#148 - Michael Symon Hanger Steak And Yuca Fries With '07 Pingus PSI

A plentiful pickle (-d) party permeating every pore of the pretty protein on the plate!

"Don't practice your alliteration on me!"

If I was prone to year-end listy-type things, I'd say the hanger steak with a fried egg on top at Lola in Cleveland last April would be up there. Like in the top 10. Maybe between #3 and #8. It's #5. I've decided.

Last August, Mrs. Ney mimicked it to great effect using skirt.

That time, we ate it with an Australian shiraz that felt like it was nearing its demise but still brought the fruit.

That's what we probably should have heeded this time. More fruit.

Food: Lola-style hanger steak with yuca fries and an arugula-parsley salad

Recipe here. Yep. From a Michael Symon appearance on the Rachel Ray Show.

Good, not great hanger steak but fine stuff. A sinewy mess on a couple pieces but great hanger gnarly flavor on most. Marinated in coriander, salt, sugar and chili powder and left to sit overnight. The coriander comes through quite beautifully.

Topped with the aforementioned pickled party. Onions and peppers pickled and put on top of the meat with homemade Worcestershire sauce. Both the pickled elements and the Worcestershire sauce once again brought a pretty and cheek-sticking low-level and very pretty acid. Always present and always welcome, something that can't be said for most pickling stuff out in the world. And the Worcestershire sauce could be drunk by itself, it's that good. Balsamic/crapload of herbs base but flavored with the half-bottle left of the Thackrey, it came out something freakin' delicious.

Yuca fries = top five favorite food in this house. Another nomination for the list. Even though we've had them for years, for 2010, it's #3. Garlic mayo for dipping.

Arugula-parsley salad to finish.

Getting a bite of the pickled elements (especially the pickled serrano), a piece of meat doused in Worcestershire and a bit of parsley made for everything we wanted and craved from the meal. Great stuff to finish out the year (I suddenly seem obsessed with year-end crap!)

Wine: 2007 Pingus PSI ($35 - Binny's)

Sisseck's third bottling. Blah, blah, blah.

100% tempranillo. Last had this one at Mado in February. Mado is, alas, no more for the most part. Robert Leavitt left to open his own butcher and larder named Butcher & Larder, looking to open in Logan Square within the next week. But I digress.

Opened for a half hour before drinking. Deep red in the glass. More fruit this time on the nose, showing smoky sweet plums and leather that followed to the tongue. Less wild this time. More settled in its flavors and progression, but a more singular fruit profile with the plum dominating and maybe a blackberry edge. Buttered toast and a wee hint of vanilla. Subtle earthy, fine dark dirt, raw menthol tobacco and charcoal finish. And a very dry finish with tannins still bucking everywhere but something that settled down to a reasonable level rather quickly.

Best thing I can say is that this vintage has a place and we'll be following it. Not near the top of the list after drinking it twice this year and seeing where it went (and is probably going to go) but I'd be interested enough to find out what it's like in two years. Missed that blackberry/cherry note that I thought would keep the fruit diversified, though. A long decant may have helped things but my interest may still have dropped 5% in this vintage with this showing.

Pairing: 84 Nothing remarkable in the least but enough there to keep us from opening something else

More fruit, please. The pickling elements needed something bigger and more in-your-face, Look At ME! personality. It hollowed out the core of the wine and beat it up for the most part. This was a biggish meal and the PSI needed something more subtle, earthy and mild, like a good Spanish feast to accentuate its pretty secondary flavors.

This didn't have that. This wanted a Robin Williams-type personality in the form of a ready-to-go Australian shiraz or some very recent fruity garbage blend like the Owen Roe Abbott's Table with all its zinfandel and blaufrankish sweet fruit, which we should have drunk but I nixed.

Now we know.

#41 - Mado With '07 Pingus PSI & '05 Királyudvar

Third time's a charm, I guess.

We've set reservations for Mado twice since September and both times one of us was sick.

But we finally made it back last night.

The guy that owns this place was the chef of the group that took over the Pottery Barn of a restaurant that I used to work at in Lincoln Square and boy, can the guy cook.

It's farm-to-table, all local products, all made in-house and it's just plain delicious.

This was our fourth time (?) and it was par for the course.

Food: Mado

Appetizers:

Chartuterie plate of chicken liver paté, country paté and copa with bread, mustard and pickled fennel

Farm Fresh Egg Bruschetta

Braised fennel with saffron aioli

Brandade with grilled bread

Entrées:

Rainbow trout with arugula and pine nuts

Pig's head meatball stew with chickpeas and kale

Dessert (to-go):

Pistachio shortbreadish-type cake

Dark chocolate bark

$115 and we were both bursting at the seams. Always a great meal.

Food: 2007 Pingus PSI ($32 - Binny's) and 2005 Királyudvar Tokaji Sec ($20 - Berkeley Wine Co.)

Before with Mado, I think I recommended a lighter red. We did not follow such advice.

The Pingus PSI is the new, third-tier offering from Peter Sisseck, the guy that burst on the scene in 1995 with his cult Ribera del Duero offering, Pingus.

In 1996, Sisseck made 325 cases of Pingus at a release price of $200 a bottle. Parker went nuts over it, calling it "one of the greatest and most exciting wines I've ever tasted." A ship carrying 75 of the cases sank in the Atlantic right around the time Parker released his tasting notes and demand in conjunction with the ship-sinking story went through the roof.

For example, the 2006 was released at $750 a bottle.

It's pretty much the über-cult wine of the last decade or so.

But this is the third-tier wine at a very reasonable $32 while the 2007 is the first offering of this label. The second-tier label, Flor de Pingus, has been made since the beginning and usually runs about $75. We have the 2006 but it still needs some time.

Dark crimson in the glass, wild brush and fruit on the nose, this one got better with a little air pretty quick. All the hallmark flavors of Ribera were there. Sort of wild and bucking, tasted like buttered toast dizzled with blackberry juice and slathered in dirt and tree bark with a wee hint of a creamy vanilla (?) element. A bit tight. Even one year would make it more welcoming. For $32, we'll be buying it again just to see what happens.

The Királyudvar has been covered before here at Food With Wine. It's currently our favorite white wine. So many layers, so versatile with food.

Great floral and mineral background to support its exotic fruit profile, fruits that constantly change and are always in balance. Less lemon this time for me and more something like kiwi mixed with guava mixed with a dash of honey. Still some great orange overtones as well.

If you can find it, get it. Wine Discount Center doesn't have it anymore but Randolph Wine Cellars has it listed on their website.

Pairing: Not great but very good

With the chicken liver paté, the white tasted like a dirty gym sock. And the red wasn't much better.

Overall though, there were highlights. The Pingus PSI pairs almost flawlessly with the pig's head stew and the copa in a weirdly gnarly way. The Királyudvar helped the braised fennel and saffron aioli, the brandade and the trout, though it wasn't spectacular.

Oddly, the egg and bruschetta was quite good with the Pingus. Something about the heavy char on the bread made it work.

On the whole, we were happy, even if nothing made for an experience that was supremely greater than the sum of its parts.

And check that "lighter red" advice at the door. In the winter, the chef gets a bit more comfort foody and things will be fine if you bring it up a bit.

Except for an Australian shiraz. Maybe not that.

In fact, that would be terrible. Or would it?