of Highland Park single casks bottled exclusively for the County. Otherwise, everything in the store is official distillery bottlings. Recently the local store had one of these special single cask bottlings on sale (they normally go for about $90 a bottle). The Highland Park 15 year old from cask 3701 was distilled in 1991 and bottled in 2006 at 55.1% abv. The first thing I noticed was a deep dark coppery red color and the nose was full of burnt sugar and tons of sherry. This is a bit rough and burning, partly due to the higher alcohol, but I think also because it is coming from a sherry barrel without anything else to smooth it out. It reminded me a bit of Aberlour's A'bunadh, which I reviewed last summer. That's not a compliment. I think this shows the perils of bottling a single cask, because the sherry in this whisky completely overwhelms any of the island qualities I expect from Highland Park, which is unfortunate given how great Highland can be. This whisky is terribly one dimensional.

Assaggi Mozarrella Bar and Restaurant (****)

Assaggi used to be Centro, but a year or so ago changed its name. The chef is Domenico Cornacchia and he has a restaurant to be proud of. This is a happening place, but that doesn't detract from the food and the wines. The wines by the glass are well chosen and cover the spectrum, including some good choices for under $10, which seems to be the new medium price point for a glass of wine these days. The menu highlights the mozzarella bar, which we did not try, but there is so much to choose from, including a lengthy list of daily specials, that one almost feels overwhelmed by it all. We tried a few of the salads, each of which was well seasoned, not over dressed, and mixed textures well. The pasta dishes are very good. I tried some buckwheat noodles (pizzocheri, which are long, flat noodles similar to papardelle) with potatoes, chard and bitto cheese. The others in the party had a fantastic potato gnocchi dish with a veal short rib ragu' that Leslie was still raving about two days later. A wonderful restaurant, and a gem in downtown Bethesda. Now go, mangia bene!

Bistro du Coin

I can't give you a real rating for Bistro du Coin for two main reasons: I only had one dish and it was drowned in a lot of (mediocre) Cote du Rhone wine, which is to say I had had at least four glasses before I had my dish. That said, the maple-leaf duck breast was executed perfectly, cooked exactly how it should be (if the chef recommends medium rare, eat it medium rare, don't make them cook it longer) and given a nice creamy peppercorn sauce. The plate also came with a cake of carrot-potato gratin that was excellent and worked well in mopping up the sauce.

Bistro du Coin is loud and proud of it. It's tall, almost cavernous interior is designed to augment the laid-back, bustling atmosphere of a busy french bistro. Eating here is not for the stuffy, but for those who want to have a good time with friends. You don't have to worry about being too loud here!

Craigellachie 15 yo

This scotch is from the venerable independent bottler Gordon and McPhail, which has been around since 1885. Craigellachie has only seen one official distillery bottling, a 14 year old released in 2004. Otherwise, most of the 3.6 million liters of production goes into blends, primarily Dewar's White Label. The independent releases of recent years have garnered high marks from many reviewers. This is my first time trying Craigellachie (I bought it the same time I purchased the disappointing Miltonduff, which has grown on me a bit, but not enough to change anything I said about it) and I was quite impressed. It has a golden-copper look to it and is full of bright, complex scents, such as caramel, roasted pecans, some sherry, deep port with an undertone of coconut or maybe pineapple. And that's all before adding any water to the glass. The nose is not astringent at all, though you will definitely do injury to your nose if you inhale too deeply before adding water.

Once I added water I got some fireplace, a little bit of plastic (but a pleasant plastic if you can imagine what that might be), some sweet sherry, and toffee. It has a mild oilyness on the tongue and a pleasingly long finish. Quite a good drink. If you are interested, you can find Gordon and McPhail's tasting notes here.

Wychwood Beer

So here they are, three beers from Wychwood, which is a relatively young brewery in the Cotswalds, but it traces a history back to the early 19th century on the site currently occupied by Wychwood.

First up is their Hobgoblin Dark English Ale, which is very dark, but doesn't have a strong hoppy nose as you might expect. I get some dark roasted chocolate flavor and it drinks smoothly -- no bitterness at all. The Fiddler's Elbow, which is an ale hopped with Styrians (which is I believe a Central European hop), has a pale golden color, a bright citrusy nose, and a crisp and clean flavor with just a slight bit of bite. It reminds me of a toned down sam Adams Summer Ale. Finally, there is the Golden Pale Ale (the one in the middle, but the third one I tried), which is an organic brew. It's made with Plumage Archer barley malt and Target hops. What does that mean? I have no idea. It has a golden color similar to the Fiddler's Elbow, but with more bite and some nice bitterness on the tongue. This beer is very much alive.

Oya (** Two Stars)

I struggled a bit with how to rate Oya. It's really a lounge that happens to serve food -- some very good -- in a "hip" setting with lots of people out to be seen. One of the matre'd's looked like he just walked out of a Ralph Lauren ad, another one was confused about whether our party was two or three people (three), so there was some moments of panic as they tried to find out where to seat us. And this was at 9pm on a Saturday night. It describes itself as an Asian-French Lounge and Restaurant, but I think the emphasis is much more on the Asian than the French.

First off, the cocktails are quite good -- a new take on the dark and stormy (known as the "darker and stormier") was delicious, not too strong, and definitely not too sweet. The sushi is excellent as well. I love unagi (eel), and theirs was some of the best I have ever had. The hamachi (tuna) and tempura tuna roll were both excellent. The menu is flexible and one can put together a meal of smaller plates (which are still substantial enough), or go with a traditional entree. We opted for the smaller plates. Most of these were good, but not great, and often had some, er, interesting flavors. The short rib was a bit dry and stringy, and the sweet potato puree underneath was just strange -- too much vanilla or some other flavoring made it seem like marshmallow. It didn't help that it was served barely above luke warm. The lobster dumplings were not very flavorful, in fact I couldn't really tell that the filling was lobster. The scallops were wonderful, but the mushrooms accompanying it were not very warm and unadorned, so lacking in flavor.

My advice -- stick with the sushi.

Watch this space

I have a couple of things in the can that I have to put up on the blog, including my impressions of dinner at the super-cool, loungy Oya in DC's Chinatown and some more beer reviews -- this time a set of three from Wychwood. Hopefully in the next day or so....

A Tale of Two Lunches

I recently revisited two old favorites for lunch to see how they held up, particularly in the deepening recession and, in one case, following a change in kitchen leadership.

On one Friday recently I went to Notti Bianche in the Foggy Bottom area. I had been here once before for lunch and a few times over the last couple of years for dinner. It is, as the name suggests, an italian restaurant, and a quite good one at that. Since the Washington Post's Tom Siemtsa's original review of this restaurant, the young chef has moved on and been replaced by Chef Cox, Equinox alumnus and chef also at Circle Bistro on the other side of Washington Circle. It would be unfair of me to compare the two chefs' products, since I have only ever had lunch during Cox's reign and dinner under his predecesser. I will say that Notti Bianche is still quite good, though perhaps not quite as good as before. I started with a mushroom minestrone with tiny sausage meatballs that was delicious and warming. The seasoning was perhaps a little subtle and could have been emphasized a little more. I had more trouble with the clam and sausage bucatini, which lacked a real sauce and had some pecorino that seemed to have bound itself to bread crumbs for a sand-like texture (which is not pleasant when you cut into it along with some strange greens -- think fingernails on blackboard, if you're old enough to remember real blackboards). The service was fine, but then I was the only one in the place for the first 45 minutes of my meal. Two other gentlemen showed up close to one o'clock, but no one seemed to be beating down the door for a moderately priced lunch. I won't rate the restaurant until I've gone back to try some other dishes.

The next day I went to Addie's Restaurant, part of the mini-empire Chefs Jeff and Barbara Black have built up around the Maryland suburban DC area. This place was much busier (admittedly on a Saturday, but later in the afternoon), and I must say the food was excellent. I had a fried artichoke and pine nut salad. The artichokes were perfectly light and tasty, the salad was not overdressed, except for far too many pine nuts and golden raisins, but you don't have to eat all those. I made a small pile on the side of my plate. For my secondo I had gulf shrimp pasta with lemon sauce that was divine -- the shrimp were sweet and had a mild smokiness to them, while the sauce brought some flavor that wasn't overpowering or too acidic or buttery. An great place to eat and the staff are very welcoming and attentive without being overbearing.