Passive aggression like I've never seen it before

There comes a time when the girls have to leave the office, go get pizzas and  let off some steam. It's for the good of our health and stops things getting bottled up. It's fair to say that morale is pretty low in the office at the moment - we've put our hearts and souls in and now there's nothing left. What interested me was the extent to which this was beginning to show in ridiculously trivial ways, none more so than Jade, (the type of  hard working person who was probably top of every class at school). She was about to go into a [somewhat tyrannical] management meeting and so, in a kind of advance retaliation she resolved to eat as much garlic as she could. Pizza express were only too happy to oblige. We had garlic bread, garlic oil and garlic butter on our dough balls - it was great!

As anticipated, what wasn't so great was the management meeting itself. It alarmed me to hear that both of them had spent the meeting crying! Jade, because she'd been been criticised for an hour. And Martha (the boss), in case her unborn child grew up to be like Jade!

The garlic was fine, but now everyone's crying, this is getting ridiculous.

Argentinian cuisine : proceed with caution

After work I went to see Bill at an Argentinian restaurant called Moo on brick lane. I don't think I've ever had Argentinian food before so I was quite excited. I ordered something off the menu called Salachichi* or something like that, reassured by my trusty mantra that it's always a good sign when you can't pronounce what you're ordering, it means you're expanding your food repertoire. I was vaguely expecting something classically Argentinian that was to come with guacamole (which now I come to think about it, should have made me suspicious, but didn't). What then arrived was a VERY large sausage! It looked distinctly German (an unexpected cultural influence to be sure). The type of low grade knockwurst that could be vegetarian and you wouldn't know. I'd also misjudged the sides and ended up with both chips and mash. I can no longer remember what part of ordering unknown items off menus is sensible!

*Turns out it's called a 'Salchicha' - I looked this up in case any aficionados judged me!

The Mysterious Dorothy

When Tim (my housemate & honorary brother) and I went to ‘Dorothy’s Caribbean’ we did joke that the restaurant might be the front for some kind of shady operation because it has opaque windows. This offhand comment suddenly seemed more likely when we got inside and found that the owners of the establishment had no idea how a restaurant was supposed to work! As we walked in, the good lady herself was sat on the wrong side of the bar watching TV. It was far from obvious that we could buy food, but upon asking we were told that indeed today was the first time in 3 weeks that Dorothy was serving food, owing to the fact that the roof had been leaking. Then we learnt (unwillingly) about the history of her roof and the cultural heritage of her landlord. Tim tried to steer the conversation back on track by asking what our options were but she totally missed the point - apparently one option was a solicitor but she felt it was a bit expensive. After this, I tried again and asked (very unambiguously) what was on the menu. She looked a bit confused but offered us jerk chicken. We agreed. She then took the initiative to ask if we wanted a small portion. I asked how small is small, to which she responded by holding up a large box saying it was large. It’s tough to know how to proceed from here but somehow we did eventually get the boxes full of food. As she gave them to us she asked if we wanted them heated up. WTF who goes to a take away for cold food?! To speed the process up we said we’d do it ourselves at home and asked her how long to heat it up for. Of course she didn't know. We laughed to ourselves as we walked down the street. It was almost as though no one had ever ordered food there before. She didn't know what to do. Definitely this was the operating front for a drugs cartel. We stopped laughing when we got home and put the thing in the microwave and the possibility of food poisoning occurred to us. We re-cooked that chicken so well. Nervously giggling once more at the absent aesthetics as we dished up. But then we had a change of heart when we tasted it. Dorothy actually knew her stuff after all! It was a huge plate of very spicy Caribbean goodness and highly evident that Dorothy was a great cook. We even agreed we’d be happy to go back.


Then again, if I was going to get my mum to front my drugs cartel, I'd probably make sure she could cook too.

I'm ready to start a culinary revolution

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This evening I stayed extremely late at work. This is not because I was actually working. Granted I did have meetings until 7.30pm but then our charming receptionist had sorted me food, so I took it up to my desk and found that Rachel was still in the office. She was the only one there. I think we may have spent the next two hours ranting at length about the world (and that was before work started!) I did learn something great though. At the time I was totally failing to eat spiralized courgette (the difficulty being that each thread is a minimum of 10km long. It is therefore significantly less dainty to eat than spaghetti) Rachel commented that she uses scissors at home. Horay for office stationary! So I gave it a go, with a fork in one hand and scissors in the other I could cut tendrils short right before putting them in my mouth and this new method worked rather well. If anything I would class it as an 'extreme success' having made the whole process much more dignified, or so I thought, until I realised that this was not what Rachel had meant to recommend at all. She was surveying the (possibly barbaric) scene with an air of horrified politeness (imagine watching someone eat spaghetti with a pair of scissors!) All she'd meant to say was that it ought to be chopped before serving. Nevertheless, at this point I was so thrilled with my own efficiency that I carried on regardless (well, if she is going to be polite about it...) But it made me think - we should introduce scissors to the standard cutlery set! Just think how it would revolutionise noodles, stake and unwieldy burgers if people could eat them with scissors.

Needoo Curry House

This evening after work we were supposed to go to the increasingly famous curry place Tayyabs. It's in the 'up and coming' backstreets of Whitechappel. They feel pretty rough but I suppose that this must be what brick lane was like before it 'up and came'. However, I spoiled all of our plans by not managing to leave work on time. It was 7pm before I got away and by the time I arrived, Tayyabs, which by now has a reputation for itself, was full, with queuers loitering between the tables. As such we went to the spin off restaurant around the corner. Needoo was apparently founded by a rogue waiter after an altercation at Tayyabs. From the outside it looked so seedy that we nearly didn't go in but it was by now so late that we were hungry enough to risk it. All in all I'm glad we did. There were no people queuing in awkward places, the service was exceptionally fast and there was giant cutlery mounted on the wall which amused me. If anything the food was actually too authentic as Sam and Joe struggled with the spice. All the dishes were said to be 'medium' so there was no way out for the faint hearted, unless you are preprepared order from the less authentic 'chicken tikka masala' section of the menu, which no one was. We speculated that even the mint sauce had a kick to it and had to call in emergency yoghurt. I personally quite liked it but must admit that the level of spice did stop me from comparing the 4 dishes we'd ordered as they all tasted of 'robust heat' to me. In a nice way. Sam disagreed, but then he had begun an affliction of wild heat-induced hiccups.

Posh kebabs?!

I was so tired by the time I left work this evening that I couldn't decide what to do about food. I even texted mum to tell her this, which is a reflection of the extent to which I totally wasn't functioning! (This also made me worry (briefly) about the content of the emails that I'd been sending before leaving the office!) Anyway, I ended up going to get a 'posh Kebab' at a shop called Chifafa. This is something I've been meaning to try for a while - There is everything intriguing about an oxymoronic concept like that. The problem is that I was then too worn out to develop a comprehensive opinion on the matter! The 'medium' level of spice was significantly more lively than it was mediocre and I'm not sure if I can ever feel indulged while eating meat wrapped in bread - it's not really that far removed from a glorified sandwich. On the other hand it was significantly better than the kebabs I was served in Istanbul at the weekend; the meat was properly BBQ-ed and it wasn't served out of a polystyrene tray but a foil wrap (like any self respecting burrito). No one could accuse it of being a greasy late night option for desperadoes (not least because the shop shuts at 9pm).  This synopsis seems to have covered everything but taste. The problem is that I like eating, most things taste good to me and this was no exception. Certainly it was good enough to go back another day. In my wretchedly tired state I then slipped into some sort of philosophical stupor. Can a kebab ever be up-market? Is it really enough to put good quality ingredients in or is it by nature a squalid supper. Then, even if it is posh, is it ever any good?! I never did answer these questions, I think they may be the basis of hardcore philosophy. The next time someone tries to draw me in on politics or God I'm going to ask them if they think a kebab can ever be posh. That'll stump them!