Confessions of a Wino

If you eat out in the UK you might be interested in a new website aimed right atcha… Here is the press release:

An online portal, which brings people with a passion for food together to share their dining out experiences, has been launched. iStarvin, a site that combines the convenience of a restaurant directory with in-depth content and eye-catching photos, connects individuals with an interest in food and dining, allowing them to follow each other’s activity or seek recommendations for a special occasion.

Unlike the launch of many of their competitors, iStarvin has already done an adept job of creating a highly comprehensive restaurant directory.  There are few, if any reviews yet, and there are one or two website glitches, but it looks like a great start.  Clearly they hope to create a community to contribute insights and recommendations, but the business model relies on restaurateurs taking the opportunity to embellish the offer (for a price) and include, for example, the facility to book tables online.  Like any advertising model this depends on Muggles like me and you using the service.

Being a mobile kind of guy, I rarely search a website unless it is apped up.  I am getting increasingly dissatisfied with Urbanspoon, Opentable, and AroundMe, so I hope that when iStarvin launches the iPhone app, it will be a truffle amongst mushrooms.

This is a well worn business model with no clear leader so I admire iStarvin’s balls in entering the market.  Having said that, they have learnt from their competitors’ mistakes and it looks to be the best attempt yet from a consumer perspective (and that is the critical success factor).

iStarvin is using social media well to publicise the new site.  I learned of it on Twitter from the excellently erudite Oliver Thring, one of the many food bloggers I met at EWBC.  If you are a foodie, you should also follow Niamh, Chris, Lizzie and Douglas, charming chaps and chappesses all.

At £17.50, this must one of the bargains of the whole wine world.  The catch is that you have to be a member of the Wine Society.  But don’t worry, they let anyone in these days.  You don’t need to roll up one trouser leg and hop through the door like when I joined.  No entrance exam, you don’t need to know anything about wine.  You can even have an empty bank account, as it is one of the best value (only budgies go cheap) wine retailers in the UK.

With its rich history and extensive storage, frequent offers of interesting, old, and remarkably priced wines regularly appear in my email inbox.  I have neither the storage space, nor stomach capacity, or indeed material wealth to buy them all so I am extremely selective.

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I’ve just returned from EWBC in Lisbon with a newfound passion for Portuguese wine.  The whites impressed me most, even though they represented a mere champagne flute to the magnum of reds on display.

Espoṛo Reserva 2007 was a leftover bottle of tinto that found its way into my luggage by means not requiring wallet surgery РI can reveal no more than that.

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I am in Lisbon for the European Wine Bloggers Conference and there are a few missing faces from last year which is a shame.  The Italians are notable absentees, for example.  However, the event is at least twice the size of last year’s and superbly well organised by Ryan and Gabi Opaz and Robert McIntosh.

If you are sad enough to want live updates you can follow me on Twitter at @tiptoptaps.

If you are even sadder and want to see everyone at the conference tweeting on exactly the same event every other second, follow the hashtag #EWBC.

Sounding a tad venereal, La Clape came to me via a “South by South West” mixed case from the Wine Society.  Like all retailers who think we are firmly in a W shaped recession (as I do), the Wine Society is looking for wines at the cheaper end of the spectrum on the grounds that people are much more likely to drink cheaper than drink less.

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An open top “Tommy the tourist” bus in New York is indisputably the best place to learn about New York culture.  Well, if you believe the tour guides (and assuming that you tip them enough).  I learnt that if you want to eat cheaply in NYC there are two options:  McDonalds, or Restaurant Row on W46th St between 8th and 9th.

Bangkok House is not McDonalds, but it certainly isn’t expensive either.

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I was pretty chipper about my Combine Harvester, installed in 2008 at Bathgate Towers.  It has kept my finer bottles in tip top condition and is a super talking point when anyone remotely interested in wine visits.

But I am a mere amateur according to a book just published in the US.  Living with Wine, by Samantha Nestor, is actually better read in pictures (impressively furnished by Andrew French).

From swish New York bachelor pads to decadent Napa Valley wine clubs I can only drool at the fantastic cellars containing fantastic wines – many not even American!  The intersection of architecture, interior design and fine wine is surely one of the greatest causes of wine envy in the oenological world?

Just one thing – can we have a repeat of this book but focussed on UK cellars?

Living with Wine is published by Clarkson Potter ($75), a division of Random House and whilst my copy came from the US, I understand it will be available in the UK soon.

I enjoy a slurp of Chablis so I was delighted to be invited to the tasting below.  However, the date clashes with a little plot I am working on with Guido.  Big Bang theory – that sort of thing.

The other happening on this historic date is a “trade only” event but I’m sure you can blag your way in by wearing an Oz Clark face mask.

I had to smile at yet another special offer using the recession friendly “staying in is the new going out” mantra.  However, when I logged on to enter my Freixenet code on the top of my bottle, I discovered it is merely a way of capturing personal data for marketing spam.

The offers are the same, or barely more than the companies offer to anyone who subscribes from the web.

So save the trouble, the time, and the spam.  By all means use emusic, LOVEFiLM, or Vie at Home, and you should definitely stay in one night and try a bottle of Freixenet Cava – it’s pretty good.  Just do all the above independently.

After a Spring 2009 visit to an architectural gem of the highest order, and possibly the most erotique et fantastique et en meme-temps grotesque bâtiment du 20eme siècle, la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre, I dropped down the hill to the arty farty and over-rated Bohemian 18e arondissement.

Paris is a loveable city, and one of my favourites,  although a bit up itself.  All the historical République monuments are interesting and important, but one senses that the French are clinging to an identity that expired with the proof that all men could be created equal under a monarchy.

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