Fat Faux

Barcelona

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:18:00 +0000

We are staying at the http://www.h10hotels.com/eng/barcelona-hotels/h10-catalunya-plaza.php in Barcelona. A fantastic location.

Harri is sick in bed which sucks ass, but I am pretty much wasting away to like 104kgs so I am about to go hunting for some food.

I will let you know how i go!

Akelarre Restaurant San Sebastian

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:01:00 +0000

We had dinner at one of the better restaurants in San Sebastian.

http://www.akelarre.net/web/english/base.htm

We each had a different degaustaion and it cost us about 350 Euro. I had paired wines and Harri had a couple of glasses.

The building is stunning, it wasn't 100% finished when we were there, but the restaurant was PRIMO.

More to come and photos too...

Dear David Yonan, Six-Word Memoirist extraordinaire

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:59:00 +0000

Congratulations! Your Six-Word Memoir, "would prefer gay kids over vegetarians" from SMITH Magazine is being published in the new book, It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, on sale January 5th. (But available for pre-order now!) Thank you and welcome!

This book is as much yours as it is ours, and in the coming weeks, we hope to include you all in the process of hyping, buzzing, promoting, publicizing, proselytizing, and singing the six-word gospel to the high heavens. And, you know, invite you to parties.

Cafe Jolly

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:36:00 +0000

Norton St Leichhard.

The food is ok, the service is good when they aren't busy, when they are, forget about it, they must have a one waiter policy no matter how many people are in the restaurant.

I actually quite like a few dishes here, it is a cheap and cheerful place, but we have been put off with a few bad experiences with not enough staff.

I would recommend the following:
- Filletto Pepper
- Jolly Caesar Salad (with Tandoori style chicken)
- Agnello on crushed potatoes and spinach with Balsamic
- Seafood platter for under $25 - can't beat it
- Penne Pollo

Flights for El Bulli are booked!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:42:00 +0000

Woo Hoo!!

Flights have officially been booked and paid for.

We got return flights from Sydney to Frankfurt via Singapore for $1590pp.

I am pretty stoked with this because the cheapest flights I could find were about $2700pp if I would have gone with just one air line like Qantas or Singapore Air.

We are flying out on the 8th December and returning on the 20th Jan!

The reason we decided on Frankfurt was because we are going to buy a car in Germany and drive around and sell it before we leave.

I have also been looking into hiring a proper sports car and driving it from one end of Germany to the other and back as many times as I can and as fast as I can in a 24 hour period... I just don't know if I will be able to convince my wife that $6000 for a day is good value... who knows, I convinced her to marry me, so I guess I have a chance...

Bird Cow Fish

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:47:00 +0000

I thought Bird, Cow, Fish was good, but the menu was very limited and there was only one "Bird" item (a spatchcock which was delicious).

Berowra Waters

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:18:00 +0000

Man, this place is incredible.

Whats not to like about it! $220 for 6 courses with paired wines is good value for such an experience.

I am not a massive desserts fan (I just prefer "savoury" dishes), so how impressed was I when I discovered that from the 21 item degustation menu I could order everything from the top bit. Which is exactly what I did!

El Bulli - The best restaurant in the world

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:00:00 +0000

- Please note that this post has been re-edited to fit the tone of this blog. The original was much funnier (crass) and I have also added thoughts and comments based on learning more about this type of food.

Oh the Joy!!!

As most of you know, I was the luckiest person in Australia, if not the world when I won the most AMAZING prize ever, a Trip around the world to eat at 4 of the Top 5 Restaurants.

These are seriously places that are harder to get into than a something on something day.

We might as well start at the top, pepople usually do it in reverse order so you have to read all the boring stuff to get to the good stuff. I'm not like that.

My sister and I flew from London to Barcelona in Spain. From there we jumped in a hire card and drove about an hour and a half north to the Tourist town of Roses. Not a bad place, but apart from get drunk and try pick up French and Spanish people. Apart from that, I don't know what you would do there.

Except eat.

The beaches are poor if you like to surf, there are heaps of English tourists, it looks like a glitzy dodgy Gold Coast and the internet cafes are third world...

About a 15 minute drive out of Roses is a restaurant called El Bulli, you can check out their website at http://www.elbulli.com

This is what Wiki has to say about them:

El Bulli is a restaurant run by chef Ferran Adrià in Roses on the Costa Brava in Catalonia, Spain. Restaurant Magazine has judged El Bulli the World's Best Restaurant three times - in 2002 and 2006 and most recently in 2007. The restaurant has a limited season from April to September; bookings are taken on a single day in the previous January.

Like I said, this place is Officially THE FUCKING BEST RESTAURANT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!

So what makes El Bulli so special?

Try the fact that you probably never have and never will eat there. It is only open 6 months out of the year.

I attribute this to simply one thing: Being the best restaurant in the world must be hard work, and staying on top requires a lot dedication, stress, research and development, innovation, experimentation and failure (I am sure everything they try isn't a brilliant success).

Oh, and I also figure it has something to do with the fact that the Spanish are lazy cunts and close their businesses for half the day for Siesta, so if you are the best, why not close it for half the year... Not scientifically proven but highly likely.

Ok, so the drive in. Like I said, it is about a 15 minute drive out of Roses. There are cliffs and curves and little narrow roads and views and whatever. All very nice. And then!!!

Sorry the picture is so shit, I didn't know what to expect and we drove around the corner so I just stuck my camera out the window and pushed the button.

Unfortunately this picture sums up my experience at El Bulli... It is all a bit blurry except for the bit at the front (the start of the night).

Now in my defense, Ferran Adria (the mastermind) has said that people have complained about there not being enough "food" when they eat, and I couldn't agree more.

What he didn't mention also is that if you get a table there, you know how lucky you are, we certainly did, which resulted in having an average size breakfast and a small lunch.

Seriously, you can't go to El Bulli on a full stomach and get to you mains and say "Oh no thanks, I'm full, I had a big lunch" or "No thanks, I'm on a diet". You'd deserve a slap.

So we get there and I take a heap of crap pictures:

The first thing they do when they get there (besides magically knowing which language you speak - and greeting us in english) is ask you if you would like a tour of the kitchen.

Now this isn't any ordinary kitchen.

To begin with, there are 42 Chefs... that is like 41 more chefs than most restaurants you will eat at!
Second, it is immaculiate! This means there isn't any melted cheese left on the grill, none of the dull stuff on the shiny stuff that you have to scrub to get off, and none of that black stuff in the corners of the floors (you know, them hard to reach places...)
And finally (and almost shockingly)... It doesn't smell like food. I mean, I am not sure what it smells like, maybe it does smell like food, but not like any "normal" kitchens.

Oh, and they have a bull head in there. No, not a real one unfortunately...

So once the tour of the kitchen is over, they sit you down to a table. There are only about 15 tables in the whole place.

Our waiter comes over and he explains that there are 35 courses on the menu for the evening. It is 8:30pm by now... Thank god we didn't have lunch!!! How long is this going to take???

The wine dude comes over and shows us the wine list... It was more like a directory than a list. Broken up into countries and different Varietal and Blends, I think it was about 149 PAGES (yes, PAGES!!!) thick and containing about 1616 different types!!!

Lizzy (my sister) and I have no idea, so we just get him to suggest something and he starts us off with a white wine. It was alright, Lisa hated it, so I ended up having to drink the whole thing whilst we ordered my sister another bottle of something different (sweeter).

Anyways, I have to finish this thing or I will keep going for ever.

So wine is ordered and now it is time for food.

First off, I just wanna say that, kids, your parents are full of shit!

We had 4 "courses" of food and we used our fingers for every single one of them. All that crap about knowing how to use a knife and fork so you can eat in nice restaurants in bullcrap (kinda).

First was an Olive that was incredible, you put it in your mouth and it just explodes. It was full of warm oil or something, a very different sensation with incredible flavour. My sister wouldn't stop going on about it.

Then there was some other finger food which was really interesting and this other stuff which looked like it had gold plated alimininum foil on top... You know when you get them lollies which are a bit passed their used by date and the foil won't come off but you eat em anyways? Sorta like that but way nicer.

There was this popcorn thing which was about the size of a big hubba bubble bubble that you can blow from about 3 squares. My poo the next day smelt more like this than anything else.

After that was Rasberry with Wasabi. The wasabi wasn't very hot though, but it was an interesting combo.

We then had an Oyster soup thing. That was cool... I love oysters, but I don't think I could eat them all day.

Then there was this beige stuff with these brown specs on top.

Now these are not very descriptive and they do no do the "food" justice. Since eating at El Bulli, we were fortunate enough to see Ferran talk about the philosophy and processes and stuff that goes into developing the menu. If you don't go to something like this, you will simply have no idea. We certainly didn't. Right or wrong? I'm not sure, we went in with no expectation (kinda) and we were completely blown away.

By this time, I had had about 2.5 glassses of wine and I hadn't really eaten for about 9 hours cos I wanted to be able to eat all of the food. So I am a bit drunk.

The best thing of the evening was probably this Spanner Crab meat hamburger. Maybe I was just drunk and wanted something which was more substantial than a rasberry with a bit of wasabi on top? Regardless, this was one of the standout things for me.

One of the wierdest things was this sea weed and froth thing that they made. Yep, sea weed and froth.

So that was a bit wierd, and now we are fully getting a bit drunk. Here is a photo to prove it:

Why is he getting drunk? Sorta intentionally, but not really...

They fed us brains. Lamb brains to be precise. You know that scene in Indiana Jones where they eat the monkeys brains? It was sorta like that but different.

There were three brains on each plate and I ate all three of mine. This is how I got through it:

Brain #1 was just put in mouth and quickly followed by a mouthfull of red wine. Sorta got a taste and a feel for the outer texture, but not really
Brain #2 was put in mouth, chewed once, gag suppressed and followed up with a half mouth full of wine. Got more of a feel for the taste and inner texture, but still cheating quite a bit...
Brain #3... Ahh... Ok, so this one, I was like like "fuck it, can't come all the way to Spain to eat at the top restaruant in the world and not taste everything they put on your plate". So I put it in my mouth, chewed it about 4 times, gagged, swallowed, imagined it was like the Olive/cum experience but lumpy, gagged again, smiled at the people at the table next to us, wiped the tears from my eyes and then after about 15 seconds had a glass of wine. Yep, a glass of wine.

There was other stuff, which was nice, I am sure there was some Lamb in there and some more Crab meat and this Incredible fake soup thing which was delicious too. But we had been eating for about 4 hours and we had somehow managed to drink 2.5 bottles of wine between 2. I was closer to 1.8 bottles of wine cos I had to drink the shit first one on my own.

We met some cool people on the other tables who were just as excited to be there as us, we traded stories (ours was by far the coolest) and we scabbed a ride back from these Spanish dudes.

Oh, and my credit card didn't work. What a PITA. It was SO embarassing. I went to pay for the food and they were like "Ahh, your card isn't working", I was like "It should be, I made sure I had money on it incase I went a bit crazy with buying wine".

I reckon they were shitting themselves going "How is this guy gonna pay for this 600 Euro meal?"

How funny would it be to be the first person in the world to do a runner from the Worlds Best Restaurant?

Fortunately my sisters credit card had money on it and we were able to pay with that.

I called Westpac and asked them why my card wasn't working (mind you I was pretty durnk and VERY pissed off cos it was EXTREMELY embarassing) and they didn't have an answer, so I established (yet again) that all banks are scum and I hate them.

I'm going to The Top 5 Restaurants in the world on Monday (Thursday, October 19, 2006)

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:02:00 +0000

You heard right, I'm going to them. AND I don't have to pay a single cent for the privellege.

I am leaving on Monday 23rd October.

Yep, thats right. You probably won't believe me, but I honstly am.

You see, I won a comp which was run by Penfolds Wines...

The story goes as follows:

My sister was having a bad day at work (man... how many times have I told this story...), anyways, My sister was having a bad day at work and I decided to take her out for dinner at this Cafe in Leichhardt that we always go to. It is called Cafe Jolly. The lady who runs the place (Annie) is lovely, you should go check it out, good food, generous serves, excellent service and great value for money.

So yeah, I meet my sister and she was stressed so I was like, I'll get a bottle of wine and we can just relax and pig out and not worry about it and she was like "sure".

So I go across the street to the Royal Hotel and there is a bottle shop there, and I got a bottle of Penfolds Koonunga Hills Shiraz. About $15 if I remember correctly. Anyways, I go back to the restaurant and put the bottle on the table and open it and go to throw away the thing that is around the neck of the bottle and she grabs it out of my hand and asks what it is (like how she grabs it out of my hand AND THEN asks what it is). I told her it was some dodgy SMS comp thing that noone will ever win and to not worry about it.

Anyways, she convinced me to enter it. Her and I have Vodacunts phone accounts and we were on one of the high value caps and we never reach the limit and she pointed out that "it wouldn't cost us anything and who gives a shit we might actually win it". I wasn't buying it, but to humor her, I decided to enter, but only until our entrees arrived (we hadn't orderd yet).

So we enter the bar code and do all the shit we had to do in the SMS and we start sending the messages and she is telling me her story about what her boss has done to piss her off this time and we were having a comp to see who could re-send the message with the least amount of key presses (my Sony Ericsson VS her Nokia). We both got it down to 4 presses each from the outbox and with the number stored in our phones which was:

Menu > Forward > Down (first name in address book) > Send.

I fire off about 10 messages before the Tomato Bruschetta with Pesto arrived, so I gave up and focused on the food. The whole meal, my sister was on Auto Pilot sending messages, I was too busy focusing on the Polpi Salad and Garlic Prawns entrees and a main of Lamb Cutlets on Mash with Spinach and this delicious sauce (I will get the details next time I am there).

So after the dinner, I bid my sister adieu cos I was working heaps at the time and it was gonna be at least a week before I saw her again.

So I didn't think anything of it again. The next day my sister was like "I don't have the bar code number, can you send me the SMS again so i can send more today at work" and I was like "AS IF WE ARE GOING TO WIN!!!!" but she didn't care and neither did I so I forwared it to her.

THEN I didn't think about it again.

Until THAT phone call...

"Hello, is that David *****"
"Uh, yeah, hello, this is him, how are you? Whos this?"
"My name is Nicole from ******, David, I have a couple of questions for you?"
"Sure, shoot"
"David, did you buy a bottle of Penfolds wine in the last few months?"

Ok, my heart skipped a beat and I was like FUCK OFF, no way, it can't be!!!

"Uh, yeah, at least 15 in the last couple of months I reckon"
"Oh, excellent, I have some great news, you are a provisional winner in a Penfolds comp"

So my hopes sunk a bit, a provisional winner, shit, on what provisions, I might not have won the main prize, but shit, a couple of bottles of wine would be good...

"Oh, sweet, what are the provisions?" Notice how I didn't ask what the competition or prize was?
"Well, do you have a proof of purchase from between the dates of (whatever the dates were)"

FUCK! I don't keep receipts for wine or other booze cos I can't claim it on my tax, but she didn't need to know that "Ahhh, I am sure I have one somewhere, I will have to have a look at home" (knowing full well I throw them out but one may have just ened up in a pocket somewhere).

"Ok, excellent, well see if you can find one and get back to me ASAP"
"Sure will do, sorry, what was your name again? What is your number?"

I got her details then I announced to the office I was contracting at "I think I just won a Holiday around the world to the Top 5 Restaurants in the world!"

So basically it was a mad rush to try and find a proof of purchase for a bottle of wine.

I started rining everyone "Dude, do you know anyone who owns a bottle shop or works in one or know someone who does?" No shit, I called about 25 different people... people I don't even like I made concessions for and called.

Ahh, to no avail... I thought I was well and truly fucked. So no joy with other people, I told my boss at the time "dude, I gotta go sort out this proof of purchase shit, might be back today, might not" "Sure dude, no worries" Chirs Pile at The Farm (www.thefarmcreative.com.au) is an awesome guy and they do really good work.

So off I go from the Surry Hills office. Thank chirst I didn't have a parking fine (we all know how fucked the parking officers are in the CBD) and home I headed.

I pretty much turned my house upside down looking for anything that said I paid for a bottle of Penfolds wine between whatever the dates were.

Nothing.

I was officially starting to stress out cos my chance of winning the prize of a life time was slipping out of my grasp. I eventually had the idea to look at my credit card statements to see if there was anything on there.

BINGO!! There was a purchase for $28 or whatever it was from Liquor Land and I remembered the exact purchase. I had spent about $250 on groceries and I thought "fuck it, I want a decent bottle of wine to go with my dinner"

So I got a bottle of Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz. It wasn't bad.

So I ring up Broadway Liquor Land and I speak to the guy who answers the phone and the conversation went something like this:

"Hi, my name is David, I think I have won a holiday worth $20,000 and all I need is a proof of purchase for a bottle of wine that I purchased from there. I have my credit card statement here with me and I know I purchased a bottle on one transaction, would it be possible for you to give me a copy of the recipt. I understand it might be a bit of work, but I would really appreciate it if you could help me out, like I said, think I have won this holiday"
"Nah, can't do it, it will take too long, sorry."
"But I have my transaction, surely you guys must be able to look it up, it is for a holiday that I think I have won, please, is there anything you can do?"
"Nah mate, can't help ya, like I said"
"Nothing?"
"No"
"Hmm, ok, thanks" (you cock sucker mother fucker, I hope a box of beer falls on you head)

So I was officially past worried about not winning the prize, I had the proof of purchase, I just needed the proof of proof of purchase.

What do you think I did? Go on, guess...

Yep, I called Coles Meyer Head office down in Melbourne and I spoke to the Public Relations deptartment. You know I did. That conversation was a bit more fruitful...

"Hi, my name is David, I think I have won a holiday worth $20,000 and all I need is a proof of purchase for a bottle of wine that I purchased from a Liquor Land store at Broadway in Sydney. I have my credit card statement here with me and I know I purchased a bottle on one transaction, would it be possible for you to give me a copy of the recipt. I understand it might be a bit of work, but I would really appreciate it if you could help me out, like I said, think I have won this holiday. I spoke to the guy at the branch, but he said there was nothing he could do, I was just wondering if you guys could help me?"
"Oh congratulations sir, that is so lucky. Of course Coles Meyer would be more than happy to do anything you need to get the proof of purchase, especially cos you got it from a Liquor Land store. Do you have a pen and paper? Ok, my name is ***** and my number is ************. Now just go back to the store and speak to the same gentleman and tell him Head Office said he has to do whatever it takes to get you a copy of the recipt and if he has any questions what so ever to give me a call. That is my direct number!"
"Oh really? Thank you so much, that is amazing."
"Enjoy your trip sir"

NO SHIT ENJOY YOUR TRIP!!! WOO HOO!!!

So I go down to Broadway shopping center and I walk into the Liquor Land. The place is empty, and the scum bag in there looks at me like I was a scum bag and I say:

"Hi, my name is David. I called you about 25 mins ago. As I mentiond on the phone, I think I have won a holiday worth $20,000 and all I need is a proof of purchase for a bottle of wine that I purchased from there. I have my credit card statement here with me and I know I purchased a bottle on one transaction, would it be possible for you to give me a copy of the recipt. You said on the phone that you couldn't help me and I didn't believe you so I called the Coles Meyer head office and spoke to ****** and she said that you have to look up the proof of purchase and if you have any questions at all then to give her a call, here is her number" as I handed him a piece of paper with the ladys number.

Ok, so he wasn't impressed. But fuck him, he wasn't doing anytihng and he didn't have to do too much. He asked me if a written receipt was ok and said sure, so he prints one out for me and afterwards I was like "Oh, you couldn't put it on an official Liquor Land letter head?"

Understanably he was a bit pissed off at me and gave me a very short "No". I didn't care.

So anyways, I call back Nicole and i was I have a receipt, it is a bit dodgy, but if you need a better one, just let me know" and she was like, "I am sure it will be fine, just fax it over" which I did in a heart beat.

So I didn't hear from her for about 40 mins.

Was something wroing? Was the receipt ok? Maybe it was too dodgy! I am gonna go sit on that guy at Liquor Land!!! Man I wish my sister would stop messaging me on MSN ever 2 minutes and calling me and asking if I have called Nicole back every 5 mins.

So eventually I gave in to my sisters persistent pressure and I called Nicole:

"Hi Nicole, it is David again, sorry to call you back again, I was just wondering if you got the fax I sent wtih the proof of purchase?"
"Oh, let me just check" about 20 seconds later she comes back "Yep, it is here, just give me a chance to have a look (mumbles to herself for about another 20 seconds then says) Ok. It all looks good. Congratulations, you are the winner of the Penfolds comp!"
I go "NO! Don't tell me I've won"
She says "But you don't know what the prize is yet" and I was like
"But I have only entered one compertition... Don't tell me I have won?!?! Please tell me I've won it!!!"
"Well what do you think you have won?"
"The food one to the Top 5 Restaurants in the world?"
"Absolutely, congratulations David!!"
"NO, STOP IT, I HAVEN'T!! I HAVE!! STOP IT! NO WAY HAHAHAHA"
"Yes way, and yes you have, do you wanna know the details?" and she rattled off the details of the prize... I don't remember the details, but I remember hearign the words BUSINESS CLASS FLIGHT, FIVE STAR HOTELS, TOP FIVE RESTAURANTS, LONDON, SPAIN, SAN FRANCISCO!!!

WOO HOO.

So yeah, this happened back in May, and I have been snowboarding in NZ for the last 4 months and I am leaving on Monday. My sister and I were supposed to stay in the UK for 5 mothts cos we can extend our stays in each place, they just pay for the set amount in the prize, and then we were to go to Spain and the US.

I have been conned in to coming back to Sydney to work for 5 months, so i will be spending 5 days in the UK and they flying back to Sydney to help finish Phase 2 of the website you are now visiting and to also help in AFL and NRL and Bigpond Sport.

Pretty crazy story hey. I am pumped!

Well I have better get back to work I guess... I will take pics and post em up here.

It all started in Maria Spagnolos kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:31:00 +0000

I was about 3 years old and I used to eat dinner every night at my neighbours house in Guildford NSW.

Her name was Maria Spagnolo, and although she had a family of 11 to feed, there was always a place at her table for me to eat pisgetti.

It has pretty much been down hill from there ever since.

Things really got serious when I won a "The Penfolds (Wine) Ultimate Dining Experience".

More on that later.