Sunday, April 28, 2013

Adventures in Fooding - Big Fish

Another weekend, another food and drink blog post. As I sit here blogging about our eating adventures (again!), Anita is currently doing what appears to be endless sit-ups to work off our restaurant meal (technically, MEALS considering we haven't had one single homecooked one this weekend). It's amusing to watch her work out, but it also makes me feel like a total lard ass for not joining in. Whatever, I have photos to upload, and typing to do! Clearly, my threshold for justifications and rationalizing is extremely low.

We hit up Big Fish Seafood Restaurant and Oyster Bar tonight for... wait for it... seafood and oysters. The name sorta says it all. We shared a half dozen fresh oysters, which Anita informed me was the first time we'd consumed these libido boosters in 293 days. For real. She keeps a log of every raw oyster we eat, complete with which region/ bay/ coast they're sourced from, and the taste profiles of each... sort of like an extreme version of a wine snob. We also indulged in: 1) sturgeon skewers served with spaghetti squash fritters and mango lemon aioli, 2) lamb and lobster burger with cambazola cheese, avocado and salsa cruda, and 3) seared salmon on French lentils with wild mushrooms, sage, and dungeness crab. YUMMY! Unfortunately, the specific dish I really wanted to try (a softshell crab sandwich) was only available on the lunch menu. Who wants to meet us there for lunch sometime?

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I'm holding an oyster shell, in case you couldn't tell what it was.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Ox and Angela - Crispy Fried Sardine Bones, anyone?

Anita and I have had our fill of strange food fare on our travels, so it was interesting to finally have something exotic that we haven't tried before, within our very own city. We hit up Ox and Angela yesterday afternoon for a quick meal, and the menu offerings were an extensive and eclectic mix of Spanish tapas. The place was packed full with reservations, so we were ushered to the bar to eat, where we had a great view of the bartenders mixing a variety of very interesting looking cocktails (I would probably return for those alone). The food was decent, and the highlight piece of 'ooh how interesting' were the grilled sardines. Those in and of themselves, were good, but the surprise was that post consumption, they took away the bones and crispy deep fried them, representing them to us on a butcher block with a paprika aioli. Very TASTY!

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The presentation of these fried fish bones reminded me a little of my 'Dead Bird Diaries' series of photos.

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Afterwards, we went to see The Place Beyond the Pines (Ryan Gosling!!!), which was some heavy heavy subject matter. But that's beside the point - what I really wanted to talk about was the dude beside us who was eating THE. STINKIEST. PIZZA. EVER. It smelled like an unwashed dog and a bag of vomit blended into one, topped with a pile of sweaty socks. Seriously, that lethal cocktail of aromas should have been enough to knock out even the most hardy Spartan. I have no idea how he managed to chow down on it like it was actually food. And I thought I had an iron stomach...

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Easter Weekend Photodump

Anita and I spent the Easter long weekend eating, drinking, and hiking in Banff. We also pretended to be ritzy socialites and took in the Afternoon Tea at the Banff Springs Hotel. I may even have extended my pinky while sipping on tea and eating dainties. Sorry, hard to come up with more tales of humorous shenanigans given the events of this week. Pray for Boston.

The Tea Selection

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Photos shot on various cams: Leica M6 & Voigtlander 35/1,4; Kiev88 & Arsat 80/2.8; and Nikon D300 & Nikkor 35/1.8.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Life on Two Wheels - Ho Chi Minh

Here's a long overdue post of more photos from Vietnam. In Ho Chi Minh, the people tend to refer to vehicles not as cars and motorbikes, but rather in terms of numbers: either you ride two wheels or four wheels. Most of the population relies on two wheels (mopeds and bicycles) as their means of transport and livelihoods.

These shots were taken while riding on the back of a Xe Om's moped. Xe Om is pronounced 'Seh Om', which is essentially a hired moped driver - not necessarily a properly registered cabbie, but rather, a mercenary with a scooter and a tank of gas at your service. My Xe Om had a particular fondness for black coffee and purple corduroy pants (and no, he was not a hipster). Picture a rotund-ish Japanese Kamikaze pilot, but instead of a plane, he would attack oncoming traffic (head on, more often than not) with his tiny little moped. While wearing Purple.Corduroy.Pants. He wasn't Japanese either, but that's beside the point. I would be the equivalent of the gunner in the back, shooting anything and everything in the way. We made a good team - his slightly erratic driving (to me, anyways) gave me the opportunity to snap off some candids of two wheeled folks in action from their perspective. I would not have captured these same views on foot (the lowliest of low in the transport hierharchy). Thanks Purple Pants! You rock.

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And below, I introduce you to the Mopedaire himself, Mr. Purple Pants. In four days of riding with him, I never did get his actual name, but I think it was something that sounded like 'Ayuk.' Regardless, it mattered not for we didn't greet each other by name, but rather through exchanges of manly head nods and restrained half grunts.

Xe Om

Photogeeks: The street photos were taken with the Sony RX-100, while the portrait of my Xe Om was taken with a Kiev88 CM on Fuji NPH 400 (a film stock which yields terribly flat colours).