ANOTHER MOVING DAY

Last night I chose L’Adresse de Tinay as my final meal in Vientiane.  I had eaten there three nights ago and enjoyed a cassoulet of confit of duck (remember that layer of garlic infused sweet cream on the plate?   It was so delicious that I returned for a repeat performance. 

This time I stayed with the duck but chose a different half liter of wine,  Montipulciano.  Montipulciano is one of my favorite wines.  But it can be fickle.  Good one year and not so good the next.  Even among vineyards of the same year there can be quite a variation.  This one was delicious, velvety smooth and well balanced.

After I finished the meal and paid my check I asked which Montipulciano it was.  I was amazed when the proprietress pulled out a cardboard box that had previously held a 5 liter pouch.  I had heard that boxed wines have improved considerably over the past few years.  This is proof in spades.

I don’t know if it is available in the US.  Be on the lookout for Coni Degli Azzoni, Marche Russo Cantalupo.  This one makes me think a group of us should have a ‘box wine tasting’.  We’ll need a large group.  Can you imagine a table with several 5 liter containers lined up on it?

For those of us who have had experience drinking box wines you know that as you pour it from the spout the Mylar pouch shrinks so the remaining wine is never exposed to air and stays fresh for a very long time.

I am sitting at the airport writing this post.  In a couple of hours I’ll fly into Kuala Lumpur.  I was going to spend two days there before I headed on to Penang.  But, I’m anxious to experience the tremendous variety of food in Penang so I arranged a connecting flight for later this afternoon and I will be in Penang before night fall.

I plan to be there for a week.  I hope you will follow along with me during the coming days for a mix of cooking classes, eating varieties of street food, and sit down meals at restaurants.  From what I've read I think I am in store for tasting food with different textures and flavors than those of Thailand and Laos.  Plus I'll have some photos up on Flickr to look at tomorrow.