Shameless Plug for People We Like #2: "Battle of the Bottles" at Enoteca Super Tuscan

We're aware that we've been disorganised about gastrorambling over the summertime, perhaps sated by our five-day extravaganza of hiking and dining in Wales... but we have not stopped eating well.  The summer was a few surprises and lots of old favourites around the capital-- the one Mrs found most, well, I think "historical" or "old-school" might be polite terms (indeed, the Indy did use the phrase old-school despite the 24-year old chef) at Accuiga where it transpired that when we sat down, I was offered a menu that indicated prices, and Mrs was offered a menu with the same list of dishes but no prices.  We are not old; we are in early middle age and often mistaken for a decade younger, so it wasn't because of our expectations that they did this. We are still mystified... well, I am (since it's something I had previously only read about never seen) while in Mrs it brought out a level of militant feminism I have rarely seen.

But with the rentrée started in earnest, we've been to an old favourite that is doing something that may or may not be new but the first we've seen of it, and we were impressed enough that we'd like to offer them SHAMELESS PLUG.

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Enoteca Super-Tuscan is one of those places that modern London dining has largely squeezed out-- doing good food and good wine inexpensively and within walking distance of where at least some of its target audience works, in the City.  We go now and again when nearby.

This autumn, and I gather it's something they do a few times a year, they decided to have a go at changing their wine list.  Not content to trust their own noses, the owner organises evenings where he puts together some wine and several small dishes, and encourages the wines to fight it out for a spot on their list.  My own notes for the evening are a little patchy, and as I was there with Mrs. and the Bon Vivant, it was an educative evening--both know more about wine than I'm ever likely to--but also very pleasant.  Many tastings, even the best of them, offer little more than soda crackers as accompaniment to the wines you're tasting, which is fine for whites but dreadful for reds.  One basement tasting in the basement of the excellent Handford shop in Kensington was South African reds, accompanied by biltong... which worked well and was only slightly deflated when the winemaker admitted that the biltong was from Tesco just down the road.

The four courses Enoteca served that night (two wines with each) were:

• Cheese stuffed gnocchi with a pair of francocorte
• Burrata and fancy tomatos with Sicilian whites
• Penne with tomato pesto sauce with varied reds 
• Quail with two red Tuscans

Wonderful evening, wonderful food and wines, just wonderful.  More of these, please.