1587: The Most Important Part of Moving

Unpacking shit, painting and hammering nails into walls are all very important parts of moving house, but by far the most important thing to do is to determine whether or not your local takeaways are any good. The prime time to do this is immediately after you’ve moved, when you almost certainly don’t have anything good in the fridge or freezer. And we’ve been doing just that.

Last night we tried the local chippy, which is just over the road from us. It seemed pretty good — as good as a chippy ever is, anyway — and was noteworthy for having absolutely astronomical portions. The definition of a “large” chips varies enormously from chip shop to chip shop, and it seems that this place errs on the side of “large” meaning “enough to feed at least four people”. Hard to beat value like that.

Tonight, on the other hand, we gave the local Indian takeaway a go. This, too, is just across the road from us, and appears to have some involvement with one of the best curry houses in Southampton: Kuti’s Brasserie on Oxford Street. We popped in yesterday to grab a menu and have a quick look and it smelled amazing, so after receiving a generous cash gift from my grandmother in the post today, we thought we’d give it a go to see what it was like.

Turns out it was delicious, and again, very good value for money. Andie and I bought a couple of mains, a couple of starters, a couple of rices and a couple of bready things for a little under £30 and all that was clearly enough for about four people instead of just the two of us; consequently, a hefty chunk of it has gone into the fridge for warming up as leftovers at some point.

One of my favourite Indian takeaways was in the Sholing area of Southampton when I used to live there. The building where my flat was located was attached to a small block of little shops and offices, and among the shops on the ground floor was an Indian takeaway, the name of which I’ve since forgotten. I have vivid memories of going in there, however, because the guy who owned it had obviously seen us moving all our stuff in: the night we moved in and wanted nothing more than to simply stuff our faces with delicious food we didn’t have to cook ourselves, I was greeted by the gentleman in question standing behind the counter of his takeaway, arms splayed wide as if he was about to embrace me, bellowing “Welcome to the Sholing!” (The takeaway was not, I don’t believe, called “The Sholing”; his greeting was simply a slightly broken English welcome to the area, which was simply called “Sholing” rather than “The Sholing”.)

Our experience with Kuti’s Express this evening wasn’t quite as heartwarming as that particular incident, but the food was good and you can order online to collect about 30 minutes later, so that’s all good. And I’m almost certain we’ll be heading back there — particularly with my board gaming friends’ affinity for the spicy side of cuisine.

#oneaday Day 544: Om Nom Nom

After a delicious meal at sort-of Japanese restaurant chain Wagamama, I find myself inspired to write about food. Food is delicious and, after all, essential to survival, so you may as well enjoy what you eat.

I’m not a fantastic cook, really, despite having spent a memorable period working alongside my friend from university and beyond Mike Porter in a pub kitchen. We made a mean prawn cocktail and only occasionally accidentally deep-fried an Ultimate Combo when no-one had ordered one in order to have something delicious to munch on ourselves. (There was also the memorable time that a bunch of food was being thrown out and Mike ended up with a ridiculous number of rib-eye steaks, finding himself eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner for some time. And the time we had an apple sauce fight that culminated with the pouring of apple sauce into each others’ chefs hats and a strong temptation to pour it down the hairy and perpetually-visible bumcrack of our (female) companion in the kitchen.)

My one redeeming trait in cooking is the fact that I’m willing to experiment and improvise. I’ve made some delicious spaghetti sauces, curries and chilli con carnes using said talent, and they’re never quite the same as each other.

All those foods are staples, of course, and pretty much anyone who’s been away to university knows how to prepare all of the above as a means of dining reasonably nutritionally well on a teeny-tiny budget. But over the years, it’s become clear that the interpretation of each recipe varies enormously according to each person. I, for example, never put onion in anything because onions are actually little Satan poos, and no-one wants to eat Satan’s poo. I may have made that up, but onions still taste like shit (not actual shit) and make me retch if I can taste them, so I avoid them at every opportunity.

I was quite happy with my simple chilli recipe, too — tin of tomatoes, packet of mince, tin of kidney beans, bit of chilli powder — until I went over to a friend’s house one evening and he made a chilli that was somehow infinitely, indescribably more delicious than any I’d ever made. His secret? Using twice as many tins of tomatoes as you “need” and then allowing them to reduce over a much longer cooking period. Also, adding bacon and/or chorizo.

Even within relatively simple foods, then, there is a huge amount of variation. This goes right down to the simplest of the simple dishes. Take two people who enjoy Bovril on toast, for example — one may put a thin film of the beefy, yeasty black stuff on top while the other may enjoy the curious enamel-stripping mouth-burning sensation inflicted by putting slightly too much Bovril on a piece of toast. (Incidentally, try Bovril on toast dipped in Heinz tomato soup. It’s amazeballs. Assuming Bovril doesn’t make you gag.)

I’d like to cook better, and once I get back into my own place again I have every intention of exploring and trying things out. Cooking can be a pain in the arse, but it’s also immensely satisfying when it goes right — to look at, to hear bubbling away in the pot and, eventually, to taste. And if you fuck up, well, you’ve learned from the experience — plus hey, the Chinese takeaway is only just down the road if the worst comes to the worst.

“Healthy” food can eat a dick, though. At least the interpretation from a lot of people, which is either “undressed, extremely dull garden salad” or “fat free, flavour free bullshit”. I’m fully aware that it is, in fact, possible to make delicious and healthy foods — the BBC Good Food magazine have a range of low-cost books with some excellent recipes designed around this very principle for example. But with healthy eating it’s all too easy to fall into a bland, boring trap of flavour free nonsense and forget how amazing it is to eat something with a bit of sugar or salt in it.

Food, then? Delicious when prepared correctly, enough to make you wonder if it was worth bothering with if prepared incorrectly. This has been a message from the Ministry of Stating the Obvious.

#oneaday, Day 54: Travels of an Angry Jedi – Brick Lane

London is a city of many surprises. A lot of them are “oh, this part of our illustrious capital is a shithole”, but surprises nonetheless. Today’s excursion was no exception.

Following an event I attended which I can’t talk about (yet) we were recommended to head to an area called “Brick Lane”, with the assurance that “if you like curry, you can’t go far wrong”. I like curry, so it seemed like a sensible choice.

I wasn’t ready for what our party was confronted with. Imagine, if you will, the Las Vegas Strip. Now imagine the street is only one car-width wide and one-way. Now, instead of casinos and strip clubs, imagine every single establishment on the street is a curry house. Now, instead of people in fancy uniforms looking for valet parking and/or prostitution business, imagine every establishment has at least one overly aggressive Asian gentleman outside offering increasingly ridiculous deals in order to get you to frequent his establishment. (The best we heard was 2 free drinks and a 95% discount, which led us to believe that even breathing in the food’s fumes would lead to immediate food poisoning.)

It was quite an experience, the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere else. The whole street was lit up like a red light district, with curry houses hawking their wares with increasingly outlandish neon displays the further down the street you went.

I’ve only gone and forgotten the name of the place we ate at, but it was quite good. We were recommended by someone who knew Brick Lane’s idiosyncrasies to look out for two things: restaurants that were full, and restaurants that didn’t have anyone hawking their wares outside. Sadly the latter was impossible as every place had someone outside badgering people with crazy deals and discounts that I doubt very much they would have honoured come bill-paying time. But the one we picked was pretty full the whole time we were there.

The toilets smelled absolutely awful, though, like a fetid stench-pit from the very bowels of Hell. Fortunately you couldn’t smell them from the eating area. Probably for the best.

So there’s your tourist attraction of the day. In London? Like curry? Don’t mind being harassed by what are essentially curry-pimps? Then Brick Lane is for you.

#oneaday, Day 174: Stag of the Dump

Congratulations, if you please, to my good friend Mr Samuel T Ewins, who is getting married in a few weeks’ time. Whatever my own feelings on the institution of marriage and the people who enter into it right now, it’s always a good thing to see two people find each other, fall in love and want to publicly declare their intention to spend their lives together. So congratulations to Sam and Helen, who will be tying the knot very soon.

Tonight it was Sam’s stag night. Rather like myself on my own stag night, Sam had no desire to end up chained to a lamppost, vomiting blood, resisting arrest and babbling about invading aliens, or whatever it is that stereotypes do on their stag nights. Instead, he decided he wanted to gather together a bunch of friends and do some of the things we mutually love the best. This meant board games, curry and poker, interspersed with wine, Coke and coffee.

We started the day with a friendly game of Ticket to Ride. After I purchased it on a whim some time back now, it’s become one of our most consistently-played games. This is thanks in part to its simplicity to play but its surprising depth. It’s also a completely different experience depending on how many people you have to play with. And not only that, its simplicity means that it’s easy to teach to new people, making it an excellent gateway game for people who’ve never gone beyond traditional staples such as Scrabble and Monopoly.

I won. This is cause for celebration, as I don’t often win. And in a five-player game, too. Five-player Ticket to Ride is a pretty fraught experience, as the board fills up a lot quicker than it does usually. This means that rather than taking your time to amass a huge number of cards as you can in a three-player match, you generally have to jump in and claim the important routes quickly whilst taking care to not broadcast your intentions to the other players. This isn’t always easy. There’s an element of poker-face amongst experienced players, but sometimes you can’t resist yelling an obscenity into an opponent’s face.

Next up we played Agricola. I’m normally complete shit at this game, so I tried a new tack to what I normally do, which clearly doesn’t work. I ended up coming second for once. Of course, this may have had something to do with the very different dynamic the five-player game has. I’m chalking it up to my new strategy. Which inevitably won’t work next time I try it. But oh well; I have to take what I can get in that game! It’s a great game, I just suck at it pretty consistently.

Then we went for curry. We tried a new place in town called the Coriander Lounge (I think) which was quite expensive but really, really good. Took quite a while for the food to arrive, but it was good when it did. I had a lamb madras which was just the right level of spicy, and the lamb in it was cooked to perfection. Lamb in takeaway curries is often rather tough and overcooked, but this was beautiful. Flaked apart with a touch of the fork and was lovely and juicy.

A couple of the others went for a dish I forgot the name of, but which was served on a large plate with lots of smaller dishes atop it. Each dish contained what was basically a “sampler” for several different curries. It was a nice idea and I found myself wishing I’d had that when I saw it! The madras was good, though. (Do you capitalise “madras”?)

Then we went back to play some poker. I fared less well than last time thanks to some unfortunate draws and more than a couple of things weighing on my mind at the time. But at least I wasn’t first out. I was, um, second. Still, it remains good fun. And the experience of playing in person truly makes me wonder how it is in the slightest bit possible to play online, given that you have no real way of reading other people or “bullying” them. Still, online poker is a hugely successful industry and popular pastime, so perhaps there’s something I’m missing.

So it was a good night all round. Managed to keep my mind off things that are bothering me. And I think Sam had the night he was hoping for. I call that a success.