mamafufu

有人說 “過去酒逢知已千杯少，現在酒逢千杯知已少”. 可有同感 my friend? Cheers …

i enjoy cooking.  i dream about being a chef in a top, preferably my own, restaurant one day.  in this wonderful saturday evening, i had an opportunity to cook for myself.  i decided to keep it simple with grilled steak, sauteed baby mushrooms, a good bottle of wine, and some strawberries with ice cream.

the steak was angus dry aged rib eye.  rib eye is one of my favorite cut of beef.  it was grilled to medium and it went quite well with the baby mushrooms.  the wine was a tougher choice.  i was debating between a 2004 joseph phelps or a 1999 turnbull cabernet sauvignon.  i knew either one couldn’t go wrong.  i went with the turnbull and it was good.  not great but good.  for desert i had fresh strawberries with Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream.  it was a wonderful way to complete a meal.

since it was so nice outside i decided to enjoy my dinner in the patio.  brought out my macbook and listening to music as i wrote this blog.  so, what did you have for dinner tonight?  when can i cook for you?

okay, that is not sake.  i lost the sake picture when i was moving my blog.  but the story is:

most sake i had before tasted like rubbing alcohol.  i drank it warm to mask out the flavor from low-quality sake.  the first few sips were always hard to swallow.  it took a few more sips to get used to.  i was cheap when it came to sake comparing with my other bad habits.  i guess i was willing to pay more for grape than rice.

but things do change.  i had a very good sushi dinner paired with good chilled sake a few weeks ago.  the sake was crisp, cool, fruity, soft, sweet and it went very well with the fatty tuna and salmon sashimi.  the waiter said the sake was “osaka premium”.  not sure it was a brand or just a premium sake from osaka.  either case that cup of sake taught me a few things about sake and a few things about life.

whether you drink your sake cold or warm, cheers …

wine and video game go surprisingly well together for me.  while i do play wii and ps2 (i opted out ps3 for wii) from time to time, my core playground these days is on-line pc gaming.  as for wine, there are so much to explore in red so i pretty much ignore all others – or at least for now.  both wine and video game are very personal.  in the end, it all comes down to individual preference and taste although some generalizations can be drawn.

pinot noir and MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) such as everquest and world of warcraft share many of the same characteristics and qualities that can be both fulfilling and addictive.  shiraz and RTS (real-time strategy game) make a good pairing too.  imagine sipping on a good glass of aussie shiraz while building your massive defensive terran base in starcraft?

if you continue with the wine and video game pairing path, at some point you will come across the combination of cabernet sauvignon and multiplayer team-based first-person shooter.  this is by far my favorite pairing at the moment.  since most games in this category are so intense that both of your hands will be busy, you will not have time to raise your glass while playing.  however, the time between spawns should provide you amber time to swirl and to take a long sip.  for the wine i suggest most 2004 california cabernet from napa while they are still easier to find in the US and more affordable.  as for the game, go with team fortress 2 (pictured) and ping me if you need an aggressive pyro.  hint: avoid the game servers that offer “instant respawn” .

what is my most anticipated wine and video game pairing experience for 2008?  it has to be starcraft 2 and the bottle of 2000 shotfire shiraz that i have been saving.

what is your most favorite wine and video game pairing?