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Cuvée Wine & Bistro

Linda thought it would be a nice weekend outing to drive up to Ocala, about 90 minutes north, so we picked up Martin on our way and went to Cuvée Wine & Bistro. The place has an interesting business plan, which combines two different concepts: a restaurant, and self-service wine dispensers.

It occupies part of a former bank building, but has been redecorated in a pleasant, trendy way. High booth backs keep the noise level down, although the old farts next to us were quite rowdy. Each dining room is surrounded by rows of wine dispensers, some refrigerated for the whites, others not, for reds. There are well over 100 selections, available in 1, 2.5 or 5 ounce pours. As with other such places, you load a card with money, and then it’s debited as you use the machines.

We arrived at 6:30 and things were fairly quite, but the restaurant soon filled up, although I don’t think they turned any tables twice. What’s interesting about the success of the place is that it doesn’t seem to be driven by all the wine dispensers that surround the dining rooms. We saw few other patrons wandering around to try different wines with each course. Instead, most either let the waiter bring them a glass of something, or ordered a bottle for the table. Still, being surrounded by all those glowing bottles probably boosts wine sales. I couldn’t see the bar from where we sat, so I don’t know how much tasting traffic originated there.

The food was mostly very good. A cheese sampler plate offered a nice variety, and my clam appetizer was delicious. Salads were fine, and the steaks Linda and Martin had were good quality. I liked my eggplant napoleon, too.

The wines are more fairly priced than at the other self-serve wine place I’ve been to, The Wine Room in Winter Park. Many selections are just $2 for a taste. There are also more expensive selections, including Opus 1 ($15 per ounce) and Joseph Phelps Insignia, at an absurd $23 per ounce. Unfortunately, of four high end wines we tried (Tapestry, a Nuits St. Georges, a Pommard, and Dominus) all were spoiled by having been open a long, long time. As evidenced by the strong geranium smell, the dispensing system can’t keep them good forever. Our waiter cheerfully credited us for the wines we complained about, but they should have been removed, rather than left for the next sucker. None of the lower priced selections had this problem, and we tried many. Best QPR (quality to price ratio) was the Bell Petite Sirah.

Cuvée certainly has a better atmosphere than The Wine Room, and it was fun to try small tastes of many different wines with our food. We all agreed we would return.

Map of the Chefs

I think I first saw this take-off on the London Underground map somewhere in London. It shows most of today’s celebrity chefs, and purports to show how they are interrelated. You can try out the interactive version, which gives you the chefs’ bios, or buy a poster at hartmansalt.com

Asparagus with Balsamic

This turned out pretty good, but I’ve reduced the cooking time from 25 to 15 minutes because it was overdone.

Ingredients

Fresh asparagus
Spray grapeseed oil
Seasoning

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut off the tough ends of the asparagus, spread on a baking sheet, spray with oil, season.

Roast for 15 minutes, until tender but still crisp.

Melt butter in microwave, stir in soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. Pour over the asparagus to serve.

 

Wines That Don’t Rock

Every couple of months there is a “Vine and Dine” event at the Everglades Restaurant at the Rosen Omni Center near the Convention Center. The events are usually quite fun, because the chef rises to the challenge of matching foods to wines, and you meet some interesting people at the communal tables. The event seems to attract a mixture of locals who are neither wine snobs nor newbies, plus random tourists.

Unfortunately, last night’s event wasn’t that great. The wines were a gimmick from the Mendocino Wine Company which owns Parducci. Made by Parducci’s assistant winemaker, they are basically supermarket plonk with a rock album label attached. The Chardonnay, in particular, suffered from severe smoke taint, and really shouldn’t have been bottled at all. The food was good but not really things we’d prefer to eat. And the people sitting around us happened to be newbies on dates, so it wasn’t nearly as interesting an evening as usual.

Oh well, maybe next time.

The Science of Wine

This fund raiser for the Orlando Science Museum was everything we hoped the event two weeks ago at Dellagio would be, but wasn’t. There were over 100 wines arranged around the fourth floor of the museum. Each table had 4 to 8 wines, and the event, while well-attended, was arranged in such a way that it was easy to get any wine. The wines were better quality than at most such events. A few favorites:

  • Roederer Estate Brut
  • Biltmore Reserve Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Coppola Director’s Cut Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Beringer Knight’s Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Quite a few restaurants participated, and the food was top notch. Highlights were:

  • Bang bang shrimp from Bonefish
  • Smoked Salmon from Stonewood Grill
  • Sushi from The Fresh Market
  • BBQ pork slider from BB King’s

The event included two seminars presented by Luis Torres from Constellation Wines. We attended the second, which challenged us to taste the difference between mountain and valley grown wines from Sonoma and Napa. This was the best wine seminar I have attended. Torres is an exciting speaker, with great presentation skills and technology, and even though his audience had been drink for two hours, they were quiet and attentive. This event was the exact opposite of the boring and chaotic seminar two weeks ago. Torres divided us into groups to evaluate eight characteristics of each wine, and then showed how those characteristics were the result of the growing region, as demonstrated by satellite imagery.

The seminar wines, in order of quality:

  • Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa mountain grown)
  • Robert Mondavi Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa valley grown)
  • Clos Du Bois Marlstone (Sonoma mountain grown)
  • Simi Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (Sonoma valley grown)

There were also other educational exhibits around the room, including a demonstration of sugar fermentation in their lab space.

This was an excellent event, and I believe the first time they’ve done it. I’ll be sure to watch for it next year.

Pao Gostoso Bakery

I heard about this place that makes insane hamburgers, so Tommy and I had to try it. They are… insane. Tommy got their very craziest offering, which included beef, chicken, sausage, ham, bacon, corn, lettuce, cheese, potato straws and a fried egg! No tomato though. I opted out of the sausage and chicken. Even Tommy couldn’t finish this burger, as his leftovers attest.

Not necessarily a great burger, but certainly a bit of insanity.

Yellow Dog Eats

Yellow Dog Eats is a wonderfully funky hangout that the locals fill every day at lunch for the best sandwiches you can get in Central Florida—and perhaps anywhere.

The menu is filled with the eclectic creations of owner Fish Morgan.

The pulled pork is a favorite, but nothing here is that simple. Add applewood smoked bacon, a hint of raspberry sauce, some of the house-made and bottled mustard BBQ sauce… superb.

But my personal favorite is the Kitty Cat Nap Salad, Organic greens, raspberry vinaigrette, and the most amazing heap of exotic tuna—filled with craisins, nuts, and Chinese five spice.

Owner Fish Morgan circulates and makes everyone feel at home. Well, at home with a wacky brother, anyway!

Parking is behind the place through a narrow drive on the left, or across the street. Eat out back, in the charming patio.

Yellow Dog is hard to find, but packed every day. That says it all.

 

Photos from travelerfoodie

LOST

Tonight Linda and I finished a six month project of watching all of LOST on DVD. For me, it was the first time to see seasons 1 and 2, for Linda it was her first time seeing seasons 5 and 6.

The first time I watched the final season I knew a lot of things were fitting together, but it was much more fun this time, because I knew who all of the characters from the early years were. It was also fun to spot the forward references. There were many, as the writers clearly had most things planned out from the start. I really like all of the seasons, but especially 3-6.

It really is amazing how the whole show fits together. Since Linda hadn’t seen the last year, it was quite a struggle to keep from letting anything slip. But Dani and I managed it, and she was quite surprised.

SPOILER ALERT

Some of my favorite moments:

  • Episode 1, John Lock explaining the rles of backgammon to Walt: “Two players, two sides; one is light, one is dark.” That’s what the show is about.
  • Sayid in various episodes sometimes saying he is a good man, other times saying he is a bad mad. That’s also what the show is about.
  • Lock losing his faith, Jack finding his. That’s  also what the show is about.
  • Christopher, who had a big part considering he spend all six seasons dead.
  • Juliet’s dying words about getting coffee and going Dutch, lines she repeats in the final episode.
  • Repeated lines, sometimes by different characters: “See you in another life, brother,” “It worked,” “I wish you had believed me.”
  • Every actor; they were all perfectly cast.

The revelation that the flash sideways of season six were the afterlife caught Linda by surprise in the final episode. She liked the concept, just as we did. The writers had really boxed themselves into a corner, because so many favorite characters had to die to serve the plot, so showing how they would resolve their lives on their own provided fans with some gratifying wish fulfillment without being contrived or sappy. It also allowed the final episode to exert a tremendous emotional pull, as characters remembered their loved ones through a series of split second flashbacks that amounted to a greatest hits retrospective of the whole show. Then, ending the show exactly the way it started—the plane, the bamboo field, the tennis shoe, Vincent the dog, and Jack’s eye—was a stroke of genius.

I’m sure it will be a long time before I see anything of this caliber again.