Born almost a century before bourbon,
apple brandy was “the spirit that fi rst
captured the hearts of Colonial America,”
said Anna Archibald in Distiller.com. It
eventually fell out of favor, but one of the
earliest producers is still at it, and craft
distillers are reviving the tradition.
Laird’s Bottled in Bond ($30). Produced
by the country’s oldest distillery, using
a 200-year-old recipe, this brandy ages
four years in charred oak. The Wall
Street Journal says it has a “baked-
apple aroma” and “hits a middle
mark between young and mature.”
Copper & Kings ($31). This one
was launched just last year by
a craft bourbon maker. Says
TheManual.com, “Look for
honey and toasted oak on top
of cooked-apple fl avors.”
Sante Fe Spirits ($48). At
80 proof, this brandy (shown
left) is “much more subtle than
its high-proof counterparts.”(^26) LEISURE
Food & Drink
Nari San Francisco
Thai food is no longer strictly a casual
dining option, said Tejal Rao in The New
York Times. At Pim Techamuanvivit’s gor-
geous seven-month-old restaurant inside
Japantown’s Hotel Kabuki, the Bangkok
native and her women-led team are
pioneering “a more modern, luxurious,
exuberant vision of Thai cuisine.” In a
two-story contemporary space warmed by
“an extravagance of plant life and light,”
Nari is revitalizing fine dining by mixing
first-class cooking with family-style service.
Diners thus pass dishes around, focusing
not on the kitchen’s effort but on the plea-
sures of the food, the company, and the
room. “Isn’t this what going out to dinner
is about?” The food arrives in waves: betel
leaves packed with trout roe and stone
fruit, then grilled mushrooms rendered
incandescent by lime and chile, a coconut
seafood curry, and game hen stuffed with
lemongrass. Dish after dish, “you can’t
help but notice the finesse and creativity.”
The kapi plah—smashed Gulf prawns
in a Meyer lemon–infused fermented
krill paste—is so vivid, “it tastes alive.”
1625 Post St., (415) 868-6274
The Blind Goat Houston
Our city finally has the second-generation
Vietnamese restaurant we’ve been wait-
ing for, said Alison Cook in the Houston
Chronicle. Christine Ha, the blind
Critics’ choice: A new wave of Southeast Asian cooking
Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times
Apple brandy: Our fi rst love
When your household is battling through cold season, tori nabe can be the answer,
said Genevieve Ko in the Los Angeles Times. It’s “the hot pot version of chicken
soup,” and it comes together quickly. Kabocha squash is the star, but the soup gains
complexity from its seasonings: ponzu, daikon, and shichimi togarashi, a spice blend.
Recipe of the week
- Place drumsticks in a donabe, Dutch
oven, or large saucepan. Cover with
8 cups cold water. Bring to a boil over
high heat. Add salt; reduce heat to medi-
um-low. Simmer 20 minutes, skimming
off foam. Make the ponzu sauce:
Combine soy sauce and vinegar
in a saucepan; bring to boil over
high heat. Remove from heat
and stir in lemon juice. Set aside
to cool. - Seed squash and cut in
wedges 2 inches wide and
1∕ 3 inch thick. Trim bok choy; cut
larger leaves in half. Peel daikon
and ginger and grate on a microplane
zester into two separate bowls. Transfer
chicken to a plate. Add squash to broth
and simmer 8 to 10 minutes. In a separate
pot, prepare udon according to package
directions. Discard chicken
skin and bones; pull meat into
large pieces and divide among
4 bowls along with udon.- Stir bok choy into soup; cook
1 minute. Pour vegetables and
broth into bowls and sprinkle
with shichimi togarashi. Bring
to table with daikon, ginger,
and ponzu sauce. Serves 4.
Tori nabe
1 lb. chicken drumsticks • ½ tsp kosher salt • 1∕ 3 cup dark or regular soy sauce • 1 tbsp
rice vinegar • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice · ½ small kabocha squash · 8 bok choy • 3-inch
piece daikon radish • 2-inch piece fresh ginger • 12 oz udon noodles • shichimi togarashiCalifornia native who won the 2012 sea-
son of Master Chef, is “destined for bigger
things” than overseeing this casual and
affordable gastropub-style space inside
Bravery Chef Hall, an incubator for res-
taurant concepts. But the food at her first
restaurant is amazing—“brilliant, modern,
quintessentially Houstonian.” Start with
fried wonton chips dipped in a satiny queso
flavored with tamarind, red chile, and
shrimp powder. Or perhaps the “texturally
thrilling” Vietnamese pizza—two sheets
of rice paper topped with pork belly and
pickled onion and cooked on a grill. All
the meat is sourced from local farms, and
the hugely popular goat curry stew “has
all the aplomb of a dish you might find at
a great French bistro.” But the barbecued-brisket spring roll feels like the signature
dish. The combination of smoky beef,
cool rice vermicelli, tart apple batons and
pungent herbs tasted like my dream of
next-gen Houston Vietnamese fare, “leav-
ing me laughing in delighted disbelief.”
409 Travis St., (346) 298-1660Gado Gado Portland, Ore.
Thank Thomas Pisha-Duffly’s grandmother
for Gado Gado, said Pete Cottell in
Portland’s Willamette Week. Now 93
and still eager to talk food, she and her
Indonesian cooking were the inspiration
for the popular pop-ups Pisha-Duffly ran
before finally converting Gado Gado into
a permanent operation last June. The
restaurant, done up in “a flurry of color,
kitsch, and giddily mismatched artifacts
from around the globe,” encourages
adventurousness; “go with the flow and
you’ll be rewarded greatly for having
faith in the unfamiliar.” The “Coca-Cola
clams” are wonderful, “regardless of how
that sounds on paper,” and the wok-fried
whole Dungeness crab in rich egg yolk–
butter sauce and Sichuan chile “completely
ignores culinary genre lines.” When you
find yourself washing such a meal down
with an inventive amaro-and-coconut
cocktail, “the charmed life of an island-
hopping jet-setter with money to burn is
yours for just a fleeting moment.” 1801
NE César E. Chávez Blvd., (503) 206-8778Pisha-Duffly (right) in the Gado Gado kitchen