Btw if anyone is planning on dining out or celebrating an occasion this month, the Italian restaurant La Barca is having free corkage for September. I recommend highly their T-bone steak - perfect to go with any powerful red!
Also checked out the wine list of another Italian restaurant, No Menu, today. Very impressed with the selection of top Piedmont and Tuscan producers, as well as some small dedicated artisan producers. There was half a page of half-bottles available too, and I feel the overall mark-up isn't too high - around 150% retail price, compared to 200% at most places I've seen. Corkage is 50 and they have a 1-for-1 policy too. I feel local restaurants very often miss the plot with overpriced or mediocre wines on the winelist, so many patrons actually skip the wine and the restaurant ends up having to mark up even more to earn back.
thanks for the update! sadly no fancy eating out this sept
No Menu is the Osvaldo one at Amoy Street rite? haven't seen their wine list yet haha...
our dining scene is not as developed as some other countries. but usually they can get away with it because people have money but don't know the wine and the kind of markups there are; but they just order any way. who orders a 2008 first growth, pays close to a $1000, pop and pour, finishing it within an hour??
there are very few places that have a good focused and balanced wine list. and usually those that have a good winelist will tend to charge $$$. the local wine scene is growing, but still not at that level yet. those who want to buy wine but can't afford the good stuff will opt for the cheapest wine which is usually marked up the most. (retail price $28 = restaurant price $90
) and the producer will at best be some generic one.
there are a handful of good ones around though so that's good news at least.
i have seen some great places in USA that have a good and balanced wine selection, with some having themed wine flights on friday nights and weekends. 4 glasses of a certain theme, a bit more than tasting portions, each glass is about USD 6-8. it's educational and informs people about wine so that they will buy more in future.
another place looks out for big format bottles in auctions (and i mean big, 15L, 18L etc...) because the $ per ml is more bang for the buck, plus at auctions you could get a good deal and it's well aged top producer. they advertise about it among their customers that over the weekend they will pop it and serve by the glass. sure maybe it's gonna cost USD $30 per glass, but it's usually something that's like 20+ years on it and a top producer wine. I don't mind paying that for the experience.
local places need to be more creative with their drinks/wine offerings and not stick to the usual stuff the distributors throw at them; stocking generic cheap bottles for the low tier and big bordeaux names at the top tier but with only 1-2 years of age on it.
