Yoichi “Woody & Vanillic”

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Last month’s whisky reviews had a south coast of Islay theme (two Laphroaigs, a Lagavulin, and an Ardbeg). This was not planned. This month’s whisky reviews also have a theme; this time it’s planned. That theme is Yoichi Key Malts. Well, I don’t think these are actually called Key Malts anymore. But let me back up.

Once upon a time Nikka’s Yoichi distillery put out a flagship 15 yo whisky. This was an excellent whisky. At that time Nikka also bottled as distillery exclusives, at both Yoichi and their other distillery, Miyagikyo, the so-called Key Malts. These were 12 years old and comprised the component malts used in the vatting of Nikka’s mainline blends—I reviewed the 12 yo version of the Peaty & Salty back in 2019. The Yoichi 15 was discontinued a while ago, of course, as stocks of aged whisky were depleted. The component malts are still sold at the distillery in 500 ml bottles, but they’ve also lost their age statements and the Key Malts name. Nonetheless, when I was at the Yoichi distillery briefly in June I couldn’t resist buying the set of three Yoichi component malts anyway and I’m happy to say they survived the journey from first Hokkaido to Tokyo and then Tokyo to Minnesota. Starting with the Woody & Vanillic, I’ll be reviewing all three this month. The Peaty & Salty will be next and then the Sherry & Sweet. For my final booze post of the month I’ll post the results of my own blending experiments with these whiskies. I’m going to try them in different ratios and see which I like best. Okay, let’s get the series started! Continue reading →

Bangkok Thai Deli, September 2026 (St. Paul, MN)

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I was startled recently to see that we had not been to Bangkok Thai Deli in over two years. Along with On’s Kitchen, Bangkok Thai Deli had been one of our Thai mainstays in the Cities forever—we’ve been eating there since we arrived in 2007, back when they were still in their original, pokier location. I hasten to add that we did not stop eating there because we stopped liking their food. It’s just that the summer of 2024 is when we first ate at Hot Grainz, and they’ve done such a hoodoo on our palates that it’s been hard to go anywhere else in the Twin Cities for Thai food since then. But a return to Bangkok Thai Deli was long overdue; and so when other family business pulled us not too far from University Avenue last Saturday we decided to combine it with lunch at our old favourite with friends who live in the area. I am very glad to say that the meal did not disappoint. Here’s how it went. Continue reading →

The Bombay Canteen II (Bombay, April 2026)

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I am nearing the end of my restaurant reports from Bombay in April. Only two reports remain, both from high end restaurants. The first features a return to a restaurant I ate at twice on my previous visit to the city: The Bombay Canteen, which ends up reliably every year near the top of lists of the best restaurants in India aimed at people less likely to eat at places like Jai Hind (the location I ate at this time is literally just across the street from the old Kamala Mills complex that houses The Bombay Canteen). We first ate at The Bombay Canteen as a family in January 2024 and then a little later I took a few of my students there for a lunch to celebrate their birthdays.  I wrote both these meals up together in 2024—you can go take a look at it to learn a little more about the story of the restaurant; and also to see what I made of those meals. There were a few students on this version of the program as well whose birthdays fell during our time in the city and so I made The Bombay Canteen the site of the birthday celebrations this time as well. Here’s how it went. Continue reading →

Ardbeg Day

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Let’s stick with peated whiskies to close out the month and let’s stay on the south coast of Islay. You will recall that I have previously reviewed two Laphroaigs this month (this 9 yo and this 14 yo, both released in the early 2010s) and also one Lagavulin (this 17 yo for the Islay Jazz Festival in 2013). We’ll now move to the end of that famous road of distilleries to Ardbeg.

I’m afraid this is not a timely review either. The Ardbeg Day was the distillery’s Feis Ile release for 2012. It’s been followed every year since by other releases on Feis Ile’s Ardbeg Day that have not borne that name. Such were the Ardbog (which was released in 2013),  the Grooves (2018) and the Drum (2019), to name only the ones I’ve previously reviewed. I mostly stopped keeping track of Ardbeg that decade as the silliness around their various special releases went through the roof (and prices rose as well). I never heard anything about the intervening special releases to make me think that I was missing anything. Anyway, the Ardbeg Day now looks like a completely old-fashioned whisky: it was put together from a number of bourbon casks that were then married and double-matured for six months or so in refill sherry casks that had previously been used for the (then still excellent) Uigeadail. I purchased a bottle upon release and then lost track of it completely on my shelves. Here now, 14 years later, are my notes from the open bottle. Continue reading →

Wangppeokguk Hoetjip (Busan, May 2026)

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I said I’d try to get a Seoul report out today but instead I have another report from Busan. I hope this does not offend you.

I reported on Friday on a seafood lunch eaten by the Jagalchi Market in the Nampo port area. This report is of a seafood dinner eaten elsewhere by the water in Busan. After a day of visits to film industry sites, I had our coach drop us all off by Gwangalli Beach in the early evening. The students scattered in all directions and our family took a long walk by the water before ending up at the well known Millak Hwe Town complex for dinner. This is a 10-story building with seafood vendors on the ground floor and restaurants on the floors above. You can purchase seafood of your choice downstairs and take it up to one of the restaurants to have them prepare it for you (you’ll pay a setup charge). Or you can also just choose to go up to one of the restaurants and order off their menu. This is probably the better move if you are in a small group and want to try a bunch of different things. At any rate, it’s what we chose to do. Continue reading →

Mustard Madras (Gurgaon, March 2026)

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Here I am with my fourth restaurant report of the week and my second from my brief sojourn in Delhi in March this year. I didn’t eat out very much on that visit and have already reported on both of those meals: at Bhansaghar in Humayunpur and at the newest location of Carnatic Cafe in Gurgaon. This report too comes to you from Gurgaon, and also features South Indian food. Though, unlike at Carnatic Cafe, the menu at Mustard Madras features a lot of meat and also has sections that feature North Indian and Indian Chinese favourites. I’d not heard of Mustard Madras before I looked for a place where I might find a South Indian thali in Gurgaon with meat on it. It turns out they are a mini-chain with one location in Noida and three in Gurgaon (none in Delhi so far and none anywhere else). Of the three Gurgaon locations, the one in the Cyber Hub complex was closest to me on the day and so it was there I went for an early lunch. Continue reading →

Hanweol Hoejip (Busan, May 2026)

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I promised a Seoul meal report on Friday. Well, it’s still Friday for another 15 minutes in Minnesota and I do have a meal report for you—but it’s not from Seoul but from Busan. We once again took the students on my program down to the southern port city for a couple of nights. We visited a number of film industry venues while we were there and we also spent some time exploring the city. One of our favourite outings back in February 2024 had been to Jagalchi Market, the largest seafood market in South Korea and no one who knows me will be surprised to know that we went back there on this trip as well. Indeed, we first walked through the market on a walking tour of the general area and then the four of us went back to the market for lunch a couple of hours later, not long before our return to Seoul. Here’s what we ate. Continue reading →

Bucheron II (Minneapolis)

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Hey, look, I’m behind schedule again with the week’s restaurant reports! What a surprise! But I’m less than two days late. Please remember: this is not my job; you’re lucky I post at all. You’re welcome.

This week’s restaurant report comes to you from Minneapolis, from Bucheron. We ate at Bucheron for the first time last summer and I immediately added them to my “Once a Year” tier in the 2025 edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation. Unsurprisingly, it was one of the places I wanted to go back to for sure this year. And so it came to pass. We returned a couple of weekends ago with the same friends we’d eaten that first dinner with. And it was another excellent meal, though with some non-food hiccups that may be more meaningful to point out now that Michelin is coming to Minneapolis. Read on to see what I’m on about. Continue reading →

Carnatic Cafe IV (Gurgaon, March 2026)

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My first-ever visit to Carnatic Cafe was all the way back in 2014. At the time they had only the one location: a small restaurant in the Friends Colony Market. It’s hard to imagine that now as they’ve expanded dramatically. I’m not sure if they’re still under the original ownership but they now have multiple locations in the Delhi NCR (National Capital Region), with the original location a thing of the past. I’ve reported previously on meals eaten in the GK-II Market and Lodhi Colony branches. They are inevitably also in Gurgaon. Their first location there is in the snazzy 32nd Avenue complex (whose future, I hear, is iffy). A more recent second location opened late-last year or early this year in the HQ 27 complex in Sushant Lok. This is located conveniently close to the part of Gurgaon in which my family lives and so in March a plan to go eat dosas etc. there for weekend brunch was hatched. Here’s a quick look at how it went. Continue reading →

Lagavulin “Jazz Festival 2013”

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Let’s keep the peat and smoke going in September. My first two whisky reviews this month were of two Laphroaigs: this 9 year old from the SMWS, and this 14 yo bottled by Signatory for Binny’s in Chicago. This week’s whisky is also from Islay, and from the south coast, but we’ll move over one distillery from Laphroaig to Lagavulin. This is an official release from 2013. It was distilled in 1995 and bottled for the Islay Jazz Festival that year—so 17 or 18 years old.

I’ve previously reviewed two other Jazz Festival releases, from 2015 and 2017. Those were both put together from a mix of refill American oak hogsheads and refill European oak butts. The label for this one says only “sherry butts”. As per Whiskybase, there were 1500 bottles released—so maybe from three butts at 51.9%, no matter what the exact cask type. What matters most is the whisky—let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading →

Pyongyang Gogijip (Seoul, May 2026)

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Today I have for you a report on lunch at a North Korean restaurant in Seoul. Well, a restaurant serving North Korean style bbq at any rate. We’d recently taken a trip to Ganghwa Observatory—from where you can peer into North Korea—and so it seemed fitting to go eat a North Korean-style meal after that. Accordingly, I took a bunch of my students to Pyongyang Gogijip in Insadong. This is a place I’d passed on many occasions without quite realizing it was there. This because it’s located on the second floor (or first floor as we’d say in India; I suddenly can’t remember how the numbering goes in Korea). But when I looked for North Korean places in the vicinity of the cafe at which I was holding office hours, there it was, just a few minutes walk away. Here’s a quick look at our meal. Continue reading →

Jaihind Lunch Home II & III (Bombay, May 2026)

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A mere two days late, here is the Bombay report that I would normally have posted on Tuesday. Like last week’s report from the city (of my last two lunches at Maaslli), this too features seafood in a big way. But where Maaslli is a relatively new restaurant, this report is from a location of a much more established name: Jaihind Lunch Home. Jaihind has branches in many parts of the city. I have previously reported on a dinner I ate with a friend at their Bandra West location back in the winter of 2018. This time I ate lunch at the Parel location on two consecutive days. On both occasions I was accompanied by a few of my students. Details follow. Continue reading →

El Taco Riendo (Minneapolis)

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So, I didn’t end up posting restaurant reports from the Twin Cities, Seoul or Delhi last week. And I also missed this week’s Bombay report. The ramp-up to the new term plus a sudden and short deadline on a major project killed any hope of that. But I’ll hopefully be able to catch up with extra posts in the next couple of weeks and not have my backlog get really backed up again.

Here now is the Twin Cities report that I was planning to post last week: a quick look at a quick lunch at El Taco Riendo up on Central Ave. in Northeast Minneapolis. Continue reading →

Laphroaig 9, 2001, Again(SMWS 29.88)

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So my planned schedule for the second half of last week fell apart completely. What I’d failed to account for when I made those best-laid plans was that my new term and school year starts today and that while getting ready to write syllabi, meet with new advisees etc. I would suddenly receive some urgent and unmissable deadlines on a project I’ve been trying to bring to a close for a while (more on this later, if you don’t know what it is, or even if you do). The good news is I still have a booze review for you this week. The bad news is that it is a return to a whisky I have reviewed once before: a 9 yo Laphroaig bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society under the name “What a Magnificent and Handsome Nose”.

My previous review was posted in late-February 2020 (just before you-know-what hit). That review was from a sample swap with someone whose identity I had failed to log in my spreadsheet. I’d noted then that I had a bottle of my own of the whisky (and that I had also failed to log where I’d acquired it from and for how much). Well, my memory is no better now but I am glad anyway to have opened the bottle; and I’m curious to see what I make of it now. Continue reading →

Maaslli III and IV (Bombay, April 2026)

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Here is my second report on Maaslli, the excellent GSB (Gaud Sarawsat Brahmin) restaurant whose original location turned out to be a 15-minute walk from where I was putting up in Worli for five weeks this spring (if there is such a thing in Bombay). As I noted in my previous report on the restaurant, on two dinners eaten in late-March, right after my arrival in the city, Maaslli, which I selected early on for convenience, turned out to be one of my absolute favourite places to eat in the city. The food is rather rich, with a lot of coconut and coconut oil or ghee in most things, but it is also rather tasty. It gets crowded very fast at peak times but it’s one  of the few places I would happily wait in line for if I needed to. Here now is my report on my third and fourth meals there, both lunches. I took a bunch of my students there for that third meal and the fourth one I ate alone. Both were excellent again. Here are some details. Continue reading →

Laphroaig 14, 1998 (Signatory for Binny’s)

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Back to whisky for the first booze review of the month. I have for you today a bit of a throwback. This Laphroaig 14, 1998, bottled from a single bourbon hogshead, was one of Binny’s barrel picks back in 2012. This was right around the time that I had begun to purchase whisky in a big way. Back then shipping from liquor stores around the US to Minnesota was not a complicated affair and I purchased many a bottle from Binny’s (in Chicago) in that era. Indeed, one of my favourite Laphroaigs in that phase of my whisky exploration had been another Laphroaig bottled by Signatory and selected by Binny’s. That one was 19 years old and was also from a single bourbon cask. My guess is that is what led me to purchase this 14 yo; that and the fact that in those days prices were extremely reasonable and Brett Pontoni and his crew’s single barrel picks were extremely reliable. I can’t actually tell you how much I paid for this as, unusually, I didn’t record any of the purchase information in my otherwise detailed whisky spreadsheet. The 19 yo had been $110 in 2010, and so I imagine this was a fair bit cheaper. I have no idea what Binny’s prices and selection of single malts are like these days—I’ve not kept up with Binny’s in recent years, as shipping became complicated and then impossible a while ago. Anyway, let’s get to it. Continue reading →

Bhansaghar II (Delhi, March 2026)

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I’d said I would have another Delhi restaurant report from my considerable backlog on Sunday and, by god, it’s still Sunday in Minnesota! Not for very much longer, but it’s still Sunday!

This is not the Delhi restaurant report I’d planned to post, however. I’d hoped to get another of my long-delayed reports of a couple of meals eaten at the same restaurant across 2025 out. But as it turned out, the theme of this weekend was the endless processing of the massive harvests of tomatoes coming in from my community garden plot and I did not have time to process and resize the large number of photographs from those meals. And so I have for you instead a quick report on a quick lunch eaten with a friend in March. Nobody who reads my Delhi restaurant reports regularly (assuming any such people exist) will be surprised to learn that this lunch was eaten in Humayunpur. It was not eaten, however, in a restaurant specializing in the food of a state from India’s north-east. It was instead a Nepali meal, eaten at Bhansaghar. Continue reading →