Actually, should out to sushi in Jakarta. Seriously good, very cheap. Gandaria City Mall, da bomb

All this sushi talk has reminded me that I’ve got this place 5 minutes walk from the flat and I’m yet to go there:



I really should rectify that.

I get that they do so many great things but if they're bearing us at beef and norseradish then I'm paying for more tsunamis

The UK has some incredible beef, but it's all about knowing your cuts, their uses, and having a good local butcher. I've had some incredible beef, including Japanese, and yes - it's top stuff. But the UK does have comparative stuff, if you know how and where to look.

Citation: i grew up on a farm.

Their beer on tap in their version of Gregg's - some tonkatsu place - is better than most pubs.

Their battered fish ain't bad neither.

Racist fuckers

Minnesänger wrote:

The UK has some incredible beef, but it's all about knowing your cuts, their uses, and having a good local butcher. I've had some incredible beef, including Japanese, and yes - it's top stuff. But the UK does have comparative stuff, if you know how and where to look.

Citation: i grew up on a farm.

Translation: craving for some meat? Look to Cinty

But yeah, I remember trips to the atlas mountain with my dad, 6am, he would stop at the local butcher at the village, get two massive steaks, and we would grill them over a wood fire after work, eat them with chips fried in olive oil (potatos from the garden), salad from the garden, olive oil from the stores.... Fucking best meal I ever had, take it to my grave.

I think the Japanese beef is because of what they feed them. This beef was from locally sourced meat, ie organic fed, etc

Maybe their blended stuff, but surely they wouldn't be so dishonest about their single malts?

GooberTheHat wrote:

Maybe their blended stuff, but surely they wouldn't be so dishonest about their single malts?

You'd hope so. But I dunno. My friend knows his shit though and I distinctly remember him effectively saying Japanese whiskey is a big old fucking scam

A brand like yamazaki selling a single malt and claiming it was Japanese when it wasnt would ruin their brand. If their competitors had evidence they were doing that wouldn't they tell everyone that would listen?

The stores of olive oil I refer to are literally three large vats in the living room, by a sort of low lying pantry which is where they would have put the animals in the old days - the ones that can't take handle the snows. You go in the vat, grab ladle full of olive oil. That olive oil is the fucking bomb. I go to Paris every year to get something close to it.

Everything in that meal, except the salt, is local. The tomatoes are bursting with flavour. It's depressing how devoid of taste tomatoes are now.

A bygone age, sadly. We're all quite seriously fucked.

In 1995 we visited a farm, went to a BnB. My dad after that stopped buying lamb - organic wasn't really an option in the 90s in London even. The lamb's droppings looked like miniature soft human shits, almost diarrhoea. Not the neat little round balls. It was unnerving. What do they feed them ffs?

This is all reg's fault

GooberTheHat wrote:

A brand like yamazaki selling a single malt and claiming it was Japanese when it wasnt would ruin their brand. If their competitors had evidence they were doing that wouldn't they tell everyone that would listen?

I dunno, my friend was pretty categoric - and I think he mentioned a single malt that Scots sent over there, some pathetic cosmetic shit happened, and it came back Japanese and expensive. that blog is just what I could find out there when I googled it.

Understand that Japan isn't like that, competitors don't do you in, there is an honour code and the main companies are all at it. And major international alcohol distributors - there are very few - also profit from an extra Japanese brand. Plus they send them the Scottish malt in volume, so the supplier makes money's.

Speaking to this friend made me realise the alcohol market is much less about product than marketing. What sells is the idea of the product, the brand. The idea of the Japanese single malt can be sold at a much higher price than a Scottish one that doesn't have a hallowed brand.

You start with the target market. Who do you want to sell to? What's their budget? What does the research show. Then you make the product. It's almost a fucking afterthought, the product is driven by th margins they seek to sell to the person they target.

It's so obvious but my mind was blown.

It's like that over here. The missus' mam has a garden with all fresh fruit you just pick, pickled everything, homemade alcohol, oils, milk, fresh off the animal meat, homemade bread. fucking incredible. Their pantry and larder is stocked full