Soave Classico Leonildo Pieropan 2006 (something of a wet blanket)

The Pretty Lady and I went to Latium for our Valentine's Day celebration, based on a number of recommendations (primarily Yumchia's and LS's). We were corralled into have the set menu though, so it's not really worth reviewing Latium until we get a chance to sample what the chef is capable of. For what it's worth, it was a good meal. We did get to choose the wine however - the Pretty Lady wanted white, but only wanted to share a half bottle, so I went for the Soave Classico Leonildo Pieropan 2006. Made from the Garganera grape, and a Soave Classico, it seemed to be the most promising of the limited choices of half bottles. Adjacent image from ethicalwine.com.

Soave Classico Leonildo Pieropan 2006
White wine
Italian (Soave, Verona, Italy)
Garganega grape (10% Trebbiano)

Nose: At first nothing much - just notes of sparkling water (yes, really). Needed a lot of aeration - I almost felt I was shaking the wine rather than swirling it. Then some faint fruit notes appeared, but I couldn't really tell what fruit they were.
Mouthfeel: A little thin, and very light. Definitely a swigging wine.
Tasting: After heavy aeration, some apples and pears, perhaps some other hard fruits. Also notes of hibiscus, which was interesting, but that was as far as it got.

I think that drinking this right after a raspberry and champagne aperitif was a mistake. But then I cleared my palate and tried again - several times - but not much joy from this. I think it was bottled too young, and probably needed some years in glass. Shame.

It's not really a good introduction to Leonildo Pieropan, which is a vineyard in Soave, Verona, where they make classic white wines. I think they have garnered a reputation for being boring, but there exists much worse stuff which you could drink. Soave is one of Italy's Denomination of Controlled Origin regions, which makes it legally protected in the EU as a product which can only come from its original region (Scotch whisky is also protected too heh heh). Garganega is a grape variety which is heavily grown in Soave, and has come to be associated with it. Garganega wines are supposed to show great aromas, mainly lemon and almond.

Leonildo Pieropan founded his eponymous vineyard in 1890. Control passed to his sons, and then to his grandson, also named Leonildo. He now runs several vineyards with his wife, having added to the original vineyard. They make wine from the Garganega and Trebbiano grapes, with 3 varieties of wine from different vineyards, as well as 2 dessert wines, one containing Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc as well as Trebbiano. According to their website, the 1999 Soave Classico was a very good vintage. I must hunt it up some time.

Singapore Garden

It's a little ironic that the best Malaysian food in London is available at a restaurant nominally claiming to serve food from Singapore. Singapore Garden, located off Finchley Road near Swiss Cottage, serves top quality Malaysian food while pretending to be a Chinese restaurant (in fact, it pretended so well that it won Best Chinese Restaurant at the ITV-Carlton Restaurant Awards in 2003). The restaurant's clientele can be divided into 2 segments - some people dive straight into the Malaysian-Singaporean section of the menu, others order the Chinese-Cantonese food off the main menu.

Singapore Garden recently underwent a renovation, so the facade is a lot newer than the picture above shows. The decor is now black marble and wooden panelling, although the staff are still dressed in kebaya (think Singapore Airlines cabin crew) and bowtie and waistcoat. The menu is still the same though, with the Malaysian / Singaporean specialties under the relevant section on the menu.

Singapore Garden
83 Fairfax Road
London NW6 4DY
020 7328 5314

The Malaysian dishes available are generally old hawker favourites that one can find at any hawker centre or coffeeshop in most towns in Malaysia. From experience, I can recommend the char koay teow, the mee goreng, the kangkong belachan, the hokkien mee and the hokkien hay mee. The Pretty Lady likes the laksa and the rendang. I have also heard that the o-jien, the tauhu goreng, the pig's trotters and the kon lo mee are excellent as well. All these are as authentic as can be gotten in London, and are highly recommended for the adventurous diner or the homesick Malaysian. I believe the secret is the level of heat Singapore Garden can achieve in the chef's wok - there is certainly more "breath of the wok" in the food here than in anywhere else in London. In addition, on Sundays there is usually an off-menu special - a Malaysian / Singaporean appetiser (e.g. ham lok chong and popiah) and a dessert (e.g. cendol and tau foo fah).

The main Singaporean specialty on the menu is Singapore fried noodles, which is fairly tasty too. Note that Singaporeans occasionally come away disappointed from a visit to Singapore Garden, because most of the dishes are cooked Malaysian style - for example, the char koay teow does not have sweet soya sauce in it.

As for the Chinese food on the menu, Singapore Garden offers excellent seafood. In particular, the chiew yim softshell crab and the fried squid are very good, with minimal batter and just the right amount of peppercorns. The typical Chinese restaurant mainstays, such as crispy aromatic duck and shredded Sichuan beef are done quite well here too.

As is usual for Chinese restaurants in the UK, where Singapore Garden struggles is the dessert menu. Although they offer Malaysian and Singaporean desserts (e.g. cendol, banana fritter), these also occasionally disappoint. For example, I have given up ordering the cendol here, as they use canned coconut milk, which is occasionally sour. The other dishes available are just various combinations of ice cream or branded bought-in desserts.

No matter. Singapore Garden is not for people with sweet tooths. The best thing to do here is to show up, dive straight into the hawker dishes with the occasional Chinese-Cantonese dish for variety, and stuff one's stomach to the brim.

Scores:

27 Feb 2008: TFQ = 25, CS = 26, S = 15, AD = 8, VfM = 8. Total = 82 points.

What does this mean?

Caol Ila 16 yo 1991/2007 Cask Strength (Smoke on the water, fire in the sky)

Yes, I admit I bought this particular whisky because it won an award. The Malt Maniacs named it Best Whisky Matured Exclusively In Bourbon Casks - Daily Drams category in their 2007 awards. It also got a silver medal. I can assure you that while the award sounds trite, it really isn't. There are many bottlers and distilleries around, and they entered more than a hundred of the best whiskies for the MM awards, so anything that survived to take a medal is more than worth it.

I was at a loss initially as to what to pair it with, as I've not done smoky whiskies yet. Martine Nouet, a Malt Maniac and a contributing writer to various whisky industry magazines and publications, suggests root vegetable soups as potential accompaniments to smoky whiskies, but I'm not very good at making root vegetable soups. Like many, I'm a better glutton than a cook. Anyhow, I ordered pizza in one night, and decided that proper stone-baked pizza could well go with a smoky whisky. And here we are.

Caol Ila 16 yo 1991/2007 Cask Strength (The Single Malts of Scotland)
Single malt - Islay
White wine
57.5% ABV

Nose: Smoke and peat. Soya sauce, honey and lemon. Fresh-cut grass lurking around the edges. Mouthfeel: Medium body. Gritty and sandy, quite rough in the mouth. Can't really taste all that alcohol (!).
Tasting: Salty and sweet. Preserved Moroccan lemons. Cinnamon and cloves. More grass, drier this time (hay?).
Finish: Salty, long and warm. The cloves and honey linger longest.

Oof. Very yummy, but it's strong. So, for good whisky, you need good pizza, and I've tried to choose the best I know of. I don't normally eat this well, but it would be a shame to waste the whisky by testing it against Pizza Hut stuff, for example (hmm... or would it?).

1. Siracusa pizza from Lupa.

Lupa is a delivery-only pizzeria that serves up great pizza to those who live near West Hampstead or Crouch End. The ingredients are top notch, with the trade off being that the pizza is a little smaller, but the crust is thin, crispy and baked to perfection in a wood-fired oven. Their Siracusa has Italian sausage, Lupa's caramelised onions (brown, sweet and tangy with balsamic vinegar), roasted peppers, tomato and mozzarella. The Caol Ila added a smoky, lemony tang to everything, somehow made the caramelised onions seem sweeter, more in harmony with the tomato sauce. It even brought out the bready flavours from the crust!

2. Capricciosa pizza from L'Artista.
L'Artista is a Golders Green Neapolitan restaurant that does wood-fired pizza and wholesome hearty pastas. I chose a capriciossa, which has prosciutto, red and yellow peppers, anchovies, tomato sauce, mozzarella and an egg on top. The Caol Ila made the salty anchovies taste a bit like smoked herring, and there was a lemony tang to both the fish and egg that was quite interesting. The peppers were already blackened by the oven, and the smoke in the whisky made them taste a little sweeter. Nice, but the egg was a little too raw to go well with the whisky.

3. Pizza funghi au truffle from Basilico.
Basilico, like Lupa, is a delivery-only pizza restaurant. There are more than 5 outlets, dotted all over London, and you call the outlet nearest to you (in my case it happens to be the one on Finchley Road). The pizza funghi au truffle has mushrooms, basil, chopped tomato, mozzarella, salami and truffle oil. The Caol Ila tasted sweet, with the smokiness blurred by the salami (and possibly the bits of burnt crust). There was a nutty flavour as well - probably the mushrooms, although I couldn't tell. Definitely discovered extra depth in the whisky here.


All three were good choices to go with the Caol Ila. I think my main lesson here is that like usually goes with like, or with zero - in other words, pair smokiness with smokiness, or with something neutral, otherwise the flavours will clash. The second lesson is that pairing high strength whisky with savoury food is a very good idea, as the alcohol will dissolve flavour components in the food and bring them to your nose's attention. If I had to choose, I'd say the best combination would be the whisky and Lupa's pizza. Their caramelised onions and their pizza crust suddenly seemed to leap out of my mouth into my nose when I had a swig of the whisky.

Whaling

As any reader of this blog will have surmised, I like whales and dolphins. I find them to be very interesting creatures, and I would dearly love to see a whale in the flesh when diving (seen dolphins already, in the Red Sea). I like them so much, and they are so rare and endangered, that I've decided that I won't eat whale meat, just as I'm not eating shark's fin. There may be what seems like many whales in the sea today, but whales have long generation times, and it will be decades before we see what 200 years of large-scale whaling have wreaked.

People still do kill whales. Certain cultures (Inuit, some Native American tribes, some Polynesian tribes) are allowed to take a few dozen whales each year as part of their cultural practices. For what it's worth I think that this is wrong - while it's true that tribes should be allowed to manage their own natural resources as they see fit, I don't understand how that argument can stack up for creatures that range the oceans globally. Whales belong to the world, and no one should be able to exploit them by right of prior claim.

So to find that a rich country can still whale, and on a large scale, for food and for "cultural" reasons, is extremely repugnant. There are 3 main culprits - Japan, Iceland and Norway. Japan is by far the worst offender. Japanese whalers have been issued permits by the International Whaling Commission for 10,477 whales since 1986, some 92% of the total. The Japanese claim that it's for research, but there's only so many whales you need to kill for research. The other reason - for census purposes - is even more stupid (counting animals by killing them is farcical). No, whaling is for whale meat, for consumption purposes, pure and simple. Adjacent image shows a Japanese whaling ship (Nisshin Maru) taking 2 minke whales off Antarctica (ABC News Australia).

The adjacent image shows Japan's issued permits over the years. There's a clear upward trend, with most of the catch being minke whales. Why Japan needed to take more than 1,000 minke in 2005 is unclear. It also seems that the 2006 catch was supposed to be even bigger, but fires on a Japanese whaling ship curtailed the whaling season. Recently, Japan has also started to take sei and sperm whales.

According to david-in-tokyo, Japan's whale meat stockpile was 3,900 tonnes in 2006, about a year's catch. This is equivalent to 1,100 minke, assuming each minke whale yields 3.6 tonnes of meat (other species of whale probably yield a bit more). The whale meat auction programme released 1,900 tonnes from the 2006 catch in 2007, pricing minke meat at 1,990 yen per kilo. That's 20 pounds sterling, a bit more than twice as expensive as beef in the UK. I believe it's actually cheaper than Gressingham duck. The Japanese government is prohibited from dumping the meat at below cost price, but it's still hardly expensive. Does the whaling industry cover it's cost of capital? Probably not, although the Japanese government is prohibited from selling the meat below cost price. This is state support - anathema to me, but then they do things differently in Japan.

Whale meat is sold not only in restaurants, but as hamburger (there's even a specialist fast food chain), in school meals, and, in one infamous case, as dog food. Consumption is rising, as this post from David shows. It's a little sad. There must be input substitutes for these products. Even at these low prices, the Japanese government appears to have to support prices at a suitable level by limiting supply - the stockpile keeps growing (4,400 tons in April 2007) and the number of whales being taken keeps increasing. According to David, there is increasing demand, but I suspect that if all the stockpile was released into the market, prices would fall, and it would be clear that Japan need not take several hundred whales a year.

As with sharks, don't eat whales or dolphins. For one thing, they may be far more intelligent than we give them credit for. If one supports the Great Ape Project, and I do, there may be a case for extending the idea and ethical basis behind it to certain cetaceans.

Lupa

I often feel that it's difficult to obtain good pizza anywhere except in its heartland in Italy (and possibly the US). Nevertheless, there are a number of places in London where the pizza is very very tasty, although perhaps a tad inferior to what can be had in Rome. One such place is your very own living room, if you happen to live in and around Crouch End or Hampstead. This is because you can get very decent pizza delivered to your front door from Lupa, a eat out-only pizzeria that serves up far superior fare to Pizza Hut.

Lupa has 2 outlets, one located in Crouch End, the other in West Hampstead. One can either ask for pizza to be delivered, in which case one needs to live within either outlet's catchment area, or one can ask to collect it. Delivery is probably the better method, as one can ask for the pizza to be delivered by a certain time (although it sometimes comes earlier).

Lupa
55 West End Lane
London NW6 1XN
020 7431 5222

or

Lupa
60 Crouch End Hill
London N8 8AG
020 8348 8888

First, a word about the caramelised onions. Lupa includes their own caramelised onions in certain recipes, and these generally add a whole new dimension to the pizza or the salad. The onions are caramelised in sugar, then finished in balsamic vinegar, and are at once sweet and tangy. Order anything with them - you'll find they vastly improve a pizza you thought you were familiar with.

There are 16 pizzas available from Lupa, from old standards such as quattro stagioni (pepperoni, artichokes, prosciutto, olives, mushrooms, tomato sauce and mozzarella) and quattro formaggi (fontina, gorgonzola, goat's cheese, mozzarella on tomato sauce and Lupa's caramelised onions), to newish recipes like reine (mushrooms, olives, prosciutto, tomato sauce, mozzarella) and tre gusti (pepperoni, mushrooms, goat's cheese, tomato sauce, mozzarella). One can also order the garlic bread, topped with the same caramelised onions.

For sides, there are 11 salads, ranging from nicoise to finocchio (fennel and orange with cherry tomatoes dressed with balsamic vinegar). There's even coleslaw. For dessert there's either Ben & Jerry's ice cream, or 4 types of cake (I recommend the honeycomb cheesecake).

It's a cut above your regular delivery service. Highly recommended, even if it is a little more expensive, as the pizza is as good as anything one might be able to order at a restaurant.

Scores:

22 Feb 2008: TFQ = 24, CS = 24, S = 14, AD = 5, VfM = 7. Total = 74 points.

Note: I've awarded 5 points for ambience, as this is the average level. What else could I give my own living room?

What does this mean?

Cetacean phylogeny

This is a follow-up to the last post, where I described 10 cetacean ancestors and cousins. One (Indohyus) actually belongs to the order Raoellidae and not Cetacea. The image above is a graphical representation of the phylogenetic tree. Note that unlike a proper cladogram, the lengths of the branches don't mean anything (except maybe the limits of my skill with Visio...). Hopefully it gives a clearer idea of how all these interesting creatures are / were related to each other.

10 steps on the road to modern cetaceans

Whales (by which I mean both baleen and toothed whales, including dolphins, i.e. the taxonomic order Cetacea), besides being very impressive, magnificent and intelligent creatures, are pretty interesting from a zoological and evolutionary perspective. Prior to the late 1980s, there is little or no evidence of how whales evolved. There was no taxonomic tree linking land dwelling animals to completely marine cetaceans. Professors Hans Thewissen and Philip Gingerich changed all that. Working in Pakistan, they discovered many fossils of whale ancestors, and contributed a great deal to our understanding of the evolutionary chain that led from small, shore-dwelling deer-like ancestors to modern whales.

Among the major discoveries were that among extant animals today, whales are most closely related to hippos. Previously, it was thought that whales were descended from mesonychids, a group best described as carnivorous artiodactyls (even toed ungulates). It now appears that whales are descended from herbivorous artiodactyls (hippos are herbivorous artiodactyls). Also, whales evolved relatively quickly - within 8 million years. It is also possible to trace cetacean evolution from the beginning, just after cetacean ancestors began dipping their toes into the water, to today's massive, completely marine creatures.

1. Indohyus

Indohyus (adjacent image by Carl Buell, who is a fantastic natural history artist, and blogs under the name Olduvai George) is a member of an order called Raoellidae, closely related to the artiodactyls, that lived about 48 million years ago. Hans Thewissen published a paper at the end of 2007 advancing the theory that cetaceans and raoellids descend from a creature very much like Indohyus (but which lived at least 6 million years earlier). There are multiple strands of evidence - its heavy bones, which are an adaptation common to marine mammals, and basically provide ballast; isotopic analysis of the fossils also prove that Indohyus was semi-aquatic; and best of all, Indohyus has an involucrum, which is a thickened piece of bone in the inner ear that whales have (it aids hearing underwater). No other mammal group has an involucrum.

2. Pakicetus

Pakicetus, which lived 53m years ago (adjacent image again by Carl Buell), was discovered by in Pakistan in 1981. It is classified under its own family, Pakicetidae. Hans Thewissen found complete skeletons in 2001, with adaptations of the inner ear that are today unique to modern day whales. They were the earliest cetaceans, but they were not aquatic. Pakicetus lived much like Indohyus must have, wading along swampy shores looking for fish and small animals. Note that Pakicetus was already carnivorous. It was between 1 and 2 metres long, and looked very much like a large dog.

3. Ambulocetus

Ambulocetus, which lived 50m years ago, (adjacent image is a screen capture from the BBC natural history series Walking with Beasts) was the type species of its family, Ambulocetidae. It was up 5m long, and was for most purposes a large, furry crocodile. It hunted like a crocodile too, as an ambush predator, and could also walk on land, although not very well. It swam, unlike crocodiles, with an up and down motion of the spinal cord (as dolphins do today), and had vestigial hooves on its very large hind feet. It is hypothesized that they walked somewhat like sealions, pointing their hind feet laterally and waddling forward.

4. Kutchicetus

Kutchicetus, which lived 46m years ago (adjacent image again by Carl Buell, who has made something of a hobby of drawing ancient cetaceans), was a member of the family Remingtonocetidae. This family of cetaceans was characterised by their long snouts and broad tails, which made them slightly better adapted for marine life compared to the ambulocetids. Kutchicetus was small, about the same size as an otter, and probably had a similar lifestyle.

5. Rodhocetus

Rodhocetus (adjacent image from Science magazine) lived about 46m years ago too. It was a member of the family Protocetidae. This family displayed body plan features in common with today's whales, a long streamlined body, and some species may have had a tail fluke. However, they still retained large feet, which may have been webbed to aid swimming. Rodhocetus was about the same size as a sealion, and much the same shape. This family is heterogeneous, however, and is mainly characterised by large eyes set deep under the supraorbital bone. Remingtonocetids and ambulocetids had smaller eyes.

6. Dorudon

Dorudon belongs to the family Dorudontidae, from which the modern day whale families Mysticetes (baleen whales) and Odontocetes (toothed whales, including dolphins) descend. It lived about 38m years ago, and was about 5 metres long. It was fully aquatic (as can be inferred from where the fossils were found - not only in South Asia but also in Egypt and the US, so it had a wide range in the oceans of the day), although it retained small hind legs that were probably just stubs on the torso. Dorudon was toothed (baleen evolved later), and did not display any signs of echolocation apparatus, as modern day cetaceans do. The adjacent image is from Walking with Beasts.

7. Basilosaurus

Basilosaurus lived slightly later than Dorudon, from about 37m years ago. It was discovered in 1840, and was initially mistaken for a reptile, hence the dinosaur-sounding name. It was far larger than Dorudon, up to 18m in length (due to extremely elongated vertebra), and was fully aquatic as well. It also had small vestigial hind legs. Basilosaurus had a blowhole, which was located about halfway up its snout, which is further evidence of a fully aquatic lifestyle. Hans Thewissen has found the fossilised stomach contents of a Basilosaurus, which indicate that it ate fish, including sharks. The adjacent image is from Walking with Beasts.

8. Janjucetus

Janjucetus was an early baleen whale that lived about 25 million years ago, and therefore a member of the order Mysticetes. It had not yet evolved baleen, as you can see from the image (also by Carl Buell, via Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom). Despite not having any baleen, Janjucetus had acquired some features of modern day baleen whales, such as lower jawbones that were no longer fused at the front. It was about 3.5m long. It was a fierce creature, hunting much like today's leopard seals, a swift ambush predator that would strip flesh from bone.

9. Aetiocetus

Aetiocetus was the first baleen whale (and therefore a member of Mysticetes) found with baleen. It also had teeth, but displayed troughs in the palate bone which in modern day baleen whales hold vascular tissue that supplies blood to the roots of the baleen plates. The adjacent image is from National Geographic, via Edward T. Babinski, who has written a great deal on whale evolution on his website.

10. Squalodon

Squalodon lived between 15m and 30m years ago. It was a member of Odontocetes, which encompasses today's toothed whales. Other than its teeth, which resembled those of a shark's, it was very similar morphologically to today's dolphins, and also displays the first evidence of echolocation apparatus hat we know of. Squalodon had the beginnings of a melon-shaped forehead, which is how modern day whales amplify and direct their clicks. The adjacent image is from museumkennis.nl.


There are many more species known in the family Archaocetes, that is, all cetaceans except Odontocetes and Mysticetes. We now know of about 30 species, most from greatly detailed fossils. Of ancient Odontocetes and Mysticetes, we know of at least another 20 species. Resolving the evolutionary history of the cetaceans is a great triumph for science. Unfortunately, an even greater challenge now presents itself - how to conserve the extant species of cetaceans?

11. Yangtze river dolphin and northern right whales

In 2007, a search by the Chinese government of the Yangtze River for several baiji (image on the left from the Guardian), or Yangtze River dolphins, to fill a long-hoped for nature sanctuary found precisely zero specimens. The baiji has not been seen in the wild since about 2005, and there are no specimens in captivity. The baiji is for all intents and purposes extinct, and the same fate may befall other freshwater dolphins, particularly the Ganges dolphin and the Amazon dolphin. The northern right whale may also go extinct, as there are fewer than 300 individuals left in the North Atlantic. Part of the reason why these whales have been reduced to so few is that the North Pacific population was decimated by large illegal catches by the Soviet Union's whaling fleet in the 1960s.

With several countries beginning whaling again - Norway, Iceland and Japan so far - these whales may never recover. Vote against whaling - no one needs to eat whales, and particularly in Japan, to waste whale meat. Vote for conservation, otherwise interesting and magnificent animals such as river dolphins will disappear. There is no time to waste.

Domaine Gerovassiliou Malagousia 2006 (definitely not retsina)

Yes, I'm aware of the poor reputation that Greek wines receive, but that's mainly because most people know Greek wine through retsina, which is wine flavoured by pine resin. It's an acquired taste apparently. Greek wine without pine resin should have some interesting qualities - after all, it's grown in perfect climates on good soil. And there are indigenous Greek grape varieties, some of which must be of interest to oenologists.

At Texture the other day, the sommelier recommended a Greek wine as "light and very refreshing". That in itself was interesting - judging from various sources of information, Greek white wine is fairly robust and chunky, going well with grilled fish and grilled lamb. There must be a lot of fruit flavour in it, which wouldn't put it in the light and refreshing category, in my opinion. As it was, my opinion turned out to be wrong. Which is great when it comes to wine and food - even more than variety, pleasant surprises are the spice of life.

Domaine Gerovassiliou Malagousia 2006
White wine
Greek (Epanomi, Macedonia)
Malagousia grape

Nose: Quite fruity - pear and mango, mainly. Floral fennel, if that makes sense. Wet stones. Should be a kick in the nose, but there's plenty of jasmine that binds it all together and makes it seem very airy.
Mouthfeel: Light and crisp. This is a gulping wine.
Tasting: First sip was heavy and flat. Swirled it around to aerate it - wow, it really makes a difference. Light fresh rose flavours. Lemon, thyme, lemon thyme and lemongrass. More jasmine. Like tasting a cloud.

It really was light, despite the fruity aromas in the nose. Surprisingly, they didn't appear in the tasting. I found myself chugging down big mouthfuls of this wine throughout the meal, and the jasmine really went well with my lamb. Very, very happy with this. (Yes, I know, I didn't say anything about the finish. Well, I can't really taste wine finishes that well any more - maybe it's all the whisky I've been drinking. But then, finishes aren't really the big deal with wine...)

The winemaker, Domaine Gerovassiliou (adjacent image taken from greekwinemakers.com), is the brainchild of Evangelos Gerovassiliou, who used to be chief oenologist for Chateau Carras, a large Greek wine venture. He then branched out on his own, experimenting with Greek (Assyrtiko and Malagousia) and French (Syrah, Merlot and Viognier) cultivars on his own property in the 1980s. At that point, Malagousia was nearly extinct, and he became the first winemaker to cultivate it for wine-making in its native habitat near Thessaloniki, Macedonia.

Domaine Gerovassiliou now has about 45 hectares under cultivation. They specialise in white wines, now cultivating Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay in addition to the grape varieties mentioned earlier. There are two red wines, one a blend of Syrah, Merlot and Grenache, the other a blend of Limnio, Mavroudi and Mavrotragano, all indigenous Greek varieties. Malagousia 2006 (or indeed any other vintage of Malagousia) is not listed among the award winners on the vineyard's website, so the other wines must be even more enjoyable.

Texture

Lunch with Yumchia has been in both my and the Pretty Lady's diaries for a few weeks, but I hadn't actually written down the name of the restaurant we were going to. I figured the Pretty Lady had, and it's one of the perks of being married to rely on your wife's memory. Anyway, we pitched up at Texture, which vaguely stirred some strands of memory - there was some sort of connection with Iceland. I trust Yumchia's recommendations - she's an inverterate foodie, same as me, so she knows what she likes, and very well too. Don't just trust my opinion though, go over to her blog and see for yourself.

Texture is a venture by Aggi Sverrison and Xavier Rousset, formerly head chef and sommelier respectively at Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons, Raymond Blanc's restaurant in Oxfordshire. Sverrison has also worked with Marcus Wareing, at Petrus. He started his career in Reykjavik, where he rose to be head chef at the Grill Room. His current restaurant has a minimalist feel without being quite minimalist - white walls, wooden floors, comfy leather chairs, and feature hangings in the restaurant, which sits behind a champagne bar (adjacent image from Bloomberg News). It is located in the centre of the West End, at:

Texture
34 Portman Street
W1H 7BY
020 7224 0028

Yumchia and PY were late, so the Pretty Lady and I started with Texture's signature crisps. They came on a black ceramic board, piled up, with a wasabi emulsion and a dip version of tzatziki. There are several varieties - cod skin, fried and sprinkled with nori powder, parmesan cheese sliced thin and crisped (I think probably in the oven), and dry-baked thin-sliced crostini with black pepper. Despite the greasy sounding description, they were all light and airy, and were quite tasty, although the flavours were a little muted - the cod skin didn't taste much of cod, the cheese was not really cheesy, and so on. But that's all right - it was finger food to accompany conversation, but not likely to be the basis of conversation on its own.

We had a second round of crisps when Yumchia and PY arrived, and I ordered the wine. I asked for a Stellenbosch chardonnay on the wine list, but they didn't have it, so I deferred to the sommelier's recommendation for something light and refreshing. He recommended a Greek wine, Malagousia 2006, eponymous to the grape, by a winemaker called Gerovassiliou, in Macedonia province. The sommelier was kind enough to save the label of the wine for me, and I will be blogging about it in a separate post. Here's a teaser though - the wine was fresh and created impressions of springtime, with an array of herbal and floral scents. I could detect jasmine, lemon, thyme, rose and lemongrass among others. Very tasty indeed.

For lunch, one can either opt for the lunch menu, which consists of about 12 dishes to mix and match (all dishes are starter sized), or one can go for the fish tasting menu or the regular tasting menu. We had the lunch menu. From the restaurant's website, it appears that the dinner menu consists of thematic variations on the lunch menu, and more substantial portions (probably). We opted for 3 courses off the lunch menu, and chatted until the starters arrived. Yumchia whipped out her camera and started taking pictures - for her blog, naturally. This is perfectly normal behaviour for bloggers. I have ceased feeling embarrassed when I whip out my Blackberry to capture whisky tasting notes, a restaurant's phone number, or just an idea for a blog post.

I had Jerusalem artichoke soup, foamed a little, poured over a poached egg (from Hoads Farm, the organic egg producers), with shaved perigord truffle on top. The Pretty Lady and PY had Icelandic cod (naturally), with a slice of chorizo, braised squid, black olive bread and piquillo pepper. Yumchia had Mediterranean tuna, but I couldn't take notes quickly enough to record what it came with. Texture does live up to its name - my artichoke soup was unctuous and smooth, herby, earthy and pleasantly eggy from the poachie, and with the truffles, wonderfully fragrant. The Pretty Lady's cod was soft but firm, with the chorizo adding a gamey tang, and the olive bread a crispy counterpoint.

The mains came eventually, after we had finished swooning over the wine and the starters. I had roast Icelandic lamb from Skagafjordur, Iceland's main agricultural region, with fregola (Sardinian semolina grains) and beetroot. The ladies all opted for the same thing, Lancashire Old Spot pork belly, braised, accompanied with squid. My lamb was interesting - it tasted almost exactly like Welsh salt marsh lamb, right down to the slightly salty tang. Now this could have come from what looked like samphire, but I couldn't be sure - the description of the dish on the menu didn't include samphire. I didn't manage to taste the Pretty Lady's squid, but she says it was "nice, and it went well with the pork".

Desserts were also textural, more than flavourful - my gingerbread parfait came with pumpkin carpaccio and caramelised pumpkin seeds (a very good idea!), and passionfruit sauce. The Pretty Lady had coconut cream on a caramelised coconut biscuit, accompanied by what I believe to be coconut foam (again, I couldn't take notes quickly enough). The coconut biscuit was delicious, warm and crispy - I don't normally like warm coconut, but this dessert was better than my gingerbread parfait.

Texture works. The decor suggests Scandinavian, and the food is very interesting, working off many different textures to enhance flavours. I am going to visit again, as a meal here is a tour-de-force of skilled cooking. The service was impeccable, and the staff recommendations very very good. Messrs Sverisson and Rousset have got things right.

Scores:

12 Feb 2008: TFQ = 25, CS = 28, S = 18, AD = 6, VfM = 6. Total = 83 points.

What does this mean?

Statistics, or an efficient way to lie

Mum and Dad sent me this link. It's pre-election season in Malaysia (elections to be held some time in March 2008), and the Second Finance Minister - the First Finance Minister is the Prime Minister - claims that "the country’s per capita income had risen by 40% between 2004 and 2007, from RM15,819 (US$4,163) to RM22,345 (US$6,452)". He also said that the "the average economic growth from 2004 to 2007 was 5.9%, compared to 5.1% from 2000 to 2003".

This claim is clearly ridiculous. And here's why.

• First and foremost, the 40% increase is correct if you take his numbers at face value. At least they haven't lied that blatantly.
• If he means GDP per capita, then by his own growth numbers he's talking rubbish. He would need GDP to grow at least 12% per annum and the population to remain static to actually hit his 2007 income number. Maybe the population has fallen - anyone who can leave is leaving...
• If he means actual wage income per capita, then to achieve that level of wage income growth, on his inflation numbers (supposedly 2.5% a year), wages grew by close to 10% in real terms. Some googling around and messing about on some investment bank research websites turned up a more likely range of between 3-5% real wage growth.
• Add that range to the real inflation number (I believe it's somewhere between 3-6%, personally), and you get a nominal wage income growth rate of between 6-11% - surprise surprise, his number isn't completely outside the realms of possibility. But only if you have far higher inflation than the Malaysian government will admit.
  

Of course, the proper way to check would be to tally up the wage component of GDP and divide it by the number of workers. But Malaysia's official statistics are probably fairly unreliable anyway. Plus, you have to pay for them. It's only RM25, but there's no point throwing money away.

More at Tony Pua's blog. He calculates how much the Malaysian population must have shrunk to get to the GDP per capita growth rate of 12% - about 16%. That's a big brain drain.

Update 13 February 2008: He did mean GDP per capita! US$6,452*25m people = US$161bn. This is on the same order as Malaysia's GDP in USD at current exchange rates - around US$170bn. This could mean 2 things - (a) he's too stupid to lie convincingly, or (b) he's got such contempt for the electorate that he can't be bothered to lie convincingly. Or possibly, both.

Restaurant scoring

Looking back on my restaurant review posts, I think they would be better reviews if I scored the restaurants at the end of the review. I do have an idea in my head as to which restaurants I've reviewed are better, but I suppose it would help readers if I broke down the reasons as to why I prefer them. Not to mention that it would help my own thought process. It would also give me a base to evaluate whether or not a restaurant has improved or deteriorated after repeat visits.

Seeing as I've already reviewed several restaurants, I can therefore use these to base my scores. I've decided on the following scoring system:

• Tastiness, freshness and quality - out of 30 points. This is basically for the food. Is it tasty? Do the flavours go well? Are the ingredients of good quality?
  
• Creativity and skill - out of 30 points. Is the chef being faithful to old favourites or does he look for a twist? Each restaurant seems to have a food philosophy - how does the chef interpret this?
• Service - out of 20 points. This is dependent on the type of restaurant it is. I don't expect Michelin-level service at a cafe, for example, or constant refills of my glass at my local Japanese restaurant.
• Ambience and decor - out of 10 points. How comfy are my surroundings? Do they detract from the meal? I have to say that this isn't that important - I could endure discomfort for truly good food.
• Value for money - out of 10 points. This is a catch-all category, basically it evaluates the 4 previous categories against the price I paid for the meal. If it was worth it (and the most expensive meals I have had have been), then the restaurant gets a high score here.

This will do for a start. It fits in with my own personal philosophy - that food should be paramount, and that good food is the best part of a restaurant experience. I'll edit each old post and put the scores at the bottom of the post. I'll also add something in the sidebar to show recently reviewed and re-reviewed restaurants. I'll also stop doing this if it doesn't work, but for now, let's see...

L'Autre Pied

This year, I realised that I have enough relatives in London to have a familial reunion dinner for Chinese New Year. This is a change from previous years where I have either not marked the occasion at all, or had a reunion dinner with a large group of friends. There's nothing wrong with that, but after nearly 10 years living in a country where life doesn't stop to celebrate the new year, it's nice to be able to have a reunion dinner with relatives, as tradition dictates. The Pretty Lady and I invited my sister (whom I christened the Squeaky One in a previous post, but she said she didn't like it, so we'll call her YogaBabe), and the Pretty Lady's cousins, SY and JY.

We didn't bow that far to tradition though - since Chinese New Year is a chance for Chinese restaurants to raise their prices, we thought that it would be silly to pay 40% more for what is the same Chinese food one gets every week in London. We decided instead on L'Autre Pied, sister restaurant of Pied a Terre (you can guess with a name like that), owned by Shane Osborn (the chef) and David Moore. Head chef at L'Autre Pied is Marcus Eaves, who worked at sous chef under Shane Osborn at Pied a Terre.

L'Autre Pied is in the West End, at:

L'Autre Pied
5-7 Blandford Street
London W1U 3DB
020 7486 9696

It took a while for everyone to arrive, as the Jubilee line was acting up. We eventually all got there though, and I handed out angpows (see this post) - all with appropriate amounts. YogaBabe ordered the wine - we settled on a South African Viognier, which was fresh and surprisingly fruity, with lemon and peach notes, but I didn't manage to take detailed notes. Shame - I still haven't got into the habit of seeing everything and anything as a potential subject for a blog post.

I was also a little disappointed not to see amuse-bouches - I know it's meant to be bistro-style, but I felt it was a sign that L'Autre Pied is trading off the reputation of Pied a Terre. I suppose that it's located in hedge fund land, where the clientele will pay for anything as long as it's expensive enough, but it doesn't bode well for the restaurant's philosophy of food. Amuse-bouches are a way for restaurants to show off a chef's creativity, and a way for the chef to hone unperfected ideas in a relatively low risk manner. The ingredients don't need to be expensive, and the chef should relish the chance to show diners what he can do. Maybe it was a busy night.

Anyway, moving on to the food - we all had starters, but I didn't taste all of them. Mine was braised pork belly and pork cheeks with a sesame crust, roasting jus and pak choi. The pork belly and cheeks were braised to melt-in-your-mouth softness, the jus was fragrant with star anise, and the sesame added a nice Chinese flavour to the dish. Perfect way to end the year, really. The Pretty Lady had an impressive smoked eel veloute with smoked olive oil and white beans. I have to say that I couldn't really taste the smoke in the oil, as the eel was smoky enough. Very creamy, sinful, and just the way I like it.

The mains were good as well, although by now I was starting to get the hang of the food - the menu is chockful of purees, mashes, and emulsions, which do allow one to taste the infused flavours without chewing. I also thought that there was also enough solid material around to vary the textures, but I can see that for some it might be a problem. Certainly, in my rump of veal with smoked potato mash and honey glazed roast turnips, there was enough to keep my teeth busy. Again, I wasn't sure of the wisdom of infusing potatoes with smoke, but the tender, slightly pink veal with roasting jus made up for it. The Pretty Lady had roast saddle of lamb with lentils and baby carrots, which was delicious. The tarragon jus went well with the lamb, which was surprising, as I thought both flavours would have overpowered each other. I wonder how they did it. YogaBabe had sea bream with crab tortellini, and shellfish and lemongrass consomme. This was similar to a dish I had at Maze, where they paired halibut with serrano ham consomme, which didn't work. This did though, and I finally saw the point of having seared fish sauced with clear soup - the consomme, if flavoured delicately enough, can infuse the fish with its flavours right on the plate.

Desserts were similarly a blend of emulsions, parfaits and sorbets - I had a pain d'epice emulsion with banana ice cream, which went well with the madeleine it was served with. The most interesting dessert, however, was what SY and JY had - lemongrass panna cotta with blood orange granita. We were divided - I thought it worked, as did the Pretty Lady, but YogaBabe, SY and JY decided it didn't. I did think though, that some chili flakes would have bound the medley of flavours together properly.

All in all, I think that L'Autre Pied is experimenting with textures as a way of enhancing flavours, which is an interesting way to approach customers. The service was very good, although as I mentioned earlier, amuse-bouches and pre-desserts would have been a very appreciated touch. The location does drive up prices, which is understandable, but this place has a little way to go before I feel that the quality of the dining (although good by any standard) justifies the price we paid. I've had more expensive meals, but they were also better meals. Very good food, just no wow factor.

Scores:

11 Feb 2008: TFQ = 26, CS = 20, S = 16, AD = 5, VfM = 4. Total = 71 points.

What does this mean?

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, and is perhaps underrated by the world of "serious" literature. Perhaps because serious literature likes to distinguish itself from genre fiction, with wordplay, references and multi-layered meanings, de-focusing on story-telling. And Gaiman is, at his core, a story-teller, with many, many stories to tell.

His oeuvre of work is dark and funny occasionally, macabre and disturbing sometimes, and unusual and imaginative all the time. Gaiman works well in several mediums too - he is famous first and foremost for writing the Sandman comic, which ran for 75 issues and remains the only comic to ever have won a World Fantasy Award (issue #19, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"). Given that they have changed the rules to prevent another comic from ever doing so, it looks like it will be the only comic ever to win it.

The Sandman cemented Gaiman's reputation for dark, referential stories, with emphasis on creating ambiguity and forcing characters to confront their fears. He then produced a screenplay for a television series, Neverwhere, which was about London Below, the dark underbelly of London, where people who fall through the cracks go. Neverwhere was filmed, and later adapted into a novel.

Gaiman has written remarkably few prose novels. The ones he has though, are extremely successful. American Gods, written in 2001, about a man called Shadow who may or may not be the centre of a war between old gods and new gods, managed to collect about 50 separate mythologies and cultural settings into a single book. And it worked too - American Gods won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel. Gaiman later wrote a follow-up to American Gods called Anansi Boys. Besides these and Neverwhere, he has also written the children's book Coraline, Good Omens (a collaboration with Terry Pratchett), and 2 collections of short stories and poetry, Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things, as well as the illustrated novel (illustrated by Charles Vess) Stardust. His short story, A Study in Emerald, won the Hugo Award for best short story in 2004 (beautiful pdf copy available here), and showcases the kinds of twists, juxtapositions and allusions that characterise his work.

Stardust was made into a film released in 2007. Gaiman later co-wrote Beowulf with Roger Avary. It has been announced that Gaiman will write and direct a movie based on the Sandman's sister, Death, titled The High Cost of Living, based on the graphic novel of the same name.

Gaiman is currently writing The Graveyard Book, a slightly macabre version of the Jungle Book, set in a graveyard. The transposition is classic Neil Gaiman. Updates on his work can be found on his blog, which is highly recommended reading.

Sabor

Despite never having been to New York, I feel that it's probably the one place that beats London in terms of variety, authenticity and quality of world cuisine. London's European and Asian cuisine is probably better than New York's, but judging from foodie blogs and restaurant reviews, New York has the better African and South American restaurants. Maybe it's because I don't know where London's hidden treasures are.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Sabor, a South American restaurant in Islington, serving what one might term novo andino (New Andean) cuisine, alongside Brazilian and Argentine specialities - something one might call Nuevo Latino, perhaps. It's located in an area with a number of interesting ethnic restaurants - there's an Afghan restaurant, an Ethiopian curry house, a Cuban bar, and a Portuguese-Italian deli among others. More later, perhaps. Back to Sabor (flavour in Spanish):

Sabor
108 Essex Road
London N1 8LX
020 7226 5551

The cocktails and wine lists are fairly authentic - this place does good pisco sours, as well as decent margaritas - with a Latin American twist. The cocktails and mocktails incorporate South American fruits, such as acai and mora. One can also finish off one's meal with a yerba mate, the ubiquitous (in South America) herbal tea.

The starters, as far as I can judge, are variations on South American street food - croquetas (fried potato or maize croquettes), empanadas (what my fellow Asians might term curry puffs, filled with stewed meat), quesadillas, and black bean soup. They are generally served with salad, the portions are substantial, and they are hearty and filling dishes.

I really enjoyed the mains - they are the kind of food that appeals to me. Not fancy, authentic-rustic-ethnic (is there such a word?), flavourful, but still imaginative. In this case the chef can make use of various Latin American ingredients while still staying true to the spirit of the food, but still. I particularly liked the aji de gallina, a Peruvian dish of stewed chicken in a milky garlic fruit sauce. I've had 2 versions, one in a Peruvian restaurant, and another at Sabor, and Sabor's has far more garlicky, sweet fruity flavour. I also liked Sabor's version of duck confit - served with arroz verde and a salsa, but on a recent visit my friend CY found it a little tough. The Pretty Lady likes the moqueca, a Brazilian fish stew. Sabor's version has prawns, mussels, white fleshed fish, garlic, tomatoes, and coconut milk. A Latin American version of laksa!

Desserts aren't great - mainly variations on standard fare flavoured with dulce de leche and mora (the Andean version of a blueberry), but I'd just have a yerba mate and call it a night. CY had something quite interesting, called an alfajores - biscuits spread with dulce de leche and topped with ice cream.

Sabor is the best Latin American restaurant I've found in London so far. An interesting introduction to a cuisine which I've still got a ways to explore...

Scores:

7 Feb 2008: TFQ = 24, CS = 22, S = 14, AD = 7, VfM = 8. Total = 75 points.

What does this mean?

Clynelish 15 yo 1992/2007 Cask Strength (Bread, bread wine, goes to my he-e-ad...)

I got this Highlander straight from the cask at the Whisky Exchange in Vinopolis. Sadly, the cask is now finished, and the chaps at the WE have now got a young Laphroaig in. Well, always something else to try. Nevertheless, the WE bottle a similar Clynelish under their Single Malts of Scotland label - I believe that it is also 15 years old, with a similar (though not identical) strength. My palate isn't educated enough to tell the difference.

Anyway, this particular Clynelish is extremely tasty - very interesting fruity and spicy flavours. I particularly enjoy the toasty hit at the finish. It's very drinkable despite being at cask strength, as many good whiskies are, and somewhat scarily, I don't really notice the alcohol at all. I think I'll try to pair this with some bread and various spreads. Why this is appropriate, I hope my tasting notes will make clear:

Clynelish 15 yo 1992/2007 Cask Strength (from the cask, Whisky Exchange)
Single malt - Highlands
Golden
57.9% ABV

Nose: Sweet toffee. Toasty, biscuity notes. Burning paper and woodsmoke. Big prickle from the alcohol, not surprising at this strength.
Mouthfeel: Thick and full bodied. Expands in the mouth.
Tasting: Sweet and rich. Ginger biscuits, wheat beer, spiced apple. Waves of hot honey. Corn on the cob.
Finish: Long and very warm. Fig jam on rye toast. Fades very slowly.

This Clynelish is so toasty and biscuity, particularly in the finish, that I wonder if I could somehow enhance that with some good bread and an interesting accompaniment. For the experiments, I've used Poilane walnut bread (decided on walnut because the Pretty Lady likes walnut), and some spreads that I thought would best match the flavours. Here goes:

1. Walnut bread, untoasted.

Some fishiness comes out - very surprising, like Thai fish sauce. Also something estery, like new plastic. Smoke. Salty nutty flavours - but that's probably from the walnuts in the bread. Not particularly nice. Maybe if I toasted the bread...

2. Dulce de leche on toasted walnut bread.

Nutty, fruity sweetness. The toastiness of the whisky seems to have been subsumed by that of the bread. Hard fruits - pear and apple mainly. The malty character of the whisky has also disappeared. Some smokiness.

3. Chestnut puree on toasted walnut bread.

Very nutty! Caramel, toffee sweetness - I had to check to see if I had gotten the pieces of bread mixed up. No, it's definitely chestnut puree. Toasty character still there, surprisingly. Not smoky at all.

4. Guinness marmite on toasted walnut bread.

I thought this might be interesting... and it was! The whisky turned smoky and nutty, with the toast and malt character shining through. Magic marker, comice pear, very pleasantly salty sea, from the marmite.

5. Tiptree tawny orange marmalade on toasted walnut bread.

The whisky was overwhelmed! Some toast and malt remain, but all the fruitiness has been killed by the sweet and bitter flavours of the jam. Some coffee overtones in the finish, but that's hardly enough to make up for the loss in the tasting.


Surprisingly, this Clynelish goes better with the savoury spread. Somehow, the salt in the marmite preserves the fruity flavours, and brings out the pear notes on top of the toast. Very tasty - too bad I only have a single jar of Guinness marmite.

Barrafina

Barrafina is a fairly new Spanish tapas bar in Soho, opened by a pair of brothers called Sam and Eddie Hart, one of which can usually be found behind the counter (the other probably works at the sister restaurant, Fino). It opened sometime in May or June 2007, and is a member of the annoying group of new egalitarian London restaurants - it's one of those where you cannot make reservations at. Still, they've gone some way to taking the edge of that annoyance (adding to the authenticity of the Spanish tapas experience in the process), making it a fairly pleasant place to eat. The Pretty Lady and I enjoyed our meal very much.

Barrafina is on Frith Street, in fine company - it shares the road with Arbutus (Michelin-starred too) and Bar Shu (authentic, good, spicy, blow your head off Sichuan hotpot). It holds its own though. If you're looking for the address here it is:

Barrafina
54 Frith Street
London W1D 4SL
020 7813 8016

The Pretty Lady and I arrived there at about 6 pm on a Saturday evening - early enough, so we thought, to beat the main evening rush and avoid a lengthy wait. No such luck. All the seats at the bar, which is to say all the seats in the house, were full, and there were already about 10 people queueing, behind the bar seats. It worked out alright though - there is a small ledge at about chest height along the queueing area, and one can order a glass of wine, and some raciones to take the edge of one's hunger. Which is exactly what the Pretty Lady and I did.

The sherry list is pretty reasonable - we had a good Manzanilla and a Pedro Ximenez (yes, a dessert wine, but this is tapas!) to wash down some reasonably good sliced chorizo. This killed a good half an hour, and by the time we were finishing up our sherries we had a seat at the bar.

There is a very good list of specials, mostly seafood - we happened to be able to choose from clams, large Mozambican prawns, langoustine, mussels and John Dory, and the Pretty Lady chose the prawns. I plumped for the land-based special, green beans cooked with jamon serrano. We also had a tortilla (classic Spanish omelette), chipirones (deep fried, battered baby squid), and chuletas (lamb chops).

I was particularly impressed by the green beans and jamon - I wouldn't call this classic Spanish, but it's certainly Spanish-inspired, and the combination works very well. The tortilla was not quite perfect, being runny in the middle (I think tortilla needs to be moist but firm), but this was more of a variation on a theme rather than a flaw. The Pretty Lady loved her prawn, which was grilled in front of us. Unfortunately we had the misfortune to get a male, so there was no roe in the head (the people next to us had 4, at least 2 females, and left the heads - what a waste). For puddings, the Pretty Lady had a crema catalana which was done creme brulee style, and I had a dram of Maker's Mark bourbon (not very Spanish, I know).

There were also a number of things we didn't try, but wanted to - pisto on egg, for instance, which sounded interesting (could it be the Spanish version of pesto on duck egg?), tuna tartare, and morcilla. Maybe next time.

Oh, and they serve Belu water! These people certainly know what they are doing. For your choice of beverage, you can enjoy Cruzcampo on tap, plus any number of spirits. They have a bottle of Elijah Craig bourbon, which means that fellow whisky freaks could amuse themselves by musing various combinations of said bourbon and sherry casks...

I digress. Bottom line, Barrafina is great for couples and groups of up to 4 (any more and they turn you away). Turn up early, drink your sherry, eat your pork, wait patiently, and enjoy. Oh, and eat your prawn heads.

Scores:

5 Feb 2008: TFQ = 26, CS = 26, S = 13, AD = 6, VfM = 6. Total = 77 points.

What does this mean?

Much ado about not very much

Someone very indignant brought this story to my attention today, together with a lot of complaints about how this country is going to the dogs, and that the UK is wasting a lot of money on "multiculturalism" and "immigrants". That, of course, isn't true, but it gives a certain type of Briton some satisfaction to think so. The problem with this particular instance is that the amount of money is peanuts.

First, a quick summary of what the story is about - basically under the current Labour government, it has just been decided that men in polygamous relationships will be allowed to claim benefit for all their wives, not just a single one, despite bigamy being illegal in the UK. Now, this is wrong - why should immigrants get paid to break the law? But the Telegraph story implies that this is a big waste of money. It's not - as a bit of thought and Fermi estimation will show.

• Benefit that a polygamous couple gets per extra wife = GBP33.65. A quick search on Google doesn't enlighten as to whether it's weekly or monthly, so let's just assume it's weekly (52 weeks in the year) for the worst case scenario.
• Number of polygamous families in the UK = 1,000. Let's assume that they are all 4 wife families, giving 3,000 extra wives in total.
• Then extra amount spent on benefit to polygamous families is 3,000*33.65*52 = GBP5.2 million.
• If the benefit were paid daily, the amount spent is GBP37m.

Now, even GBP37m is pretty small compared to some of the cock-ups announced recently. For example, see this story on defence overruns on both the Astute submarine and Type 45 destroyers - approximately GBP2bn. Better focus management energy and talent on sorting out the big wastes first.

How much should I put into angpows?

Chinese New Year is coming around again - the Year of the Rat arrives on 7 February - and this time I am faced with a new puzzle. Since I'm married now, I have to hand out red packets (angpows to regular recipients), which means I am now a net donor rather than a net recipient. The question is, how much should I put into angpows?

Or, if one inverts the question, why do people give angpows in the first place? Sure it's nice to receive angpows, but the custom would never have evolved unless the giver did not reap some benefit, even if said benefit is intangible. As far as I can tell, there are a few possible reasons:

• Signalling one's wealth. This is quite important to save face - Chinese culture seems to have an obsession with appearing prosperous, even if the creditors are at the door. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, in Chinese society.
• Genuine altruism. For many children a few decades ago, the money received at Chinese New Year represents a whole year's worth of pocket money. Nowadays with inflation and different levels of consumer spending this is no longer the case of course, but that simply means that one needs to give larger angpows...
• Making sweet nothings mean something. If one just wishes relatives and friends Happy New Year, that can easily be insincere. Adding some money actually reinforces the greeting and says "Hey! I really feel you deserve a Happy New Year, to the extent I'll fund some of your happiness!"
• Signalling respect, or the quid pro quo. Giving money to people who, or are connected to people who, have done something for you. It's a simple thank you gesture, although in Chinese culture, money doesn't quite repay favours - it's just an interest payment.

Right, that seems to be enough. There's still one constraint though - because people do compare what they get, one can't tailor the angpow to the person. People of the same degree of connection are supposed to get the same amount - i.e. all siblings get the same amounts, all friends of equal closeness get the same amounts etc etc. So, depending on this constraint and the signal I want to send, it gets complicated. Examples of the questions I would like to answer are: Should I give my sister, the Squeaky One, less because she doesn't need the spending money? If I were to give my boss's children angpows, do I give them very little to signal that I need a raise? Should I give younger relatives in school more money according to a sliding scale depending on how many years they have left till they start working? And so on.

Clearly, the signal is more important than the money. Even more important, the first year's signals set precedent for future years. The strongest signalling power I have is now. I will have to think on this - thank goodness I paid attention to the lecture on Spence in university. And I'm not posting conclusions on the blog either - the power of signalling improves when you don't pre-signal, and you keep your signals secret.