Cuban Food at St. Armands Circle, Florida

Posted on October 25, 2012 by thewineraconteur

I had some projects to do around the house today, and I had the Godfather 2 playing for background entertainment.  There was a key scene that takes place in Havana, and I remembered having a fine dinner of Cuban cuisine.  We were down visiting some friends in Venice, Florida and the four of us went to St. Armands Circle just outside of Sarasota.  The women can always find a reason to shop, and the Circle is a shopping and dining attraction.  While we were shopping and taking in the sights, our friends met another couple of friends and he was of Cuban descent.

 

Eventually after wandering around the Circle, the men enjoying cigars and the ladies going in and out of shops and boutiques, everyone had worked up an appetite as well as a thirst.  Our newest friend suggested that we go to Columbia Restaurant, as he had been there often and touted the food.  We all agreed and found ourselves there at a table for six.  As they we were receiving our menus, our new friend suggested that he do the ordering, and then we could all try several dishes at one time.   That worked for all of us, unfortunately I cannot remember a single dish that we had, as we had a huge setting of family style plates among us, and we all started a taste fest of unknown delicacies.

 

It was decided that I select the wine, and even back then I was starting to have a bit of a reputation for enjoying the fruit of the vine.  As we had entered the restaurant, I saw a display of the house wine, which was Don Cesar Rioja Reserva 1986 and also what had caught my eye was the artwork on the label.  It was done by LeRoy Neiman, who had done the art work for the Kentucky Derby one year and we had purchased an autographed print of his work.  I normally would have ordered something else, as I am leery of “house” wines, as I have found them to be mediocre, but an excellent profit margin maker for the house.  I decided to abandon my prior conviction because I decided that I wanted the label for my cellar wall, and I love Rioja Reserva wines.  I figured that if the wine was not great with six drinkers, it would be gone in no time, and I could order something else.  Well it was wonderful, and delivered what a good Rioja wine should deliver and it paired with the food.

 

 

Dinner lasted several hours between the appetizers and then all of the other food that was ordered.  Not to mention the many bottles of wine needed to compliment all of the food that we were enjoying.  I still wish I could remember what had been ordered, but since our new friend and the waiter both spoke Cuban-Spanish I could not keep up with the conversation and just enjoyed the moment.  It is amazing how something totally alien to the subject of wine can trigger a fond memory.

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“Beast on the Moon,” Dinner and Wine in Chelsea

Posted on October 24, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Even if you didn’t know about the Ottoman Turks genocide against the Armenians, the play “Beast on the Moon” was a story that most people could relate to the concept that life is precious.  We first heard of this play from my sister-in-law who saw it at the Humana Festival of New American Plays when it was performed at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.   So when we heard it was coming to the Detroit area we had to get tickets.

 

The play was produced by The Purple Rose Theatre Company of Chelsea, Michigan.  This company was founded by the actor Jeff Daniels, a star of theatre, cinema and television.  He is from and has his family living in Chelsea rather then in California.  His theatre company has put on many plays since its opening days.  One thing I must mention is that the theater is small and intimate and there is not a bad seat in the house.

 

We arrived before the play, and planned on dinner at the Common Grill also in Chelsea.  The restaurant reminded me of an old five and ten store from my youth, so that may have been the original shop that was there.  There was a blackboard along the back of the restaurant with names of many types of fish painted on the board.  Then they used chalk (if I remember correctly) to indicate which of the fish were fresh for the evening’s meals.  Another unique aspect of the restaurant was that after you selected the fish, you selected the manner that you wished the fish to be prepared; grilled, sautéed, poached etc.  I thought that this was a great way, so you couldn’t complain that the fish wasn’t prepared how you liked it or you could experiment with a new experience.

 

While we were there we tried a bottle of Chardonnay from California.  Stone Creek winery is based in Lodi, Mendocino County and is part of the Weibel Family Vineyards and Winery.  Since we were both enjoying a fish dinner, a Chardonnay wine was a simple and easy choice to pair with the meal.   It is fun to try a new wine, even when you have no knowledge of the winery before-hand.

 

 

After dinner, we wandered around the downtown area of Chelsea.  My only knowledge up to that point in Chelsea was that “Jiffy” mixes were made there.  I now can appreciate the city for more than that bit of information.  I would recommend a trip to Chelsea for dinner and a show if you get the chance.

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October Birthdays and a Dinner

Posted on October 23, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Once a month the family gets together to celebrate all the birthday recipients at one time, we also took the occasion to celebrate our anniversary.  We had eighteen people for dinner, and my Bride could not be happier.  She was bustling around the kitchen all morning and afternoon in preparation.

 

 

It would not be a dinner without her great Caesar salad with the home made scratch dressing.  She also sautéed chicken breasts, made a leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables and of course Armenian pilaf.   She made a brownie birthday cake for the October birthday guests (herself included) and then she topped off the menu with Bananas Foster.  I got a chuckle from her and a few of the others in the kitchen when I brought a fire extinguisher in from the garage.

 

 

Of course I had to go into the cellar and pick out some wine for everyone to enjoy.  I chose a couple of bottles of wine, that my Bride brought home from one of her trips to Traverse City.  We have been to the L. Mawby winery in Suttons Bay a couple of times, and my Bride has been there a couple of more times, but that will be another story.  We opened up a couple of bottles of M. Lawrence “Sandpiper” Sparkling Wine Extra Dry, which said it came from Batch #7 and each bottle was numbered.  These wines are made in small batches and fermented in the “cuve close method” as indicated on the label.  I prefer a little more sweetness myself in this type of wine, as I am always afraid that extra dry can be have little nuance.   I am happy to say that I could taste some fruit, and a little oak which made it more appealing.

 

We also had some Santa Rita Cabernet Sauvignon 2000 wine from the Rapel Valley of Chile.  This was a very well made wine and the tannins had mellowed and it had a very supple taste and a very nice color.  I have been trying this wine every now and then to see how it would age, as I knew very little about Chilean wines at the time that I had bought the original bottle.  We both enjoyed the first bottle and we went and bought a case of it while it was still new.  As can be expected there were enough tannins in the initial taste, to warrant cellaring the wine to watch it as it matures.  I have been very happy with each bottle we have had.

 

Our next dinner for the November birthday people will be done during the Thanksgiving dinner, and I have already purchased the wine for it, as I want to try something different for pairing with a turkey dinner.  That will also be another story.

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Kathleen Turner as Tallulah and a Pinot Noir

Posted on October 22, 2012 by thewineraconteur

When one thinks of Kathleen Turner they think of Film Noire, but I also think of Pinot Noir.  She was appearing at the Fisher Theatre in a one woman play called Tallulah.  This play was based on the history of Tallulah Bankhead and from her many quotes.  In the age of movie stars, Tallulah was ahead of her time, she was a celebrity, who exceeded her fifteen minutes of fame.  Today “celebrities” are from reality television, and I am so glad that I gave up watching television at least twenty years ago.  Tallulah had to do it the hard way, theatrical and the gossip columns.  She achieved more fame from the legitimate theater then from the cinema.   A lot of the memorable lines from the play that evening, I will not mention here as they are rather ribald, so I shall use one that will serve as an example “I am as pure as the driven slush.”

 

 

We were season ticket holders for years at the Fisher Theatre so we ate at many of the restaurants in the immediate area.  One that we frequented often was the restaurant that was on the main floor of the Fisher Building in an old bank branch.  The room was beautiful and reminded one of how elegant banks were in the old days.   I am not sure if the restaurant was Pegasus or Motor City Grill as they both were there for a time.  Neither restaurant was gourmet, but they did a yeoman’s job feeding all the show goers a good meal with medium price wines and getting them to the theater in time for the curtain to go up.

 

   

 

In my theater scrapbook where I have saved all the “Stagebill” publications I have the label from a Saintsbury Pinot Noir 1999 from the Carneros district.  I have never had a bad bottle of wine from Saintsbury which is based in Napa.  I find that this is good type of wine to have with a meal, that the wine will actually enhance the quality of the dinner being served.   I do enjoy Pinot Noir wines from when I first tasted some of the great Burgundy wines of France.  I guess I have never been on the wine of the year trend, as I tend not to be fickle but look for tried and true varietals that will be best for pairing.  I say this because form the date; I know that Merlot was still in vogue at the time.   This wine fit the choices of food we dined on; I am sure as I had no accompanying notes on the selections for the evening.

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Our Anniversary

Posted on October 21, 2012 by thewineraconteur

October twenty-first is the anniversary for my Bride and I, and I will just talk a little bit about that day, in the context of the theme of The Wine Raconteur.  It was a day full of joy and anticipation.  It was a whirl-wind of activity that culminated after months of preparation.  We had planned and made all of the arrangements.

 

We had taken dance lessons in advance for the day.  At our age, we couldn’t have a bridal dance where we just held each other and listed back and forth to the sway of music.  This was prior to the choreographed dancing shows that now appear on television and we wanted to appear that we knew what we were doing.  Our song was “Love is Lovelier, the Second Time Around” sung by Francis Albert Sinatra, as well as “You Make Me Feel So Young.”

 

After making arrangements with the caterer, we had to secure the beverages for the occasion.   The good thing was that we could furnish our own choices.  We went and purchased the premium liquors to keep everyone happy.  Our choice for wine required more thought.  We had to find something that would please our guests without breaking the bank.  We settled on three wines in magnum bottles that we felt would work very well and offer quality and would please our well wishers.   We went with the Woodbridge collection of wines from the Robert Mondavi group of California.  We chose Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and White Zinfandel and bought cases of each.   I guess we chose well, because we went through more wine that evening as compared to the mixed cases of liquor that we had purchased.

 

I am pleased to say that a fine time was enjoyed by all, especially my Bride and I.  We are still going strong to this day, I am glad to say.  Here is to my Bride, who still can put up with my idiosyncrasies.

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Miss Saigon and a Merlot

Posted on October 20, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Back in 1994 Miss Saigon was coming to Detroit and was going to appear at the Masonic Temple Theater.   We were going to see the show, so we had to decide where to dine before the show.  We settled on the Traffic Jam, also known as TJ’s.   When I was in high school it was called the Snug, then it became the Snug/Traffic Jam and finally just Traffic Jam.  They slowly evolved from a great soup and sandwich shop to a full restaurant.  They also became a bakery, a micro-brewery and started making assorted cheeses.

 

When we got to the restaurant there painted on the street in front of the restaurant was a helicopter landing pad of the Miss Saigon logo.  The Traffic Jam was as avid for the musical as was Detroit.

 

 

Another unique aspect of the restaurant was their attitude towards wine.  Their wine department was run as a retail operation, and the selections were always changing.  Rather then having a wine list, you went and picked out the wine or wines that you wanted, some being in a cooler, and then they charged you a corkage fee.  I wish more restaurants operated this way.

 

I don’t remember the meal that we had, but I do remember finding a wine that I did not know about.  It was a bottle of Merlot wine, labeled Famille Bonverre from California.  It also said “The Trials of Marguerite B., The Saga Continues.”  What really intrigued me was that it was by St. Supery Winery in Rutherford (Napa Valley).  This was a winery that we had visited and done a tasting while we were there.  It is also a winery that we really enjoyed and always looked for their listing on any wine list that we looked at.  I have never seen this wine offered again, though I do admit that I never searched even on the internet for it.   I have to say that I enjoyed the wine much more then I enjoyed the play, while my Bride enjoyed both equally.

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Elizabeth’s Chophouse in Marquette, MI

Posted on October 19, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Our second night in Marquette and we had dinner at Elizabeth’s Chophouse.  When we got there, there was a large party going on that took over half of the restaurant.   There was still ample room for diners like us who just showed up.  There was a good size bar in the center of the restaurant and we were escorted to another dining room away from the party.  The walls had exposed bricks and had that casual look to the room.

The food was far from casual though.  We basically stuck to the page of specials for the evening and we were not disappointed.  My Bride enjoyed a Roasted Baby Beet and Baby Carrot Salad, with mixed greens, toasted walnuts, goat cheese and a Sherry Walnut Vinaigrette.  I opted for a classic Lobster Bisque.  My Bride then had a Pan Seared Paiche.  We had never heard of this fish, and we were told that according to the fish purveyor, there were only five restaurants that carried this fish so far.  It is an amazing air breathing, sustainable fresh water fish from the Amazon River; this is also an incredibly large fish.  It was presented on a grilled asparagus raft, King Crab meat, pea sprouts and a butter cream sauce.  I had a Braised “Lollipop” Short Rib.  It was called a “Lollipop” because of the way the meat was carved off of a long bone and wrapped around the bone, giving the image of a lollipop.   It was done in red wine, veal stock and Glace de Veau with Yukon Gold potatoes.   The food was so rich and filling, we could not even enjoy a dessert, as we had no room left.

We selected a bottle of Cotes du Rhone from Prosper Maufoux 2009.  The firm is from Santenay in the Cote-D’Or in the Burgundy region of France.   The company was founded in 1860 and they delivered a classic bottle of Cotes du Rhone.  There was enough fruit to make it enjoyable and my Bride enjoyed it with her fish, and it paired well with my Short Rib.  The wine was a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan.   The wine and the food were excellent, and I am sure that this restaurant will be revisited again.

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L’Attitudes in Marquette and a Famous Wine

Posted on October 18, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Well I guess I couldn’t wait for the cold weather, so I went with my Bride up to Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan just off of Lake Superior.  She was giving a seminar and I was tagging along.  Looking out of my window at the lake and the downtown area in a warm room is nice.  The sky is gray though and a harbinger of the seasonal change.

We arrived last night at the hotel and unpacked, refreshed and went out for dinner.  Dinner and restaurant selections are my domain when we travel and so far I am way on the plus side of good choices.  Last night was not an exception.  We went down the hill as they say in Marquette on the water front to a restaurant called L’Attitudes.  It was well appointed and felt more as if it should have been in Chicago, or maybe a resort destination, not to say that Marquette is not a destination.

The menu was divided into “Small Bites,” “Medium Bites,” and “Big Bites.”  There was a definite Pacific Rim infusion to the menu, which made my Bride very happy.  We split an Ahi Tuna Tostado that had some wasabi and ginger on the side.  Then my Bride ordered a lightly seared Blackened Ahi Tuna and I ordered a smoked Duck Gumbo.  Both orders of the Tuna came out “medium” instead of “seared,” but still had good taste and texture.  The gumbo was excellent, with large pieces of Duck and Andouille sausage.  We then shared a nice piece of pumpkin cheese cake.

The big surprise of the evening was a bottle of Chateau Montelena.  We had never had the pleasure of trying this wine before, so I had to order it. The waiter said that this was the first bottle of the wine that they had served.  We gave him a brief history of the wine crouched in cinematic references to “Bottle Shock.”  He came back later and said that the bartender knew of the film, but did not put the two together.  Chateau Montelena was the white wine that won the blind taste contest in France in 1976 and created the impetuous that is now know as Napa Valley.  The first taste was pleasant, but as the wine opened up and breathed the power and majesty of the winemaker came out.  It reminded me more of a French wine, than a classic California Chardonnay, which is fine, and which may explain the winning of the contest.  By the end of the meal, the wine had fully come into its own.  My only complaint was that the wine glasses that we received had a slight green tint to them, so I could not appreciate the color of the wine.  There was one other great note for the evening, the Detroit Tigers had won again in New York, and even the rest of the patrons were happy with that.

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The Detroit Athletic Club

Posted on October 17, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Detroit in its glory days had many businessmen’s club downtown.  When everything was downtown and the restaurants and nightlife were in full bloom.  These clubs were a way for a man to have a dinner with his associates and sit out and wait for the traffic to clear before he made that long trip home, this was before expressways and there were only main arterial roads to traverse.  The gentlemen could relax after dinner with bowling, billiards or a good cigar.  The old clubs also maintained small apartments for the members to use, as some would maintain a weekday residence downtown and then join their family on the weekends.   The Detroit Athletic Club was and still is the premier club of it’s kind.

 

 

We have attended a wedding there, as well as having dinners there.   My Bride has done business meetings and presentations there as well.  There was a time, when I wanted to get a membership with this august group, but my Bride nixed it, as she still feels umbrage from the old days.  Since it was a men’s club for years, in the old days women could not enter the building from the front door, only by the side door.  I guess she still carries a grudge, though I tried to get her to join, figuring it was the best parking in Detroit.  Sometimes I think my suggestions only count for wine.

 

Speaking of wine, we enjoyed a wonderful bottle of Merlot from William Hill Winery of Napa Valley there one evening.  This was during the big Merlot craze, but that was of total indifference to me, as I enjoy Merlot wines.  I always like to try different wines and wineries when I get a chance.  So often one only sees the same wines over and over again.  That is the wonder of wines, to try a new one, even if it is similar to other wines that you have enjoyed.

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St. Clair Inn

Posted on October 16, 2012 by thewineraconteur

Years ago I made many trips to the St. Clair Inn in St. Clair, Michigan.  It was one of those charming old hotels on the water.  It was a place to have a nice dinner and to watch the boats go by and spend a relaxing afternoon or evening.  I think of the old days when there were passenger boats that used to ply the water ways visiting the Flats and other areas between Detroit and Port Huron.  Life was simpler and slower, and there was time to enjoy oneself with out the hustle and bustle.

 

The St. Clair Inn was part of that old time mystique of a bygone era.  The restaurant was on the backside of the Inn with a large panoramic view of the water.  Then it was an independent business and it prided itself on serving a dinner worth the trip, either by boat or car.   The food was not fussy, but it was a fine place to have a good fish dinner.  The perch, walleye and whitefish plates were notable.  The Peach Melba for dessert was an added inducement to linger longer and enjoy the ambience of not only the restaurant but of the water traffic.  I remember a friend that used to go on the trips that had a disdain for all seafood and would refer to all types of fish as “sea lamprey,” and would always have a steak.

 

With all of those wonderful offerings of fish dinners, is it any wonder that I remember having a Saintsbury Chardonnay from the Carneros designation of Napa Valley.  The winery was one of the first that I recalled that would list that the wine was unfiltered.  The wine had just enough of that classic Chardonnay crispness that I find so appealing with fish.  I find that most of the Chardonnay wines do not have a lingering after taste to combat the different preparations of fish.

 

 

Unfortunately the Inn became part of a national chain, and the restaurant underwent changes to accommodate the desires of the chain.  They modernized and tweaked the menu to be more for modern tastes at the expense of the historic charm of the old school presentations.  While the food is still of quality, the feeling of history and nostalgia seems to have left the room.  I have encountered this change from time to time at different locations, and I must admit that there are times when I miss the old days.

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