It's all just one big restau-rant...

Tuesday 23 December 2008

@secretlunch

Oh and by the way I've started twittering... Follow @secretlunch if you dare. Expect extreme randomness and late night drunken cookery moments. That is all.

Friday 19 December 2008

Koh Samui


Rainy old Manchester... after a very odd and random encounter near Oxford Road station with someone I’ve not seen in 10 years I walked up into Chinatown, walked down Princess Street, toyed with the idea of going to swanky looking Obsidian and found myself in Koh Samui instead. And I regretted it.

It was busy so as I was on my own they put me in a rather dank corner underneath the window. It had that rather unpleasant smell which reminds me of flats I've lived in where the scumbag landlord is too tight to fix the roof, pointing, etc. There is probably not much they can do about it without digging up the road but it wasn't nice.

To get me going (and because I was starved) I got a bowl of prawn crackers with some “minced beef” dip stuff. Now the dip tasted rather like some combination of pork, mayo, peanuts and chilli-oil and so it may have been. Either it was something incredibly authentic or perhaps it was a joke-dish. I don't like mayo very much at the best of times.

The fish soup tasted good but was severely let down by the rather chewy bits of shellfish, once a scallop has got to the point of looking like limestone pavement it’s ruined. Really. Prawns and squid just as bad.

For mains I had "crispy" belly pork with morning glory. The morning glory was interesting, though I did have to remind myself that it is a bit like eating bind-weed. Sadly the pork wasn't the melty glorious experience I had hoped for and was more chewy than crispy.

The other diners, western mostly, seemed to be having a good time on christmas or end-of-term parties and perhaps this is the more appropriate method to visit such a place. But really I didn't rate it and won't be going back.