Mountain Goat

Every so often the elements conspire to throw a meal at you that surpasses mere mastication and enters the realm of the truly memorable. Few and far between, these meals usually rely as much on location, company and conversation as they do on food, and can be elusive prey even for the ever-conscious food freak.

On Saturday however, the planets were definitely aligned as a few friends and I ventured into the mountains at the back of our apartment building, ostensibly to get some exercise, but really to do a little good old-fashioned Saturday afternoon eating and drinking. With this in mind our real goal for the day was a goat restaurant by one nestled by one of the old gates that used to guard a fortress from the Japanese, but now serve as a focal point for some of the many hiking trails that criss-cross the hills like ancient pig runs.

As anyone who has ever done any hiking in Korea will attest, it can be a somewhat different experience to the activity we have gotten used to in the West. Instead, hiking in Korea generally involves a lot of Soju, some food and plenty of good cheer, often accompanied by a soundtrack of jangly Korean pseudo-folk music from a backpack-mounted Ghetto Blaster. This colourful tribe of Teflon-suited hikies can get overexcited at the sight of a foreigner, making any hiking experience more like a visit to a geriatric nightclub than a quiet walk in the woods.

Our journey took us upwards through conifer and deciduous forest until Busan was only a distant hum below us, exposing a cityscape framed by the white sails of Gwangli bridge to the South and the sprawling tributaries and flatland of the _ river f to the North. As expected the hiking fraternity was out in force, by and large good natured and friendly, with the exception of one gentleman who saw fit to admonish a female member of our party for smoking a cigarette in public!

We forged ahead nevertheless and it was with creeping hunger and dwindling Soju that we finally arrived at the goat restaurant, a modest collection of bungalow-sized buildings housing a number of sparsely decorated private rooms. We settled into one of these and waited for our food to arrive.

This being Korea it didn’t take long and the table was soon crowded with several enticing banchan and accompanying condiments. Among these a salad of fresh crisp lettuce leaf dressed in a spicy chilli and garlic oil made rich pickings and a bowl of al-dente sweet potato also stood out. On this occasion the ubiquitous Kimchi was a touch too fermented for my taste, but was highly appreciated by a few of my companions. Elsewhere on the table a paejon (seafood pancake) was light and eggy, concealing springy pieces of octopus tentacle and reedy spring onions – the type of dish soy sauce was made for.

Before long however, the goat arrived and things began to get serious. Still smoking from the grill outside, the meat retained all the aroma and appearance of having just been seared to perfection, betraying just enough of the heat of the grill to be blackening and smoky in parts whilst remaining tender in all the right places. Cut up into bite-sized pieces it was excellent wrapped in sesame leaf and smeared with Samjung, (red chilli paste) but more often than not I found myself returning to eat it just as it was: musky, flavoursome, glorious and goaty. For refreshment a few bowls of mountain Dong Dong Ju, (a type of home brewed rice wine with a dry, almost savory taste) proved more than adequate and the perfect accompaniment.

By the time we’d finished it was dark and our hostess kindly called us a taxi. As we snaked our way back down the mountain towards the bright lights of Busan, I looked up at the stars and gave thanks to the Gods of good food, company and happiness. For it doesn’t get much better than this.

Ouchy!

Last Tuesday night was my birthday, and to mark the occasion we shuffled and coughed our way through the freezing cold to the Novotel Ambassador Hotel on Haeundae Beach. The hotel does a legendary buffet, and having eaten there the week before in the company of our Director and Manager, we were determined to make this visit a little less restrained.


Straddling the seafront like a Neptunian colossus, the Ambassador does a fine trade as Haeundae’s premier Hotel complex and rocking up in my donkey jacket and trainers, I couldn’t help but feel the ominous onset of the Bums Rush. If being a foreigner in Korea means anything however, it’s your innate inapproachability - I probably could have set fire to the curtains and got away with nothing more than a tight grin and a bow. Luckily though, I was here to eat, and for 49 chun a pop (roughly 25 quid) including wine you can really get your moneys worth.


Meaty king crab legs, mussels, prawns, crayfish and a considerable array of raw fish and sushi made for an excellent appetiser, followed soon after by an attack on the mains counter. A number of home favorites were represented here, including beef stew, baked fish, and cauliflower cheese. Needless to say each item had a welcome place at my table and as if there wasn’t enough on our plates, we had a few lamb chops, steaks, and Bay Lobsters cooked to order.




The shellfish was excellent. Served cold (with the exception of the Bay Lobster) it was plain, fresh and delicious. The mains displayed a similar degree of competence, and although the cauliflower was a little overdone and some of the dishes could have been a degree or two warmer, they made for an outstanding midpoint nonetheless. It was in the cooked-to-order selection, however, that the chef’s skill was most obvious. The Bay Lobsters were plump and sweet, giving up a surprising amount of flesh from their squat tails. The lamb and steak meanwhile, were cooked with the kind of care and precision deserving of a quality piece of meat; slightly charred on the outside, yielding to a medium rare pink in the middle.


The only problem we experienced was with timing. We only managed to get a table at 8pm, two hours before closing, and while a more relaxed meal might have involved more of an eat – rest – eat regime, time constraints meant that a quicker pace was required and i unfortunately didn't manage dessert, preferring instead to go for another pass at the savories.


Korean food is great, but when you need an injection of western flavour, you can do a lot worse than the Ambassador.

My Special Place

Years down the line a psychiatrist may well ask me to visualise my special place and when he does, I’ll probably be thinking of Jagalchi Fish Market. Centered around a huge sail-like building in Busan Port that evokes the Sydney Opera House, Jagalchi is billed as the largest fish market in Korea, and its easy to see why. Covering an area roughly 5000 square metres, a staggering amount of sealife passes through this place seven days a week, and I like nothing better than to wander the aisles gaping the ocean’s harvest in all its weirdness.

As you would expect, the market plays host to an abundance of fresh fish, crabs and crustaceans (much of it live) ranging from the familiar to the downright freakish; Monster King Crabs clamber over each other in expansive tanks waiting for the drop of the sellers net, while four-foot long Octopi stare back at you with their black dead eyes. I recently saw a bucket of turtles here, paddling around happily unaware of their surroundings and have even heard that whale meat is available, though have yet to see any myself.

However, while its fun to watch, the best of Jagalchi is in the eating and in this respect a number of options are on offer. An as yet untried (but no less appealing) one is right inside the market itself, where anything you buy can be gutted, cleaned and cooked for a few chun and enjoyed in an upstairs eating section. In addition to this, dozens of restaurants, tents and eating places line the market fringes, all serving up the day’s catch at incredibly attractive prices.

I recently ducked into one of the latter on an overcast Saturday afternoon, enticed by the fish grilling outside and the busy trade within. After asking in bungled Korean for a bowl of jiggae (a spicy soup eaten with rice,) there soon arrived at my table a whole grilled fish (head eyes, fins and all) a bowl of jiggae and a bowl of rice. The fish turned out to be a happy accident, an abundance of flaky white flesh under crispy golden skin coming apart easily underneath my chopsticks. Delicious on its own, the bowl of dipping soy sauce that arrived with the banchan (side dishes) added an extra, previously untried dimension.

For its part the jiggae held its own; the rich spicy broth complemented with green onion, beansprouts and bits and pieces of sea creatures I don’t know the English for let alone the Korean. The biggest surprise however was the chocolate coloured tofu bobbing around amongst the seafood. This chunky, textured addition was nothing like the slimy, watery meat substitute defended so vigourously by vegetarians in the west, instead adding body and substance to the bowl.

After paying up (the whole thing came to less than £3) and leaving with a hearty “chal mokessayo!” I returned to the madness in search of the night’s dinner (a pair of Mud Crabs as it turned out) and gape a little more.

This is what Saturday afternoons were made for.

Bi Bim Bap - a loopa

Part of the fun of Korean food is how easily the names can be punned into western song titles. I’ve passed many an idle hour smiling to myself about the likes of Kim-bop, Galbi there and my personal favourite, Getting jiggae with it. However, while puns are all very well, most of the fun remains in the eating of the stuff and this is no less true of the quiet man of Korean cuisine, Bi Bim Bap.

The perfect way to regain some of that strength after going ten rounds with the Kindergarteners, Bi Bim Bap dishes all follow a variation on a basic set-up of rice, julienned vegetables, a fried egg, dried sea weed and sesame seeds. If you opt to go dol sot (which I do, always) then the whole thing arrives in a sizzling bowl adding a bit of pizzazz to the whole arrangement. Into this tumultuous cauldron go a few spoonfuls of gloopy, firey chilli paste to taste, after which it’s ready to go.

With Bi Bim Bap you’ve gotta work for your supper, giving everything a good mix to evenly distributed the various parts. The result is a mighty fine bowl of food. The rice, a staple of the Korean diet is transformed by the chilli paste and sea weed, while the egg provides an indispensible protein fix. While I mostly eat this basic version of Bi Bim Bap at the diner beside our school at lunch times, we will occasionally go to a special Bi Bim Bap restaurant for dinner, where a number of variations are on offer. My personal favourite is an extra spicy concoction that includes a liberal amount of tender, shredded pork and a bowl of mussel soup on the side.

I originally dismissed this unprepossessing bowl of rice and vegetables as merely a healthier (and as such less interesting) alternative to whatever dead animal I was in the process of shovelling onto my plate, but I am fast finding out that, as with a lot of Korean Food, there is more, much more.

Choco

I’ll never forget the first time I tried chocolate milk. It was New Years Eve 2001 and I was at a festival in the rainforest on Australia’s southern coast. I was on the tail end of a pretty serious bout of food poisoning that had seen the previous two days (one of which was my 19th birthday) either shivering in my tent or chained to one of the festival portaloos, and chocolate milk was the first thing I had ingested that hadn’t come straight out again in some shape or form.

Over the next weeks and months my friend Pete and I (who shared a similar love) became connoisseurs, tasting and grading every variety we encountered as we travelled from Melbourne to Perth in an ultimately fruitless search of work. For us, nothing else equalled the sensation of having just consumed a pint of cold, chocolatey liquid in less than ten seconds, and we started to really push the envelope, at one point drinking four or five a day.

When I returned to Ireland I searched for something of a similar calibre but always in vain. For a long time the only options were either small cartons of Mars or Nesquick “chocolate flavoured” drinks or a big chunky bottle of Yazoo chocolate milkshake, all with obscenely long shelf lives and nothing approaching the boxy aesthetics and cleansing freshness of the Australian varieties. Later, Iceland and Morrissons started to produce their own versions, albeit with tighter use-by dates, but for me these always tasted somewhat synthetic, and packaged in a plastic bottle, just plain wrong. My chocolate milk career had been cut short in its prime.

When I arrived in Korea, however, everything changed. Remarkably, for a country where dairy doesn’t do so well (non-processed cheese is a precious commodity and natural yogurt non-existent) they’ve somehow managed to hit chocolate milk bang square on the head. As in Australia there are numerous varieties, each with their subtleties of taste and individual characters, but after somewhat extensive testing I have settled on a favourite.

At 305ml Cocoa is the largest volume-wise out of those I’ve tried, but this bad boy has got more than just quantity going for it. Silky smooth and ice cold, Cocoa manages to avoid the sweet excesses of its contempories, while still delivering a cool, throat-coating hit. Moreish by nature, it is impossible to drink one of these slowly, and I usually dispense with mine in no more than a few gulps.

The last time I was in London a psychic told me, unsolicited, that I needed to live in a warm climate to be happy. I believed this for a while, now I just think I need access to a good chocolate milk.

Street Food

There are aspects of Korea that often make it appear to occupy a “third place” between the developed and developing world, and one of these is the prevalence of street food. While such food in the West is largely limited to a few after-hours burger vans or greasy hot-dogs stands, here it often seems like every intersection has something temptingly sizzling away for a couple of chun (1000 won) a piece.

One such culprit is paejon, a potato-based pancake laced with green onions and red chilli that can be found in the old shopping district of Nampodong, next to the “world famous” Jagalchi Fish Market. These start life as a thin doughy batter ladled onto a hotplate where they bubble away for a few minutes before being sliced up and served on a plastic covered plate. Eaten straight off the cart dipped in some of that wonderous dark soy sauce with sesame seeds and chilli, paegon is the perfect way to split up an afternoon spent scouring the markets for bargains without blowing your appetite.

Often found sharing a hotplate with paejon is fried mandu, a light dumpling filled with shredded pork and bean sprouts. These little beauties are a Korean staple and more or less annihilate any negative connotations the word dumpling might conjure up – substantial enough to feel like you’ve eaten but light enough to stop four of five from turning into an ordeal. Mandu can also be found bobbing around in a bowl of Ramyon (noodle soup) in any Korean diner, but I personally prefer them the street way – lip searingly hot and shoulder to shoulder with the proles.

Elsewhere, cups of dried octopus tentacles make an interesting but as yet untried option, while tubular rice cakes in a colon bypassing hot sauce are a Duchess favourite and the type of thing people say puts hairs on your chest. The same hot sauce also comes smeared all over pieces of skewered barbecued chicken (see picture) that are undisputedly good but impossible to eat without getting all over your face.

On the less appetising end of the spectrum, Bondegi (boiled silkworm larvae) make an exotic if gut-wrenching alternative. A hangover from poorer times, these slater–like critters smell and taste pretty much as shitty as you’d expect but seem to enjoy steady business along the beachfronts of the city. Also on the rather-not-rosta is battered sausage on a stick, which has the consistency of spam and wet cardboard and is a singularly greasy and unpleasant experience.
Silkworm and sausage aside, Korean street food has so far been an eye-opening experience.

Standing at a food cart on a busy Busan street enjoying a good, cheap plate of paegon or mandu I feel divorced from my former attitude towards food. I used to imagine one day visiting restaurants with price-tags higher than my council tax, but that isn’t food, its status, and I’d now much rather risk six months of diarrohea eating the backstreets of Asia than spend an hour getting fleeced in one of those gentrified hovels.

Galbi glorious Kalbi!

On our first weekend in Busan, my cousin Steve and his girlfriend Vicky took us to a Galbi restaurant. Since then, the thing has kind of snowballed for me and the Duch, culminating in the infamous "day of two Galbis."

As you might have guessed, Galbi is damnably good, and a typical experience could be described as follows:

You arrive at the Galbi restaurant with your companions and are immediately hit by the distinctive sounds and smells of sizzling flesh. As you breathe in, the aroma permeates every cell in your body, turning your mouth into a swimming pool and pulling your belly up into your chest. By the time you reach your table you are about 100 times hungrier than when you were at the door, a situation exacerbated by the visual effect of Galbi being consumed heartily all around you.

You sit down at the table, and after a cursory glance at the menu the Korean amongst you orders for everyone. If there isn’t a Korean amongst you don’t worry – these restaurants basically serve one thing and God gave you fingers for a reason. After the order has been dispatched you attempt polite chat but it’s hard to concentrate. You pick at the Kimchi (fermented cabbage in chilli sauce) with your chopsticks and prod a few other side dishes distractedly.

Just as your stomach starts calling you names your server arrives with a big plate of chicken marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli and garlic (I think) and slides it into the smoking circular pan in the middle of the table. It instantly hisses into life, popping and spitting and catching as your server kneads the chicken around the pan expertly with two great big wooden spatulas. It cooks like this for 5 minutes or so, your server every so often returning to massage it until, with a final flourish, he sets the spatulas to one side and turns down the heat. It’s now ready to eat.

Delirious with excitement, you extend a pair of trembling chopsticks into the pan, pinch a piece of chicken and place it on a sesame leaf along with some thinly sliced onions from your bowl of soy sauce, and a dab of spicy bean paste. You then wrap up the whole neat little bundle and pop it in your mouth in one go, taking care to allow a dribble of soy sauce to run down your chin. The finely serated sesame leaf, lightly perfumed and almost sweet tasting competes ably with the deep, brooding heat and flavour of the chicken, which you find particularly tasty where it has charred and become semi-stuck to the pan.

This process is then repeated until about half the Galbi has been eaten, at which point rice is added to the pan followed by – if you are that way inclined (and I think you are) - cheese. The rice has the effect of turning the pan into a great big paella type thing, while the melting cheese, although admittedly an odd addition, binds the whole mixture together perfectly into lovely chopstick-friendly clumps.

An indeterminable amount of time passes, you rediscover your companions, then without quite knowing how you got there you find yourself at the till making patting motions appreciatively and paying another ludicrously small amount.

You love Korean food.

The job (including lunch)

Korea isn’t all Galbi and beer it seems, with a substantial portion of my time taken up trying to impart knowledge to our future Asian masters. This, as with everything else in Korea, is conducted in a pantomime of hand gestures and a great deal of fecklessness.

Our day begins at about 9:10am, when we start the slow, sweaty trudge to school from our “love motel” (which is pretty much exactly how you imagine it.) On one side of the road, huge apartment complexes dominate the skyline, while on the other side, convenience stores and small enterprises jostle for space with small restaurants boasting large tanks of docile fish and slithering eels. Here and there workmen clamour over building sites industriously, while pavement-mounted scooters zoom past perilously close and taxi’s pore out of every intersection.

Every so often we hit a stench pocket, where the overwhelming smell of human waste hums in the air like a localised hell. The final stage of our walk takes us down a side street and past a neon cross topped church and into the pretty courtyard of our school, which is where the mayhem really begins.

Even before we’ve changed into our “inside shoes” we are typically assailed with lisping cries of “Danny teacher!” and “Sarah teacher!” from all directions. From here on in a tide of bobbing heads and exuberant greetings follow us up two flights of stairs to the tiny staff room, which we share with four other Waygooks and four Korean teachers. There is usually just enough time to hastily photocopy a few worksheets, gather our shit together and check the days’ schedule before scattering to our first classes at 9:40am.

The “morning” comprises of six periods; two 30 minute classes followed by a 20 minute break, another two 30 minute classes, an hour for lunch then another two thirty minute classes. For some reason I have been designated science teacher, so a good deal of my morning classes are spent fiddling about with ill-conceived science experiments while trying to silence a growing cacophony of “teacher help!” and issuing empty threats about the use of the Korean language. These experiments rarely demonstrate any scientific principles a seven year old could grasp and usually involve a lot of sellotape, swallowable parts and Korean-only instructions. It’s a race against the clock to make sure everyone has successfully constructed their experiment, packed up and if there’s time, learnt a few words of English in the 30 minutes allotted time slot. More than once a Korean teacher has had to wade in to help while I, red faced and sporting a child on each limb have uselessly appealed for calm. My other morning classes involve working from books or worksheets, and generally a lot of colouring in and some songs thrown in to waste a little time.

After the first four classes there is an hour lunch break which at 12 noon, is a little earlier than I’m used to but more than welcome after 2 hours with the Kindergarten terrors. There are four choices nearby for lunch; Paris Baguette, Tous les Jours, Camp and “The pasta place.” The first two are large chains that differ only in that Tous les Jours serves coffee. As you may guess by the names both serve a Korean take on French Patisserie - with varying degrees of success. If you have ever been in a quandary over whether to go sweet or savoury then go to one of these shops. Croissants come with a glaze of sugar and donuts which look normal on the outside, reveal a bean paste when bitten into. I’ve even heard tales of jelly and cheese sandwiches coming out of these places and though I’ve never experienced it myself, I don’t doubt it for a second. In some ways they get it right however; Mini bagel pizzas with sweet tomato sauce and a cheese and ham (and egg?) topping are perfect when you can’t look at a bowl of rice, while a coffee and (real) donut from Tous les jours is a great energy boost for the final classes. Camp on the other hand is the decidedly Korean lunch option, serving Kimbap (like Sushi rolls) Bi Bim Bap (an egg, rice, veg and chilli concoction favoured by the Duchess) spicy beef soup, Mandu (dumplings) and such-like. The service here is efficient and the food, as with most Korean restaurants, tastes good and is shamefully cheap. Forensic analysis of each dish should be expected sometime in the near future. Although I have yet to go to the “pasta place,” I’m sure the time will soon come when, more through curiosity than anything else, I will check it out.

The afternoon schedule consists of four 50 minute periods separated by 10 minute breaks. According to my schedule I should only be working three of these, but teacher shortages of late have often meant doing all four twice a week. These kids are at the elementary level, so the material is more advanced and some, though not all, can hold a decent conversation in English. The nature of these classes differs from that of the morning classes. The kids are generally (though not always) easier to control and the material a bit more challenging. I start a few of these classes by letting the kids sing a pop song. Most recently it has been “Ob-la-di-ob-la-da” by the Beatles and “You’re my inspiration” by some eighties power rock band but in future I get to choose. Youtube here we come! The rest of the class is taken up going through the assigned text book, some of which still have the original CDs (which makes things a lot easier,) but others that require a little creative improvisation.

At 6:20pm the school day finally ends and we set off in search of something to eat. Recent choices have included slices of tender barbecue pork, gloriously fatty and transformed into little morsels of piggy heaven when dipped in deep chilli sauce and wrapped in fragrant sesame leaves. But that’s a different story.

Shabu Shabu

For me, Korean food started on Friday night. Up until then, my experience was moew or less limited to a few visits to Kokyoro, whatever it was Air Asiana served up somewhere over the Ukraine and a few so-so meals consumed in a haze of jetlag and apprehension. As such, baring some tasty deep fried mandu (pork dumplings) in the restaurant around the corner from my school one lunch time, my first five days or so in Korea were spent with the distinct feeling that i wasn't quite getting to the meat and potatoes of Korean cusine. Until I tried Shabu shabu that is, which had both.

Literally translated as Swish Swish, Shabu Shabu involves simmering meat and vegetables in a rich spicy broth, to be eaten with a variety of side dishes and a wonderfully intense dipping sauce (of which more later.) As with alot of Korean food it seems, ther is very much a DIY element to Shabu Shabu, the low tables of the restaurant coming equiped with gas burners on which on which dinner is cooked in large communal pots to be shared with one's companions.
The occaison was dinner with our newcolleagues, and after taking off our shoes and settling in cross-legged around the table, the burner was soon fired up and coaxing a large pot of broth and potatoes into life. Next to arrive were the vegetables; large plates of oyster mushrooms, whole bunches of parsely and crispy green beans literally singing with freshness. Not long after these sank into the maelstrom of the now bubbling broth came thje coup de grace; Wafer thin slices of blood red beef, translucent and marbled with rich white fat towered on serving platters in what seemed like ludricous proportions.

Within a few salivating minutes it was ready to eat. As expected, the broth was spicy and intense, a perfect home for the earth parsley and mushrooms that were every bit as fresh as they'd looked. The meat itself was plentiful, delicate and flavoursome, even more so when dipped in the small saucer of soy sauce with a smudge of dissolving wasabi on the side. The soy sauce here, i should say, is unlike anything i've ever had in the UK or elsewhere, with a flavour so intricate that i thought it must be something else entirely! As the broth bubbled down and the falvours deepened, gratin sized slices of potato appeared, by this stage al dente and infused with the cooking liquid. When these had gone, thick udon noodles arrived to flesh out the remaining broth and ensure a few more minutes happy slurping.

At the end of the meal, as i sat happy, converted and satisfied, a Canadian colleague observed that the swirling reds and lazy bubbles of the remaining broth was the closest thing you'd get to a drug trip in Korea. Fine by me

Thali Night Fever

All new experience lays slave to TV Casualty, and never more so on bonfire night as I buttoned up the flak jacket and made the short mission to Stravaigin on Gibson Street for their monthly Thali night.

The occasion being a friend’s birthday, the Establishment was playing host to a dinner of Last Supper proportions, albeit a damn sight tastier and free from all those nasty recriminations that made the original one a real downer.

Thali, for those who weren’t there, is a selection of regional Indian dishes served in tapas sized portions on a steel plate, and in this case with rice, a naan-like flat bread called missi roti and a shredded carrot salad called kosambri. There is a set menu, dispensing with all that choosing nonsense and Stravaigin also laid on a free bottle of Cobra for those wise souls who booked ahead.

Soon the large steel plates began to arrive at the table in waves, and after a quick lesson on the origins of each dish, the serious business of eating began.

The Rohu Kalia matched a light, slightly doughy batter with delicate pearly white fish that disintegrated after the gentlest inquiry. The rich and tangy gravy that accompanied teetered on the edge of being too sharp, but was brought back down with a low rounded heat from the chillis.

Also prominent was a Keralan goat bhuna which suffered a little from being mostly bone. While the shreds of meat that could be salvaged were undeniably tender, the goat lacked that unmistakable muskiness that sets it apart from lamb. Once again, however, the flavours in the sauce were so deep I almost got lost in them, redeeming the dish to no end.

Elsewhere on the plate wonderfully textured Rajasthani red lentils devoured my missi roti, and three deep fried banana and potato balls added a welcome sweetness despite being a touch heavy.

Stravaigin undeniably does a good Thali, and despite some sniffiness regarding numbers and deposits ill fitting for a half-empty Monday night, the service was welcoming and efficient. The portions were of good size and at £15 per head the meal was a good price and made splitting the bill a relatively bloodless affair.

Pintxo

Oddly enough, I didn’t do a lot of TV watching this week, and the programmes I did watch were by in large old favourites so not much new to report there. I did go out to dinner however, so for the second time in its short life, TV Casualty goes foodie.

On paper Pintxo had me. Having perused the online menu and read a number of gushing reviews, my taste buds positively tingled all day Thursday as I dreamed about the upcoming Iberian feast. Letting my imagination run riot, I indulged in ramekins filled with new and exotic dishes, knowing smiles as I ordered the house speciality, then praise and admiration of companions for my choice as I sat back in my seat, satiated and looking ahead to when prudence might allow me to return.

Such was the anticipation that I advised everyone I met of my dinner plans at length, and had all but booked my birthday meal there before even setting foot in the door, so it was with childlike excitement that I got off the tube at Partick and made the short walk up Dumbarton Road.

Pintxo, (pronounced pin-cho) is the latest addition to Glasgow’s increasingly varied tapas scene, taking its name from the small £1 tapas that were purportedly for sale at the bar. Occupying a compact, understated space opposite the medical centre, the restaurant is heavily influenced by cooking from Spain’s Basque region, with the regions dishes featuring prominently on the expansive and tantalizing menu.

I had made an informed choice of Scallops with chorizo and the crisp baby squid with saffron and green apple alioli earlier in the day, leaving a space open for a wild card choice which I filled, wonderfully spontaneously I thought, with a “trio of gazpacho: andaluz, ajo blanco and pimiento.”

The scallops were the first to arrive, sat on top of wafer thin slices of chorizo and looking lonely on the plate with only a slice of lemon for company, and at a hefty £5.99, a touch underwhelming. Sweet and lightly seared just past the stage of gooeyness, the scallops were wonderfully fresh, although the flavour of the chorizo never really pushed through to give the dish the mild smoky heat the combination suggested.

Shortly after the crisp baby squid arrived, the small tentacles delicately fried and served in a bowl with an apple aloli dip on the side. Again, the freshness of the produce shone through giving the squid a deep, oceanic quality. The saffron and green apple alioli however, was little more than glorified mayonnaise, with little evidence of either apple or saffron.

A good 5 minutes after I had finished my other dishes the trio of gazpacho arrived, rather disconcertingly, in three plastic shot glasses on a crescent shaped plate. Mid way through the second shot I flaked, foregoing the last to a companion who then had similar difficulties.

Elsewhere on the table courgette stuffed with goat’s cheese proved greasy, bitter and inedible (actually) while coriander, red peppers and rioja did little to enrich a spongy slow cooked lamb dish. Redemption came, however, in the form of a chunky, perfectly cooked traditional Spanish tortilla, and encouraging noises were being made about some King Prawns with olive oil, garlic and chilli up table.

Overall, I left Pintxo in a mood closer to optimistic realism than brutal disappointment. While failing to live up to my frankly delusional expectations, the restaurant boasts some interesting variations on the standard tapas fare and comes as close to an authentic taste of the Basque country you’re likely to get in deepest darkest Partick. The three tapas for £8.95 lunch and early dinner option looks inviting, and I get the sense Pintxo might work better if approached in the Spanish style of tapas as an accompaniment as opposed to an end in itself.

I also learned to take restaurant reviews in future with a pintx of salt.

Foodie Casualty – Eating Casually – Greasy Cutlery

I couldn’t think of a good pun on the title of this blog to describe my week long adventure into the world of food criticism so instead I’ve provided three bad ones, and I think it pretty much evens out.

Yes, last week I swapped my remote control for a set of chopsticks, a knife and fork, and an irrepressible appetite as I embarked on a food tour of London, gobbling anything reasonably priced enough to get in my way, and a few things more besides.

In the following report I’ve trimmed off the gristle, separated the wheat from the chaff (not because I’m intolerant mind, I find that whole thing bullshit) and glossed over the banal to give you the highs and lows of my big munching adventure. Observer Food Monthly, stick this in your bradley smoker and – uh - smoke it!

The week started off well with a Sunday night Vietnamese in one of the scores of such restaurants just beyond the City. After sinking a few overpriced ones in the trendy environs of Brick Lane, the brother and I set off on the short walk to the restaurant, one of his personal favourites and promising start to my food adventure.

A quick look at the monumental menu was made more confusing by the arrival of another, longer menu held together by paper clips and a few more less-overpriced ones, so I wisely threw caution to the dogs and let the waiter and my brother negotiate the order between them.

To start, we shared a large plate of crispy duck pancakes, followed quickly by my still sizzling order of curried goat with chilli and lemongrass with a side order of fried rice. The brother opted for the pork belly with noodles and before long we were no more than a blur of chopsticks, flying rice and soiled napkins. The enthusiasm with which the food was attacked was matched by the quality of what was on offer. The pancakes, as our waiter demonstrated, were to be wrapped up in crisp, fresh, perfectly shaped leaves of what I assumed to be a small Asian lettuce and dipped in an addictive chilli oil, making for a good starter that immediately dispensed with ceremony and set a good communal tone for the rest of the meal.

Delving into my Goat before it burned a hole through the plate, I found a tender aromatic meat that reminded me, not unpleasantly, of the smell of wet dog that worked well with the chilli and lemongrass. A practical query into what was happening on the other side of the table found a plate of similar quality, and we rolled out of the restaurant so contented I forgot the copy of Slip It In I had only that afternoon purchased for the Duchess.

Lunch and breakfast for the next few days came in the form of subsidised bacon rolls and main meals courtesy of H.M Government (I wasn’t in prison) as I spent my mornings musing over the weekly updated menus on the intranet at my temporary place of work, coming to the sound decisions of a herb marinated pork foccacia and parsley and parmesan crusted hake with a side of cabbage.

After a few post work drinks on Tuesday with a colleague, I headed back east to meet my brother again for a trip to the renowned Tas Firin. This place is legendary among my brother and his flatmates, and it didn’t disappoint. Going straight to main we both opted for the mixed kebabs. Large, tender chunks of chicken, lamb shish and lamb kofta cooked to perfection, nestled next to generous portions of rice and flat bread complimented by a fresh salad and red onion–type vinegarette to share. The meat almost melted in my mouth, and the large portions ensured another contented, if wet, journey home.

The next morning, inspired by website London Review of Breakfasts, I set off to start the day with a hearty full English. As my top two choices (Nicos and Fellici’s in Bethnal Green) were closed, I had to go freestyle and choose from the litany of greasy spoons on Bethnal Green road. While what I finally settled on didn’t exactly blow my morning apart, it was cheap, voluminous and greasy, perfect for setting me up for a day of pounding the streets and culture vulturey, carrying me straight through lunch and into Jamaican eaterie Banners in Crouch End to meet ex-Glasgow friends for dinner.

Jerk Swordfish with rice and peas was the clear choice, with the tangy, fruity jerk sauce going well with the white meaty swordfish. My only complaint was quantity-related, exasperated as I saw the piled high plates of the half jerk chicken with rice and peas at a neighbouring tables. However, by occasionally pausing between mouthfuls and grazing off ollys sweet potato chips I managed to (not?) make a meal out of it and pace myself through a leisurely course.

Next day was market day, and bright as a button mushroom I skipped breakfast and made the journey to borough market to harass market sellers into setting up their food stalls. First stop was a saliva inducing “three scallops with crispy bacon and stir-fry” stall. Served in a plastic tray with a slice of lemon and hunk of bread,

While the novelty of scallops on the street in central London was in itself worth the £4, the scallops themselves unfortunately didn’t really measure up. Smaller than I expected, they lacked the fresh sea-taste of those I’d bought only the week before in the Partick Farmers Market, but served with the bacon and a generous squeeze of lemon juice they made a good mid morning snack.

Next I hit the charcuterie stall, and considering the scallops a starter, decided to have a main course. Having never tried Casoulet before, the rich French stew particularly stood out, and I was soon digging into a tray of duck confit, sliced Toulouse sausage, white beans and a thick boullion. It was tasty, but unfortunately stone cold, and instead of taking it back I continued to eat. Which I will most likely regret for the rest of my life. I left the market feeling a little disheartened that my experience didn’t live up to my expectations, and half wishing I’d got up early to go to Billingham Fish Market instead.

The rest of the trip consisted of a few so-so fry ups, some disheartening Chinese in Camden, and a truly awful kebab, but I left London after the week nevertheless satisfied with my culinary trip.

Back to the box next week.