Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Sometimes when you're so drunk and kinda tired, you can still manage to crawl into a genius snack-viewing vantage point. The next problem is, how do you reach that can of beans on the pantry shelf - let alone get it open?

Photo taken by me mate Dan Feary in Sydney.

Dan writes: "Fu on the light night creep, hitting the fridge & the pantry at the same time. I don't think you remember this moment Fu, so I took this shot for posterity."

Every innovation in noodle technology brings us one step closer to souvlaksa: the ultimate Greek-Malaysian fusion food. Jay Rayner spots doner kebab flavoured instant noodles. His thoughts:

There was a moment, a taste echo, that reminded me of belching half an hour after having eaten the real thing – stop grimacing, for god's sake; this is a doner kebab flavoured Pot Noodle we're talking about. What did you expect? Proust? – but it was soon gone. Instead all that was left was that sickly-savoury, chemically-enhanced indeterminate flavour that all of them have.

I'm never sure if the aftertaste is a flavour or just salt and umami overload.

Things have been rather quiet on the old blog lately so here are some gratuitous photos of our dinner we had last October at WD-50

View and appreciate. Think of it like art, if it has to be explained you just don't get it.

On the Sukhumvit Soi, next to Emporium, Sukhumvit Soi 24 I think it is, there is a izakaya which is not particularly tasty but exceedingly cheap. It's on the right hand side of the Soi, near the beginning of the street and on the 3rd floor of an extremely eccentric building...If you climb the odd staircase and pass by the Hong Kong-style hotpot joint you'll know you're on the right track.....follow the potato heads



Inside you'll find a large booze selection and laminated menu with usual izakaya suspects....



great wall adornments and decor....


and games where you can gamble on the size of your portion...play the "beef game", roll the dice and let fate decide if you get above or below the standard portion...fun times


The food photos below attest more to the skill of Hock and his N95 than the actual quality of the food





For example this sushi roll is far nastier than it looks


Of course the main indulgence here is not the cripsy rice cakes, but the lashings of cheap sake and beer to be had alongside. Food is really rather incidental here.






(makeshift food lighting enhancements)

Which was confirmed when I woke up on Sunday morning after a night at the Potato and remember that I had gotten drunk enough and so enamoured with the sake enough to have purchased their signature potato sake set. I recall making statements along the lines of "this sake set speaks to something deep inside my soul"

Drug use is surging among fishermen in the northwest.

From DAS

Fishermen in north-western Banteay Meanchey province on the Thai border, around 450 kilometres from the capital, were luring their prey with fermented fish paste laced with drugs, but their more ethical colleagues were crying foul, the Khmer-language daily Kampuchea Thmey reported.

The bait, which is made in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam, instantly turned popular table species such as elephant fish from fighters into ecstatic love junkies that practically jumped into the boat, the paper said.

Banteay Meanchey provincial governor Orn Sum said by telephone that he doubted the veracity of the reports, but if true, anglers caught dealing drugs to the province’s fish population could face legal consequences.

I like to think that I have some idea about what ecstatic love junkie fish would be like...having watched the Mighty Boosh episode "The Legend of Old Greg"....here's a starter for you.....and if you want to find out more about underwater fish love watch the rest of the episode.

It's Friday night...and I should have been here





Drinking this




As I was last Friday, but I just couldn't face another wild night of drinking with anthropology doctorate students and Chinese language and history majors and discussing the relative merits of materialism versus phenomenology as philosophical approach

Just kidding, we may be geeks but we're not that geeky (only sometimes), what we did discuss is the relative merits of Little Creatures and its higher price tag versus a cheaper alternative like say Victoria Bitter.

General consensus is that everyone loves Little Creatures, it is a sophisticated brew, full of complex flavours that left our descriptive abilities somewhat stunned into mere appreciative exclaimations of "mmmmmm"..."it goes well with salt and vinegar chippies"

But really, it is a great beer, a beer that can stand up to the task of not being drunk frozen cold, I'd even drink it luke warm and that's something for an austral-asian

But in my humble beer swilling opinion, it is the shiraz of beers. You really only want to have one or two bottles while still sober so you can appreciate all those little creatures swirling around in your mouth and then move on to a lighter cheaper beer with less hangover potential, if you are perhaps more of a man than me, and have more cash to burn you may want to go for 3. But you don't want to carry on drinking it past the point where you start dicussing at which stage it is appropriate to fart in a relationship and whether or not this debases your romantic involvement, then you may as well go for a cheaper option because you'll hardly notice what you are drinking anyway

In fact it may be barely perceptible to you that you now suddenly appear to be eating chinese food at Happys in the Civic Canberra, and drinking white wine, stumbling on to drink 4 single malts at a really awful bar and and ending up in bed somehow with a chicken souvlaki and a terrible case of the vertigo

I may be up for it again in a couple of weeks, and when I am I plan on sampling their new Pilsner, (before ending up in bed with another souvlaki)

Having eaten our way through many spots of both fancy schmancy and hole-in-the-wall varieties, we were left in no doubt of the culinary charms of Toronto. I must say that this city would definitely benefit from one reliable Sietsema-type reviewer though. (I urgently recommend Sietsema to begin research on a Toronto version of his books like 'Good and Cheap Ethnic Eats in New York City': he would have a field day in Toronto no doubt). You can easily find short, vague reviews on sites like Torontoplus or Toronto-ourfaves.com, but the best bet is to google the cuisine or restaurant you're interested in with 'Now magazine'. But not even Now has a complete (or completely reliable) catalogue of the city's offerings. And trying to figure something out from Chowhound is like playing darts in the dark. Oh la! Nothing to do but make sure you have a few reliable recommendations if your time in Toronto is limited.

Toronto's circa 220,000 strong Jamaican community largely came to the city after various dubious immigration policies ended in the '60s. Some of these immigrants contributed to Toronto’s hip hop, reggae, rocksteady, soul and funk scenes since the late ‘60s: including Jackie Mittoo and veterans of the Studio One and Trojan labels. Today the legacy continues with people like Kardinal Offishall, Canada's premier hip hop artist, who brings reggae roots into his beats.

Speaking of roots & beets (bada boom!), of course the West Indian community also brought with them some culinary fiyah. Albert Wiggon came to Toronto the mid 1970s, first as a factory worker, but by age 18 saving profit to open up his own business and practise the kitchen secrets taught him by his mother. His restaurant on St. Clair Avenue West spawned the smaller branch on Queen West West.

Albert's was the spot generally recommended to us by Torontonians of Jamaican descent. For me the allspiced rice 'n' peas and oxtail gravy (always ask for extra!) outshone the actual chicken, which was juicy and falling off the bone (island-style), but we should have got spicier (there's hotsauce on the counter).

Albert's also got the thumbs up from the New Yorkers who were in town. It was from Harlem-based DJ/writer Chairman Mao that I learned how to order the ultimate late night drunk food: a patty (or two, if you're a boy) on coco bread.

Jamaicans.com says

Ah, a warm, buttered piece of coco bread and a sandy beach... no one could ask for much more than that."

Fair enough, if eating a soft, white oversize hamburger bun on the beach is what you're into. And if that's your ting, along with your patty-on-coco-bread, you drink a bottle of grapefruit flavoured -yes - Ting.

The spicy meaty warmth of the patty and its pie-like suet pastry shell, the fluffiness of the bread soaking up the spice and the juice, the sting of the ting, combine to make it a late night drunken treat par excellence. And it's not bad by daylight either.

(Here is a recipe for a vegan version of patties with coco bread).





Next time we're in the vicinity of Albert's, I hope to try an oxtail dinner with caramelized plantain, salt-cod fritters, gongo-pea soup and dumplings with gravy.


Albert's Real Jamaican Foods

542 St Clair Avenue West
Toronto - (416) 658-9445

558 Queen Street West (tell the cab driver Queen and Bathurst)
Toronto, ON M5V 2B5, Canada
(416) 304-0767