Aug. 1st, 2002 11:04 am
Public Service Announcement
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muckefuckJust saw in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mollpeartree's journal that she's singing the praises of soju to the wider world. About time! Of course, everyone's next question is, "Where in the name of the Beloved Leader do I find oddball Korean liquor?"
Not Sam's Wines & Spirits, sorry to say. I love our Sam's runs and I'm impressed at how their selection of Asian liquors has grown, but, last I checked, soju still hadn't made it onto their shelves. They had at least one brand of shochu, the Japanese equivalent, but I suspect this might be grain-based and, hence, not as smooth. (For you fans of South American cocktails, however, they now carry at least three brands of cachaça, as well as a couple piscos and some stuff I didn't even recognise.)
The GWO and I bought some soju and baekseju (which was also imbibed at that dinner at Jinju but seems to have won fewer converts--if, indeed, any at all) at a tiny liquor store on Lincoln just north of Foster. I don't even have the name--it may be called something clever like Lincoln Liquors--but it's in a strip mall on the west side of the street right next door to Daehan Market. For its part, the market has very tasty homemade Korean food for sale in addition to everything else you'd expect, from kimchee and frozen sliced rice cake to rice cookers and flower cards, all crammed into a space hardly big enough to bowl in.
However, they charged us substantially more than I paid at Arirang, a large Korean supermarket on Lawrence 'round 'bout California. Don't worry: Soju isn't going to bankrupt anybody. By "substantially more", I mean maybe $7/bottle rather than $4. Given that $8 or so is what you'll pay for a "soju-tini" at Jinju or Soju (in Bicker Park), this is still a bargain. (But note that these bottles are 250 ml rather than 500.) Arirang is a good store with a great selection and fair prices overall. It was also quite friendly, given the basic Korean suspicion of us yangk'o.
I've heard that the tremendous Korean supermarket off of the Kennedy--you must've seen its happy sign--has an even better selection, but I haven't made it out there yet. (I think it's actually on Kimball just north of Belmont.) I've got vague plans to do that with some gay bear artists who live near there, but it just hasn't happened yet. (More cosmopolitan readers will realise that any one of those three traits--gay, bear, or artist--correlates negatively with an ability to plan. Just imagine the combined effect! They once managed to be out of town the same weekend they had told a friend he could crash there.)
One thing I've never understood is why Chinese drinking wine is impossible to find in this city. I understand that it's too much a niche product for regular liquor stores to carry it, but why do Chinese grocery stores offer only cooking wines? The owners tell me they can't get a liquor license, but if Korean stores can, what's holding them back? Alternatively, why doesn't some enterprising Chinese buy up a liquor store in one of the Chinatowns--there's a likely candidate right on the corner of Argyle and Sheridan--and begin serving this unexploited market niche? I suspect part of the reason is a preference among the Chinese themselves for Western liquor. (GWO said that when he was in Taiwan, whisk(e)y was considered a much more sophisticated drink than shaojiu--there's that name again, in another form--or Shaoxing wine.) But this still can't be the whole story.
mollpeartree's journal that she's singing the praises of soju to the wider world. About time! Of course, everyone's next question is, "Where in the name of the Beloved Leader do I find oddball Korean liquor?"Not Sam's Wines & Spirits, sorry to say. I love our Sam's runs and I'm impressed at how their selection of Asian liquors has grown, but, last I checked, soju still hadn't made it onto their shelves. They had at least one brand of shochu, the Japanese equivalent, but I suspect this might be grain-based and, hence, not as smooth. (For you fans of South American cocktails, however, they now carry at least three brands of cachaça, as well as a couple piscos and some stuff I didn't even recognise.)
The GWO and I bought some soju and baekseju (which was also imbibed at that dinner at Jinju but seems to have won fewer converts--if, indeed, any at all) at a tiny liquor store on Lincoln just north of Foster. I don't even have the name--it may be called something clever like Lincoln Liquors--but it's in a strip mall on the west side of the street right next door to Daehan Market. For its part, the market has very tasty homemade Korean food for sale in addition to everything else you'd expect, from kimchee and frozen sliced rice cake to rice cookers and flower cards, all crammed into a space hardly big enough to bowl in.
However, they charged us substantially more than I paid at Arirang, a large Korean supermarket on Lawrence 'round 'bout California. Don't worry: Soju isn't going to bankrupt anybody. By "substantially more", I mean maybe $7/bottle rather than $4. Given that $8 or so is what you'll pay for a "soju-tini" at Jinju or Soju (in Bicker Park), this is still a bargain. (But note that these bottles are 250 ml rather than 500.) Arirang is a good store with a great selection and fair prices overall. It was also quite friendly, given the basic Korean suspicion of us yangk'o.
I've heard that the tremendous Korean supermarket off of the Kennedy--you must've seen its happy sign--has an even better selection, but I haven't made it out there yet. (I think it's actually on Kimball just north of Belmont.) I've got vague plans to do that with some gay bear artists who live near there, but it just hasn't happened yet. (More cosmopolitan readers will realise that any one of those three traits--gay, bear, or artist--correlates negatively with an ability to plan. Just imagine the combined effect! They once managed to be out of town the same weekend they had told a friend he could crash there.)
One thing I've never understood is why Chinese drinking wine is impossible to find in this city. I understand that it's too much a niche product for regular liquor stores to carry it, but why do Chinese grocery stores offer only cooking wines? The owners tell me they can't get a liquor license, but if Korean stores can, what's holding them back? Alternatively, why doesn't some enterprising Chinese buy up a liquor store in one of the Chinatowns--there's a likely candidate right on the corner of Argyle and Sheridan--and begin serving this unexploited market niche? I suspect part of the reason is a preference among the Chinese themselves for Western liquor. (GWO said that when he was in Taiwan, whisk(e)y was considered a much more sophisticated drink than shaojiu--there's that name again, in another form--or Shaoxing wine.) But this still can't be the whole story.
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