The Fragrant Metro and Rude Baguettes

Ah, Paris.

There's little I can say about it that hasn't been said before (although it did strike me that the title for this post could easily double as some french hipster grrl band). It's a city of consumption. A buffet for the senses - smells, sights, tastes and sounds lurk around every corner, inside every curtained window. The last time I had been to Paris was as a teenager, spinning through the city like a dope-fuelled slinky and staying with my friend's aunt, who just happened to be Jane Birkin. The whole trip was like an acid flashback (metaphorically and literally), and never really left me with any clear impression of the place. So it felt overdue to go and spend some quality time with this most mysterious and continental gem. The wonder of the Eurostar means that a nice weekend break is only two hours and twice as many mouseclicks away.

When I think of Paris, I think of food. I'll be honest, I pretty much think of that wherever I am, whether it's Austin or Glasgow. In Paris you can eat like you've walked through a timewarp and been transported to a simpler time, where people munch on warm baguettes in the street and dine at bistro's until 1am. Italy conjures a very similar vibe, but without being so snooty about it. But the French made food what it is today - there isn't a chef in the world who doesn't appreciate what the French did, and continue to do, for cooking, and so it is a hell of a place to grab a bite if you're that way inclined. And much like many other great food nations, the tastes and smells that fill the lexicon of their cuisine are timeless in their quality. What tasted great a hundred years ago still tastes great today, so long as it's built on the right ingredients. And boy, do they have those in spades.

Before I take you on a little tour of the wonderful establishments we discovered, there was one thing I did want to mention, and that is the Paris Metro. Many people will remark to you that it's a slightly sketchy place, where pickpockets abound and tourists stumble about in bewilderment. From our experience, neither of these was true, but what left a far more lasting impression was the enormous variety of smells we came across. The smell of gently heated wood, like a sauna, on one of the trains. The heady aroma of burning rubber and engine oil on others. The smells of merde on one particular line that hopefully owed more to the poor sewage system than the legions of homeless people sleeping on the benches. It was a fascinating nose-tour through the steamy underbelly of the city, and one that I certainly didn't expect to be quite so curious. It also made clear to me just how small Paris is as a city - the metro is surprisingly swift, and we were able to traverse from one side of the city to the other in no time at all, a nice change if you've ever tried to get to Hackney from Wimbledon. Paris is a city that demands you get out and explore it, so the Metro is your friend. Buy yourself a carnet of 10 billets and go on an adventure.

Our first stop of note was a highly-recommended joint by the name of Le Bistrot Paul Bert. Quite a few people we mentioned it to had heard of it, and claimed it was widely recognised as a purveyor of great meals. It was clearly not an easy place to get into either, as we discovered on our first night when we wandered into the restaurant and were immediately turned away due to the lack of a reservation. Utterly undeterred, we immediately booked a table for the following night, at 10pm, which was the first free slot. Parisians eat pretty late, and even as we left the restaurant after midnight, the place was still full of diners. My starter was a wonderfully simple St. Jacques with Chanterelles (scallops with wild mushrooms to the rest of us). The scallops were perfectly cooked and juicy, tucked under a blanket of delicately creamed mushrooms. Becky's main then arrived and put every thing around it to shame. It was quite simply the largest pork chop I have ever seen, a solid two and half inch thick monstrosity in a luxurious mustard sauce. I had a perfectly cooked Onglet with onions (all red meat is cooked blue, as standard), but even that paled in comparison to Becky's superchop. The food was just as good as we had come to expect, and the service was shockingly polite and friendly. What really struck me however was the fantastic atmosphere of the place. It felt a bit like a portal into the 1920's, a glimmering pre-war beacon of activity on a street where all the lights had gone out. When we finally dragged ourselves away from the table, stuffed full of good food and merriment, the tables were still crammed with people, the staff were all sat at the bar drinking, and good cheer was still ringing around the rooms. It has the kind of atmopshere that you always hope to find in Paris, but assume doesn't exist anymore because all French people are horrible and hate humanity. Well if you can find the place, I cannot give it any higher compliment than to say that it will grant you what you seek. If you could bottle the vibe in that restaurant and sell it, you'd be a billionaire.

The next day, we headed over to Gare de Lyon, to meet a close family friend who lives just outside of Paris. She had told us to bring our appetites, because we were going to Le Train Bleu for lunch - a famous brasserie tucked inside the station itself, overlooking the platforms as trains come and go like so many tetris bricks. It is one of the most ornately decorated places I have ever visited, and hidden behind such an unassuming entrance it's a bit like wandering through a wardrobe into Versailles. The walls and ceilings are covered in huge paintings and frescos, slathered in gold and brass at every turn. Our friend explained that the restaurant was built when the station was first constructed as a waiting room for the wealthy upper class. Since travel was such a ludicrously exclusive luxury, the decor and cuisine had to match the decadence expected by its patrons. Thankfully for all of us, the place hasn't changed a jot since then, and has featured throughout pop culture history in Paris. Coco Chanel used to be a regular, and the famous restaurant scene in Luc Besson's "La Femme Nikita" was filmed there. We were treated to a thoroughly classic menu, served by no less than six different waiters all of whom could have run a typical restaurant with one hand. Skipping straight to the mains, I had the most wonderfully unctuous braised ox cheek and Becky had a perfectly pink roast lamb. On any given day either of these would take pride of place in a review, but they were utterly obliterated by the masterpiece that arrived for dessert. I present to you, the most epic chocolate eclair ever:

The following evening, we wandered through the rain to Notre Dame. The church itself is situated on an island in the middle of the Seine, with another small island directly behind it. It was on this second island that we found another gem, a recommendation from a friend of mine at work. Le Relais de L'isle, a literal shoebox of a restaurant, was our destination. It is the tiniest of restaurants, with six small tables as you come in, and one larger table on the mezzanine above. The entire place is looked after by the chef's wife, a wiry, energetic woman with piercing bright eyes and the pace of a hummingbird. We immediately ensconced ourselves at our little table, surrounded by happy diners, and eyeballed the fantastic menu. To start, I had smoked duck breast with mango and foie gras, which was an absolute 5-star success. The presentation wasn't too shabby either:

To follow, I had mignons de veau with field mushrooms. The veal was sublimely tender, and perfectly balanced with the mushrooms. The potato fondant, often done so poorly, was a perfectly soft, buttery pillow for the meat. As we tucked into our mains, the chef's wife hurled herself around the room to the tunes of the lurching jazz pianist tucked under the stairs to the mezzanine.

After all this eating, there really wasn't a lot left in our collective appetite to sate. However, mindful that we would be on the Eurostar in the evening, the next day I decided to try and track down a decent sandwich for the trip. My investigations led us rather surprisingly to the luxurious streets of Opera, near the Music Academy. Down these streets, laden with luxury boutiques and maisons, we nipped around an unassuming corner and ended up at Le Petit Vendome. It had come widely recommended as the best baguette sandwich you can find in Paris. What everyone failed to mention, however, was how raucous the place was and how staggeringly rude the waitress turned out to be. As we stepped inside, we were greeted by the sight of no less than 15 utterly sloshed Frenchmen, all draped in a variety of red hats & scarves, singing at the top of their voices and chugging wine like kool-aid. We sat down and tried to take it all in, scanning around for some sign of a menu. Within seconds, a woman with a face like a thunderstorm marched to the table, chucked some menus on the table and glared at us. Realising that we had literally no idea what was going on, she stomped away in a huff. We decided to try the simplest, most basic baguette to see if the fuss was justified, and sure enough, we weren't disappointed. A plain baguette from the local baker, swathes of creamy french butter and a fistful of country cured ham. Perfection in sandwich form. And to be honest, it all comes down to the bread. Baguettes in France are nothing like the stodgy, fatty baguettes you get in the UK. In France they are crispy, chewy, and much lighter - almost like a sourdough roll with the lightest of crusts. No sign of the usual jagged, mouth-traumatising bread-truncheon to be found here.

I was also glad to see on the menu that like the Italians, they take a "less is more" approach, with not a single sandwich entertaining more than two ingredients. My personal recommendation would be the classic jambon-beurre or the jambon-cantal. The food and the atmosphere was lovely and jovial, it's just a shame that we got the single rudest waitress I have ever encountered, anywhere. We'd had a good run up to that point, but I guess Parisian stereotypes remain because they're true. If you do find yourself jonesing for a sandwich in Paris, absolutely seek this place out, but be prepared to stare down a total helldemon for the pleasure of it.

As you can probably gather from this little writeup, we pretty much ate non-stop, and I still feel like we only scratched the surface. We have only gently skimmed the terrine of gastronomy that is Paris, and we will be back for more. If you've never been, or haven't been back in a while, like myself, do yourself a favour and plan a little weekend away - it's not far, it's not that expensive, and it remains one of the greatest foodie cities you can find.

Oh and one last thing: Croissants are supposed to be crispy. Remember this.

Winter Sausage Ragu

Wherever in the world you might be reading this from, at this point in the year there's a fairly good chance it's getting colder (unless you're one of those dastardly Aussies). If you happen to be in the UK like myself, then it's getting dark, cold and wet - none of which make you want to go outside much, and it certainly doesn't inspire you to eat lots of salad. So with that in mind, a few nights ago I decided to improvise a nice, warming pasta ragu for a quiet night in with the missus. It may not sound like rock n'roll, but sometimes that's not what you're looking for.

One thing that I have learned over the past couple of years of cooking regularly is that I like my recipes to have a decent margin of error. It's pretty rare that I get something absolutely spot-on the first time, so I'm always relieved if I can screw a few things up and still get a decent meal out of it. Over time you then learn the nuances of a dish, you stop measuring things exactly, and you know what to look out for in terms of success or failure. What this has done, in turn, is give me the experience and the confidence to try different approaches to a single recipe (within reason), and feel entirely content to grab an armful of stuff from the fridge and figure things out on the fly. Some people seem to think that there's some dark art to cooking, that it's an ancient skill taught by ninja monks to gifted children. While that would be awesome, it's really nothing more than practice, attention to detail, and a passion for food. There's no enigma code behind it. In fact, sometimes all you need is one great ingredient, and the rest of the pieces will just fall into place around it.

In the case of this winter ragu, that particular ingredient is italian salsiccia. I first came across these little beauties probably around ten years ago, when my family first visited Umbria, in southern Italy. Umbria is southeast of Tuscany, and a bit more rustic but with a fraction of the English people. According to my Italian friends, Umbrians are also a much friendlier and nicer breed than Tuscans, although if you saw Tony Blair and David Cameron in your neighbourhood every summer you'd have every right to be a bit miffed. It is a sun-drenched oasis in the heart of Italy, sat right inbetween Rome and Florence, and an absolute goldmine of great ingredients. I'm sure this is widely applicable to most of southern Italy - they may not have an economy or functioning infrastructure, but my god the food is good. So after my last visit, I brought a pack of these beauties back from Italy and kept them in the freezer for a rainy day. This recipe is precisely the sort of rainy day opportunity that this kind of ingredient lives for.

Putting the world's wrongs to right.

Now obviously I'm using sausages from Italy here. Thankfully the abundance of good butchers in London now means that you can find great sausages without too much trouble, italian or otherwise. The key is to get a really meaty, strongly seasoned sausage, preferably with italian flavours. Avoid supermarket sausages like the plague, they are far too watery and bready for this type of sauce and lack any real depth of flavour. If you're in London, then you really can't go wrong with sausages from The Ginger Pig in Marylebone or Borough Market. The rest of the ingredients are easy to get anywhere, but the sausages are absolutely key. The peppers are an extra little touch that I find adds a really subtle sweetness to the sauce, and they basically liquefy by the time the whole thing's done. Personally, I choose fusilli because its swirly ridges are perfect for scooping up all the lovely ragu, but you can use anything you prefer.

Hearty Winter Sausage Ragu
Serves 4

Ingredients:
6 Italian sausages (preferably from a butchers)
70g pancetta or guanciale
2 Romano peppers
750ml Passata
500ml Chicken stock
1 glass red wine
1 pint of milk
1 red onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of diced chilli/chilli flakes
A pinch of ground nutmeg
500g fusilli pasta
One big saucepot
One decent pan/skillet

Start off by removing the skins of the sausages, cut the peppers into small slices, and finely dice the red onion.

Put a heavy pan on medium heat, add a little bit of olive oil and let it get pretty hot. Chuck in the sausage meat and break it up with a wooden spoon, keeping it moving. You want the meat to sizzle, so keep the heat high and do not overcrowd the pan. If the sizzling noises stop, adjust the heat to stop the meat stewing. Once the meat is nicely browned, remove with a spatula/slotted spoon and put into the big empty pot you'll use for the sauce. Now in the first pan, throw in the pancetta and cook until the fat has started to render and the pancetta is crisping up. Remove the pancetta and throw into the saucepot with the sausage. The pan should now have a whole load of lovely oil and fat in there, so heat it again and now add the garlic, red onion and chilli flakes. Saute them until the onions are nice and soft. You can throw the peppers in here as well if you wish, or cook them separately.

Once everything's properly sauteed, chuck it in with the meat. Now add a cup or so of milk, so that it covers the meat. Bring the pot to a simmer, and reduce the milk until nearly all of the liquid has evaporated. Add a pinch of nutmeg, and then the red wine. Again, simmer until the red wine has nearly all evaporated.

Pour in the chicken stock and the passata. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce to the lowest heat possible and leave uncovered for 3 hours. The sauce should be very lightly bubbling, and not spitting sauce everywhere (if it does then it's too hot). It's worth checking on it every 30-45 minutes, as the oil will start to separate at the top so just mix it back together. Absolutely avoid seasoning it until it's finished, as the reduction will amplify any seasoning dramatically. After a couple of hours the sauce will be thicker, and take on a really lustrous golden red colour. Check the sauce, and adjust seasoning accordingly - salt and pepper if it's a bit lacking, or sugar if it's a bit too sour.

At this stage you can either portion off some sauce to keep in the freezer, or go to town and use the whole thing. If you're eating now (and you certainly should), get your pasta cooked according to the instructions - I always cook pasta for a minute or so less than instructed, you'll see why below. Once it's cooked, always keep a cup of the cooking water just in case, this can be very handy.

Take a couple of ladles of ragu per person and heat in a separate saucepot (unless the pot you cooked the sauce in is particularly large). Throw the pasta into the pot and mix it in with the sauce until everything is properly coated. If it gets too thick, use some of the reserved cooking water to loosen things up a bit. Pop the pasta into bowls and generously cover with shaved parmesan. Eat immediately!

Neon Nights and Katsu Curry: channeling your inner salaryman

Heated toilet seats and wet-room showers. Endless vending machines and the cacophonous siren call of shop assistants and storefront jingles. These are the things that remind me of the wonder of Tokyo.

I lived in Tokyo from 1989 to 1994, during it's heyday some might say. As a gloriously carefree expat brat, Tokyo was the ultimate playground - a neon wonka fun factory where the noise never dulled and threats never surfaced. It is a wondrous land of contradiction. It is both the safest place I have ever lived and the most morally twisted. The Japanese are a fascinating cocktail of stoic traditionalism and bug-eyed lunacy. I went back after finishing university in 2001 for a year off, studying Japanese in the mornings, teaching English at night and DJing on the weekends. It was one of the best years of my life, and the city will forever feel like my second home. London is the only other city in the world where I feel as much in my element, and even today there are indelible shards of Japanese culture nestled within my rambling psyche.

So it is with enormous joy and nostalgic excitement that I get to return there occasionally for work. Flippant reports about godzilla and mega-radiation never dampen my enthusiasm for the place, and even though the whole experience is framed within the breathless agenda of a business trip, this is a city full of surprises.

My first stop was an old favourite from when we lived there, a family-run tonkatsu restaurant called Tonki's. Nestled down an alley (like everything in Tokyo), it's as unassuming as they come. When you step through the sliding doors however, you are in for a treat. The sweet, crispy aroma of freshly frying tonkatsu wafts through the air, cushioned by the chatter of the patrons sat at the bar and the hushed awe of those watching the family ply their trade. They are hushed, because they have a bird's eye view of the entire kitchen. Each station is manned by various generations of the same family, and they all work flawlessly in unison: a well-oiled machine with incredible speed and disciplined attention to detail. The best thing about this? They only serve two dishes: pork fillet, or pork chop. That's it. And they haven't changed in decades.

The father greets you as you come in, takes your order and memorizes your face. The youngest guys egg and batter the pork fillets. The elder sons manage the fryers, gently dipping the katsu into huge copper vats. The grandfather awaits the freshly fried katsu with a razor sharp blade, and with fingers like blushing cherries he grabs the cutlet and slices it into perfectly formed pieces. If you've ever tried to slice tonkatsu just after frying it, you'll have discovered as I did that it is a) hotter than hades and 2) incredibly hard to slice neatly. The man is an absolute master at this one very specific task, just like the rest of the family. Each person has a role that they have mastered completely, no matter the significance. Two more staff then plate everything and attend to refilling the diners' plates with steaming rice and crispy fresh cabbage.

Beautifully simple and expertly crafted. 

Like very few other places I can think of, Tonki's has an atmosphere that really is just hard to express in words. You sit at the bar, take a load off, and watch this family craft your meal from start to finish without any drama, fuss or commotion. It arrives on your plate accompanied with a small dish of pickles and the best miso soup you'll never get in London. My colleague who had braved the journey with me, jetlagged to the gills like myself, was entranced by the place and wolfed down his meal with blissful gusto. For me, it was a uniquely surreal experience, finally going back after nearly ten years. Seeing all the same family members attending the same tasks was like stepping through a timewarp to one of the happiest periods of my childhood. Being there with a colleague from my life now, having come so far since my life in Tokyo, was like having the most nostalgic experience ever and then discovering that you can still enjoy it today. I will definitely go back the next time I am out east.

The rest of the trip was a frantic sprint between meetings, hotel buffets and crazed meals around the city. It's incredible seeing how much stuff the Japanese have managed to cram into this dense metropolis. We found a shop that was literally situated in a staircase. We stopped in an underground bar that played jazz remixes of Disney theme tunes. I met up with an old family friend at the smallest yakitori restaurant ever built (eight chairs around a bar). Everything is on multiple floors and basements, with drinking dens, cafes, boutiques, hairdressers and hostess bars all sharing vertical real estate. It is a swarming rabbit warren of activity, with surprises lurking on every floor.

I could write pages and pages on my love for Tokyo and all the strange things I have encountered there. But for me, what I thought would be slightly more useful and interesting would be to put down a recipe for something that will always, always take me back to Japan in a second: katsu curry.

Katsu curry is a stalwart of the salaryman. If you've ever been to Tokyo and witnessed the black and white tsunami of downtown rush-hour, you will know what I'm talking about. Millions upon millions of office workers, clerks and attendants, all suited, and all eating in little stand-up noodle bars and curry houses. Katsu curry is a particular mainstay, alongside tempura udon/soba for people who need to eat, and eat well, in a hurry. Outside every train station in Tokyo you will find a handful of these places, where you pop in, get a food token from the cash machine, plonk it down at the counter and receive a steaming bowl of food in return. It is glorious in its simplicity, and the realisation that this is, in effect, fast food. It goes without saying, however, that fast food done by the Japanese is unlike anything you'll ever encounter at the Fast Chicken Cottage in Hackney (speaking of which, Japanese KFC is amazing).

Self-Serve all-you-can-drink bar. Utter carnage.

The nicest katsu curry I have come across in central london can be found at Ten Ten Tei, on Brewer Street in Soho. Wagamama's can probably be attributed with bringing katsu curry to the masses, but I find their version too plasticky and dry, a real low-budget manufactured version. Ten Ten Tei's at least doesn't taste like it's been microwaved in a sachet. Naturally then, I decided to try making it myself at home. Japanese food, by and large, I find rather intimidating due to it's exotic ingredients and incredibly strict cooking guidelines. It's generally a very delicate cuisine, and not one that I've ever found anywhere near as accessible as chinese or mexican. Thankfully however, I can reassure you that katsu curry is one of the easiest and simplest japanese dishes you can find. It's hardly gourmet cooking, but then if you've read this blog before you'll know that's not what I'm going for anyway. The next time you're in the mood for it, grab a couple of the specific ingredients from a japanese/oriental shop, some pork loins and give this a whirl - you will be amazed at the difference.

Katsu Curry at Home
Ingredients:

150 g of pork loin
1 cup of panko breadcrumbs
1/2 cup of flour
1 medium egg (beaten)
Japanese curry sauce mix
+ however much boiling water the sauce mix requires
200ml chicken stock
2 large potatoes, cubed
1 medium sized carrot, sliced
2-3 medium yellow onions
2 tablespoons of garlic
1 green pepper (optional)
2 cups of rice
2 tablespoons of pickled red radish
vegetable oil
Salt & Pepper

For the Curry Sauce mix, you can get packets of this stuff in any Japanese food store - my preference is for the medium hot packets, but there are hotter or milder versions available. If you're not sure which brand to get (they're all pretty much the same), just ask one of the staff members and they can happily assist.

Fry a couple of cloves of garlic in vegetable oil and slice up the vegetables. Gently fry the onions until they have wilted and are translucent. Add the sliced carrot and the potato and cook for a few minutes. Add the chicken stock and however much water the curry sauce mix requires and bring to a simmer. Once the water is boiling, add a packet of the curry sauce mix (usually half of the packet), and reduce to the lowest heat. Mix it well and after a few minutes it will take on a thick, creamy consistency.

Take your pork loins and tap them firmly with the back of a knife to tenderize in a cross pattern. Then season well with salt and pepper, and push the pork loins together as the tapping will have spread them out slightly. This will ensure the katsu is tender.

Prepare your beaten egg, panko and flour in 3 bowls. Then, taking each piece of pork, dip it in the flour, the egg and the panko, then lay carefully in a frying pan with 1cm of hot oil in it to shallow fry.

The oil shouldn’t be too hot – test it first by putting the tip of a toothpick or a wooden chopstick in to see if bubbles form. If they slowly appear, the oil is at the correct temperature. If they appear suddenly and bubble violently, the oil is too hot. Fry the pork loins on both sides until golden. One tip I learned: if you are frying multiple pieces of pork, be very mindful of the temperature. As soon as the first one is looking ready, get the second one all dusted and ready to go because if you leave the pan empty while you are preparing the next chop then the oil will start to burn.

Once the pork is a nice golden brown, remove from the oil and place on a rack in the oven to dry off and crisp up.

If you wish, slice the pork into equal vertical slices and lay on a bed of rice Pour the curry over the middle of the plate and garnish with pickled red radish. Sit down, eat, and think of Tokyo.

Devouring the Meaty Heart of Texas, Part 2

After a couple of days in Austin, you find that you are never hungry. As in, your body is never saying "please feed me, I require sustenance." In fact, it's almost continually whimpering "please, make it stop" from the first meal to the moment you step on to the plane home. And yet, somehow, we manage to find ever crazier justifications for eating quantities that would make older generations weep. The food in Austin is good, in some cases scarily good. So it's not a major leap to then say "how about having two main courses?" That actually happened. Twice.

Random truck selling Po'boys in downtown

While attending the conference last year, one of our great little discoveries was a beaten up old BBQ shack just across from the convention centre called the Ironworks. It's hardly what you'd call the best BBQ in town, but it's right next door and so every lunchtime a gargantuan queue of game developers forms within seconds of the last session of the morning talks. Since then, it's become a bit of a regular thing for us, with some crazed members of my team ending up there on three(!) occasions that week.

The thing in particular that I love about the place is the fantastically brusk attitude of the staff, which is so diametrically opposed to the standard friendly service you normally encounter in the US. Perhaps it's because it reminds me of home that I like it so much. The food is chopped and served quickly, and if you dally when you finally get to the food counter, the guy with the big knife starts to get antsy. And you don't want that. That's not the best bit though. God help you and all your offspring if you get to the cashier and you mess around. The cashier, a steely prison-warden of man behind grease-steamed spectacles, glares at your food while punching the buttons on the till like the fat kid in school. Show up, pay, move the hell on. Do not waste his time. The greatest thing to witness at the Ironworks is people skipping through the queue to go and ask the cashier a question. These people are noobs, in the common parlance, and they will get the smackdown. I know, I've been there. If you don't have a tray with food on it, the Cashier only has one response for you: "Get in the queue." Want to book a table? Get in the queue. Want some takeaway? Get in the queue. Need an ambulance? Get in the queue. I love it, particularly because you just know what's coming when some fresh-faced woman heads straight past the queue to the cashier trying to sweet-talk a table for her friends. Know what happens? She gets in the damn queue.

A standard lunch in Austin. For two (ish).

And while I've said that the food is far from the best in Austin, it is still pretty damn good as far as a lunch goes. You can get the sampler plate, as per usual with joints like this, but after several trips we've discovered that you're much better off getting a couple of pounds of brisket and sausage, and sharing it with someone. Or not, if you happen to be American. Or Samoan. You also order sides in volume, which is an awesome quirk. Want some potato salad? Want a pint of potato salad? How about a gallon of chilli? A quart of coleslaw? You know you want to. As a colleague remarked, "I could get used to this." You could, although you would end up the size of a Smart car.

These guys put on a hell of a show, every week.

Austin also has a fantastic live music scene, and in true American fashion often declares itself "The Live Music Capital of the World". Now I'm not touching that particular statement with a bargepole, but if you're in Austin then you owe it to yourself to check out a live show. I was fortunate enough last year to be introduced to a brilliant local band, the Spazmatics, who play at the Cedar St bar every Wednesday. They have played every Wednesday night for at least four years, according to my friend. They are a zany 80's tribute band, who put on an absolutely brilliant show filled to the brim with classic tunes. And yes, they play Journey. Now, no doubt their success is due in part to playing a venue that is basically heaving with drunk people, but they are also a well-oiled machine performance wise. There is a twist, however. If you google them, you will discover that they are what's called a franchise band. Not familiar with the term? Neither was I, until I saw these guys. Basically, there is a Spazmatics in every single major city in the USA. And they all do exactly the same act, but they are different guys in each one. The concept is franchised to musicians around the country, who then exectute it flawlessly. When I first learned about this, my mind was blown - surely such an entertaining act wasn't just one in a line of manufactured styrofoam casts of a single concept? I'm hardly one to get misty eyed about the romantic notion of a musician and their art in the age of Rebecca Black and Crazy Frog, but there was still something slightly unsettling about it. So I was curious about how they would fare the second time around, knowing this dark secret. And you know what? They were absolutely fantastic. Colleagues who were there for the first time were blown away, and the band killed it with exactly the same gusto and feverish enthusiasm that they had last year. The one thing I do know however, is that I don't want to see any of the other Spazmatics now. These guys are the one for me.

Before we left Austin, we also made one more new discovery: The Hula Hut. The Hula Hut is cool little tex-mex place down along the river. On the plane over from Dallas the guy sat next to me had recommended it, and Dave had also suggested it as a worthy adventure, so it seemed like a well-vouched place to visit. The place feels like a mashup between Meatballs and True Blood, all tacky hawaiian decor with faerie lights and cute waitresses. They also have a big dining hall outside, which sits above the water and is definitely the place to be when the weather's nice. This is where one particularly brave colleague of mine suggested having two mains (a feat that was then repeated by others). As a note, when an American waitress says "that's quite a lot of food", for god's sake listen to the woman. As it turned out both mains were conquered in the end, but not without inflicting massive damage on the participants. The Shiner Bock beef fajitas were delicious and succulent, and the burritos were suitably massive. They also have potentially the king of all dips: a warm queso cheese dip with chunks of chilli, tomato and guacamole plonked on top. It was heavy duty, but delicious. Among less civilized company, this dip could start a fight. Of all the things we tried however, my absolute standout was the Crispy Shrimp Tacos. I'd never had these before, and they were absolutely amazing, so it was by good fortune that a friend had actually sent me a recipe for them.

Thankfully frozen shrimp are easily obtainable and not too expensive, so it's worth giving this a try. If you enjoy mexican food but can't face any more meat, much like myself after a trip to Austin, then look no further.

Crispy Shrimp Tacos with Peach Salsa
Author: Kristina Wiley
For the Peach Salsa:
6 peaches, peeled pitted and diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 medium sized red bell pepper, seeded and diced (about 1 cup)
1 cup loosley packed coriander, chopped
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1-2 limes, juiced
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Shrimp:
12-16 ounces peeled and de-veined shrimp, tails removed (about 30 small shrimp)
3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne (or more if you like extra spice)
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 eggs, beaten
canola oil for frying (enough to cover the bottom of a large skillet)
additional salt

Additionally:
10 small flour tortillas
lettuce, shredded
sour cream
additional cilantro

Instructions

Mix together all of the peach salsa ingredients and set aside until ready to use.

Rinse the shrimp with cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. Now you want to set up an assembly line so you are ready to go! Mix the flour, salt, cumin, garlic powder, cayenne, and black pepper together in a pie plate. In a second dish, place the beaten eggs. Then, have a 3rd clean baking sheet ready / tray.

In a large frying pan, heat oil (just enough to cover the bottom of the pan) over medium high heat. Use the bubble test to see if the oil is hot enough: stick the tip of a toothpick or chopstick into the oil. If bubbles slowly form, you are good to go. If bubbles appear suddenly and bubble violently, the oil is too hot. Get a tray ready by stacking a few paper towels on it.

Dredge the shrimp in the flour (shake excess), then the egg wash, then BACK into the flour and coat well. Gently shake the excess off and place on the clean tray. Repeat with remaining shrimp until all are coated with the flour.

Cook shrimp in 2-3 batches (depending on the size of your skillet). You want them to cook in one even layer making sure you don’t over-crowd or overlap the shrimp. The shrimp take roughly 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side. Cut one in half to make sure the shrimp are cooked all the way through (You do not want any clear/translucent left – you want it to be opaque and pink/white in color!). NOTE: You don’t want to OVER cook them either, so pull them off after 1 1/2 minutes (on each side) and check them.

Sprinkle shrimp with a touch of salt and set aside. Repeat with remaining shrimp until all are cooked.

To assemble: On each tortilla, sprinkle a little shredded lettuce and top with 3-4 shrimp. Spoon a tablespoon or two of the peach salsa followed by a dollop of sour cream. Top with a sprinkle of coriander. Serve with fresh lime wedges to squeeze over the top, this really brings it to life.

Devouring the Meaty Heart of Texas, Part 1

Austin is a fantastic city.

As part of my work, I am tremendously fortunate to get the opportunity to travel to various parts of the globe for business conferences and meetings. One particular conference takes us to Austin, Texas every October. I first visited Austin last year, and was immediately taken by its charms: the friendly locals, the endless buffet of live music and the veritable tsunami of great food. So my most recent trip, earlier this month, felt like a perfect candidate for a little write-up. While downtown Austin is relatively small by American standards, the greater city area still a gargantuan stretch of land peppered with little outcrops of activity, like popcorn scattered in a field. Most business trips tend to have a very localized centre of gravity (read: hotel bar & restaurant), but Austin is one of those cities that just beckons to you, the gentle hum of activity carried through the city on a flying blanket of booze and grill smoke. So I was even more fortunate to have a local friend who has been living there for a couple of years. On my last visit we went for a little road trip around the outskirts of town, and this time we decided to do the same again.

Our first stop was a pretty well-known barbecue joint called The Salt Lick. It's been featured on Man vs. Food and countless other "Top Ten BBQ" lists as a great place to visit for an authentic Texas BBQ experience. Now the really hardcore purists may argue that Franklin's has better meat, or that the 'holy trinity' down in Lockhart is a more authentic experience, but for simple atmosphere and rustic charm I love the Salt Lick. It's tucked away on an old dirt road in Driftwood, about a 30-minute drive outside of Austin. On the way, you drive past the following sights:

Now I may be a limp-wristed blue-hearted liberal from Great Britain with an exotic accent (according to most Texans), but things like this just make me smile. Dave pointed out that I find these sort of details interesting because I don't live there and am not subjected to them on a daily basis, and perhaps he's right. But there's a personality  and old-fashioned sense of courtesy around these parts that I find both alarming and refreshing after spending several decades facing down the glowering scowl of your average Londoner. It's easy to take the piss of how backwards or simple they might seem, and many do, but fundamentally these are good people. They probably have very different values to you and me, some of which you may even find repellent, but they are also incredibly kind and friendly. At least, that's my experience of them. Then again, I am hardly a raging firecracker of anti-establishment rebellion, so that might play a part.

Anyway, back to the food. The first thing you see when you enter the dining hall of the Salt Lick is the frankly mindblowing smoke pit. They actually have two, though the one in the pictures is my favourite. The cashier girl, upon hearing my crazy accent, invited me in to the kitchen so that I could get a better picture of the smoke pit, and I happily obliged. You can probably tell from the picture, but the smells coming off this thing are absolutely divine.

According to the cooks, they smoke their brisket for 24 hours, with the other smaller cuts going on for various lengths of time. As we sat down with our menus at an old wooden bench on the far side of the room, I was immediately ensconced in a laid-back, welcoming atmosphere with people eagerly ploughing through mountains of glistening, smoky goodness. As a matter of course, I ordered the sampler plate, which arrived promptly - a small Everest of brisket, ribs and sausage, piled high under a glistening blanket of their incredible barbecue sauce. I could write an entire blog post just about barbecue sauce (and maybe I will!), because they come in all sorts, tastes and consistencies. The Salt Lick's sauce is a thinner, runnier sauce with a sweet and vinegary taste that just does wonders when it hits meat. I actually brought several bottles back with me, because as I have stated in previous posts, you will never get sauce this good in the UK. The meat itself is great, particularly the sausage and ribs. Brisket seems to be the hardest thing to get right (although if reports are to be believed then Franklin's has cracked this conundrum), whereas the sausage and ribs seem to benefit from simplicity and slow cooking. The ribs in particular were juicy and soft, with the meat just disintegrating rather than getting stuck in your teeth. Special mention must also go to their bread hotdog rolls, which come as one of innumerate sides. I am a sucker for soft, squidgy bread, and this stuff is almost comically soft. I'm pretty sure mother nature never intended bread to be quite that doughy, but oh my god it is perfect for mopping up barbecue sauce. This is amply demonstrated by Dave's hilarious looking chopped beef sandwich below, which is actually made up of four hotdog rolls in a row, filled with a hellflood of chopped beef and sauce. I was endlessly entertained by the fact that it looks like the gaping maw of a meat-based doombringer, come to devour your children on some sinister revenge mission.

Normally after a meal like that, I would curl up into a ball of guilt and self-pity while sucking on the bones. However after several beers, Dave had the genius idea to ask for the dessert menu. Hey, you only live once right? (and at this pace, that is virtually guaranteed). Swallowing my immediate terror, he ordered the cobbler and I ordered the pecan pie. His cobbler looked like the site of an icecream meteor hitting the earth's crust, a steaming vat of molten fruit and sugar bubbling beneath. My pecan pie turned up, and looked like this:

Yes, that is a standard sized fork stabbing it. The pie laughs at the fork with disdain, like a goldfish attacking a whale shark. I'll leave you to eat the pie with your eyes by just saying that it absolutely shit on any pecan pie I have ever had in the UK. That probably goes without saying, but there was just no comparison between the two. Warm, crispy caramelised pecans layered on top of a slick, sugary something and a light, flakey pastry crust. This was pretty much my coffin nail, consciousness slowly drifting away from me like smoke vapours. Dave, sensing my incoming food coma, said "let's go, I need to show you something."

We jumped in the car and headed east, through a little town called Buda (pronounced "byoodah", bizarrely) filled with random trailers and shanty town storefronts. As we slid over the undulating hills of southeastern Austin, my food-addled brain took note of the several water towers dotted across the horizon, like toothpick cocktail snacks. "Is that normal?", I asked. "Those are tiny ones," Dave replied. "Wait till you see the one where we're going."

We pulled up in a typically gargantuan carpark outside what looked like a standard B&Q, a place called Cabela's. I couldn't have been more wrong in my initial assessment, however. This is no ordinary DIY store. This is a guns and hunting supermall.

Stepping inside, there is a lot to take in. There is a stuffed yak mounted above the entrance to the toilets. There is a fully camouflaged mannequin chilling out in a sniper nest. There is a rocky outcrop at the far end of the enormous store, covered in mountain goats and other killable beasts. There is a fishing section the size of a Costco. There is a goddamn aquarium. This is no ordinary store. Actually no, hold that. This is an ordinary store in Texas.

As I started wandering the aisles of excess, hunting / camping / hiking gear as far as the eye can see, I stumbled upon a little enclosure at the back of the store, where things started getting really weird.

Throughout the entire rear of the store, there were stuffed animals. Everywhere. Of every kind. Lions, tigers, elephants, water buffalo. Deer, mountain lions, prairie dogs, moose (meese?). Bears, wolves, muskox, a freaking polar bear! There was even a separate room on one side with every type of deer, squirrel and turkey I've ever seen! And that room had its very own animatronic George Bush-lookalike in hunting gear, recanting tales of early hunters and how they blew animals away with rifles. And throughout all of this, there were parents strolling around, kids in tow, looking at the various stuffed animals alongside all of the equipment used to kill them. Now don't get me wrong, I am not a hemp-wearing animal-loving hippy. I have skinned a rabbit with my bare hands at a stag party (long story), and spent time on a farm so I have no issues at all with killing animals for food. But this was a thoroughly creepy experience because of the manner in which it's aimed at children and the conveyor-belt sense of educating them for commercial purposes. See that deer? That was killed with hollowpoint ammunition from a Barratt sniper rifle while dressed in a full-body camo Ghillie Suit, sat up in your Buck Buster. And guess what? We sell all of that here.

Inevitably, we ended up in the gun section. I'll let the pictures do the talking here, and just simply say that taking pictures surrounded by people checking out fully automatic Assault Rifles and comparing scope sights was one of the most physically uncomfortable experiences of my life. When you take pictures in Texas, you get looks from a few people. When those people are holding an AK47, it's a very different look. Unfortunately the pictures don't convey it, since I wasn't comfortable picturing people buying guns directly, but this was easily the busiest section of the store as well. Men, families, daughters, grandparents. They were all here, looking at different rifles the same way you might look at a camera in Dixons. It was truly surreal.

Seeing all of these weapons, ammo and accessories lead me to an interesting reflection. I play a lot of video games where you fire weapons at people / monsters / orks, etc. So according to the Daily Mail I should be a dyed in the wool mentalist, grabbing guns off the shelf and running through the store shooting people on a GTA-style murder spree while furiously masturbating. But seeing all of this up close and personal had quite the opposite effect. Dave kept egging me on to go up to the counter and ask to see the biggest gun they had, but I wasn't interested in any way. Ever since I accidentally shot my sister right above the eye with a BB-gun as a kid, I have been vehemently disinterested in weapons. That was one of the scariest moments of my entire life, and when you see just how easy it is to inflict so much more harm with a real weapon, it actually makes my skin crawl.

Hunting, and more importantly owning a gun, is at the core of living in Texas, and nowhere is that more apparent than when you see the way in which it's been turned into a business. Seeing this in action was sobering, mildly terrifying, and deeply insightful. It would be grossly arrogant to simply assume that all of the people shopping at a place like this are patently insane. Owning a gun is a way of life here, and while the right to bear arms may no longer have anything like its original constitutional context, many people and families in the US still consider it a god-given right alongside freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial. It may be alien and strange to the rest of us, but it's a fundamental part of the patchwork quilt of the American identity and I'm glad I got to witness it first-hand.