When I invited a new friend to dinner last week and asked her to bring a wine, she asked about the menu. And evidently she listened, because she came up with the most brilliant match for the Hungarian goulash: this St. Laurent, a close relative of Pinot Noir, from one of Austria’s best wine estates. Soft and earthy, with a brilliant cherry color and just the slightest hint of strawberries and plums in the nose, it held its own against the smoky paprika in the sauce. It’s hard to find a red this

Self-selected prime cuts for a bargain at Majang-dong’s butcher-restaurantWhat if you could pick the cut, the grade and the exact quantity of meat you wanted to eat at a restaurant? At the Meat Village Butcher Shop in Majang Meat Market, patrons can browse the stalls and select prime beef and pork before bringing their purchases over to the restaurant where a pan grill and sides are provided at 4,000 won per person. The perks are clear. Customers can choose from a diverse range of butchers, snou

ISTANBUL (AFP) ― Caroline Wozniacki, who celebrated becoming year-end world number one for the second successive year on Wednesday, marked the occasion by crashing out of the WTA Championships on Thursday.Although the 21-year-old Dane has topped the rankings for fully 64 weeks, she was so outplayed by Petra Kvitova, the Wimbledon champion from the Czech Republic, that she looked anything but the best player in the world.Indeed there were moments when Wozniacki was so out of sorts during a 6-4, 6

Cardinals stun Rangers with 10-9 victory in 11 inningsST. LOUIS (AP) ― Twice down to their last strike, the St. Louis Cardinals kept rallying to win one of baseball’s greatest thrillers.David Freese completed a startling night of comebacks with a home run leading off the bottom of the 11th inning to beat Texas 10-9 on Thursday, and suddenly fans all over got something they have waited a long time to see: Game 7 in the World Series.“You had to be here to believe it,” Cardinals manager Tony La Rus

GDP rises 3.4 percent in Q3 from year earlier, slowest in 21 monthsSouth Korea’s economy failed to show a meaningful sign of improving in the third quarter, hurt by lackluster consumer spending and weaker capital investment, Bank of Korea data showed on Thursday. According to the advance estimate of the BOK, the country’s gross domestic product grew 3.4 percent in the July-September period from a year earlier, marking the slowest pace in 21 months. The on-quarter GDP growth slumped to 0.7 perce

Former police chief to head Presidential Security ServicePresident Lee Myung-bak on Thursday named the president of a state-funded trade promotion agency as the new knowledge economy minister and a former police chief as head of the presidential security service.Hong Suk-woo, who took the helm of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency in June, was tapped to lead the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Lee’s spokesman Park Jeong-ha said. Hong will succeed Choi Joong-kyung who offered to resign la

BRUSSELS (AP) ― European leaders clinched a deal Thursday they hope will mark a turning point in their two-year debt crisis, agreeing after a night of tense negotiations to have banks take bigger losses on Greece’s debts and to boost the region’s weapons against the market turmoil.After months of dawdling and half-baked solutions, the leaders had been under immense pressure to finalize their plan to prevent the crisis from pushing Europe and much of the developed world back into recession and to

Parties gauge impact of local by-elections, seek remedies to their problemsThe triumph of civic activist Park Won-soon in the Seoul mayoral by-election heralds a major shift in the country’s political landscape as the rival parties strive to revamp to regain public trust.Political experts say the outcome of Wednesday’s showdown clearly reflected widespread public disenchantment with established politicians for following their own interests rather than those of citizens.Each political party is no

Social networking services emerged as the new trend in raising turnout during the Oct. 26 by-elections, as SNS users sent short messages encouraging one another to cast their ballots and pick the best candidate.They posted self-portrait shots photographed at polling stations while celebrities joked they would urge their fans and others to cast votes. No doubt, social network services led by Twitter have secured a place as one of the strongest campaign tools among the younger generation, who cann