Ben: Rosa is soon to leave these shores, for a brighter, less expensive future in Grenada. The place, rather than the television station, I imagine...
This is sad.
So, there may be a slight dip in form for this blog, recent winner of the blogesphere blog of blog awards for single best blog. But don't worry dedicated viewer (debated about putting plural, decided against it), the mission has only just begun.
If there's one thing I've learned about eating, its that its not just lunch, dinner or breakfast, its for life. The Paris chapter may be coming to a close, (for her at least, I'm never leaving!) but new, even more exciting tomes have only just begun. Like in the Lord of the Rings and that.
So, Frodo, and other fruity dwarves, don't be glum. The future's bright, the future's fat.
bargf
they didn't let me do art gcse
vendredi 6 février 2009
mardi 27 janvier 2009
Some people are dim
Me and Ruth had a conversation that went like this
Ruth: Why do you keep you apples in the fridge? [This was not an innuendo]
Me: Because it stops them from being floury.
Ruth: Why would you want to stop that? [At this point I stare at Ruth who is a vegan and want to rub my fur hat on her]
Me: What do you mean, Ruth? Are you crazy and disgusting?
Ruth: There's a certain red apple that is nice when it is fluffy on the inside.
Oh my god, I want to be sick. I tell her that she is definitely crazy and disgusting and that this kind kind of apple is a Crapple. And that when a braeburn is involved, it is a brae-burn's victim. The worst culprit is Golden so-unDelicious if i was that apple's mother I would give it up for adoption.
A bad apple - a crapple - it ruins my week. Sometimes I wonder if apples are worth the risk. They are, but it's a close call.
Ruth: Why do you keep you apples in the fridge? [This was not an innuendo]
Me: Because it stops them from being floury.
Ruth: Why would you want to stop that? [At this point I stare at Ruth who is a vegan and want to rub my fur hat on her]
Me: What do you mean, Ruth? Are you crazy and disgusting?
Ruth: There's a certain red apple that is nice when it is fluffy on the inside.
Oh my god, I want to be sick. I tell her that she is definitely crazy and disgusting and that this kind kind of apple is a Crapple. And that when a braeburn is involved, it is a brae-burn's victim. The worst culprit is Golden so-unDelicious if i was that apple's mother I would give it up for adoption.
A bad apple - a crapple - it ruins my week. Sometimes I wonder if apples are worth the risk. They are, but it's a close call.
lundi 19 janvier 2009
Chop my sushi, not my tushy; Dicing with death at Planet Stabby
The other night I went to Planet Sushi. It had been on my mind since that morning, when I had read about it on the metro. Direct Matin, page 2; some bloke had teefed some sushi recipes from the Place Monge branch. The entire restaurant team had chased him down the road. An overexicted sous chef had bought a knife, probably just to waggle at a safe, but menacing distance. But you know how it be, things got heated and - maki's-your-futo roll - Mr Recipe Thief was stabbed. To death. The Japanese don't take sushi lightly. And this is what I like about them.
I'm not sure if it's the same for the others but Planet Sushi on Rue Montorgeuil is a bit Jordan and Peter, season 1. Light pink satin drapings, pearlised lights; I kind of expected pot pourri. It's also more expensive than other sushi restaurants. But don't - do not - let this tempt you to steal. They will stab you. Anyway, there is a reason for the higher prices: kidney-sized cashew nuts, and soft, smokey grapes for nibbles. With FREE toothpicks to eat them with. And also, also, they do things like sushi with lettuce rather than rice!! No carbs! Waaaaaay cooooool... if you're a dicknose.
I had a punchy cabbage salad and the japan roll; 10 rounds of rice which had somersaulted through avocado and salmon and tuna and omelette. There was cream cheese in there too, but not enough; a few dashes of soy and my spheres crumbled like the Berlin wall. Zara, however, (one of my Ben surrogates for the evening) went for salmon sushi... deep fried. Good girl; there's a reason fried and friend are so similar. She said she loved it more than her boyfriend. A chessboard of mixed tempura, and teriyaki salmon also looked like they'd be up for a laugh, but I didn't try them so I wouldn't like to comment. The wine was nice. Grapey. Like the grapes. I see what they did there.
Of note - perhaps soon in Direct Matin - was a strange, dry-skinned man who was "guarding" the toilets, although I don't think that was his job and I don't think he was supposed to be there or take such an interest in our toilet activities. He was nearly as scary as Zara's Metro Hat (MH) - a thinsulate number designed to deter gangs such as Gare du Nord Massif and Def Mafia. Normally she is very pretty but it made her look like Philbert, the senegalese boy from my French class.
This blog entry would not be complete without a shout out to the other diners. In the left corner, the two-meal tempura temptress, Natalie Willans; and in the right, put your hands together for the girl who spent most time alone in the bogs with the dry-skinned perve: Asana Greenstreet. New to Paris and about to buy her very own Metro Hat...
I'm not sure if it's the same for the others but Planet Sushi on Rue Montorgeuil is a bit Jordan and Peter, season 1. Light pink satin drapings, pearlised lights; I kind of expected pot pourri. It's also more expensive than other sushi restaurants. But don't - do not - let this tempt you to steal. They will stab you. Anyway, there is a reason for the higher prices: kidney-sized cashew nuts, and soft, smokey grapes for nibbles. With FREE toothpicks to eat them with. And also, also, they do things like sushi with lettuce rather than rice!! No carbs! Waaaaaay cooooool... if you're a dicknose.
I had a punchy cabbage salad and the japan roll; 10 rounds of rice which had somersaulted through avocado and salmon and tuna and omelette. There was cream cheese in there too, but not enough; a few dashes of soy and my spheres crumbled like the Berlin wall. Zara, however, (one of my Ben surrogates for the evening) went for salmon sushi... deep fried. Good girl; there's a reason fried and friend are so similar. She said she loved it more than her boyfriend. A chessboard of mixed tempura, and teriyaki salmon also looked like they'd be up for a laugh, but I didn't try them so I wouldn't like to comment. The wine was nice. Grapey. Like the grapes. I see what they did there.
Of note - perhaps soon in Direct Matin - was a strange, dry-skinned man who was "guarding" the toilets, although I don't think that was his job and I don't think he was supposed to be there or take such an interest in our toilet activities. He was nearly as scary as Zara's Metro Hat (MH) - a thinsulate number designed to deter gangs such as Gare du Nord Massif and Def Mafia. Normally she is very pretty but it made her look like Philbert, the senegalese boy from my French class.
This blog entry would not be complete without a shout out to the other diners. In the left corner, the two-meal tempura temptress, Natalie Willans; and in the right, put your hands together for the girl who spent most time alone in the bogs with the dry-skinned perve: Asana Greenstreet. New to Paris and about to buy her very own Metro Hat...
mardi 16 décembre 2008
Christophe; brains on rue Descartes
Beige, beige. Beige.
Rosa: Lunch started so well. Ben had been listening to Biggie on the metro, and I was stoked with cold parisian air and felt high as a kite. I should have known something was wrong when I saw the font chosen by Christophe. Very curly. I think it's called Curlz Desdemona. Anyway, it's what year 8s use for their first essay. And it was orange on green. Bit Irish for me.
I should have appreciated them more because these were the only bright colours I saw chez Christophe. We plumped for the 2 course luncheon for 16 euros. Both of us took the cream of lentil soup. To be fair, it fulfilled that soupy stereotpye of being a hug in a bowl. It was essentially double cream which had met a lentil on the street once and said 'hi' but didn't really even shake hands. But there was a porridgey element to it, which was important to me because porridge is important to me. I set up a group dedicated to it on a cool social networking site called Facebook. It is called PAN, which is clever because it stands for Porridge Appreciation network AND, unless you use that sachet shit, you normally need a pan to cook porridge. I'm not sure how I came up with it. Anwayz, back to our friend Christophe: his bread was copious and excellent, the burnt edges had a woody raisin tang to them.
Grey was understandable for lentil soup because lentils are grey and it wouldnt do to jazz them up with food dye. A quenelle of something bright like beetroot wouldn't have gone visually a miss though, but whatevs. Forgive and forget. But then the mains came out. Not only was mine - mackeral fillets on seigle spaghetti - the colour of a Velib, so was Ben's. No flotsam of salad, or jetsam of punchy sauce. Just Velib grey; stoney, steel, sad.
My main was alright. Mackeral is very fishy, I forget this. The pasta was wet with something that wasn't sauce. I think it may have just been water. Salty water atleast - kind of like the sea that the mackeral had come from - so it was not strictly unpleasant. But it didn't leave me wanting to write poetry, or even dance.
Most importantly, Ben had brain. For me, it was like loose, wet souffle.
Ben: Oh man.
I'd heard good things about this place. I'd read about it in Gourmet, see, which has a special place in my heart. Where some needy children steal their mother's Vogue, I would store copies of my dear ma's Gourmet. I'd intercept the delivery, grab the mag, and run like buggery to sift through those silken pages. Such vivid memories. Probably cuz I last did it a month ago. Ran like an excited school girl to sift through the pages, nearly broke the sofa as I belly flopped onto it.
This was one special Gourmet, a Paris issue all about inexpensive restaurants. And guess who happened to be there, Christophe and his brand of hearty, traditional French fare, with a twist. That twist happened to be brain.
I chose it, I ate it, I ingested 400% of my daily cholesterol (http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-veal-brain-i17190 ). And it wasn't really that bad, at first. But then that mushy, gloopy texture just took over, and the crust started peeling and you could see the individual brain bits. And the thing about brain is that it looks like brain.
So I ate it, and finished it, and wont be having it again. That lentil soup was good mind.
To end, a few words from Biggie:
" When it comes to sex, I'm similar to the thriller in Manila
Honeys call me Bigga the condom filler
Whether it's stiff tongue or stiff dick
Biggie squeeze it to make shit fit"
Couldn't put it better myself.
Rosa: Lunch started so well. Ben had been listening to Biggie on the metro, and I was stoked with cold parisian air and felt high as a kite. I should have known something was wrong when I saw the font chosen by Christophe. Very curly. I think it's called Curlz Desdemona. Anyway, it's what year 8s use for their first essay. And it was orange on green. Bit Irish for me.
I should have appreciated them more because these were the only bright colours I saw chez Christophe. We plumped for the 2 course luncheon for 16 euros. Both of us took the cream of lentil soup. To be fair, it fulfilled that soupy stereotpye of being a hug in a bowl. It was essentially double cream which had met a lentil on the street once and said 'hi' but didn't really even shake hands. But there was a porridgey element to it, which was important to me because porridge is important to me. I set up a group dedicated to it on a cool social networking site called Facebook. It is called PAN, which is clever because it stands for Porridge Appreciation network AND, unless you use that sachet shit, you normally need a pan to cook porridge. I'm not sure how I came up with it. Anwayz, back to our friend Christophe: his bread was copious and excellent, the burnt edges had a woody raisin tang to them.
Grey was understandable for lentil soup because lentils are grey and it wouldnt do to jazz them up with food dye. A quenelle of something bright like beetroot wouldn't have gone visually a miss though, but whatevs. Forgive and forget. But then the mains came out. Not only was mine - mackeral fillets on seigle spaghetti - the colour of a Velib, so was Ben's. No flotsam of salad, or jetsam of punchy sauce. Just Velib grey; stoney, steel, sad.
My main was alright. Mackeral is very fishy, I forget this. The pasta was wet with something that wasn't sauce. I think it may have just been water. Salty water atleast - kind of like the sea that the mackeral had come from - so it was not strictly unpleasant. But it didn't leave me wanting to write poetry, or even dance.
Most importantly, Ben had brain. For me, it was like loose, wet souffle.
Ben: Oh man.
I'd heard good things about this place. I'd read about it in Gourmet, see, which has a special place in my heart. Where some needy children steal their mother's Vogue, I would store copies of my dear ma's Gourmet. I'd intercept the delivery, grab the mag, and run like buggery to sift through those silken pages. Such vivid memories. Probably cuz I last did it a month ago. Ran like an excited school girl to sift through the pages, nearly broke the sofa as I belly flopped onto it.
This was one special Gourmet, a Paris issue all about inexpensive restaurants. And guess who happened to be there, Christophe and his brand of hearty, traditional French fare, with a twist. That twist happened to be brain.
I chose it, I ate it, I ingested 400% of my daily cholesterol (http://caloriecount.about.
So I ate it, and finished it, and wont be having it again. That lentil soup was good mind.
To end, a few words from Biggie:
" When it comes to sex, I'm similar to the thriller in Manila
Honeys call me Bigga the condom filler
Whether it's stiff tongue or stiff dick
Biggie squeeze it to make shit fit"
Couldn't put it better myself.
lundi 15 décembre 2008
Le Vieux Cèdre; my local hero for my Year Abroad essay
Rosa: Ahmad and Wakim, as I will call them for now until I research their real names, are the best men in the 5th arrondisement, maybe all of Paris.
They run, and live in, I think, a 9M2 sandwicherie booth which sells superb Lebanese fare. I will add pictures (not the dodge ones of me and Wakim though, don't worry Mum!)
Ben: I had the kofta, it looked like a turd. The anemic chicken, in the most positive sense, that Rosa had was much better. They give free tea and baklava though, so I'm a fan!
They run, and live in, I think, a 9M2 sandwicherie booth which sells superb Lebanese fare. I will add pictures (not the dodge ones of me and Wakim though, don't worry Mum!)
Ben: I had the kofta, it looked like a turd. The anemic chicken, in the most positive sense, that Rosa had was much better. They give free tea and baklava though, so I'm a fan!
Le Pré Verre; wine at lunch makes you send effusive emails
Rosa: Team Meat went to Le Pré Verre to celebrate Obama's victory. O-bama O-bama O. Black is back.
We sat downstairs which is less atmospheric, but the waiter man if I remember correctly was very tall and accommodating.
The French wazz on about rapport qualité-prix. This place has a great rapport. Lunch time - 2 courses, good red wine and a jet-engine coffee - 13 fiddy. Nice.
Except the starter is parsley soup. I hate the parsley, man. In Mexico they sprinkled that shit on everything. Or was it coriander? Anyway, I hate them both. Crap leaves.
Instead I got a bean terrine, on an olive oiled-up salad. Terrine is a funny old technique but I liked this because there was none of that gelatine stuff. Regarding the bean, it was kidney.
Then we had brandade de morue (Cod). Oh it was like baby food in the best possible way. Stodgy, moist, copious. It reminded me of when I used to order a full english and cut it all up into little pieces and blend it all together with my fork and eat it like that. I adddddored it. And I adored the brandade. It was so filling, Leah was felled and I got to finish hers. I love weak women who leave stuff for the stronger brethren.
We drank the wine we were given and also the wine given to a Chinese couple who didn't touch it. I am not one to drink it the day so I was very merry. And when I got to work I sent an email to a woman I had never spoken to using the word 'love' and a lot of exclamation marks. And then I studiously avoided her eye. Nice.
We sat downstairs which is less atmospheric, but the waiter man if I remember correctly was very tall and accommodating.
The French wazz on about rapport qualité-prix. This place has a great rapport. Lunch time - 2 courses, good red wine and a jet-engine coffee - 13 fiddy. Nice.
Except the starter is parsley soup. I hate the parsley, man. In Mexico they sprinkled that shit on everything. Or was it coriander? Anyway, I hate them both. Crap leaves.
Instead I got a bean terrine, on an olive oiled-up salad. Terrine is a funny old technique but I liked this because there was none of that gelatine stuff. Regarding the bean, it was kidney.
Then we had brandade de morue (Cod). Oh it was like baby food in the best possible way. Stodgy, moist, copious. It reminded me of when I used to order a full english and cut it all up into little pieces and blend it all together with my fork and eat it like that. I adddddored it. And I adored the brandade. It was so filling, Leah was felled and I got to finish hers. I love weak women who leave stuff for the stronger brethren.
We drank the wine we were given and also the wine given to a Chinese couple who didn't touch it. I am not one to drink it the day so I was very merry. And when I got to work I sent an email to a woman I had never spoken to using the word 'love' and a lot of exclamation marks. And then I studiously avoided her eye. Nice.
Le Loup dans le Théière; the most gargantuan lemon meringue pie in the history of eggs
"We missed our spot you dorks" Kir-Royale 2008, queue-er extraordinaire.
Ben: I really enjoyed this meal.
Good food, good people, good times.
My ol' mucker Lewis was in town, and we'd been raving it up the night before, getting lashed and lairy and ripping shit up, and the like. Pretty standard really.
We were to meet the ol' gang for breakfast, which soon turned to lunch as we didn't wake up til late as we're such heroes, lash heroes that is.
We also had to go to monop so that Lewis could get a towel. He chose a lovely number with a bear holding a heart. I still have the towel to this day, though I gave it a proper wash mind....
So we met Rosa and Ciara and the delightful Jimmy in the marais for some eats. And it was good. Nothing spectacular, but a nice convivial atmosphere for friends, and not so much friends, to talk and act like they like each other. Which we did. I think.
What we ate isn't as important as the atmosphere, a rich, velvety bonhomie, like veal stock or lentil soup. Incidentally, I order lentils, with some sausage and onions, and I enjoyed it. The girls (who else...) then ordered a lemon meringue pie that struggled with its own weight. Poor fella.
Ben: I really enjoyed this meal.
Good food, good people, good times.
My ol' mucker Lewis was in town, and we'd been raving it up the night before, getting lashed and lairy and ripping shit up, and the like. Pretty standard really.
We were to meet the ol' gang for breakfast, which soon turned to lunch as we didn't wake up til late as we're such heroes, lash heroes that is.
We also had to go to monop so that Lewis could get a towel. He chose a lovely number with a bear holding a heart. I still have the towel to this day, though I gave it a proper wash mind....
So we met Rosa and Ciara and the delightful Jimmy in the marais for some eats. And it was good. Nothing spectacular, but a nice convivial atmosphere for friends, and not so much friends, to talk and act like they like each other. Which we did. I think.
What we ate isn't as important as the atmosphere, a rich, velvety bonhomie, like veal stock or lentil soup. Incidentally, I order lentils, with some sausage and onions, and I enjoyed it. The girls (who else...) then ordered a lemon meringue pie that struggled with its own weight. Poor fella.
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)