Bribing the maitre d'. A friend of mine talks about walking into a certain restaurant in the Quarter with his wife one weekend night a couple of months ago. Told the wait would be an hour, he tried something he'd never done before: He approached the maitre d' with $20 in hand and asked if he could get a table any sooner. In fact, they could. After my friend and his wife sat down at their table, the waiter said, "Dude, five bucks would have been enough."
     On Saturday G. and I went with the two of them and two other people to that same restaurant. This friend resorted to bribery -- er, pre-tipping -- again; and sure enough, $5 made a 45-minute wait disappear.
     These sorts of transactions always struck me as kind of cheesy and rude. And unnecessary, too; New Orleans isn't New York, and getting a table at most places here just isn't that hard. Rumor has it, though, that at one well-known Italian restaurant in town, pretty much everybody pays to sit down. Which, if true, may explain why there's an hour wait every time I go.
     So am I just naive? This is a city in which people complain of having to bribe their garbagemen to get their trash picked up. Anybody have any experience on this front?
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 10:55 PM
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Googled. A contact down here who googled my name and "petroleum" was surprised to find a description of merlot penned by me on this site, among my zillions of stories on oil and gas. Just for kicks, I tried "Iberian Lynx" and "Cork" and "wine." The first purplesunshine.com link turned up on the fourth screen.
 :: posted by John Biers at 10:38 PM
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New tasting opportunity. Maybe they've been doing this for a while and I just wasn't aware of it, but Basil Leaf on South Carrollton has started a Thursday wine-tasting series. I'm not sure which wineries are involved or how it's structured, but the prices start at $10-$12, including an appetizer, according to an e-mail I received. I don't know if you have to reserve tickets, but the phone number is 504-862-9001.
     I'm sure I'll go check one out sometime soon. G. and I went there on Friday night. I got the spicy beef in mussulman curry, which was beautiful and tasted great. Notwithstanding the results of our Thai Food Experiment earlier this year -- viz., great food, decent wine, bad match -- I'm curious to see what kind of pairings Basil Leaf will come up with.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 11:06 AM
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Purple Sunshine on the air. New Orleans Food and Wine Experience founder Tim McNally hosts a weekly wine show on AM 990 on Sunday mornings from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pam, Steph, Delia and I are going to be on this week. We'll be talking about how to start a wine group and structure a wine tasting. You can also hear it live on the Internet at www.bizneworleans.com. Please tune in -- and call in.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 2:59 PM
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British wine? The native cuisine of the British Isles has a lousy reputation -- so much so that people used to joke that the only good restaurants in London served only Indian food. And while British merchants played a huge role in shaping the the international wine trade, Britain itself is such a backwater for wine production that even Pravda takes an implicit swipe at it.
     But the Pravda writer (who seems to be an Englishman) goes on to suggest that this one particular vineyard is reversing a decline that began with Henry VIII. This is interesting for a couple of reasons: First, it's still sort of disorienting to learn that Pravda is publishing puff pieces about English wineries. Second, the development of the British wine industry may dispel any lingering confusion about what to serve with bangers and mash or spotted dick.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 10:51 AM
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