Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Alex went pale and called for milk, yoghurt and anthing else available to stop the burning

WATCH

Why even bother, when you know Manuel Quiroz is king

Fire is all around you in a kicthen and after a few years of cooking you start to feel comfortable with being constantly burnt in your work space.

When something catches on fire in a kitchen most of the time you are pretty nonchalant about it.

Today we had a refresher course on fire safety at the work place. "Thai style" of course, which usually means a ton of fun.




I think from the photos below it is easy to work out who are the cooks. Who seem to have a "thing" for fire and have seen many a young apprentice chef throw water into a wok filled with burning oil.

And those who are office workers who wish that they really didn't have to work around people who like to set things on fire.




























Thanks to the Bangkok Fire Department for an entertaing few hours.

They seemed to enjoy themselves too. Once the realized that they had met a group of people who love fire nearly as much as they do.

I can't say I learnt much other than you can actually light a gas tank directly, which seems like fun.

If you have that bourgeois, obsessive-compulsive habit of photographing food, no doubt you've also accidentally collected quite a few shots of people caught in the act of stuffing their faces. Hence: the Hand to Mouth series. Gut Feelings members, I heartily invite you to add your own.

And in the interests of bringing myself down a peg or two, I present:


#1: Chewing ribs in Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand.

At this yearly Dachshund get together, it's a fashion that'll never go out of style. No doubt - if I had a dachshund I'd make it wear that suit all the time.

Chongqing spicy hotpot is slowly becoming a standard fixture in Australasia Chinatowns thanks in most part to the recent influx of Mainlanders and their national obsession with Sichuan cooking. It's not all wonton noodle soup anymore baby.

In Sydney, go to Shancheng Hotpot King on Sussex St in Chinatown and join the queue. Once you get a table, order the half chicken half spicy and go for mild. Trust me. Even if you do usually live in Bangkok, once the 'medium spicy' reduces down it becomes so achingly hot that all you can do is used droplets of it to season the mild chicken side.

On arrival tick the boxes of the plates of raw food you want to add to your boiling cauldron. The list is badly translated so you might want to use your powers of deduction (I guessed correctly that by "taste mushroom" they meant shitake). Pretty much every type of edible offal is available and then some.



Order the Shancheng special sauce and a couple of other dipping sauces like the seafood and sesame and garlic. One of each should suffice for a group of four.



We ordered too much and the bill came to 33.00 bucks per person including a couple of beers.

8a/363 Sussex St
Haymarket
Open 7 days 11:30am -12:00am
phone: 02 9267 6366

Most days I cycle the 400 meters to work. This short trip always takes me past my local grilled meat dealer, often I will be tempted to pick up a few assorted sticks to chow on for a linner snack. What is impressive about this particular vendor is his dedication to quality, he does not sell the processed shit that most of the other hawkers pass off for grilled goodies in my neighbourhood, obviously it takes time and effort to do the butchery, prepare the marinades, sauces etc. This dedication to quality has paid off. Initially business was slow as the narrow soi is low on foot traffic but over the year that I have been working in Bangkok and making this daily commute I have noticed that day after day business has slowly picked up and now there is a constant stream of moto drivers and other customers (yes mostly men) who drop by for their meat fix. Masta Grilla (as I like to refer to him) and his smoky charcoal stand has become so popular that much to my amusement other vendors have now tried to cash in on his trade by setting up stands next to his but with little success.
Today was a first for me in that Masta Grilla was open when I was travelling homeward bound (I slipped out early from work as the kitchen crew seemed to have everything under control) so I grabbed a chicken wing, some gizzards and a few livers and headed to the pool on the roof of my apartment. This plus some street corn and a Phuket beer made for an indulgent afternoon snack.

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

While browsing through this site's tracked google referrals for the first time, I came across this essay on the bubbling resentment of straight-up Korean kimchi makers towards Japanese manufacturers, who apparently now dominate global kimchi exports.

I became quite taken with the Japanese version of kimchi when I lived there – it's very easy to eat, very more-ish. It is more likely to resemble the milder forms of Korean kimchi, and often has a slight sweetness, which seems to be taken as an affront to Kimchi purists. Now I discover from the above article that Japanese kimchi is often (shock) not fermented!

Koreans want to impose an international Kimchi standard, which in line with the national Korean saying, should perhaps entail stickers saying "tastes like your mother's fingertips".

Explosive Attributes

Exporting large volumes of such a volatile substance as Kimchi must be dangerous though: we sometimes buy aluminium bags of white kimchi from a korean/Japanese market in Duesseldorf, which contain sachets of a fume-absorbing substance. Once one of these sachets malfunctioned and with trepidation we decided to pierce the dangerously ballooning aluminium bag, taut from all those fermentation gases. Luckily the bag did not explode all over the kitchen, but you can imagine the wonderful odor that clung to us for the rest of the day: "she must be wearing Impulse". Inner energy aptly describes a contained kimchi gaseous cloud.

Like other pickles/preserves, Korean-style Kimchi can be eaten at varying degrees of fermentation (for example, it can be eaten within hours or even seconds after first salting it). However, the longer you leave it alone, the more it is going to ferment – which means that any contained vessel of true Kimchi will attain explosive attributes if it sits on the shelf for long enough.

Recently I've been experimenting with making my own Kimchi - it's quite miraculous how such a simple preparation can yield such complex flavours. I've found that I enjoy quite a mild preparation with a shitload of garlic and spring onions, eaten while still at the crunchier end of the sliminess spectrum.

You can make kimchi with all kinds of vegetables, from cucumbers to soy bean sprouts to radish, turnip etc.

Kimchi Lineage

The fermentation process is important though, to produce the probiotic qualities of true kimchi. Kimchi, like German sauerkraut, is descended from Chinese kimchi, which was cabbage fermented in rice wine. According to one site, it was eaten about 2000 years ago by the men who were building the Great Wall of China.

According to some sources, sauerkraut owes its origins to Genghis Kahn, who after plundering the Chinese brought the recipe for Ji or Kimchi to Eastern Europe. The Europeans eliminated the rice wine and used salt to ferment. A century or two later, the introduction of red pepper to Korea by Spanish and Portuguese traders (at roughly the same time it was introduced to China and Japan), in the 17th century, brought a major innovation to kimchi and to the Korean diet in general. Maybe we should put down our weapons and accept that it's one big global kimchi party.

Rotten Probiotics

Most store-bought sauerkraut I've eaten in Germany does not have the riper fermented attributes of store-bought korean kimchi, so one would assume, it contains less probiotic substances.

Of course, one could make kimchi at home and eat it before it ferments. In general though, korean kimchi made from cabbage seems to be more volatile than Sauerkraut when packaged on the supermarket shelves.

Here's what thenibble.com says about the probiotic qualities of pickled cabbage – as you'll see, there's also some controversy over what consitutes real sauerkraut:

"Whether it’s sauerkraut in Germany, kimchi in Asia (especially Korea), cortido or curtido in Central America, or choucroute in France, fermented cabbage is consumed wherever cabbage itself can be grown. A head of cabbage can be sliced before fermentation, but it may also be left whole. Unlike probiotic-containing foods that start from a dairy base, cabbage does not need bacteria added to it to begin the fermentation process. All you need to add, in fact, is salt (the addition of vinegar is looked upon with contempt by makers of “true” sauerkraut, who declare that it’s used only by those who don’t take the time to go through a full fermentation process and want a cheap and quick way to achieve acidity). With the correct level of salinity (about 1.5%) and at a proper temperature (temperature is important to every fermentation process–just ask your local brewer!), the cabbage will ferment. Several different bacteria will be at work during this process, as you might expect, and those bacteria change as the acidity of the brine surrounding the cabbage increases. The most commonly cited probiotic associated with sauerkraut is Lactobacillus plantarum. Many fermented cabbage products commercially available have been pasteurized; such treatment with heat will destroy any friendly bacteria.

If fermentation was not halted, the sauerkraut containers would swell or explode; (...) any active fermentation process will produce gases. The preservative sodium benzoate, often added to sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables, will also kill friendly bacteria. Any of these brands (or any others) must be in refrigerated form if you’re looking for live cultures, and check the label to make sure no sodium benzoate has been added."

I have checked out the supermarket-available brands of sauerkraut here in Germany and most do contain additives. We have had a foil package of sauerkraut (the own-brand from the organic store Biomarkt) in the bottom of our fridge - and the ingredients are listed as only white cabbage and salt. But that packet has been sitting in our fridge forever and it has not swollen, even a little bit. In fact the date stamp says it will be good until March 2009...which means a shelf life of approximately 2 years?? That organic sauerkraut simply must've been pasteurised in some way shape or form...

Sleeping with the enemy

Getting back to the taste of kimchi, rather than the funkiness- or healthiness-quotient: when a trip to Duesseldorf for a dangerous, smelly pottle of store-bought fermented kimchi is not possible, and I haven't had the time to chop up soya sprouts, daikon, cabbage leaves and salt them and mix them with chilli powder and garlic, we rely on a gas-free Japanese brand of 'kimchi base' sauce. Rather like the 'Heinz ketchup' variety of kimchi, it keeps well in the fridge and can be utilised to make instant kimchi-flavoured chopped cucumbers, crunchy but pungent and delicious when eaten with good short grain rice. A very satisfying meal in itself, and also excellent with Japanese-style burgers. The base of course is also great added to hot pots and so on.

Turns out I quite like the flavour of artificial food additives, citric acid and xanthan gum.

Most days staff meals can be a touch painful

Let's be brief shall we....Yuu Yakiniku Restaurant, Bangkok

below are sneaky photos

Told off by waiters for taking photos

Jokes were told about what an original idea yakiniku is....

Waitresses dressed like Bellhops

otherwise just your standard every day yakiniku

with extra chili for Thai people

fresh, beansprout salad is good, so are the eringi mushrooms, not too expensive..except for the shiso leaves

Sukhimvit Soi 31 and Thonglor Soi 13

For about 3 years my father has been promising to take me to his favourite duck noodle stall in St Louis, Bangkok.

So he finally came around and picked me up. We drove there only to find the shop closed.

St Louis is very much a Thai neighbourhood around the back of Sathorn area and is worth checking out, especially at lunch time

We missed the duck noodles but we did find some mighty fine fish ball noodles, much better than your average Thai fish ball noodles found well, pretty much everywhere...




Cute lane and chinese temple in St Louis


anyway, Hock and I have decided that Bangkok needs a TV show reveiwing the best street food the city has to offer, where people can call in and offer up their recommendations....Singapore hs such a show, I think it's time that Bangkok celebrates its humble cuisine too

When I posted about this great Isaan restaurant deep in the Thai suburbs.

I forgot to include photos - so here they are...

The restauranteur is a big Liverpool fan, thus the table cloths....

Som Tum


Salt Baked Fresh Water Fish


Which they serve with this delicious and morish chili sauce


Duck Larb


Ubiquitous Thai BBQ Prawns


Achingly Hot Lemon Grass Salad


Isaan BBQ Chicken....mmmmmmmmmmmm


Isaan BBQ chicken is one of my favourite dishes....it's pretty easy to do at home, but you need a scrawny chicken that is full of flavour, not a big fat roasting chicken that you get in most western supermarkets

once you find your scrawny chicken, marinade it in fish sauce, garlic, coriander root, and white pepper.

and then serve with a dipping sauce made of the following ingredients

Dry roasted (with both fresh lime leaf and galangal) and then crushed sticky rice
chili powder
spring onion
shallots minced
fish sauce
lime juice
chicken powder (nitnoy meaning little bit)
sugar (nitnoy)
water (nitnoy)

Following on from DJ Han Baby's culinary brilliance, behold 'my mexican lunch' bought to you by The Brunettes front babe Heather Mansfield. Who wants to throw tv's out the hotel window when you could watch it while eating this - 5 stars to H-Bomb!

Been fantasising lately about the killer Egg Sambal I used to get as a teen in Wellington (where Cuba St is to burning chilli & roti takeaways what Brick Lane is to tikka masala or vindaloo delites). Then I moved away and not sure what happened to that restaurant. Sounds like KK and Satay Kajang are the new kids on the block these days in Wellingtown.
For some reason Malaysia's erstwhile national dish, coconut rice, was never offered, but having heard about it from Han, I found a recipe online and will share it at the bottom of this post. I also took a recipe for dry egg sambal and beefed it up to approximate the nostalgic sambal I remember from my gory days, using onions, fresh tomatoes etc, and will post that soon. It worked. Yums!

Who better though to consult about the tang & the bang in Malaysian cuisine, than dj Han Baby?
Han Baby is well known in Auckland's shady ghetto-fabulous electro bass underworld as the ying to the Coco Solid pu-yangy, tuff on the outside but soft-hearted &creamy like coconut rice on the inside. He granted a rare interview divulging his fatty rice expertise.



What do real gangstas eat in KL?

Well, it's been years since i've been hustlin in KL, so i can't
really speak for the johnny-come-latelys, but back in the day, we
would eat anything. it kinda depends on the crew that you're bangin
with, really. as u know, malaysia is made up of 3 main races, the
malays, the chinese and the indians. so it goes with the turf, but a
multi-cultural OG like me run with all bangers. when i'm with my
malay boys, we're hitting the warongs (warong=malay for foodstall)
for satay (meat skewers, super delicious, but not like the ones u get
in western countries, it's smaller and grilled on charcoal before u,
and u have with peanut sauce) and ketupat (rice dumpling wrapped in
woven palm leaf pouch, very cute and kampong(village)-like, u also
have with peanut sauce). when i'm with my indian brothers, we're
kickin it at the local mamak (malay/indian mix foodstall) where u can
have all manner of rotis (roti=malaysian-style bread) with your
favourite curries. when i'm with my cousins, u can find us at 24-hour
yum chars talkin shit about other chinese families. it's totally ok
to cross turfs but u need to know people of the race turf so others
won't wanna pick a fight with u. the malays don't normally eat at
chinese establishments cos we eat pork and that's against islamic
beliefs.

Where can u get the best nasi lemak in Malaysia?

Boy, u got me thinkin. But my favourite has to be the joint in
senibong. senibong is a coastal village close to where i grew up in
johor bahru, by the straits looking onto singapore island. like most
coastal villages, there are many restaurants/collection of foodstalls
that are built on wood out to sea (can't remember word for it) where
u walk a length of wooden planks and eat out at sea. here u will find
cheap awesome food of all varieties. the straits is really dirty on
malaysian side so it's not really a tourist destination, only locals
go there. everytime i go back, i go with my best mate G to eat there.
they make the best nasi lemak i've ever tasted and so humble too. as
you're eating it, you're thinkin, "this must be what they serve in
heaven". you are high.

Here's a photo i found of us eating there, on the right is pot (G's
brother, G took the photo).



Does Nasi Lemak really mean rice with fat?

Literally, rice=nasi and lemak=fat (not verb, but actual food fat).
as u know, it's rice cooked in coconut milk, traditionally high in
fat, therefore, it's known affectionately as fatty rice.

Do u cook with that Belacan [shrimp paste] stuff in NZ?

Wow, how did you know about belacan? it's like the malaysian secret to
super awesome flavour. i must kill u.
ps. no i don't cos i'm too lame, but i frequent many places that do
in nz. pretty good too, i hook u up.

Where is the best malaysian food u have had in NZ?

Mang, ur asking some toughies. but i gotta go with kk on manukau road
in auckland. they cook awesome penang-style food (chinese). and when
you're there, u gotta order the kk special eggplant. it's eggplant
with (u guessed it!) belacan! best in nz i've had so by far. in fact,
i just had it the other day. this chick asked me out to dins and said
she wanted some malaysian, to which i replied, "are u coming on to me?"
ps. i didn't hear a "no".

What is the most gangsta-hot malaysian dish and what are the side effects?

Most malaysian dishes are hot to begin with, but u can always request
it to be made extra pedas (HOT!) and kick your party into overdrive.
side effects include driving your shit crazy and wishing u could live
life this much to the max all the time.

What wheels do gangsters drive in KL?

The last time i was back, the city was overrun by motorcycle gangs.
they be driving down the highway in the dozens, and i'm not talkin
harleys here, these are bad boy 120cc bikes terrorizing cars and
trucks and the like. these days though, u will probably find these
road warriors on a different highway, the information superhighway
(internet), such as u and your gang of misfits on your blog.
ps. everyone gets real flashy with their rides, but we're ghetto so
we just drive G's dad's car. whichever one has more petrol.

What is a hardcore malaysian diss?

"Pukimak" is a common malaysian one, it's means your mother's pussy,
kinda like "(fuck your) mother's pussy". the chinese say "kan ni na",
which literally means "fuck your mother's pussy". if you're in
berzerk mode, u say "cau cibai" (even the malays know this one),
which means "(your mother's) smelly cunt". seems like mums get a bit
of a beatdown in these parts eh.

What is the most common liquor in Malaysia for gangsters?

U know what, i can't stand drinkin beer in malaysia, but can't get
enough of it in nz. maybe it's the weather or somethin, but hard
liquor is the shit in malaysia. i love whiskey and johnny walker is
very popular. not just among the kids but also with business men at
karaoke bars. they be shy and shit but after a few drinks, they're
belting out their favourite ol-skool jams in front of everyone.
shameless.
ps. good luck with your cooking and all the best to your culinary
journey.

Matterhorn Top of the World



April 2007


Matterhorn is releasing the panthers again after being named one of the Top Bars in the World. The Wellington bar of iniquity was judged Number 5 in Bartender magazines inaugural World’s Top 20 Bars in the World.

The only New Zealand bar to be recognised by an international panel of judges and mixxologists. The judges, two of whom placed Matterhorn in the Top Spot, commented that ‘It’s a bastion of creativity and bar culture in NZ and has led the way for many years”.

The number one spot for the Top Bar awards in the world went to Milk & Honey in London, followed Salvatore at Fifty, London; The American Bar, London; Bayswater Brasserie, Sydney and our very own Matterhorn, Wellington.

In 2006, Matterhorn was crowned Best Bar in New Zealand and won Best Drink Selection at the inaugural New Zealand Bar Awards, also judged by Bartender magazine.

Founded in 1963 by Swiss immigrants as a coffee house, Matterhorn was taken over by the current owners ten years ago. Hidden down a long corridor in Cuba Street, Matterhorn prides itself as a 'regulars’ restaurant, cocktail bar and day café with a vibe that is loved by both locals and travellers who can seek out a good thing.

This week's food song, is the song I always sing in my head as I regret the previous evenings scorchingly hot Thai meal.

Most painful is the days after having eaten here.



It is my favourite Isaan restaurant in Bangkok. Isaan is the poorest region of Thailand, but it is also in my books, the yummiest. If you like larb, the Thai spicy salad made with ground chicken, beef, duck, or pork - then you like isaan food. Other famous Isaan dishes are: bbq chicken with spicy roasted rice chili, salt baked fish, and som tum (papaya salad), all served of course with sticky rice.




If you are ever in Bangkok, print off this card and show it to a taxi driver. By any luck you will be driven deep into the Thai suburbs. Before you journey too deeply along the congested suburban highways and into the territories of Thailand's burgeoning middle class suburban fantasies and gated communities, you should hit a main road that is dominated with enourmous towering restaurant/beer gardens. Most of the architecture will be a type of faux log cabin, with flashing neon crabs and fish rather than neon cowboys signs. At some point you will get to a roundabout and near to this roundabout is a small restaurant. It's not much to look at but the food is outrageously good. There is absolutely no english and no english speakers work there. But there are photos and so you can point and gesture to your mouth. I usually go with my Dad for fear of getting lost. Once my Thai improves (I start lessons this week) I'll be braving the traffic alone. It's a meal worth crossing town for (so long as you have nothing much to do the next day but stay close to a bathroom and hum quietly in your head "and I went down down down in a burning ring of fire")


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