Jang Mo Nim Restaurant
Hae Mool Pa Jun (squid-and-scallion pancake) 3,4
$14.95
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Mother and daughter Sun Pak and Sue Hyun have run this Korean dining room for 14 years, Pak cooking with a passion and the personable Hyun expediting service. Each order is accompanied by a vast selection of panchan, small plates of pickled vegetables and other savory nibbles. Most dishes have a good dose of spice, either from the red chili paste used in many of the dipping sauces or from dried, flaked red chilies added to broth. The heat calls for wines that have body, character, and acidity but not overly aggressive flavors or strong tannins, which tend to scour away a dish’s milder flavors and enhance more powerful ones. The consulting expert on this trip was Oz Clarke, author of Oz Clarke’s New Wine Atlas and columnist for Wine Enthusiast magazine.
- 2001 Saint Cosme Cotes du Rhone (France), $10.99-$12.99. This blend of white Rhone varietals marsanne and roussanne has a lingering silkiness and a spicy floral perfume characteristic of wines from the south of France: it includes hints of lavender, violets, and roses, plus figs and apricots. The wine also has a yeasty quality, which works nicely with the starch in the seafood pancake and with the rice that accompanies the dol sot bi bim bop; the dusty, earthy nature of the chili paste in the pancake’s dipping sauce brings out the freshness and brightness of the wine, which also cools down the bean paste in the bi bim bop. (Binny’s, Sam’s)
Howard’s Wine Cellar 1244 W. Belmont, 773-248-3766
