#164 - TK Chicken, Pea Risotto, Kumatoes & Radishes with '08 Vacheron

"It was the best, Jerry! The best!"

Tons of fine, right and upstanding pairings lately but none blew us away.

In fact, since the glory that was Moroccan-inflected tuna with Ponzi/Ken Wright one month ago, it's been two easy weeknight meal pairings - meatloaf and sauerkraut pierogis with a cheap Trader Joe's gewürztraminer and sopa seca with a cheap Calina Carménère - that impressed us the most.

Oh, yeah. Dak Bulgogi with a cheap Trader Joe's Vouvray demi-sec was some pretty great stuff as well.

Makes me think I should stop getting all snotty about the Trader Joe's wine selection.

But I digest. Last night. Back on the horse with a meal that tasted like a cleansing spring rain.

Food: Thomas Keller chicken with English pea risotto and kumatoes topped with radishes

The usual TK chicken, salt and white pepper with thyme sprinkled on top after cooking. Taken out five degrees earlier to keep the breasts moist (huh-huh). The usual result. Skin that could be sold on the street next to a crack dealer and take home similar coin. Fantastic leg and thigh meat with breast meat that was above serviceable.

Risotto made with Trader Joe's English peas (producto de Guatemala), onion, chicken stock, tarragon and mint, finished with parmesan. Here's where the spring rain came in. Tasted like everything that comes with the anticipation of exiting winter and entering the utter joy of spring, greening grass and the months of city smells left dormant for months under a blanket of scrotum-shriveling snow and cold and awakened by a constant, two-day, 50 degree, light rain.

Heaping mound of risotto that tasted like Hope. We're not sure the Englishness of the peas (producto de Guatemala) dramatically changed the dish but they were entirely welcome nonetheless. The pea essence, thrown in three minutes before finishing, still took over as the dominating but easy-breezy presence in the starchy-oozy run-off. Glorious stuff.

Kumatoes topped with razor-thin radish slices. Got an Oxo mandoline for Christmas. First time we've used it. While the thought of cleaning the thing made me initially wonder if it would feel worth it, that went away after the first bite. The paper-thin aspect brought about the exact desired effect - a radishy hint with every bite without overpowering anything else with its radishy radishness. I love radishes but they can be a bully at times. Worked beautifully with kumatoes doused in salt and left to sit for an hour and a tarragon-mustard-shallot vinaigrette with the whole composition lending a dark "meaty" quality to the rest of the plate.

This was What We Like. Both of us fell in love about two bites in.

We could have ate this meal with any wine and been completely satisfied but the wine brought it to places we didn't expect.

Wine: 2008 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre Blanc ($30 - Binny's)

Grassy notes with a sauvignon blanc provide a good match with the impetus of the meal, the English peas (producto de Guatemala). We figured we'd like it. Just not this much.

Minerals were what we wanted and that's what we got.

Pretty in the glass, a pure, pretty, light straw yellow with greenish traces. Simple nose of flint and a delicate lemon-lime peel right away with it becoming more complex as it warmed up, turning to an orchardy-type nose. Or what a grocery store smells like as the air-controller hits you as you walk through the automatic doors on a rainy day. Or dumpster juice...but in a great way.

Dry, fresh, delicate and confident on the palate, bringing some great light touches of lime peel intermingled with lemon spritz and a wee hint of grass clippings that transition to something like big rocks halfway down. The finish is what we loved the most. A small, beautiful touch of something like peach skin mixed with flint, limestone and an acidity that wasn't necessarily mouth-watering but served more to bring everything together for a graceful and balanced coda. It was a finish that immediately summed everything up with a concentrated hit of everything that came before. Great. Stuff.

Fully-certified biodynamic Sancerre done very well. Couldn't have loved it more.

Pairing: 94 Like Spring Training (Opening Day is 37 days and five hours away, BTW)

Came off like a day where you didn't expect much of note to happen and everything, very organically, turns into this glorious and easy day of heavy and fun activity done in the manner and nature of when, where and how you want.

Peas and the wine made everything stand up straight and get all right and proper while the radishes turned the wine into something oodles more complex, offering more orchard-grocery store-dumpster qualities that made for some delicious stuff in the glass and on the plate.

Tasted...Balanced.

We have a lot of friends/co-workers in our life that don't really care to get how food and wine go together. This meal would have turned even the most skeptical of the lot.

Without much expectation, it turned into Exactly What We Wanted.

Oh, yeah. For everything? About 50 bucks.

#163 - Blood Orange-Black Olive Duck & Farro With Two Pinots

About a month ago, a Moroccan-inflected tuna preparation blew us away.

It had Everything along with Everything we Love.

With blood orange season quickly coming to a close, it seemed right and proper to find out how versatile the recipe is with other proteins.

Result: Tuna, tuna and only tuna.

It change yo' life.

Tried lamb a couple of weeks ago (no write-up). Fell flat, never elevating itself with the combination of ingredients. Last night, somewhat similar results with duck, a bit better, but still made us contemplate bright and sunny tuna dreams.

Food: Blood orange and black olive duck, chestnut farro and mâche with pomegranate seeds

Duck rubbed with coriander, szechuan peppercorns, pink peppercorns, cardamom and ginger, seared medium-rare. A salad of blood oranges, gaeta olives, onion, parsley and walnut oil placed on top. Virtually identical to the tuna prep.

Quality duck. We liked it. But there was little melding of flavors. Not necessarily fighting flavors, more like flavors simply placed next to each other. Some things worked. Black olives and duck. Interesting. Onion slathered in blood orange juice with duck. Nice. Walnut oil presence tasted like it wanted to be there, unlike most of the ingredients.

But little jumped out and the peppercorn presence, something that exploded with the tuna and wine, was muted, missing that possible bridge between the brighter blood orange/briny black olive that could have ingratiated itself to the duck.

Farro cooked in chestnuts, duck stock and thyme. Always delicious and always with duck. Made better with a little duck fat/juice run-off bleeding into the bottom of the pile. Silly good.

Mâche salad with pomegranate seeds and a dressing of walnut oil and juice from the blood orange/black olive/onion salad. Spectacular stuff. Peppery with a walnut oil hit, all brightened up by the juice. Complex.

This was good food. If we didn't know duck and this was our first duck we would have been more interested in duck. But we know duck and love duck, particularly herbes de Provence duck which the best duck in the duck world and this duck was not that duck. Good duck, just not That Duck.

With the tuna, we did two Oregon pinot noirs and it was stupid awesome with a side of wow. Last night wasn't that but our opinion of one of the wines dramatically changed over the course of the evening as the wine changed.

Wine: 2005 J.K. Carriere Pinot Noir ($40 - Binny's) & 2005 Domaine Daniel Rion et Fils Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts - 375ml ($38 - Knightsbridge)

Let's start with the Vosne-Romanée. Very little experience with quality, Big Boy red Burgundies. This was an attempt at finding a starting point with such things. Vosne-Romanée, home of the Richebourgs, Romanée-Conti and La Tâches of the world at the Grand Cru level. This is one of the 13 Premier Cru wines designated by climat (Les Beaux Monts).

Cloudy nose that smelled a bit like English muffins with dark cherry juice spritzed over it. And you stuck your nose into the glass while standing in a barn. One-dimensional medium-red-with-a-darkish-edge cherries on the palate with an unfocused (yet softish) acidity that seemed to not know what to tackle first. Bit of oak floating around, taking on a charred toast edge on occasion, like toast that's been dropped in a bowl of herbs and a touch of cinnnamon. Overall, came off cloudy. Serviceable but barely. I wonder if the half-bottle format is forcing things along at a pace this wine doesn't naturally want.

The J.K. Carriere was a different beast. Dark cherries with a forest floor quality on the nose that followed right through to the palate. Touch of herbs, bit of game. Like the Vosne-Romanée, we were initially struck by how UN-struck we were with the wine. No signature notes or unique announcements of their presence occurred. Both came off somewhat...boring.

With no experience with either wine, five years on each and a half-bottle format for one, no decant, just opened 20 minutes before drinking. Over two hours and with the half-bottleness, the Vosne-Romanée didn't budge and my conventional wisdom thinks it should have. The J.K. Carriere most certainly did.

It started to show up about an hour in and exploded from there out. All beef juice and gamey notes took over, becoming a Big Beefy Joy. Dark cherries receded but hung around in the background with this rather pretty beef juice presence supported by game, all rolled in herbs and forest floor/tree moss blending into a something quite good. Truly tasted like someone cooked up beef and quail medium-rare in herbs, put them on the plate, let it sit for a time and then drained off all the juices on the plate and put it in a glass.

Didn't think much of it at first and then it turned into something that might have a place in our Oregon wine world, just took a bit to find out where they were going with it.

Pairing: 80 Felt like a singles mixer that never gets off the ground

Neither of the wines seemed to want to mix and mingle with the food. Like they were too shy to get in there and get talkin'.

We loved what the peppercorns did on the tuna and with the Ponzi and Ken Wright. The peppercorns left the party five minutes in, went to another bar, never to return. That was probably our biggest lament.

Mild spikes of interesting at times but nothing jumped. The J.K. Carriere, when it became Big Boy Beefy was entirely more intriguing by itself (the first red wine in a long time that we wanted to down alone, without food) and the Vosne-Romanée never felt like it wanted to be there at all.

Both were best with the mâche salad. Never a good sign.

#162 - Two Meals And Two Wines

A combined post because the pairings weren't much to recommend, though one wine, the 2000 Heredia, is worth mentioning.

Some surprisingly good food, both with slight twists put on food we like, that made for a pretty solid food week during the house arrest the Chicago snow has put us under but nothing really popped together.

Meal #1: Quiche with arugula salad, bread and butter

Quiche maraîchère from Around My French Table, same quiche as this quiche with a slight change that made it better. In the three times we've had this, it's been a clearinghouse for random herbs in the house. This time, fresh tarragon was used and it elevated things beautifully.

A darker, more present and substantial herb hit from the tarragon that bled into the vegetables (red pepper, leeks, celery, carrots, etc.) and changed them into something more connected, darker and bordering on meaty. Really changed things. Liked this quiche before with its lightly buttery notes and less-of-an-eggy egginess but this was better.

Arugula and parsley salad with bread and Irish butter to round things out. Seemingly light and delicious but I didn't feel hungry even five hours later. Surprised how much tarragon changed everything. The quiche became an entrée instead of almost being one.

Served with the NV Crémant du Jura Berthet-Bondet ($24 - WDC). A blend of chardonnay and savagnin grapes, not worth $24 but certainly a solid value in the mid-teens. Tough to think of what food this could go with. Fine and plentiful bubbles, bringing a great mouthfeel to the wine, which is its best asset. Something close to creamy almond skin or creamy peach pit (or both) dominates along with a cheap fruit juice blend without the sugar, the kind where three or four yellowish juices are blended together and it's odd how together you get so much less than if drank separately. Five-Alive without the citric acid. Different and nice by itself (its best use, really), offered very little with the food outside of good lifting bubbles. Pairing Score: 75

Meal #2: Pepita mahi mahi with white rice and snap peas

Pepita chicken used to be a weeknight staple for a bit in our house. A return from a long hiatus last night with mahi mahi instead of chicken.

Pepita (pumpkin seeds) with tomatillos, onion, chiles, cilantro, garlic, sea salt, corn oil and black peppercorns simmered and turned into a rustic, chunky green Mexican paste-sauce. Served with Trader Joe's mahi mahi and sided with white rice and snap peas with cilantro dumped over the whole plate and lime to spritz. The mahi mahi flavor wasn't really lost but in essence became a light vehicle for the pepita sauce, which was just the tops. It's a favorite. Somehow, the white rice was the best white rice I've ever had, a product, Mrs. Ney said, of a standard preparation but the toasting of the rice beforehand brought out this humongous nutty flavor. One of those meals where as Mrs. Ney was making it, she didn't want any part of it but, as typical, turned out magically delicious. All nutty, earthy and green, spectacular seasoning with the mahi mahi keeping everything light while letting the sauce star...because it's good. And about $13 total for both plates!

Served with 2000 López de Heredia Gravonia ($25 - Binny's). First time for the 2000. The 1996 has a fond place in my heart. The 1998 is fantastic (haven't had it recently - no write-up). The 1999 a bit less so (some bottle variation here). The 2000 is fresher than previous years. Lively. With lime spritzed on the food, an enormous banana note dominated. Pineapple, apple, maybe quince and something like lemon oil danced around as well. The freshness came from the acidity but the acid doesn't make its presence felt as much as some internet reviews say. Definitely Heredia but not as much iconoclastic Heredianess bursting out of the glass as previous vintages in our world. Less smoke, wax, gas, nuts and we couldn't taste the obvious and glorious age yet. Cleaner. Complex as per usual, precise and delicious. Big Boy White. Gonna need to see what another bottle and a little age does to this one to completely figure it out. Guess I missed the funk and commanding presence to declare it another Heredia winner right now but it's nonetheless a pretty great white, especially for $25.

I spritzed lime right away over all the food (bringing out the banana). Mrs. Ney did not. Both of us came to the same conclusion. Run-of-the-mill pairing with nothing jumping out. Nutty white rice and banana in the wine the best and overall, it was nice to have the wine there. Best that can be said. Pairing Score: 84

#161 - TK Chicken And DdB Cheese With Two Chardonnays

More of the same cuz we capital-L Love it.

TK chicken with white Burgundy and a cheap American chardonnay to round out the drinking.

We're no experts on white Burgundy as we've only been focussing on it for about eight months now, but certain dimensions are starting to come into view.

Without the wallet to jump into Meursault and the like, two AOCs in Burgundy have stood out in our very small sample size so far: Auxey Duresses and Viré Clessé.

Auxey Duresses last night and something to compare with the Jean-Phillipe Fichets from before.

Food: Thomas Keller chicken with Delice de Bourgogne cheese, baguette and mâche and pomegranate seed salad

Typical TK chicken. Great skin, delicious and juicy leg and thigh, breast meat slightly dry, though. White pepper, salt and thyme crust.

Delice de Bourgogne cheese a month past its expiration date, putting it in a great place, right on the edge of too funky but still showing great brightness and depth.

Mâche and pomegranate seed salad. More pomegranate because the season is nearly over. And they're delicious.

A standard in the Ney house because it's always something we crave, never get sick of and is freakin' fantastic, easy to make and cheap. This one was no different.

Wine: 2007 Benjamin Leroux Auxey Duresses ($35 - Fine Wine Brokers) & 2009 Trader Joe's Petit Reserve Chardonnay Santa Lucia Highlands ($7)

Not the best but certainly in the upper tier of the white Burgundies we've had recently, the 2007 Benjamin Leroux is the first vintage released under the winemaker's own name and is culled from three different vineyards in Auxey Duresses.

Slight pineapple rind and honey on the nose with a lime salt hit right away that settled down as it came closer to room temperature, becoming more nuanced and lovely with each rising degree. Medium to light weight overall. Creamy, slightly smoky lemon took over with background tropical fruits and apple coming into play. A mineral core that wasn't particularly distinctive or mouth-watering but still quite pleasant. Enough acidity to keep everything chugging along nicely and finishing with a touch of honey and creamy vanilla. Just a little touch, which was nice. A well put-together wine with no complaints in the least.

The Trader Joe's chardonnay brought to mind Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls." Thin upfront, barely anything in the middle and an explosion of heaviness after. Bottom-heavy jumble of mixed, undistinguished tropical fruit with a heavy-ish vanilla hand blended with some cream and minerals. Meh. Better on its own as it came up to room temperature but the best that can be said is what seems to be the overall trend with cheaper American chardonnay lately. Absence of overpowering oak and the mere presence of some minerals. Respectable effort but nothing too much to recommend. If you only drink chardonnay, for $7, you could do worse, I guess. So far, in the cheap American chardonnay world in our tastings, there's the Francis Ford Coppola Votre Santé and there's everything else.

Pairing: 87 Fine and Good

It's TK chicken. It's what we like. And we love it with white Burgundy. Same result here.

The Benjamin Leroux fit entirely well. Great with the cheese but probably best with the bread that was under the chicken during the roasting process. Big piles of crusty, chicken juice-laden and charred bread. With the wine, little pops of spice in the wine popped out that accented the chicken juiciness infused in the bread.

The Trader Joe's chardonnay was almost serviceable with the chicken but fell flat with everything else.

Again, a solid white Burgundy ruled the night with a favorite meal and it wasn't even close.

#160 - Ropa Without The Vieja With '06 Mas De Maha +1

Last year, for the Super Bowl, was duck confit and veal sausage cassoulet with a Loire Rosé.

That meal served us well as we watched Bud Light and Doritoes belch and vomit all over my TV viewing experience.

This year was Ben Roethlisberger's move towards "redemption" from being an ugly and deplorable human being...because throwing an oblong ball well in a big game washes away all our transgressions.

Same reaction as last year for me:

No Browns = Don't Care.

With a caveat. The NFL industrial complex - and that includes the deplorable NFL media that might be the biggest collection of meatballs I've ever seen over the last ten years - has become just a little too icky for me. I fear baseball with splashes of college football and basketball and sprinkles of even tennis are my games now. Football is a little too...football-y for my world. And the impetus was probably the FOX dancing robot, a seemingly small concoction of awfulness that might have pushed me over the edge.

But like last year, good food went a long way in being able to stomach the spectacle.

Cuban pot roast without the roast coupled with a a wine we thought nearly done.

Food: Flank Steak with ropa vieja accoutrements and yuca fries with an arugula and pomegranate seed salad

Flank steak marinated in onion, parsley, worcestershire and olive oil, cooked medium rare and placed over a pile of traditional ropa vieja ingredients of onion, poblano, sweet red pepper, garlic, can o'cheap tomatoes [oregano, cumin seeds, pinch of cloves & cinnamon, bay leaves] reduced with veal stock and graciano, topped with parsley.

Instead of stewing the meat and ropa vieja-ness together, they were cooked separately. Became a sort of half-deconstructed deliciousness, allowing the typical bright and clean flavors of the flank steak to show through while still allowing the soul-satisfying Cuban flavors announce its presence. This was great meat with great accompanying flavors that allowed each distinctive flavor to show up at different times (cinnamon at time, cloves occasionally, big poblano presence, all alternating). Not ropa vieja. Ropa vieja's appeal is the sum of all the parts as it becomes something else. This was better, new and will be had again, probably soon. In our flank/hanger/skirt world...the best we've had in a long time.

Solid batch of yuca fries. Each batch is different. This one had that 'it' factor. Served with a Portuguese whiskey sauce-infused mayonnaise.

Arugula and pomegranate seed salad with balsamic and olive oil to finish.

With Cuban food, it begins and ends with Mas de Maha but the 2006 hasn't performed as well of late for us. The tempranillo in the blend lost some of its brightness and lift the last time we had it (no write-up) and the 2007s haven't shown up in Chicago yet.

Wine: 2006 Villa Creek Mas de Maha ($23 - Binny's)

Still good!

Might have just needed some big food flavors to pry open the door. With Mas de Maha, what we love about it is the addition of tempranillo, taking the typical cheaper California Rhône blend out of the world of that dominating flat syrupness and into the realm of distinction and balance.

All raspberries this time, big batch, seeds and all. Like unsweetened raspberry jam in the process of being made. Touch of cherry at times as the tempranillo tried to assert its fading presence but the grenache and mourvèdre is taking over in great ways. Solid phase right now and something we didn't expect in the least as we popped it because we figured we should blow through the last two we have while we still could. Secondary grilled meats and hint of tobacco with enough acid holding on. It's softened considerably since the first time we had it but still possesses a great balance and dark juiciness that hits some place in us that we absolutely love.

A quick wine note: the graciano in the reduction was the 2006 Bokisch Graciano ($8 - Sam's). Tried it before putting it in the pan. Shocked. All booze-soaked chocolate cherries with earth, spice and meat char. Deep. Delicious stuff...still! Tasted like some weird off-region monastrell or mourvèdre blend. All mud with the food when we gave it a go but might have been better than the Mas de Maha by itself, without food, simply because of how odd and weird and good it was. Got a steal with this one.

Pairing: 91 Super Bowl Delight

As with our past experiences with Mas de Maha and Cuban-style food, a melding of the food and wine together happened so gracefully and fully that it became something else, something more than what each offered separately.

The raspberry juiciness brought a brightness to the meal, for sure. But the food also seemed to grab the wine by the shirt collar a bit and throw everything into line. The clove/spice in the food and wine seemed to be the chain that united things but nothing else in the food, wine and food and wine hit a false note. And the pepper on the char with the big fruit in the wine exploded on over the place in stellar ways.

Seemed made for each other and just fit.

So much better than anything emanating from my television as well.

A Quick Pairing Note: Dak Bulgogi with Trader Joe's cheap label Vouvray, the 2009 Lacheteau Demi-Sec ($6). One of the better weeknight pairings we've had in months. Nothing special in the least with this wine on its own, the sweetness in the Vouvray picked up the spice in freakin' delicious Korean hot goodness, tamed it, threw it around like a rag doll and took it to places the dish wouldn't have been by itself. Textbook example of matching a touch of sweet with a touch of heat. Great food, something double-Great with this wine. Pairing Score: 93

#159 - Greek Chicken Legs & Pomegranate Salad With Orballo & Albero

Yeoman's work was done in today's New York Times with Julia Moskin telling the world that pepperoni is NOT an Italian meat product.

Over four years now working at an Italian pizzeria and this is still, routinely, something that people are aghast that we don't carry.

For today's offering, how to take dirt cheap bargain chicken and make it into something so much more. Or alternately titled, 49¢/lb. chicken legs! Gotta marinate the crap out of that!

Food: Greek chicken legs with mâche and pomegranate salad, hummus and pita

Chicken leg quarters marinated in onion, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil. Cooked under a brick, thanks to Mark Bittman and his recently shuttered NYT food column, The Minimalist. RIP. Here's every Minimalist column in its 14-year history. Marinated for days. The chicken was just chicken but the flavor that bled into the skin and fat was sublime. Greeky to the nth degree. Great onion-lemon play. Became souped-up chicken at Harvesttime clearance prices ($1 total for chicken on both plates).

Homemade hummus. We've had good homemade hummus a ton of times. Last night's came shockingly close to Semiramis hummus (best I've ever had) in many ways. The key seemed to be cooking the dried chickpeas at home instead of using canned chickpeas. Olive oil drizzled over the top to finish. Delicious stuff. Couldn't get enough. Served with fresh pita bread from the Middle Eastern bakery in Andersonville ($5).

Salted kumato slices with a mâche salad topped with a Saveur recipe of pomegranate seeds, cubanelle pepper, scallions, mint, parsley and lemon juice (Saveur: "tomato salad with herbs and pomegranate"). Probably about $8 total - pomegranates ain't cheap. Screamed fresh acid with darker undertones of flavors. Bright yet almost brooding and the best part of the meal. A combination bite of scallion and pomegranate seed with mâche and lemon juice was familiar yet entirely new and I couldn't get enough of it.

Simply nothing missing with this meal coupled with boatloads of quality acid, something we both love and need. And a grand total of about $14 for both plates.

Wine: 2008 Orballo Albariño ($17 - WDC) and NV Albero Cava Brut ($7 - Trader Joe's)

I've written about the Orballo Albariño multiple times and it showed pretty much the same as before. Nice minerals with tons of lemon rind and big, big acidity. Not a simple wine. Some depth here with maybe a pear core (and a little canned pineapple juice) hiding underneath with something like a creamy almond. If someone were to ask where to start with albariño, I would say this one every time. Cheap albariños can be uninspiring. This one shows exactly what it can be for under $20 and beats most $30 ones. Big, raw and confident while showing alternating layers of finesse. It's probably our favorite albariño with the Valtea running a close second.

The NV Albero Cava recently returned to Trader Joe's. It's nothing dramatic or complex, just a simple cava that has the quality of being more what it's not than what it is. Key lime upfront this time with a touch of apple and lively bubbles. It gets a lot right for $7 and its solid bubbles serve so many meals well when you want to inject a little sparkling into a meal without spending too much. Hummus and sparkling is glorious.

$24 for the wines.

Pairing: 86 Food won the day but it was nice to have the wine around

Not much enhancement with either wine but the Orballo showed best, standing up to the significant amount of acid on the plate and even showing a touch of cream on the back-end with the chicken. Good stuff. Not great stuff but tons to like.

The Albero never got out of "fine" territory when it came to the pairing but its place always comes from its sparkling nature and the lift it offers. Nice to have there.

$38 total for everything. Stupid good food and wine that wasn't too shabby at all.

And $38. Did I mention that?

#158 - The Purple Pig

I recently did a year-end summary in the vein of "Where the hell did all my money go?" over the last year.

Among the tasty nuggets that yearly makes me re-think how exactly I'm spending my money - like giving $700 last year to a restaurant that we don't even particularly love - I was a little shocked how little we went to new places in the city.

For non-vacation, non-BYOs in Chicago, it was Girl & The Goat, The Bristol, Big Star, Belly Shack and Epic Burger. That's it.

Aside from that, it was plenty of Blackbird, Avec and Ceres Table jammed between a flurry of BYOs, mostly Mado, Hema's, Semiramis and Indie Café.

For 2010, our food joys came from home food, our wine, Blackbird, Avec at times, Portugal, Ad Hoc and Chez Panisse in the Bay Area and Lola in Cleveland.

There just hasn't been a need lately for us to blow a good chuck of cash on pretty spaces with a grotesque mark-up on wine and food stylings that we can approximate at home for a fraction of the cost.

Purple Pig...is NOT...one of those.

I'd always been curious, been told ad nauseam by too many people to get there so we finally went under the auspices of "getting it out of the way!"

Some ancillary benefits/fortunate happenstances to our visit to The Purple Pig:

* $6 street parking for two hours downtown! Would have been at least $30 in a garage

* Open everyday from 11:30am to at least midnight (2am on weekends). Straight-through.

* Went at 1:30 in the afternoon on Monday. About 20% full. Glorious!

* Great service, inviting layout and if you're one to gripe about huge crowds, DON'T GO AT 8 ON A SATURDAY!

Food:

Speck Potato Croquettes (special)

Fried Almonds

Tuna & Lima Beans

Purple Pig Charcuterie Platter

Roasted Bone Marrow

Valdeon Cheese

Scallions

Farro Chocolate Crema for dessert

Wine:

2 glasses of Vilarnau Cava

250ml of Veedha Portuguese red

250ml of Alpha Estate Axia (50% syrah/50% xinomarvo)

250ml of Bodegas Enguera Pelta (80% tempranillo, 20% monastell)

250ml Skouras Saint George red (100% agiorghitiko)

glass of Lustau Amontillado for dessert

Two espresso

Pan-Mediterranean with flavors that show a particular love for Spanish and coastal Italian with a whiff of Greece all seasoned beautifully, using the nature and seasoning of each particular pork product to guide the way. Simple flavors with no overly complex preparation to cloud the main focus of each dish. You order tuna and lima beans, you get tuna and lima beans done well.

One of the best wine lists I've seen in a long time that thankfully averaged about 2.5 times retail. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek. No French on this visit. Oodles of selections from each broken down by region and offer tons by the glass, quartino, half-bottle and bottle. The versatility is brilliant and, unlike one small criticism I've had at Avec, the glass/quartino/half bottle offerings are intriguing and abundant, allowing us to indulge the impulse to explore instead of settling on the seemingly small amount of offerings Avec has kept the same over the last few years.

I can't say that each menu item is the best incarnation I've ever had. The scallions were better at Mercat (the only thing we really loved there) but they were damn good. The roasted bone marrow wasn't going to beat the bone marrow at Lola (still one of the best things I ever ate) but this one was a solid second. The charcuterie platter didn't beat the refined delicacy of Avec's but this, by its sheer size and number of offerings, made for some great meat goodness (solid testa and great Catalonian fuet).

But there wasn't one false note. Anywhere. Confident cooking rules the air with never a feeling that the place wasn't, not once, trying to gouge anyone. Seemed like Scott Harris, Tony Mantuano and the Bannos guys just wanted to open a place where they can hang out and eat food they like and hoped other people liked it as well. In other words, the place seemed sincere at every turn.

Two-hour meal, all that food and wine, a great time all around and the final bill was $182.

That made us laugh. Tons of great with a side of great and one of the best non-BYO restaurant bargains we've had in a long time.

#157 - Thomas Keller Chicken, Rapini & Risotto With '09 Kermit Lynch Vaucluse

Last night was probably the first time in a long time when the food and the wine didn't necessarily go together but somehow, in the process of everything, with freakin' fantastic food on the plate and a gosh darn good wine in the glass that didn't conflict in a technical sense with the food, the pairing became better than the sum of its parts.

In other words, things didn't necessarily mesh in that pretty matchy pairing way but we loved every second of it.

And we found a delicious Rhône white for under $15.

And I found out that there's no substitute for Ricard Pastis. There is that and there's everything else.

And we found out that Retsina, that strange Greek white wine concoction infused with pine resin, tastes like Pine-Sol...but not really in a bad way. I can completely see the allure of the stuff.

And we're feeling all of that drinking today.

And baseball season has to get here soon because this time of year is an absolute barren wasteland of sports entertainment.

Food: Thomas Keller chicken with rapini and risotto

A return to TK chicken after the brutality that occurred a couple weeks ago. That was a bad chicken from the start. Got a bad bird. THIS was NOT a bad bird. In fact, it was a delicious bird. Moist and juicy with great salty, peppery skin also done up with thyme. Anytime you're roasting a bird at 450 degrees, it's a tightrope act making sure the breasts stay moist. Usually, it's never the recipe or the preparation. It's making sure you have a good, bigger bird. This was that.

Continuing our recent "Italian-inspired" jag, risotto with onion, sundried tomatoes, chicken and veg. stock, pine nuts, sheep's milk ricotta, parsley and lemon zest. Great starch bleed-off with this one but not too much. Sometimes, the "perfect" risotto served in restaurants makes for some great first bites only to turn into a somewhat goopy, bland mess a half-hour into eating. This one had great starchy moisture to start and retained it after an hour on the plate.

But the star was oddly the rapini made with Aleppo pepper, garlic and extra virgin olive oil and blanched. Just so bright with monstrous depth and graceful bitterness.

It hit us during the meal. Just a great "weekend" of food. Hema's Kitchen (Indian - $88 - BYO - Crios Torrontés and Albero sparkling) for lunch and Icosium (Algerian - $57 - BYO - Domaine des Tours Vaucluse) for dinner on Monday, veal chops ($50) on Tuesday and this ($30) for Wednesday.

Added up, that's $225 for four great meals including the five bottles of wine. Felt like vacation instead of simply not working. And we've spent $225 on some spectacularly mediocre meals out in the non-BYO restaurant world.

Wine: 2009 Vaucluse Blanc Selected by Kermit Lynch ($13 - Binny's)

The 2008 was 50% chardonnay and 50% viognier. I'm going to assume the blend was the same for 2009. Can't find any definitive confirmation of that and certainly tasted like it.

Shiny pale yellow in the glass with a greenish edge. On the palate, it offered everything we like in Rhône whites while softening the raw edges that Rhône whites tend to offer when really young. Completely different blend than typical Rhône whites but was nonetheless entirely reminiscent. Honeysuckle and green apple, all light, open and pleasing. But instead of the huge hit of acid, this one is mitigated about a quarter of the way down by a ginger-pear crème brulée note that smoothes everything out, finishing with a subtle licorice hit at the end. Not fruit-forward, emphasizing all the secondary flavors first with more of a fruit presence throughout as a baseline.

Can't recommend more highly for $13. Great cheap white that we'd drink on its own and love it. Insanely food-friendly in the sense of staying out of the way more than fitting more traditionally into the food. Would serve to lighten and brighten the food while offering a ginger-spiked creaminess to the meal.

Which is exactly what it did for us.

Pairing: 89 Not technically matchy-matchy, but some great stuff here

Tough to describe. The food was higher than that score. The wine by itself was higher than that as well. Together, not traditionally what you want in terms of food-wine enhancement.

But together, it was one of those times when each element was so gosh darn good with nothing clashing, turning harsh or thin. More about what it wasn't instead of what it was.

Reminded me of times we've gone to Blackbird and didn't have particularly great pairings but everything was done at such a high level, it becomes something that transcends the pairing scrutiny.

We'd do this exact meal again in a heartbeat.

#156 - Veal Chops, Polenta, Mushrooms & Onions With '07 CC H3

If we went to a nondescript "Italian-inspired" restaurant on a stretch of road known more for a jumble of cheap food options from other parts of the world smashed next to a Pier 1 and a multitude of Coin Laundries and had this meal...

...I would have thought, "How'd we miss this place!?"

Mostly, it would be in the surprise. A good quality meal, nothing extravagant, over-the-top or jaw-droppingly great. Just an across-the-board deliciousness, cooked well, nicely seasoned and fitting well with a bargain wine.

Dining out, this would have been a $120 meal. We did it for $50.

So...bargain all-around.

Food: Veal chops, roasted onions and polenta and mushrooms with arugula

Trader Joe's veal chops (new product) cooked medium-rare with rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage. Quality char on both sides. The draw to veal is its brightness and lightness compared to beef and how well it takes on an herb extravaganza. This had it with a more meaty, beefy angle brought on by the char and copious amounts of herbs. Made for a great balance to "beef" up the juicy, light meat. Substantial. But light.

Honey-glazed roasted whole onions cooked in thyme. Tasty and essential to the balance of the overall plate of food. Brought a subtle sweetness.

Rosemary polenta with mushrooms in a chicken stock and Metaxa reduction. Just boxed polenta mix but gussied up with a more fancy mushroom preparation. Might have been the best bite of food. The Metaxa came through, bringing a huge depth to the mushrooms.

As the meat juice bled into the arugula, they became something stupid delicious.

Nothing was heavy. Nothing was too delicate. And everything played right into the wine.

Wine: 2007 Columbia Crest H3 Merlot ($13 - WDC)

#43 on the 2010 Wine Spectator Top 100. A $13 bottle of wine that most critics say is only now hitting the beginning of its drinking window four years out.

Though it could use another year or two, not a bad little merlot and much better than the price tag would have you believe.

Still a mixed bag of undistinguished, dark-ish fruits right now. Precursor of dark cherry and blackberry, I guess. Pleasing, gritty, complex earth was most prominent with a cocoa edge. Fresh. Very medium-bodied. Only the smallest hint of vanilla but a decent shot of grilled, herbed meat on occasion. Quality structure here, showing a three-act play with nice segues. Smooth and pretty graceful and should only get better once the fruit becomes more distinctive.

Probably one of the better QPR wines we've had in the last year or two and was certainly helped along by the food.

Pairing: 87 No hiccups at all and liked everything for exactly what it was

Tasted wintry - something we haven't really had this winter.

Can't think of one thing I didn't like on the plate, in the glass or as a pairing. This was nice stuff. We didn't necessarily love anything but there was a certain, high, minimum quality that we respected and enjoyed.

Sweetness from the honey onions, light, juicy, light beefiness from the veal, earthiness from the alcohol-infused mushrooms and herbs to be had everywhere coupled with a quality cheap wine that possessed a little of all that.

Tons of efforts were made to make sure the food played right into the wine and it worked.

Happy.

#155 - Moroccan-Inflected Tuna With Two '08 Oregon Pinots

"Beat THAT!" Mrs. Ney says to her future self.

"Not likely!" says me.

Best tuna we've ever had.

If this tuna showed up on a 20-course tasting menu, it would the one course I'd remember three years later. Except we each had six full ounces of the stuff sitting in front of us.

As an overall meal, with both wines to go back and forth, this meal easily sits in the top two or three in the few years.

And, for everything, on the plate and in the glass, it cost a grand freakin' total of about $80.

Don't need a Groupon for that!

Food: Moroccan-inflected tuna with blood oranges and gaeta olives, arugula and pomegranate salad and Seeduction bread, Kerrygold butter and rose petal jam

The recipe:

Tuna: 12 oz piece: crusted with:

(1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds

3/4 tsp pink peppercorns

3/4 tsp szechuan peppercorns

seeds from 5 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp fleur de sel

4 thin slices peeled ginger,

mashed all together in mortar & pestle - from Around My French Table)

Blood orange suprèmes and gaeta olives (shallot, thyme, cumin seeds, walnut oil)

Arugula, parsley & pomegranate seeds salad (walnut oil, salt, black pepper)

Seeduction bread, Kerrygold butter, French rose petal jam

Tuna seared rare and placed on top of the blood orange and olive salad. The first bite was one of the purest taste experiences (don't care how pretentious that sounds) I've ever had. Every flavor on the tuna and under it came through so balanced, so beautifully seasoned, so pause-worthy that words aren't gonna do it. Right away, the cardamom and peppercorn hit freshened, brightened and lightened by the blood orange juice, cleaned by the ginger and then brought back to a savory, darker depth of deliciousness by the gaeta olives. Seemed like 12 levels of flavor in every bite without being murky or muddled and nothing obscuring the tuna in the least. Great acid, pretty floral notes from the spices. Can't say anything more.

Best. Tuna. Ever.

Accompanied by Seeduction bread from Whole Foods. Played an important role with its rustic, dark bread edge, leveling out the entire meal with country, sort of unrefined presence brought to something more refined by quality Kerrygold butter. But the rose petal jam, adding yet another floral component, seemed integral, enforcing again what we want: bright, clean food with a strong acid backbone, the protein strongly driven by herbs and spices that serve as the primary lifter and the supporting cast being different levels of diversion and cut while tying into everything else.

Who doesn't? That's textbook. But in the details, this meal is the First example in our food world.

Arugula, parsley and pomegranate seed salad to finish.

Wine: 2008 Ponzi Willamette Valley ($33 - Binny's) and 2008 Ken Wright Shea Vineyard 375ml ($22 - Binny's)

Two of the best noses on wines I've smelled in a couple years at least. The complexity on both of these wines coming out of the glass...wow! Both felt like the first real experience we've had with the 2008 Oregon vintage and, if these wines are any indication, all the hype is warranted.

A return to the 2008 Ponzi after having it two months ago with ridiculously good lamb and saffron risotto. Didn't show particularly well then but it's showing much better now. Popped and poured then. Opened about 30 minutes before dinner this time.

Plum, roses, forest floor, a touch of tobacco and lipstick on the nose. On the palate, the plum transitioned to a more muted black cherry with a touch of blueberry juice. Very muted, actually. All secondary flavors right now, showing a big rose petal component with everything going right into the mid-palate. Tea and cola notes to finish. Bitter tea leaves, actually, that weren't unwelcome. Flat-ish cola after about two hours open, which may mitigate a long decant in the future.

Again, and consistent with we utterly love about Ponzi, a ton of roses and the very distinct, bright, lithe and lifting acid that only comes from Ponzi. We'll know Ponzi acid blind until the day we die. It's why we capital-L love it.

Great wine and it's only going to get better. Much better.

But the Ken Wright beat it from a technical sense, helped along by its half-bottleness. Massive wet tobacco nose intermingled with an spiced orange peel, loam-potting soil, piles of rose petals and fuzzy blackberry. All of that followed on the palate and all of that danced around beautifully, all in a streamlined and seamless structure, finishing with the tobacco again going right into a graceful touch of a flower bundle. Softer acid than the Ponzi. Dark with brighter flecks on occasion. Just so well-made and gorgeous. Starts out big but goes right into a perfect medium-bodied weight halfway down. Pretty. Changed. Flowers everywhere. And I've always love tobacco notes but I can't think of a time when I enjoyed it this much.

Odd that this was the first red Ken Wright we've had since the start of this blog. This will be changing soon.

In the end, what jumped out though, were the floral notes and acid in both wines and how they fit so perfectly with the food.

Pairing: 99 Made me think about life changes, like needing an apartment with a patio

Because if this meal were eaten on a late July day, at dusk as a searing day heat gave way to a surprisingly calm, cooling night, outside with friends, I might have wet my pants a little.

The cumin in the blood orange-gaeta olive blend under the tuna fit like a glove with the Ken Wright and the coriander in the crust blew up with the Ponzi. Each, all and everything showing so much purity and love in the glass and on the plate.

That's it. Everything tasted like so much Warm Huggy Love.

#154 - Hanger & Onion/Spinach Napoleons With '06 Filliatreau la Grande Vignolle

Leftover-garbage-buried in the freezer-"Let's see how this goes" meal last night.

And it went quite well.

We've been in a bit of a pairing slump of late. Feels like it anyway. Might have something to do with the poo-arse weather and dreariness that comes with late December-early January but not much has stood out w/r/t wine. Except this one, of course. Yeah...that was Good.

Some of it, as Mrs. Ney ruminated on last night, probably comes from the fact that we've drunk so much white and rosé wine this winter. We love white and rosé, of course, but there is a point of diminishing returns when you drink so much of said wine that is indelibly attached, or in the least elevated, by its delicious accompaniment to the weather outside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whites and rosés should never to boxed into "summer quaffer." Of course not. We drink a ton of it when it's bone-chillingly cold. But too much during that time can make you want to put it to bed until the joy of having the windows open in the apartment for the first time presents itself. Too much has made us want so much less of it.

So let the red flow.

Food: Hanger steak, onion/spinach napoleons and fava beans

Freezer hanger steak that didn't taste like it. Came off fresh. Marinated in parsley, onion, lemon and extra virgin olive oil, much like the Greek-style Bittman chicken marinade from two weeks ago.

Napoleons made with mini pancakes (originally going to be crepes but didn't make it). Pancake batter made from the leftover French Pot Chicken from the day before, blending the potatoes, carrots, onions and juice into a batter.

Used the mini pancakes to make layers stuffed with a combination of sautéed onion and spinach, roasted kumatoes, sheep's milk ricotta, roasted garlic, lemon zest, oregano and dill, calling them napoleons, cuz it's our house and we can. Oodles of savory goodness with quality depth jumping everywhere, coming off creamy at one time only to change to this rustic, almost Italian jumble of deliciousness. Light that changed to substantial. Bright that changed to dark. Odd and weird, delicious and wonderful.

Freshly-shucked fava beans tossed with shallot, mint, lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil and dumped over the entire plate adding a lift to the entire plate.

For a meal made on the fly and incorporating so many leftovers, it tasted...intentional. And pretty darn good.

Wine: 2006 Filliatreau la Grande Vignolle Saumur-Champigny ($20 - WDC)

Grape: 100% cabernet franc

SubRegion: Anjou-Saumur

Appellation: Saumur-Champigny (fun to say)

Vintage (WS): 85 for cabernet franc - very rainy, leading to unripe grapes

We've had two cab francs since the start of this blog. Enjoyed the first (2006 Guiberteau) and piqued my interest more for cab franc than any other one I had before. This one stayed right in that "interesting" vein.

Four hour decant, recommended by the person we bought it from and it helped. Tight and tannic right out of the bottle. After the decant, it opened up into something almost generous with red cherries and black cherry pit all over the plate with a rose petal edge. Meaty core with vegetal/red pepper/green and black olive hints going everywhere, alternating with every sip.

Bigger than the Guiberteau with an impression that came off like a watered-down shiraz at times, but mostly medium-bodied with an always prevalent acidity that accented the cherry pit notes on the finish.

Good stuff. Don't know if I need it again but, good stuff.

Pairing: 86 Great with the hanger, short with the napoleons

The wine exploded with the char on the hanger steak, making every note in the wine jump up a level and become more distinguished, bigger, more concentrated and darker.

The napoleons shortened the wine's finish considerably, something that seemed to be the result of the onions as I tried them separately and killed it even more. Nothing strange, just muted.

Overall though, not too shabby.

Really enjoyed the food. Almost enjoyed the pairing.

#153 - French Pot Chicken & Veggies With '06 Grand Veneur Champauvins

It's a new year and new years bring with it impulses to shake things up a bit.

With last night's dinner, we "shook things up" and tried different chicken. Like many other attempts to try new things, the fact that it was tried is enough.

We'll stick to the chicken prep we love, thank you very much.

Food: French pot chicken with brandy, herb and vegetables, baguette and butter with a mâche salad

A recipe from Around My French Table (M. Jacques' Armagnac Chicken - pgs. 204-5).

Standard 'toss everything in a pot' chicken that allows every flavor to seep into everything else. Chicken, carrots, onions, potatoes, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, salt, pepper and oil with a 1/2 cup of Metaxa substituted for the Armagnac.

Can't complain. Tasted Country French with moderately deep, wintry flavors entirely suited to the gloomy day and time of year. We, though, were left with the palpable feeling of something being missed, which was probably the skin from Thomas Keller chicken. Or the great juice run-off from it that screams essence of chicken. Tasted like solid enough chicken in a pot. Chicken was just kinda 'there', though, with us liking the vegetables with chicken juice poured over them much more.

Baguette and butter to accompany and mâche salad to finish.

Tried something new and plan to continue such things with chicken but nothing beats TKC.

Wine: 2006 Domaine Grand Veneur "Les Champauvins" Côtes-du-Rhône Villages ($17 - WDC)

GSM. Pop and pour. Dark raspberry jam spread on toast with a touch of grilled meat that followed through on the palate. Kirsch mixed in with nice structure for a Villages wine in the mid-teens. Drinking well enough even though some reports said it was done or close.

I liked it more than Mrs. Ney due to its noticeable ability to be a step above something that simply tasted like "wine." Tasted like the shell of a GSM in a pleasant enough way, though never played one cent above (or below) the price tag.

With mid-teens Rhônes in our world, I'd rather spend $35 for one and enjoy the hell out of it instead of the $17 blah-inducing offerings. Outside of the Domaine Des Tours, I've never really loved anything in this price range.

Pairing: 83 Wouldn't do either the food or the wine or the food and wine again

Not necessarily flat or boring, just not particularly inspiring stuff. Took a ten-day hiatus due to sickness in the house and jumping back on board the food and wine train made for taking small steps back into the fray. Which meant nothing too extravagant.

Zero enhancement on the plate or in the glass but as a wine buddy to go with the food, nothing turned icky.

Usually don't love chicken and red wine and this was no exception.

#152 - Leftover Lamb Stew And Fregola With '05 Meandro

Along with passing along pairings here at FWW, I'd like to perform a second function. Time and anguish saving.

Don't read Vertical, the follow-up to Sideways. There. I just saved you 20 or so hours of unmitigated reading hell. At one point, if the words 'alacrity' or 'enervated' popped up one more GD time, I was going to whip the Kindle across the room. The admittedly decent last 100 pages couldn't be saved by the first 300 of terribly written soft-core porn intermingled with ads for the "trusty" iPhone (entire paragraphs describing the navigation of it) and Viagra with buttloads of laugh jags entirely inappropriate to the set-up ("These people are havin' such a wild time! You're nuts!"). Shooting for a "wacky romp that ups the stakes," it comes off as a badly edited, perfunctory churn-out to get a movie deal. I did not embrace it with alacrity. It only left me feeling enervated.

Anyway.

I never loved the Meandro line from Quinta do Vale Meão.

Always came off as a touch limp and clunky to me. Respected it for what it was but it never thrilled me and I certainly never looked forward to it.

Last night was a little different.

Food: Leftover lamb stew with fregola

From #140 a month ago:

"A New Spanish Table recipe once again. Lamb stew with dried and fresh red peppers is the title (pages 248-249) but the beauty came from the use of San Marzano tomatoes in all their brightness and pearl onions bringing a perfect level of depth. Red bell peppers and ancho peppers with garlic, chicken stock, white wine, red wine vinegar and various stew-ish essentials with a pronounced black pepper presence."

Came off somewhat similar a month later, this time with a more pronounced ancho and red pepper hit. Deep but not sticky with lamb that pretty much tasted fresh. Loved what it offered but it was second to the fregola.

A textbook way to freshen up leftovers. Add a freshly-made, ridiculously good risotto-type goopiness to bleed into the stew flavors and fill the holes. Tasted made for each other.

Fregola done in a risotto style, the Sardinian pasta balls similar in appearance to Israeli couscous but made from semolina, creates a silky, rich, creamy starchy bleed-off just like standard risotto but accents its rustic semolina quality. Italian peasanty in a fancy way.

Blended with onion, chicken stock, manchego and a squeeze of lemon juice with everything topped with parsley and mint.

Much like the last time we had the lamb stew, Mrs. Ney didn't expect much but it turned out damn tasty.

I was sad when it was done.

Fregola was an integral part of one of the best meals we had last year with lamb and the 2003 Hobbs Gregor Shiraz.

With the low-rent, leftover impression we expected before the meal, a low-rent bottle of wine that we'd become entirely sick of looking at and should be drunk seemed prudent.

Like the meal's result, the wine played well above all expectations.

Wine: 2005 Meandro do Vale Meão ($22 - Binny's)

Loam and stewy black fruits on the nose. Blackberry, cassis and a hint of stewed meat right away on the palate with a bone dry finish. The tannins settled down quickly and everything fell into place.

Vacillated back and forth between a sweet blackberry and licorice liqueur and a jumble of sweetish dark red fruits with an earthy note throughout. A bit herbal, tasting like grilled sage or something. Overall, softish with a bit of a creamy edge that came and went and a welcoming hotness kicking up about 3/4 of the way down.

Unlike previous times we've drank this, no chocolate or coffee to be found. Maybe that was it. I never loved the bitter old coffee or the cheap chocolate notes before but the soft, liqueur-like fruit and fine earth is the star right now. Something about the simplicity of how it's showing now compared to how it did before made it more appealing. Less fancified. It's a $20 bottle and it always seemed like Vale Meão, an estate that produces wines on the higher end that taste like Love to us every year, tried to retrofit a Lexus body onto an Aveo engine with the Meandro line.

But five years out, this was good stuff. Maybe it just needed some time or the right food with it.

Pairing: 89 Tasted like a surprisingly well-played pick-up game at the Y

We fell ass-backwards into the pairing but all the pieces fit perfectly.

The creamy nuttiness from the manchego fit with the earth and liqueur notes in the wine and the rich, starchy bleed-off from the fregola filled in the missing gaps in the wine, making it taste like a wine that was two levels better than it was by itself.

A dried, crushed pepper quality that was so prevalent in the sauce flirted beautifully with the hotness in the wine, creating a two act play on the plate - spicy hit that brought out more guts in the wine contrasting with the creaminess from the fregola/manchego that settled it down into a subtle blackberry-licorice place.

Probably 12 different flavor combinations to play with in the meal, taking a leftover meal into a place that didn't taste like it in the least.

#151 - TK Chicken, Baguette & Cheese With Two Chardonnays

Dud.

Brutal.

Everything.

All of it.

The food. The wine. The pairing.

Salad was good.

That's it.

Food: TK chicken, baguette and cheese with arugula and lemon balm salad

Dry chicken (salt, thyme and white pepper). Salty but that's never been the problem before. I think we got a bad bird, one that Foghorn Leghorn would say, "Sumthin' wrong with that boy." Dry and spongy with nothing done different from previous preparations.

Accidentally bought a sourdough baguette instead of a regular one. Boring with the Delice de Bourgogne. Even the cheese was newish, not having the time to develop that great funk.

Dud, dud, dud!

Been awhile.

Arugula and lemon balm salad (walnut oil and white balsamic vinegar) satisfied and the chicken skin was good but that's entirely it.

I thank all that is holy that the wines blew as well. Would have been sad to waste a good wine on this meal.

Wines: 2006 Vincent Dauvissat (René & Vincent) Chablis ($35 - Howard's) & 2009 Chateau Ste. Michelle Chardonnay ($13 - TJ's)

Liked the Chateau Ste. Michelle right away. Not heavily oaked with only a trailing buttered toast note on the back-end. Typical low-end chardonnay notes of pineapple, some green tropical fruits and a touch of maybe sage. Seemed promising for food.

The Dauvissat was all milk with a few drops of pineapple and kiwi juice mixed in. Maybe not so much milk in texture. More like mozzarella runoff that clouded any sense of minerality or character.

Instead of trying to figure out which one was the best of the two, Mrs. Ney and I focused on which one was worse. I'm still deliberating.

The Chateau Ste. Michelle might show better with a year or so but we won't be returning to this Chablis. People like this vintage of the Dauvissat on the interwebs but didn't show well at all for us, even with a little air and coming up close to room temperature.

Both drinkable in the most basic sense but nothing to recommend.

Pairing: 42 Two points added for the lemon balm in the salad

To quote Mrs. Ney, "Dinner made me Angry."

Just brutal. All around.

I truly can't recall a time when the complete meal failed so much.

A Dud in the Dudiest sense of Dud.

#150 - Meatloaf, Tomato Provençal & Potatoes With '07 Domaine Des Tours

150 posts.

Chugging along quite nicely.

It's just meatloaf and potatoes.

Except when it's not.

Food: Meatloaf, tomatoes Provençal and rosemary potatoes

Veal, beef and pork meatloaf with mustard seeds and white pepper, a Food & Wine recipe. I grew up with decent and often served meatloaf. This is fancy meatloaf and the only meatloaf we'll ever eat. Became the only meatloaf recipe about two years ago and felt like something important and settled.

Tomato Provençal. Grape tomatoes topped with bread crumbs, basil, lemon zest and anchovies, then baked. We came to the joy of tomato Provençal late, mostly because I dragged my feet over embracing such obvious anchovy-ness. I'm over that now because they and this is freakin' delicious. A perfect bridge between a protein and starch that makes me understand the basic French cooking philosophy a little more. Probably textbook in that sense and a perfect example, along with onions, of how one supplementary ingredient can add oodles of depth to a meal.

Potatoes pan roasted with lemon halves, rosemary, and garlic. Didn't squeeze the lemon juice into the pan, just rested them unsqueezed into the cooking process. Might be doing it this way from now on as a brightness that tasted like lemon juice crossed with lemon zest came through very subtly but beautifully (seemed integral to the pairing as well).

It's just meatloaf and potatoes but seemed like much more. We avoided this meal and got Indian the day before (see below) because we didn't want "meatloaf." Just as good as the Indian feast.

Wine: 2007 Domaine Des Tours Vin de Pays Vaucluse Reserve ($17 - WDC)

Grape: grenache, counoise, syrah, cinsault, merlot, dious

Appellation: Vaucluse, the large, mostly bulk wine-growing area east of CDP

Vintage (WS): 95 Drink or hold Ripe, rich, powerful reds thanks to long Indian summer at harvesttime. Grenache is heady and rich, so Mourvèdre and Cinsault key for balance. Best wines are classic hedonistic delights, though some are over-the-top

Tons of love for the Chateau Rayas second and third bottlings in this house but our first foray into the 2007 Domaine Des Tours world. Might be better than the 2006.

Medium weight with a texture extraordinarily similar to a pinot noir again. Tons of silky, bright red fruits (not quite distinguished yet) with an underlying fine earth and brush. Pretty tannins that stayed out of the way but this one was defined more by a pinot-like acid and texture again. You can immediately taste the craftsmanship in it with a silky, lilting texture and idiosyncratic development in the glass that tastes like the winemaker is trying to stretch the bounds of what grenache can do and searching for more ways to express it at the lower end of his bottlings. Tastes like he's being playful, drawing out the definition more from the acid than with the fruit.

The 2006 was hit and miss with different foods but it was unbelievable with a fig tart and made us buy a ton more. Finicky with more substantial, diverse offerings where the wine had to cast a wider net but the 2007 last night did just that.

Pairing: 92 Winner, winner, cheap meatloaf and wine dinner!

Solid with the meatloaf but beautifully funky, earthy nearly barnyardy with the tomato Provençal.

Might have been best with the potatoes. Something about how the touch of lemon coupled with the rosemary made everything in the wine fall into line. A great purity to it, turning the fruit in the wine into something more bright and nearly creamy followed by a brushy middle and a red fruit skin, mouthwatering finish. Felt like the acid from the lemon in the potatoes and the acid in the wine found a partner in each other and allowed everything else to come forward.

But it's tough. The funkiness brought out from the tomato Provençal made me want to replicate it immediately after a bite.

In the end, it was a meal flooded with different and changing flavors. The unexpectedness and joy of that turned meatloaf and potatoes into something so much more.

A quick note: Hema's Kitchen on Devon. Vegetable and lamb samosas, raita, two types of naan, chicken vindaloo and ghosh rogan tosh. Served with the same two wines we took last time: 2009 Crios torrontés ($11 - Binny's) and NV Albero Cava ($8 - Trader Joe's). Both worked so well last time we wanted to revisit it. Worked even better this time. The huge floral notes in the Crios shined what anything spicy or vegetal and the Cava worked great with anything doughy. It was a superlatively great back-and-forth that felt hedonistic.

Basically an $85 night out that beat many of the much more expensive meals we've had at other restaurants in the last year or two. This is great Indian food, something we're coming to understand that we capital 'L' love it. Avoided it for so long as we delved deeper into other cuisines but these are flavors that taste old to their very soul.

Hema's and Paprika taste like that's what we're going to be eating this year. The 2011 Semiramis in many ways.

#149 - Bittman Chicken, Skordalia & Pea Shoot Salad With An 8 Year-Old Muscadet

I've had a tough time figuring out if the 2002 Muscadet drank last night is, in fact, Michel Brégeon's Reserve. The company I bought it from assured me it was, saying it was the only one Kermit Lynch imported when they bought it.

Doesn't say it on the bottle (exact picture to the right) but it was worth a shot given both the regular bottling and the reserve each spent seven years (!) on its lees before being put in the bottle.

And Kermit Lynch said it was the best Muscadet he's ever had.

And it was an eight-year-old Muscadet for $25.

And while we've only had about ten different labels of Muscadet, we just love the snot out of it.

And this one, of those ten, is the best one I've ever had.

Food: Chicken under a brick, skordalia with pita for dipping and a pea shoot salad

A Mark Bittman instruction of cooking chicken taken from Italy and one of the quicker chicken preparations for the quality out there. Alter the herbs and rubs as you like. Mrs. Ney did and does.

Used this recipe with the touch of brightness and lift coming from the use of one lemon to tie into the wine. Juicy chicken, tasty skin, fine stuff. Used six boneless thighs instead of a whole chicken.

Skordalia (see recipe above) turned into a favorite in this house about a year ago and become one of those entrée accompaniments that slide so beautifully into the Muscadet/Albariño/Greek white/better bubbly vein. Fits like a glove. This one without breadcrumbs (gluten and dairy free!), subbing boiled and peeled potatoes and using roasted garlic instead of raw. Tasted like Eastern European hummus in a great way.

Pea shoot salad to finish with sliced cucumber, gaeta olives, scallions, mint, parsley and dressed with lemon zest, white balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil.

Enjoyed everything immensely but worried about some of the elements overpowering the wine.

In the end, no problems at all.

Wine: 2002 Michel Brégeon Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Reserve ($25 - SFWTC)

Probably the most balanced crisp white I've ever had. Light but substantial. Complex yet quick to transition. Stony as all get out but developed in the most pure way. If I were rich, THIS would be my ideal spring-summer drinker and I would never get sick of it. Just so pretty, graceful, welcoming and stupid good.

Typical Muscadet melon and citrus notes with bright fresh acid intermingled with a white grapefruit note, all of it light, graceful and sparkly. Wet stones in the middle with a subtle yeasty note and finished with the lightest spring rainwater coda that refreshed, cleansed the palate and left me wanting more...quickly.

Eight years old and it tasted like it was made yesterday. Beautifully put together and, as I said, the best Muscadet I've ever had in my rather limited Muscadet life. I'll up it. It's the best light, crisp white I've ever had with only a couple of Heredias, a Hüet and maybe a Champagne or two beating it in the all-around white category.

Pairing: 90 One of those pairings where "absolutely no problems" made it that much better

Worried about the pairing a bit but the shockingly youthful acid in the wine quelled those fears; the wine and the food remained their delicious selves. Enhancement? A bit here and there. The wine accented the olive oil in the skordalia nicely, like when you have good hummus made with good olive oil and the purity of the olive oil jumps out at you. Nice bridge with the lemon in the chicken and the wine that changed course and brought out the white grapefruit mingling around in the wet stone core of the wine.

Overall, it was only subtle touches here and there in the pairing. Cracked a 2007 Domaine Saint Martin Muscadet ($15 - Binny's) to finish the meal and drink with the salad and some of the green elements in that wine played with the salad in more direct, pleasing ways than with what we got from the Brégeon but the Brégeon's grace and subtlety was a one-of-a-kind in our world.

I want two cases of the Brégeon. It's one of those wines that will become a benchmark for me.

A quick note: Mahi mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw and guacamole served with purple corn sangria (recipe here) a few days ago. I've written about this a few times before (go to the January entry for a full description). Probably a top five meal. A couple of notes. We've found that following the sangria recipe to the letter and using a quality sauvignon blanc is essential (Kim Crawford is ideal in our world). More money but entirely worth the bones. Don't get "look at me!" creative. Recipes are out there for a reason.