Author: mister

First time in Fiji. It is lovely.

Nobody has Bananas. Because Cyclone Winston.

I ate a bunch of not-bananas in Fiji. It was OK.

On my last night I ate at The Rhum-Ba.

Don’t eat at The Rhum-Ba.

Today was international burger day. In other words, time to eat another chicken sandwich.

The Bald Faced Stag is on Parramatta Road in Leichhardt. It’s a short walk from Annandale Hotel for people that find Annandale Hotel a bit too snooty or when it’s laundry day and only pyjamas are left.

It was only noon but already the betting lounge was buzzing when I arrived with my date. We sat near a fire hydrant and a chip vending machine. The chip machine was a nice touch but the fire hydrant came off a little bit too hipster. Sometimes it’s important not to try too hard. I’m on a date at The Bald Face Stag.

The bistro at The Bald Faced Stag was a popup by Chicken and Sons. There were burgers and chicken sandwiches on the menu.

My date was at the fire hydrant and I went quickly to order.

I ordered one “Chicken & Sons Signature Buttermilk Fried Chicken”, one “The ‘Colonel'” and a side of “Truffled Mac and Cheese.” I didn’t notice the menu mentioned “all burgers served with fries and sauce.” The mac and cheese was surplus to requirements.

I’ve eaten a few fried chicken sandwiches lately. This one was on the more OK side of OK.

I left a piece of lettuce that dropped on the table.

The food was OK.

 

I joined a burger club.

The burger club were going to Bar Luca. I needed to bring my A-game.

Once I saw a bus caught on a round-a-bout. How did that happen?

Did the other bus drivers make fun of that bus driver? Or does it happen all the time?

The burger club went to Bar Luca. It’s on Philip Street in Sydney.

I didn’t know that guy. The burger club was near the back of the bar.

We went up to order. Every person in the burger club was getting the “Blame Canada” which had wagyu beef, maple bacon, cheese, poutine and aioli. Poutine is made from fries, cheese curds and gravy.

I had my A-game ready. Burger or bust. No more chicken sandwiches for me.

The lead in the burger club ordered.

“One Blame Canada!”

“Sorry. We’re out of beef.”

“Huh?”

“No beef. We ran out.”

“But… But… We’re the burger club!”

“We can make you a Blame Canada with Chicken.”

“Oh OK. I guess. OK.”

I hesitated. Then I ordered the “Chicken Karaage Burger” with wasabi aioli, pickles, coriander and lettuce. I added jalapeños to my burger because it’s 2016. Go fusion or go home. Catch up.

The Blame Canada was massive. The Chicken Karaage sandwich had a lot of Kewpie on it and chicken with Kewpie generally works out OK. Kewpie is like mayonnaise on crack. In the supermarket it has a picture of a baby on it. Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil, egg and vinegar. It’s mostly oil. Kewpie is mayonnaise with added MSG and probably dashi. Aioli is mayonnaise with garlic in it. To make a wasabi aioli I would probably buy the green kewpie with wasabi already in it and then add garlic. Or I’d just use plain Kewpie. Because.

One day I will eat a burger.

The chicken sandwich was OK.

Last night I went to Mister Gee Burger Truck. Because I said I’d review a burger every day.

When I got there the queue was fifty people long.

I didn’t really want a burger. So I just went home.

Today I went to Kmart.

On the way home I saw a free car spot at Public House Petersham so I stopped for a burger and they have a picture of Jason Donovan on the wall.

I got the buttermilk chicken burger with swiss cheese and pineapple and thousand island dressing and they added bacon even though I didn’t ask for it and I don’t know if they charged me extra for the bacon because I didn’t get a receipt.

I left the cheese because I don’t like cheese and that’s probably a reason not to try eating a burger every day and anyway I keep getting fried chicken burgers which probably class as chicken sandwiches so I guess I haven’t eaten a single burger yet.

The food was OK.

Every week after football the team walks up to Pub Life Kitchen. Every week there’s a big crowd and there’s no seats so the team goes somewhere else.

Every week. Except this week. This week the team got a table.

The burgers at Pub Life Kitchen are the stuff of legend. People sing their praises far and wide. Vegans take up meat. Junkies give up their addictions. Parents sell their children to slavery. Gen Y-ers eat a whole burger without checking Facebook once. I mean, after they’ve instagrammed it.

The stuff of legend. Not like the television show Legends with Sean Bean in it. But like the movie Troy that also has Sean Bean in it. Like King Arthur. Not like the weird 2004 movie with Clive Owen in it but like the 1981 movie “Excalibur” with Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren in it.

When I was a kid I read Gillian Bradshaw’s “Hawk  of May” where Gawain is called  Gwalchmai and I like my legends to be bigger than life and not all lame and real. I once saw Kiss live in concert and I don’t like Kiss or their music but their live show had fire and confetti and the singer flew across the stage suspended by wires. Legends need fire and confetti and to fly.

Because the burgers at Pub Life Kitchen are the stuff of legend I was worried I wouldn’t be able to draw mine from the stone because I’m not King Arthur and I’m not the rightful king of Britain. Not that I’ve checked or anything. But I don’t think so.

There was no confetti. But there were crayons.

The team spent most of their time drawing on the table.

I had the T.L.C. burger which had fried chicken, pickles, cheese and sriracha mayonnaise. Sriracha is the hot sauce with the rooster on it. I don’t know if sriracha contains rooster or it’s made by roosters or the rooster is just there for the fun of it.

Some in the team got the O.G. which was beef  with cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato and aioli. Some got the Cheeseburger which was beef, cheese, pickles, onions, mustard and tomato sauce. Also, one got the special. It was a burger. I don’t know what was on it.

Most of us finished. The special was very large. It’s in the background. I can’t figure out what was on it by looking at what was left. It’s too blurry.

The food was OK.

Butter is a sneaker shop in Surry Hills.

The window display is full of sneakers. Champagne glasses too. But mostly sneakers.

I was wearing my daggy pair of Gola sneakers. They’re handmade but nobody cares about that because they’re daggy and they’re Gola.

I didn’t want to buy any shoes at Butter because they were all hi-tops and I had white Adidas hi-tops when I was nine and there’s a picture of me in my hi-tops and my jeans tucked into my socks and I had a flat top because it was the eighties and I went to a catholic primary school and in the photo I had just done my first confirmation and in the photo I’m holding my confirmation certificate and rosary beads and I had a flat top which is worth mentioning twice because it was a flat top and there’s a photo of it.

In Butter there were brands like Adidas and Nike and ASICS and some new brands but also old forgotten ones like British Knights. When I was fourteen I had a pair of British Knights which isn’t important except that when I was fourteen I didn’t have a flat top any more and I had stopped tucking my jeans into my socks and there’s no photo of that is there because everybody wants to take photos of kids in white shirts with rosary beads but nobody wants to take photos of kids with undercuts and flannelette shirts tied around their waists.

That was in the 80s though so I don’t have to worry about the photos being online.

Inside Butter the walls were black.

The menu was written in a familiar looking sans-serif that I stared at because I knew it but I couldn’t quite pick it. The way the diagonal strokes on the ‘K’ met in the middle, the low bar on the ‘A’, the curved ‘3’, the full height diagonal bars on the ‘W’, the absence of a stem on the ‘U’, the straight non-tapered single quote, the counter on the ‘C’, the round ‘y’!

What was that typeface?

I ordered the chicken sandwich with pickles, dashi butter and a side of slaw. A chicken sandwich has chicken on a burger bun.

The chicken was fried. I think after they fried it they poured butter over it before putting it on a buttered bun. The menu said dashi butter but I couldn’t taste the dashi in the butter either because there was more butter than dashi or because I also ordered a side of the “hot AF” chili sauce which turned out to be gochujang or because I have no idea what dashi tastes like.

The coleslaw was in a little tub like at KFC except it had black sesame seeds on top. I ate it with a fork. The coleslaw, not the burger. I ate the burger with my hands. I’m not a weirdo.

What kind of weirdo sits alone in a sneaker shop with a fork eating a fried chicken sandwich with Japanese and Korean condiments while staring at the menu trying to figure out what typeface it’s written in?

I used the refresher towel when I was done.

The food was OK.

Sunday Morning. Breakfast. There is a new cafe to try in Sydney every week. I thought about trying a new cafe but I needed to pick one and then drive there and then there wouldn’t be any parking and I’d have to park on the street and walk to the cafe and in Sydney you never know.

So I walked to the local cafe instead. On the way, there was a spinning bird mobile thing on a balcony.

The local cafe had cutlery on the table in a pot next to the sugar.

I thought about getting bacon and eggs. But eggs give me a pain in the guts and I’m sometimes vegan on Sunday. There were some other things on the menu. Hotcakes too but it was too early on Sunday for something sweet.

I ordered porridge. I asked for it with soy milk instead of milk from a cow. They asked if I wanted it dairy-free because it also had crème fraîche in it (whatever that is). I said yes because I didn’t think crème fraîche was vegan. Not if it was dairy.

The porridge was too hot but I didn’t say anything because it would cool down and besides, I’m not Goldilocks.

There was too much porridge. I don’t know why cafe’s give such big servings nowadays. If I had a time machine I could have taken my leftovers to Russia and fed Napoleon’s troops. Not that I’m all hot for Napoleon or anything but I’m just saying I could have if I wanted to because I was full and there was still lots of porridge left. I don’t think Napoleon’s troops would have minded much that it was vegan porridge. Not if they were very hungry.

The porridge had barley and seeds and blueberries in it. I couldn’t finish those either.

The food was OK.

 

 

I went to ACME in Rushcutters Bay. All of the staff were very friendly. This was distracting because I’m used to staff acting like they’d rather be somewhere else.

It was so distracting that I forgot to take any photos.

I can’t remember the dish names from the menu. I ate a devon and tomato sauce sandwich and some macaroni.

ACME have a chefs hat. I took a business card.

The food was OK.

Juicy Lucy is a new chicken shop in Surry Hills. They serve BBQ and fried chicken with flavours inspired by South East Asia. There are posters on the walls.

I ordered the “Bruce Lee” wrap. It had BBQ chicken, chips and gravy on it. I also ordered a rainbow side salad.

Bruce Lee approved.

I ate in the shop.

The food was OK.