August Good Eats and Drinks

We've had some good friends in town so it's been nice to share some good beer and wine over the last few nights. Last night we had a 2005 Havens Merlot, Cigar City Brewing Co (from Tampa!) Jose Marti  American Porter, and the Bruery's Old Richland Barley Wine. The American Porter was delicious, nice and chocolatey without any bitterness and I really liked the barley wine. It had the barley wine caramelized nose, but was quite crisp and easy to drink. The alcohol content was on the lower side for barley wine at 9%. The merlot was fine but not particularly noteworthy. The previous few nights we had a really lovely bottle of 2008 Sojourn Pinot Noir from Sangiacomo Vineyard in Sonoma Coast that we picked up on our last trip to Sonoma. It was a fairly big pinot noir with a deep nose, rich layered taste and long smooth finish without too much acidity (which I prefer in pinots).

M. also brought some of our favorite treats from the east side: a box of guava empanadas from Cafe Tropical, a cuban place on Sunset in Silverlake. It's been a nice breakfast treat for the last few days: crisp yet flaky empanada crust with a perfectly sweet and tart oozing guava jammy middle.