“Coriander is also notorious for getting stuck in foreskins and bras”

When the Pho Cafe (Vietnamese street food) opened back in 2005 it blossomed flavour and freshness. Now their soups taste like a public pool after a school swimming carnival. Even the staple classic Summer Rolls have the mouthfeel of a condom.

Stop what you’re doing and go quick sticks to the very green and no nonsense Song Que Cafe in Hoxton with all the other hairy hipsters. The culinary skills of the bow-legged extended family are second to none. The cumin anything is mouth popping joy and delightfully stingy on the lips, soothe them with a nasty Pinot Grigio.

Watch as hipsters get coriander stuck in their beards and say things like and like and like and like that and like later like he said like yeah and like she was like all like, like yeah. Enough likes already.

Coriander is also notorious for getting stuck in foreskins and bras. If coriander could talk we would learn the secrets of hipster sex. What really goes on? How do hipsters have sex? And can we stop it?

When I first heard about ‘army base stew’ I got an erection imagining soldiers in a spa soaking their war torn limbs…”

When I first heard about ‘army base stew’ I got an erection imagining soldiers in a spa soaking their war torn limbs, allowing it to settle and then draining the water to make a stew. I was close. The Korean dish, army base stew or Budae Jjigae has a dirty history. In the aftermath of the war, American servicemen and troops were stationed in South Korea to prevent invasion. Piss-taking Koreans got word these bases had a surplus of sausage so they scooped them up and dumped them in a spicy stew. This dish is known as a trash soup or garbage soup and a reminder that Korea was once ravaged by war and Spam.

“I dined at La Bodega Negra the night after Kylie Minogue was seen exiting not so discretely”

I’m rarely seen at the right places or attend the right parties but last night I dined at La Bodega Negra the night after Kylie Minogue was seen exiting not so discretely. Candy insisted we dine there not just so I could bathe in the waft of Miss Minogue but because she thought I might enjoy a restaurant disguised as a striptease bar. She was right. We meekly entered and were greeted by a Clockwork Orange ringmaster. I knew immediately this was place was high concept low carbs. The carcass of a piano and a tiny proscenium arch (perhaps where Kylie did a number the night before) made a former basement look like the deluge of a post-apocalyptic circus on the run. The waitress was sharply beautiful and tantalisingly non-committal allowing us to decide if the miniature tacos displayed on a charred wooden rack were going to be enough. And just as the striptease once eased into the private lap dance, the tacos fell short of hitting the spot. Appetites whet, we ordered Fresh Crab Tostaditas, Seafood Rice Cazuela and another rack of tacos. The creamy Cazuela was more risotto than soup with cheeky capers stirred though. We fought over the last grain of rice, no love lost deep in boutique tapas. Intoxicated by ghosts we dug up stories of our past, remembering the infamous pole dancing mother and our own performances entangled in a spider’s web made of chains.

“He was the perfect Melbourne waiter, reading his customers and matching any hint of enthusiasm with flirty temptation. Also known as sexy up-selling”

The wait staff in Melbourne restaurants are renowned for their intimacy. When you’re fresh from another country their warmth can feel suspicious. Exciting even. It always takes me a few days to climatise to the keen service. Lingering eye contact and a hand on a shoulder usually means imminent death or intercourse everywhere else in the world but not in Melbourne. I feel like the waiter and I should swap numbers but then he slams the bill down in front of me and shatters my illusion. I tip heavily of course. On departure I feel like I’ve invested a level of emotion equal to whirlwind romance. Now I live in London and visit Melbourne the warmth of service still confuses me but I welcome the unguarded moments and the universal truth that everything is better in Australia, as most Australians will tell you.

When I left Australia in 2006 I left my most precious friend and dining companion Kim. I’ve been unable to enjoy a dining experience to its full extent without Kim across from me, smoking and swishing cheap wine about usually down her chin. She’s the wasabi to my sushi. I know my first evening meal should be with her. I swing by in a cab and scoop her up from her duplex in the outer precincts of Melbourne. In the back of the cab we swig something strong from a siler flask she produces from her handbag and I direct the driver to the hotly recommended Newmarket in St Kilda.

St Kilda is Kim’s old stomping ground back when she could dine on the kindest of strangers just by letting her blonde hair catch the dewy seaside light.

Kim and I discuss the curse of overfamiliar waiters over a bottle of wine. Her phone number has found its way into many a waiter’s apron only to find out he was simply doing his job, very well indeed. It seems even the locals find the attentive service confusing.

Soft taco with soft shell crab in fennel and guacamole followed by kingfish in a spicy salsa was hot to trot and a cleansing Sauvignon Blanc from the Pyrenees to knock it off.

The waiter join us at the table to talk us through the dessert menu. He sat down and took it in turns to look deeply into our eyes. I knew this now to be just a Melbourne thing, so I directed my hand away from his knee. 

Piqued but not satisfied with the conditioned-based intimacy of the night before I met my friends Dean, Andrew and Bruno for lunch at the Stokehouse the next day, hoping for another loose but this time homosexual Melbourne waiter. The Stokehouse on St Kilda Beach is well loved by Melbournites’. The building burnt almost to rubble in 2014 and was redesigned into the current Stokehouse. Its all about the raw beautiful morsels and fat buttery whites.

Dean (the-boyfriend-that-got-away-in-the-early-90s) flags down the waiter for the saltwater ceviche with fermented chilli and desert lime. I flag down the oysters with finger lime and yuzu. Dean uses a knife to divide the ceviche among 4 in perfect potions. I immediately resent the fact we are 4 and I fantasise about the other’s having violent skin eruptions to the oysters. I wonder if I could order more and I share this thought with the waiter. He says he once had 7 of the ceviche, I laugh and he clarifies he wishes he had 7. I wonder why he came up with 7, after all he did recite the specials board with whet insight and he looked the type to eat 7. Or I looked the type. He was the perfect Melbourne waiter, reading his customers and matching any hint of enthusiasm with flirty temptation. Also known as sexy up-selling. Oh the dance! I think about beautiful morsels and wonder if it’s the morsel that drives the appreciation. I once peeled hundreds of salted pistachios and put them all in my mouth. I hoped this would cure the moreish pull of pistachios. I figured it’s the constant not getting enough pistachio that drives the need for more. It worked for a night. The iceberg lettuce with sheep’s yogurt dressing, river mint and tarragon is a simple pleasure. Made me appreciate the iceberg as the jewel of lettuce rather than the mother of dregs at the bottom of a lunchbox.

Dean is 48 today and he wonders what’s next for him as he hurtles toward 50 faster than you can say ‘fetch mummy her fags’. He slices his iceberg lettuce wedge with a savage joy and I wish I could be delighted by lettuce. He is happy, at least for the moment, with a plate of lettuce. And it’s Melbourne where a wedge of lettuce with a splash of balsamic is a no nonsense tasty entree. Because our produce is SIMPLY DAVOINE, any Aussie will tell you (over and over again) Another Melbourne thing like the flirty waiters. I miss it when I skid back into Heathrow and sink my teeth into a cold steak bake at Greggs. I look at Dean (the-boyfriend-that-got-away-in-the-early-90s) and I want to tell him this is as good as it gets but I refrain just in case we get a bucket of fried chicken on our way home, like the old days. Or bump into the drug dealer, like the old days. Happiness is watching an old friend smile over a glass of wine.

“Right now if I had to choose between my Italian lover Marco and Parmesan I’d choose Parmesan. He doesn’t mind. It’s Parmesan after all. Italian’s are rarely jealous if you choose food over them”

I don’t do romance. Having said that when you have an Italian lover a romantic dinner is a non-negotiable, even if he doesn’t finish work till 10pm and the restaurant is probably going to be full of couples having the same conversation about feeling coerced into feeling romantic. An Italian restaurant loves a 11pm booking. They welcome you with open arms and a knowing smile, Italian time. My Anglo-Saxon stomach has reduced to a trembling prune but my eyes conceal this with a bright eagerness to please. This is starvation to anyone who is not Italian. I take the hug. Maddalena is a family restaurant that knocks out tremendous wood fired oven pizzas and homemade pasta. My Italian lover lives across the road. He can smell the pizza from his bathroom. He rattles on in Italian to the waitress who shrugs a lot and smiles and then shrugs some more. The tables are all blotched by red wine stains and feather like shavings of Parmigiano-Reggianon. We were here at the tail end of a busy Valentine’s day. The place is all ours now except for the old Italian father snoring in the corner. I can see the point of a 11pm dinner. It’s very civilized. Damn it, I even feel a faint ripple of romance coming over me. He’s won again.

The first dish he made me when we were dating was Bresaola Carpaccio. Bresaola is a lean dried salted beef from the Valtellina, a long Alpine valley in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy. Pronounced breh-ZOW-lah. I’d read somewhere that Bresaola was made from depressed ponies but he disputed this with a fierceness (it’s not like I pushed his mother off a cliff) that made me think perhaps I was right. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that Bresaola can also be made from venison or horse meat, grass-fed, trimmed of all fat and then rubbed with salt and spices before being hung to air-dry for several months. The spices vary, pepper, juniper berries, cinnamon, cloves. The end product is far less fatty than prosciutto, and a bit firmer, with a deep red colour and delicate, aromatic flavour.

So Bresaola Carpaccio. Let me recount the ways. Start by arranging slices of Bresaola like flower petals on a white plate. Then drizzle with some extra-virgin olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon, and make a small pile of fresh arugula (rocket) in the center. Top it all with some shavings of aged Parmigiano-Reggianon.

I love Parmesan cheese. I often sit in bed and munch on a triangle of Parmigiano-Reggianon and wash it down with a bottle of Rioja. It’s my winter remedy for everything from the common cold to suicidal ideation. Do try it at home. I wondered why I loved it so much and then I discovered of all the cheeses Parmesan has the highest fat content. Ah yes, just another obsession that kills me. I eat lightning fast. If you’ve read my blog over the years you’ll know why (my mother starved me when I was a child). I eat a triangle of Parmesan in minutes, sometimes in seconds come mid-winter. It’s a triangle shape for easy munching and possibly for easy grating and shaving. I’m only guessing. Google it yourself (I’m devouring a triangle and a bottle of Rioja Alta 890 Gran Reserva 2005 as we speak and can’t help you). Right now if I had to choose between my Italian lover Marco and Parmesan I’d choose Parmesan. He doesn’t mind. It’s Parmesan after all. Italian’s are rarely jealous if you choose food over them. It’s crystalline, grainy texture makes my cheeks prickle and throb. When you wash it down with Rioja the sharpness is immediately dulled, and the fruity nutty flavours explode and you can feel a slight burning sensation in your sinuses. The first recorded reference to Parmesan, in 1254, documents that a noble woman from Genoa traded her house for the guarantee of an annual supply of 53 pounds of cheese produced in Parma. Today my Italian lover tomorrow my house. 

I look at him and then open my phone to read a description of how Bresaola is made. I read aloud “Bresaola is aged two or three months until it becomes hard and turns a dark red, almost purple colour. It is lean and tender with a sweet musty smell” This is an accurate description of my dinner companion I realise. We acknowledge the coincidence, exchanging a curled lip.

“Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve. You could also add some thinly sliced white truffles. Alternatively, you can add small, sliced marinated mushrooms”

He snarls at the suggestion of truffles and now opens his phone. He reads aloud in strange English Italian.

“A strict trimming process is essential to give the unique flavour. The meat loses up to 40% of its original weight during ageing” he points at me and laughs.

Who said romance is dead?

“I could smell his sweaty sideburns”

I love sitting at a bar having a beer. It’s a very masculine thing to do. No one questions a man at a bar having a beer. Even if he stinks a bit. If a woman sits at a bar even for a few seconds, she must be waiting for someone or she’s a drag queen.

Eating alone is a bit different. For some reason this comes across a little suspicious, the kind of man who might also read comics. A few years ago I ate alone in a pub for Christmas and I received plenty of suspicious and sympathetic stares. No one asked me to join their table but I was sent an anonymous sherry which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Whether you want to know this or not, here are the most popular names for pubs in Britain.

Red Lion, Rose & Crown, New Inn, The Swan, White Horse, White Hart, Royal Oak, The Crown.

My favorite Rose & Crown is in South Ealing. I’m convinced it’s the best Rose & Crown in Britain. I eat and drink there a lot and not once have they served a questionable meal or poured a shit beer. The roast belly of pork, dauphinoise potatoes, red cabbage, apple compote is mouth-watering. Makes you snort softly when you take first bite.

To prove my point, a few months ago I set out to eat and drink at every Rose & Crown in Britain and only got as far as the Rose & Crown in Wimbledon. Lousy effort really but I was in need of a drink. I found a guy at the bar drinking beer and I sat beside him. We nodded at each other and I told him the one about the guy who tried to visit every Rose & Crown in Britain. He said “how many have you done so far?” I said “two”. He suggested I get a job. I could smell his sweaty sideburns.

I said “there’s 8 pubs in Britain called Slurping Toad and 76 called Cock”

We agreed a tour of Britain in search of the best Cock had great marketing potential but I was more likely to make the 8 Slurping Toads in one piece. The first is in Bishopsgate, London. If you want a pub crawl done properly, call an Australian. Looking forward to my first dining challenge. To eat and drink in every Slurping Toad in Britain.

“Often a fillet from Tesco can deliver this or any raggedy rotten slab of cow, just drown it in Hot English mustard. If only we could drown the weather in Hot English mustard”

I smother my steak in Hot English mustard and stab at it with a steak knife that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tower block in south London. It’s raggedy and rotted. Bills serves it up with watercress but even the first lady of garnish can’t cheer up this fuck up of a meat. I suck the stale tainted fat off the watercress and apologise to it. I say out loud how much I could murder some Kobe beef right now and Rob, my Tinder date an tonight’s dinner companion says “You know they are massaged daily with sake, the Kobe cows? It’s an ancient tradition” But this sounds like a lazy cultural stereotype to describe a covert method of murdering cows. Why does everything the Japanese do get shrouded in a myth about ancient practice. Cue the Kugo 箜篌 a harp used in ancient times. I wonder about great steak. I sometimes sneak off by myself to Sukiyaki-Tei for Kobe Shimofuri Yaki Shabu Cuts with Truffle Ponzo on the side. But when I can’t afford 90 pounds for Kobe beef I grab a steak from my local butcher. For me when I go cheap I go for a beef that has a fibrous texture to err on the side of caution. Often a fillet from Tesco can deliver this or any raggedy rotten slab of cow, just drown it in Hot English mustard. If only we could drown the weather in Hot English mustard. Scirocco on the island Naxos in the Cyclades does the world’s best steak but you have to change in Athens to get there. Hot English mustard is less than £2 or £4.94 at it’s most posh at Fortnum & Mason so just drown it in that, if you can’t afford a flight to Greece. A tasty austerity measure.

“I get the back table near the loos most evenings and talk with my writer friends about death”

Janet’s Bar is a drinking hole slapped about with tat in the fading opulence of South Kensington. I love this place. I get the back table near the loos most evenings and talk with my writer friends about death. Last night we stayed later than usual and Janet came in. it was like sitting at KFC and spotting the Colonel Sanders or having Ronald MacDonald serve you a Big Mac. We were nearly at the end of our second bottle of £30 Merlot when Janet said “right gentlemen?” I think she was letting us know she was in the house and it was time to buy a third bottle or get the fuck off the cool table. She looked exactly like all the cartoons and sketches of her on the walls. I said goodbye to her on our way out and she snarled a smile. It was great to finally meet her. As depicted on he walls she is quite the caricature. She keeps South Ken a bit boho. Hungry, we stopped by MORE THAN JUST SUBS across the road. Not a sex club like the name suggests but a take away joint designed by drunks for drunks. The place serves Poutine relentlessly, a dish originating from the Canadian province of Quebec, consisting of French fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy. No hungry bottoms here just lots of hungry trustafarians slumming it.

“I felt like I was floating above my dinner companions enjoying the high of pork meat that tastes like smoke and cream”

Sunday’s for me are often a Bloody Mary at 11, Gin and Tonic at midday and a bottle of Pinot Noir at about 1pm. Then I get out of bed and check my phone to see whose invited me to lunch. Pork is an ironic meat. Nothing calms the soul quite like pork and yet it’s a meat possessed with pain and suffering. Pigs are slaughtered in frenzied distress. Perhaps the calm I feel is relief that it was not me. Pigs are happy in mud, it’s all they know, of course pigs are happy in mud. If a pig knew a bath was an option I’m sure the pig would appreciate a bath. I had pork at the Duke of Cambridge in Battersea today and after a few slithers I felt like I was floating above my dinner companions enjoying the high of pork meat that tastes like smoke and cream. The Sunday roast is a trophy to English barbarism. A massacre on a plate. Remember guilt can enhance taste. I say if the carrots are good the rest of the roast will be too. The carrots had the consistency of pâté. You could smear them over rye and splash back a soft red. The broccoli had a hint of basil and was cooked al dente. It was a memorable roast. I snorted though a white napkin and thanked my dinner companions who’d declared this the best Sunday roast in London. Write to me and tell me what constitutes the best roast in the UK and where to find it. If you use the expression “all the trimmings” I’ll glaze over even if the rest of it’s biblical in epicness.

“For dessert remind your guests of the horrors of World War II”

Why not hold a Brexit fondue party? Seat tightly Remainers and Leavers in equal portion at a round table and tell them to rub the inside of a pot with garlic, boil up some wine and lemon and melt fists full of grated cheese. Then tell them to use the long pointy forks provided to dip in a variety of edible items. Say things like “anything goes with fondue!” Try a scotched egg, a pickled onion, a cold chip. Dip it in then pull it out and eat it. For the full Fondue experience get them to close their eyes and feed each other! Fondue was popular in 1973 the same year Britain joined the European Union. For dessert remind your guests of the horrors of World War II, a dark chapter in our history before fondue.