timminsoffthetable-blog

[timminsoffthetable-blog]

Hispanic Mechanic: Turning 18 isn’t a piece of meat

In the welcoming bite of wind and rain, another evening unveiled itself to our group like a newlywed European wife - unchaste, yet exciting and refined. Definitely a fresh feeling. You love Mexican food as much as the next guy, and you couldn’t turn away flirtatious plates of meat radiating with consideration. 

You love Mexican food - but you haven’t been there, have you? 

As Odd Future accompanied my especially lonely bus ride (made so by the gentle downpour and dimly lit sky), I couldn’t help but wonder what I was doing. Not in existential sense, no, simply pondering - where am I meeting my pals? My trail was as murky as the weather, as a left the carriage to walk into the abyss. A voice told me to look no further than the spacious bathrooms at Hilton, and dear voice in the sky I was lead to my pals. An encounter with the police, and an even more intimidating chef, couldn’t have even begun to diminish my hopes and fears of the night - what is happening? I’m shaking my mind with my soul, “what am I doing?”

I’m getting on the bus. I’m getting off.  It was common knowledge between the 4 of us that dinner was at 7 PM, so we only had 5 minutes to get drinks. McDonald’s, our mother cow, let us suckle on its four frozen coke nipples, but only for a fleeting moment as we had a rendezvous with reason - a feast with fate.

Entering the restaurant with akin to accidentally walking into the wrong house. “Where is my friend? I’m lost!” Those thoughts rang through my head as we stressed over the minutes we were burning through. The atmosphere was warm but interestingly distant. We were led to our table, expecting to see the birthday boy - a sharp and blunt reminder that dreams don’t always come true. Lest he never arrived, the concept of ordering danced around the table, squished quickly by common sense - a judges gavel. Nonetheless, the birthday boy and two more pals arrived at roughly the same time. After the classic “what the hell are we going to order, dad” debacle that we all face, the banquet was decided on. Ah, the banquet. I’ve never had a banquet in my life and I’m certain this will be one of the very few times I do - that having nothing to do with the quality of the food experience at the restaurant - just due to the nature of a banquet.

The table was casually greeted with our first dish, Ceviche Tostadas. Small ball-shaped morsels which were awkward to eat, contained fish meat and were quite the treat. The spirits were high after the first bite - literally. I ate it in one freaking bite, isn’t that weird and cool? It certainly wasn’t as corny as the next dish, named Elote, for no apparent reason whatsoever. Something so simple impressed us all and really guided us into our next dish, Master Kim's five-star wings. Yes, they tasted good, but I have to take a jab at Mr. Kim and his immature attempt at plugging his item into a Hispanic restaurant. Master Kim? Master of disguise, more like, as even my pals didn’t believe me that the pickled impostor on the porcelain plate, by the sticky wings, was, in fact, kim chi. Yeah, I’m a multicultural guy, but this cacophony of cultures, this clash, it really disoriented me - I was finding it hard to sit up straight. 

Away with the deliciously sinful wings, baby, as dish after dish arrived under our noses. I felt the walls coming in closer, but for whatever reason, it was comforting – like a womb or just a nice area in general. Pork hock, Short ribs, and bird in a bowl? Last time I saw a bird in a bowl I let the bird outside and washed the bowl out. This maelstrom of meat was brought to a close with an Ensalada Caesar – a Caesar salad essentially. Two unmemorable sweet dishes greeted us with saccharine smiles and facades of cream and caramelized bananas – a taste which was objectively good, but nothing to howl about.

It was over. I expected a seven course meal which would take me to places I’ve never been before and more, but what I never expected was the feeling of true joy, peace of mind, and a McDonalds frozen coke beside me all the way, as if to remind me that everything is still relative – going to a foreign restaurant, despite what most people think, doesn’t actually mean you can say you were born in that country. I learned this the hard way.

 8.1 / 10

[timminsoffthetable-blog]

Sit Lo: I Was At Sit Lo, But Is That What Matters?

It’s not technically the first time I have had Vietnamese food before, as I’ve enjoyed home-made cà phê đá. It was a lazy take on iced coffee, as it simply used sweet milk instead of sugar and milk separately. Tasted too sweet - a haunting foreshadowing of how sweet my beef Phở broth was.

In getting to the restaurant, I was greeted by a mild gush of air, delivered by the old man driving the bus I rode. I was here in Adelaide CBD again. Not that it had brushed my mind, but I knew deep down that luster of the city had been rubbed off a long time ago, as I trace my oh so common path to the lights. I was first greeted by a woman riding a bike crying. A weird sight that juxtaposed the sunny weather. As I continued, my eyes brushed past a herd of Stüssy clad hooligans, fighting and yelling outside Myer. I was taken aback because I was witnessing Ragnarok in heaven, so to speak. I met up with my pals and we made our way to the restaurant.

To be honest, it was breathtakingly small. The lights hung low like a drug house and it was conspicuously empty. I immediately noticed roughly 8 people in a small kitchen. Why were there so many people in a small kitchen in an empty restaurant? I wiped the sweat from my brow, removed my red sunglasses and fabricated my order. A bowl of beef pho (pictured above in white porcelain) and a side drink of lychee - infused coconut ‘crusher. The straw was too small and made it borderline painful to enjoy the drink. The taste was there, but it was just all too sweet. I ran my chopsticks through the  Phở, and sensed noodles, chives, and for some reason a large flower. I put it in my mouth, noticed its awful taste and removed it from the equation, thinking quietly to myself why there was one in my pho, but not one in my friends, who had ordered the exact same thing at the same time. The broth was too sweet.

As we finished our meals, no one was ready to discuss what just happened. My eyes run around the table in the dark, trying to find something my ease my mind. I saw glass faces and not a single meal truly finished, including my own. The service was nice.

7/10