Jake and Greg were at The Grape this last weekend, and over the past year or so in our brainstorms The Grape has come up time and again as a place that just gets it. Take for example their wine list and wine food recommendations - which is perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen a wine list that makes sense.

We know how different Shiraz can show, that Sauvignon Blanc rarely has the same face region to region and that Pinot Grigio doesn’t always go well with food - and a restaurant/ bar does its clientèle no favors by just dividing wine into Red and White, or they divide it into countries - and the emerging trend is to divide it into varietals.

The Grape does something unheard of to date: they divide their wine into taste. More than that they then give you a taste profile match on their menu, dish by dish. I have probably sampled less than a thousand wines in my life - and I certainly don’t remember all the names because I’m no Michael Broadbent. When I’m looking at a wine, I want to know its taste flavor profile - and if I’m paying $20 a bottle, I’ll be pretty ticked if its not what I want. This kind of a menu system is helpful to anyone… I know because when I’m out to dinner with friends they always ask me to help pick the wine: but The Grape allows people to choose the wine for themselves. What I further like about The Grape is that its more than a restaurant - because their venues are usually really good places to just hang out. It’s a destination brand - allowing dining, entertainment, exploration and with their innovative wine list: education. It’s really refreshing to see a mainstream brand that has begun to take its customer’s taste seriously.

allows you to design your own tasting flight of three or more wines from our One through Eight Grape classifications and from our Nine and Ten Grape specials. Choose from all wines with a “Grape Bunch” designation in our wine menu to create your unique tasting flight, served in our special glasses for your ultimate tasting experience. At The Grape, Your Taste is All that Counts.”

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My wife and I recently went to Dans Le Noir - London’s first restaurant in the dark, started after the success of it’s parent restaurant in Paris. Seeing as the restaurant only seats 60 people, you need to book pretty well in advance to get a place (there are three sitting for dinner a night), but once you do - it’s an experience you’re not likely to forget. Upon arriving you are in a lit cocktail lounge where you can enjoy a drink and look at the menu and order your meal. My wife and I both chose the ’surprise menu’ where you are not told what you will be eating. Deciding to at least have some choice in the matter, we ordered the 2003 Chablis ‘St. Martin’ white Burgundy, and our blind waiter led us to our table.

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On the Friday of Wine 2.0 we decided to treat ourselves and head to The Slanted Door. We had intended, naively, to go for supper - only to find that it was booked out for two weeks straight. As we walked in with the last of the luncheoners, we were able to wangle a seat - which immediately called for a miniature celebration in the form of two classic Austrian wines.

For Greg it was the Gruner Vetline Shmelz, and for myself I chose the Csersgezi Fuszeres, Hill Top. Both were smooth, floral, off-dry and crisp - perfect for an afternoon lunch, especially seeing as we had a conference to go to. A wine conference it may have been - but a conference none-the-less.

Crispy Imperial Rolls with *shrimp, pork and glass noodles* Amazing, we got this starter to share, and we were served five of the little suckers on a plate. The only thing better than a novel food - is a novel way of consuming food. Hence my personal preference to eating with chopsticks at restaurants; hand making tortillas; enjoying Mongolian stir-fries; eating Indian or Persian food with my bare hands; the occasional shot of tequila and of course - shucking oysters straight from the rock and eating them with lemon, Tabasco and salt. It’s all about the process and trying to make it all more tactile - and for being a day-to-day knife and fork person, any food or process that breaks the norm is a welcome addition to my repertoire.

We photographed the process of eating the crispy imperial roll which involves:

1. laying out a piece of lettuce
2. placing a piece of mint on the lettuce
3. adding a lump of noodles on top
4. inserting the Crispy Imperial Roll
5. rolling it all into a consumable ball
6. dipping it into the teriyaki and plumb sauce
7. stuffing it all into your mouth and rolling your eyes back into your head because its just so good.

The Slanted Door is an incredibly popular restaurant in San Francisco and they only use organic produce and ecologically farmed meat. It’s nice to see people’s taste buds moving in the right direction.

The wine blogging world has no equivalent to Pim Techamuanvivit, creator and goddess of http://www.chezpim.com/ which also seems to be absent from the James Beard list, which is really surprising, considering the quality of writing and level of contribution to the industry. Pim’s following is enormous, and considering that she’s young, 30, attractive, self-made and frequently dining in high-class restaurants in hugely varied global locations, I’m sure there are many prominent wine writers out there who came onto the scene well before Pim, and probably wish they could be in her shoes.

I was disappointed that one of my preferred food blogs, Amateur Gourmet was not included in the James Beard Nominees for writing. Much like Dr. Vino, Amateur Gourmet writes so consistently well, and serves up an eclectic dish of restaurant recommendations complete with photographs of the meal, personal anecdotes, literary references and a recommended selection of cookbooks for the enthusiast to get stuck in to. To my mind there’s really no question, one of his blogs last month is inspiring myself and Greg to go down to the Slanted Door restaurant tonight, which will be a welcome treat before going off to Wine 2.0 tomorrow evening.

Amateur Gourmet’s photographs take a brilliant angle by showing readers photographs of dishes and getting the readers to comment. Needless to say it’s a rather cruel exercise, because just looking at the photographs prompts drooling. But you’ll notice the level of participation amongst readers, one feels that Amateur Gourmet embraces its readership and plays to an audience creating a gourmet form of media. Grape Thinking salutes the Amateur Gourmet. At least we’ll be able to taste the food in person tonight.