Whiskey Wednesday: A Great Read - Chasing the White Dog

A few weeks back, in my post about Buffalo Trace's White Dog and accompanying discussion of the white whiskey phenomenon, I made reference to Max Watman’s new book Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine. Having now actually read the book, I can’t recommend it enough. Watman has a knack for storytelling that lends itself well to his take on the modern world of moonshine. The book is a volume of diverse essays covering everything from modern moonshine, (both artisanal and industrial), law enforcement, the NASCAR-bootlegging connection and the craft distilling movement. He does his best to dispel the old stereotype of the country-bumpkin moonshiner and reveal a substantial illegal trade in nasty, cheaply made, sugar-based liquor with high lead content sold in low income neighborhoods. Even as witness to these realities though, Watman can’t help but indulge in some romanticization of the outlaw moonshiner and ends up rooting for the outlaws in a climactic trial scene.

Some of the most interesting chapters for whiskey lovers are about the author’s own adventures in home distilling, as he experiments with the different mashes and still models in an effort to produce a palatable liquor. (I hope for Watman’s sake that the statute of limitations has run on his crimes against the state).

Chasing the White Dog is a quick reading, page turner of a book that I would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in the world of distilled spirits, their production and the characters who make them.

Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine, by Max Watman. ($16.50 on Amazon).

Mandarin House

Mandarin House (aka Jin) is a Koreatown Chinese restaurant. While it is aimed at a Korean clientele, with a few exceptions, the menu will be familiar to anyone who grew up eating Americanized Chinese food. I must admit that sometimes I yearn for the American style Chinese of my youth, and Mandarin House does it well. Fried shrimp were plump, only lightly battered and not at all greasy - a near perfect specimen served with the obligatory fluorescent red sweet and sour sauce, though a less viscous, less sweet and all around better version than in your typical American Chinese spot. One of the dishes I most enjoyed was the "Sauteed Shredded Pork w/ Vegetable" which was served with cellophane noodles and a very satisfying garlic sauce. The specialty of the house is the less Americanized "Black Bean Sauce Noodle" (cha chiang mein), a dish of satisfyingly chewy homemade noodles in a thick, somewhat alarming brown sauce with onions. I enjoyed the noodles but the sauce was a bit heavy for me and reminded me vaguely of Vegemite with its thick mouthfeel and salty, protein flavor.

Not every dish at Mandarin House was a hit. The won ton soup was bland, as I suppose won ton soup is wont to be. The dumplings were dreadful things, deep fried to death with skins resembling leather in texture. All in all, though, Mandarin House satisfies with its noodles and fried shrimp and the taste of Chinese-American food from the days of yore. If only they had mushu pork.

Mandarin House (Jin)
3074 W. 8th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 386-8976

Rent it Now: Take Out - The Anti-Foodie Flick

In this age of Julie and Julia, magical foodie realism and animated rat chefs, it can be refreshing to see a movie that treats food as, well, just food. Take Out, the story of a Chinese immigrant restaurant deliveryman, may be centered on food, but it doesn't have any decadent, food porn shots. In fact, this film is the opposite of food porn. The food often looks unappetizing. Great blocks of frozen shrimp are chipped away at, everything from chicken wings to tostones are thrown in the single deep fat frier, and the same wok used for cooking is used to rinse the mop after the walls are washed down. The restaurant work is gritty and real, but not in that sexy Kitchen Confidential sort of way. Food is but a means to an end, a way for Ming, the undocumented delivery worker, to make enough money to pay back his loan shark for the money it took to smuggle him into the country, or at least to pay enough of it to avoid serious bodily harm. Yet by dropping the artistic device of food as metaphor, Take Out may be a more realistic portrayal of restaurant work than I've seen in any film. There's drudgery, monotony and exhaustion, but also some amount of camaraderie that comes from people working together, just trying to get by, and in the end, there is a glimmer of hope that even under these conditions, people can and do get by and make lives for themselves.

Take Out was a 2004 independent film that met success on the festival circuit (it debuted at Slamdance) but had only a limited release in theaters. It was written, directed and produced by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou. Charles Jang gives an impressively understated performance as bicycle deliveryman Ming Ding. Another wonderful role is that of Big Sister, the no nonsense restaurant owner and counter woman played by Wang-Thye Lee. Remarkably, Lee is not a professional actor. She was cast while working at a take-out Chinese restaurant not unlike the one portrayed in the film (which was shot in an actual restaurant), and the writers met her when they were scouting locations for the film.

Take Out is available on Netflix. Check it out and take a break from the food porn.

Whiskey Wednesday: The Canadian Glen - Glen Breton Rare

Glen Breton Rare is a Canadian single malt whisky made by the Glenora Distillery in Nova Scotia. It is the only Canadian single malt whisky.

Unfortunately, to the extent people have heard of Glen Breton or the Glenora Distillery, it is usually not because of the whisky itself, but because of a dispute they had with the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), the trade organization representing Scotland's distillers. Alleging that the distillery's use of the prefix "Glen" could lead consumers to confuse it with Scotch, the SWA objected to Glenora's attempt to trademark the name Glen Breton for its single malt. Litigation ensued and lasted for years. In the end, the Canadian courts ruled for Glenora; the SWA, meanwhile, became somewhat of a laughing stock among whisky fans, most of whom viewed their claims with skepticism. After all, there are Glens in Canada, particularly in Nova Scotia, which is, of course, Latin for New Scotland (the distillery is located in Glenville on Cape Breton Island, which is where the name Glen Breton comes from). In addition, the possibility of confusion with Scotch seemed rather remote when the Glen Breton bottle and box are prominently labeled as "Canada's Only Single Malt Whisky" and both feature large pictures of a maple leaf.

Now that it's been nearly a year since the final court ruling, we should close the book on this troubled chapter in whisky history and hope that Glenora can be known for its whisky and not simply as the subject of a legal dispute. To that end, let's taste some.

Tasting

Glen Breton Rare Canadian Single Malt, 10 years old, 43% alcohol ($85)

The nose is sweet and floral, light and perfumed. The flavor is medicinal, soapy, a bit of a chemical taste. If I really concentrate, I get some fruit, maybe apple cider, and some herbal notes, but I keep coming back to soap.

I feel about this whisky the way I do about so many American single malts; I want to root for the distillery and encourage the experimentation, but the flavors just aren't there yet. Hopefully, now that they are free of legal entanglement, they will keep trying.

UPDATE: Demonstrating a good sense of humor, this week Glenora will release Battle of the Glen, a 15 year old single malt to commemorate their legal battle with (and victory over) the SWA.

Pumping the Pork at Wok and Noodle

I've always been a huge fan of Shanghainese cuisine with its subtle, refined flavors and ample use of pork. I consider having a reliable local Shanghainese place a necessity akin to having a reliable pizza place. For a long while, I relied on Shanghai Restaurant in San Gabriel Square until it headed downhill, and I've never been a huge fan of Mei Long Village, so I was thrilled to finally discover a worthy Shanghainese on my first trip to Wok and Noodle. Located on Valley Boulevard, east of Atlantic in Alhambra, Wok and Noodle is one block west of The Boiling Crab; there is no English on the outside of the restaurant, but they do have an English menu.

Wok and Noodle has a pretty typical Shaghainese menu so we managed a nice sampling of the classics, including the the classic Shanghainese dish known locally as "pork pump." At Wok and Noodle, pork pump is listed on the menu as "degreased and braised boneless pork leg shank" (mmmm, degreased). If you've never had pork pump, it can be intimidating. You're served a lump of pork slightly larger than a softball, glistening with fat and juice, sitting in a pool of sauce and maybe a few veggies (bok choy at Wok and Noodle). The trick is to cut into the pump like a Scotsman cuts into the haggis on Burns Night. If well cooked (meaning braised for hours and hours), the thick and viscous fat layer will yield to a mound of tender pork which easily pulls away with the slightest pressure from a fork. Serve it with the sauce spooned over it. I love a good pork pump, but it isn't an everyday event.

The meat in Wok and Noodle's version is deeply satisfying; it's lean, tender and juicy, but significantly less greasy than some other versions (hey, that degreasing must do the trick). The sauce has a nice meaty flavor, but it's lighter on the spice (anise in particular) than other versions I've had. Next time I get a low cholesterol reading I'll have to do a head to head with Lake Spring.

One of my favorite dishes was the cooked noodle with chicken. A chicken soup with a wonderfully viscous broth with wondrous medicinal flavors from shitake mushrooms and mostly likely ginseng. The noodles were nicely chewy. Also very good was the vegetable with bean curd sheet, a familiar mix of greens, edamame and tofu sheets.

Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings) were also excellent, full of great pork flavor and succulent, slightly oily soup. Tony C. reports that they are sourced from Tastio/Dean Sin World, which would make sense, since Tastio's are some of my favorite XLB. Shen Jian Bao were tasty but over boiled, giving the dough a gluey consistency; I'm guessing these are also sourced from Tastio but perhaps not cooked with as much skill as the XLB.

In general, the quality of everything we ordered was very high. This is a place that fires on all cylinders and I will look forward to heading back to it as my new Shanghainese mainstay.

Wok and Noodle
828 West Valley Boulevard
Alhambra, CA 91803-3233
(626) 588-2284

Vegas Journal: Bouchon Bakery

As a last post on my Las Vegas trip, I must pay tribute to our regular breakfast stop: Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery in the Venetian. The Bouchon Bakery is a small stand near the Phantom of the Opera theater. Since I enjoyed Bouchon in LA, I figured I would try the bakery. Sweets are done well here, including large macarons of various flavors (I liked the chocolate, mint and coffee versions the best, but all were good), eclairs and assorted cookies. Croissants were a bit dry, and I would have expected more from someone known for his French cuisine. The trademark beignet had a wonderful raspberry jam in it, but the doughnut itself could have been fresher; beignets really need to be cooked a la minute. Coffee was so-so, but pretty good for the strip. One of my favorite items was a simple ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette with a dab of dijon, simple, straightforward and tasty. Oh, and everything was very expensive.

I hope you enjoyed my romp through Las Vegas. Now it's back home for a spell.

Whiskey Wednesday: Booyah Bourye

What, you may ask, is Bourye? Bourye is a unique concoction from the good folks at the High West Distillery in Utah. It's a blend of a ten year old Bourbon and two ryes -- a 12 year old with a whopping 95% rye mashbill (5% malted barley) and a 16 year old with a more traditional rye mashbill (53% rye, 37% corn, 10% barley). High West is one of the few bottlers I've seen that spells out the mashbills of each of its component whiskeys right on the bottle (High West doesn't distill any of this itself but buys whiskey from distillers). Their Rendezvous Rye is one of my favorite rye whiskeys, so I was eager to try Bourye.


Tasting

Bourye, a Blend of Straight Whiskies (Batch 1), 46% alcohol ($60)

The nose is very Bourbon heavy up front, with rye spice kicking in later (keep in mind that while we know the component whiskeys in this vatting, we don't know the proportions of each that are used in the final product). Not surprisingly, the taste is similar to a high rye-content Bourbon. The first thing you get is a sweet burst of corn, followed by rye spice and some chewy, oak notes. The rye takes over in the finish, which goes on and on. This is really good stuff. Sipping blind, I would guess this was a very good high-rye content Bourbon with some age on it, which is probably more or less what it is when you add up all the components.