Cooking
Melissa and I went to Barney's last night. For those outside the Bay Area, Barney's is a local chain of gourmet hamburger restaurants. I find their burgers decent, especially now that I've learned to avoid the specialty burgers with their overflowing and unsubtle ingredients. But sometimes we get a craving for them. I called in advance and asked if we could bring some wine. The person's response ("sure") made me wonder if she'd heard the question. Well, the worst that could happen was they'd freak out when we got there, bottle in hand. They didn't freak out. It turns out Barney's doesn't charge a corkage fee, the fee that restaurants charge you when you bring your wine, to punish you for not buying the overpriced wine from their uninteresting lists. Of course, Barney's doesn't really have a wine service to compete with your choice. I imagine their "Chablis" and "Burgundy" come from boxes. And it's not like they trotted out their hidden stash of Riedel crystal. We drank our wine trattoria-style out of simple glass tumblers. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at this casual response, and I could imagine going to Barney's more often just to support this attitude. Here's another surprise. Barney's says on their menu that they won't cook a burger rare. I told the server that I understood that, but I wanted it as rare as they could possibly make it. The burgers weren't exactly rare to my taste, but they were certainly more rare than their menu implied. Begging has its place, I guess. What wine do you bring to a burger joint? I looked through our rack, and it struck me as soon as I saw the bottle: Big Moose Red. It even has a screw cap so we didn't need to smuggle in a corkscrew. It was the perfect wine for the occasion.
- Boxed Wine
Recently, Melissa and I offered to bring wine to a casual birthday party. She texted me from The Spanish Table: She had bought a wine we had tasted before, Alandra's simple, fruity, friendly red table wine, but she had bought it in a box. (She also...
- Berkeley Bites
Our new house doesn’t have a kitchen. It did when we bought it, but before we moved in we turned that room into a miniature Christo installation, using plastic drop cloths to enshroud every surface while we sand down our smurf-blue walls and ceilings,...
- A Good House Wine
Melissa and I always keep our eyes open for a good house wine. This is the wine we pour for a simple dinner for the two of us or for just a couple glasses when we get home from work. If friends meet us at our place before we go out to dinner, this is...
- Acme Chophouse
The other night we had our first dinner as part of the Dine About Town festivities. Basically, a bunch of restaurants have offered 3-course, $30 prix fixe menus for dinners on what would otherwise be slow nights. For many of them, getting a single entrée...
- The Riedel Taste Test
Wine brings out the snob in otherwise normal people. And few things evoke more snobbery in the world of wine accessories than Riedel wine glasses. The whole idea of Riedel crystal is that it is tailored for the particular grape, directing the flow of...
Cooking
Some Reasons to Try Barney's
Melissa and I went to Barney's last night. For those outside the Bay Area, Barney's is a local chain of gourmet hamburger restaurants. I find their burgers decent, especially now that I've learned to avoid the specialty burgers with their overflowing and unsubtle ingredients. But sometimes we get a craving for them. I called in advance and asked if we could bring some wine. The person's response ("sure") made me wonder if she'd heard the question. Well, the worst that could happen was they'd freak out when we got there, bottle in hand. They didn't freak out. It turns out Barney's doesn't charge a corkage fee, the fee that restaurants charge you when you bring your wine, to punish you for not buying the overpriced wine from their uninteresting lists. Of course, Barney's doesn't really have a wine service to compete with your choice. I imagine their "Chablis" and "Burgundy" come from boxes. And it's not like they trotted out their hidden stash of Riedel crystal. We drank our wine trattoria-style out of simple glass tumblers. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at this casual response, and I could imagine going to Barney's more often just to support this attitude. Here's another surprise. Barney's says on their menu that they won't cook a burger rare. I told the server that I understood that, but I wanted it as rare as they could possibly make it. The burgers weren't exactly rare to my taste, but they were certainly more rare than their menu implied. Begging has its place, I guess. What wine do you bring to a burger joint? I looked through our rack, and it struck me as soon as I saw the bottle: Big Moose Red. It even has a screw cap so we didn't need to smuggle in a corkscrew. It was the perfect wine for the occasion.
- Boxed Wine
Recently, Melissa and I offered to bring wine to a casual birthday party. She texted me from The Spanish Table: She had bought a wine we had tasted before, Alandra's simple, fruity, friendly red table wine, but she had bought it in a box. (She also...
- Berkeley Bites
Our new house doesn’t have a kitchen. It did when we bought it, but before we moved in we turned that room into a miniature Christo installation, using plastic drop cloths to enshroud every surface while we sand down our smurf-blue walls and ceilings,...
- A Good House Wine
Melissa and I always keep our eyes open for a good house wine. This is the wine we pour for a simple dinner for the two of us or for just a couple glasses when we get home from work. If friends meet us at our place before we go out to dinner, this is...
- Acme Chophouse
The other night we had our first dinner as part of the Dine About Town festivities. Basically, a bunch of restaurants have offered 3-course, $30 prix fixe menus for dinners on what would otherwise be slow nights. For many of them, getting a single entrée...
- The Riedel Taste Test
Wine brings out the snob in otherwise normal people. And few things evoke more snobbery in the world of wine accessories than Riedel wine glasses. The whole idea of Riedel crystal is that it is tailored for the particular grape, directing the flow of...