QUITE NICE WITH A SILLY LABEL

Late lunch: lo mai kai, charsiu sou, and jin dui. Plus a bowlful of Russ Ouellette's imitation of Balkan Sobranie 759 (Black House Pipe Tobacco, marketed by Hearth and Home).


糯米雞
Lo mai kai

Glutinous rice and chicken chunks, black mushrooms, and lapcheung, wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed. The flavours meld magnificently, and the chicken-infused sticky rice is a comforting and hearty meal.
Very good with hot sauce.


叉燒酥
Chaa siu sou

A small flaky pastry filled with barbecued pork. Delicious, and available at dimsummeries and coffee shops all over Chinatown. Tourist do not know what it is, and consequently look at it without realizing that it is edible.
Very good with hot sauce.


煎堆
Jin deui

A glutinous rice flour dough ball filled with sweet lotus seed paste, rolled in sesame seeds, and plonked into a vat of hot oil. A mysterious fried object which any Dutchman would instinctively love. Except he would almost certainly call it onde onde, and buy it at the toko.
Not so good with hot sauce.
You knew that.


BALKAN SOBRANIE 759
An imitation of, acclaimed.

There was a competition in 2011 to duplicate, if possible, a legendary pipe tobacco blend which is no longer made. Personally I think such events are remarkably silly, as people's nasal-memories always shift over time, and consequently within only a few years each person remembers something different about a tobacco.

Black House Pipe Tobacco, by Hearth and Home

Like another praiseworthy contender ('Blue Mountain', by McClelland Tobacco Company of Kansas City), this mixture barely resembles the target, being not even faintly recollective, and barely even in the same ball park. And like that other one, it is a very enjoyable smoke, which is worth buying for its own sake. Whatever the heck goes on in Russ Ouellette's subconscious -- or his nose -- is a disturbing and profound mystery, and sometimes yields interesting and strange results.
I like it. But if I ever tell Greg that, he may think me queer.
So I shall keep diplomatically silent.


For some reason, many things I like go well with hot sauce. I'd go out on a limb and state that pipe tobacco probably doesn't, but before or after the hot sauce is fine. Many pipe smokers like hot sauce.
Those that don't are likely perverts.

Lo mai kai, charsiu sou, jin dui, hot sauce, and pipe tobacco.

If you like four out of those five you are probably great to hang around with, a remarkable person, and lovely company.
We can work on the fifth.

TOBACCO INDEX


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