Lounge Burger

I love burgers. In fact, I eat far too many. I’ll head for the nearest drive through at the first faint pangs of hunger, and order something with bacon and cheese on it. And it’s never a baked potato.

The other day after helping a friend drop her art off at a gallery, she offered to buy me lunch, suggesting Lounge Burger. I’d noticed it once or twice but never been in. I said “Great” and we pulled in.

Lounge Burger looks very cool. The stone and wood décor and low lighting provide a laid back atmosphere that’s stylish and fun. Each booth has a little LCD screen at the table. I was happy to see they were showing a replay of the previous night’s Pens/Flyers game as we sat. 

I noticed they had a lot of beer on tap. Local Big Rock varieties, Sleeman’s from out east, Keith’s from farther east and Sapporo from really far east. Above that I noticed the hockey game on a giant screen over the bar. I noticed that the drinks menu was pretty impressive as well. It was then I noticed that we’d been there for quite a while noticing things. 

Finally a waitress came by and dropped off menus and took our drink orders. The menu was fantastic with about a half a dozen different patties, from beef to elk, wagyu beef and lamb. When our waitress eventually found her way back to our table I ordered the signature burger with yam fries and my gracious burger benefactor ordered the bison burger. I was excited and very hungry!

Lounge Burger is not the place to go if you’re hungry. Immediately hungry I mean.  The portions are generous, it just takes forever to get them.  Even the distraction of the Flyers pounding the Penguins wasn’t enough for me to notice that it was taking a long, long time for us to get food. 

It was worth it. A burger cooked just right is an amazing thing, and this one was cooked perfectly. Not a second too long. The caramelized onions played off the mild cheddar perfectly, and peppered bacon was a pure delight. There was some sort of aioli that gave the sandwich a great flavor and moisture. The yam fries were delicious as well, however the red pepper aioli that came with them was watery and relatively flavourless.

All in all I thought left Lounge Burger full and happy. I think I’ll go back and try one of their many other burger options one day soon. I’ll just be sure to have a snack first!

Laos

We landed in Udon Thani in a plane with a duck bill painted nose. A quick drive brought us to the border. It took about an hour to get about 30 of us through. Travelling with a 70 year old Thai TV star makes life interesting. People stopped to ask her questions or get pics and she'd make them laugh with her antics.

Welcome to Laos, pop 6,200,894. The hammer and sickle flags are a dead give away that we'd entered a communist state. Be that as it may, capitalism is alive and well here. The myriad of electronics, tonics, and pirated harmonics (music dvds, its a stretch, I know, but if you can do better....) on display at the duty free is a testament to that.
   
~Things I've learned in Laos: If there is a light above your bed LEAVE IT OFF or a staggering number of minuscule flies will fly into the light and stay there until they are cooked to death, only to fall onto your pillow.


After a few purchases we loaded the vans for a 4 hour trip over the worst roads I've ever driven on...and I've driven to Indian Mountain and back. Its not like dirt roads, its worse. It's dirt roads that used to be paved, but years if not decades of indifference have left them a mangled track of jutting tarmac and stone peppered between ten meter stretches of solid pavement. Our driver treated it like the groomed concrete of a formula 1 track. Passing on blind corners, being forced onto jarring shoulders where holes and stone were the norm, and dodging oncoming traffic seemed very much the norm to him.



Arriving in Vang Vieng is like arriving in a past that's been victimized by the present. Thatched huts line the roads along the village. Legions of scooters scamper through the streets overtaken by rumbling trucks and vans laden with inner tubes and foreigners. Restaurants featuring raised seating platforms with stubby little tables face plasma screens blasting Friends, or The Family Guy. I would hazard that 90 percent of restaurants or bars are playing one of those two shows. Depending on the time of day, the corpses of stoned or hung over backpackers are strewn across the cushions and mats at each table.


~Things I've learned in Laos:  A bottle of Whiskey for 15,000 kip (+/- $1.80). If there's a snake in it, "Don't worry, it acts like viagra"-bartender, Smile Bar.


Colonised by the French, their Asian servants fought back and reclaimed Loas leaving behind a varied culinary culture. Coffee, baguettes and pasteries are served neatly beside Larp and Laos BBQ. The food is amazing and cheap. The latest incarnation of Laos cuisine includes pizzas, garlic bread, brownies and milkshakes prepared with weed, mushrooms or opium. It's been the hot topic of discussion over dinner lately.


Drugs are highly illegal, this being asia, and a communist country no less, however the trend is tolerated here. While walking with a long haired buddy in a hawiian shirt one evening, a guy on a moped stopped out of the blue before us, shut off his engine and asked if we wanted to get happy. I almost had my belt undone before he said, "No, do you want to buy drugs? Weed? Opium?" 
"ooooohhhh"


~Things I've learned in Laos: The more fun the shit on the menu is, the less fun the staff is.


Each year 9 Australians, usually young backpackers, die in Vang Vieng. Most drown while tubing down the river. The wide variety of bars along the river eager to toss you a line and refill your Whisky/Redbull bucket may or may not be a contributing factor. Other dangerous yet fun activities include Kayaking, Hot Air Ballooning, Boat Tours, Rock Climbing, Spelunking in any of the various caves in the area, and Rock Climbing.


The other major pass time is drinking. BeerLao, the local brew is exceptionally good. Buckets of booze and redbull are dirt cheap and often come with free TShirts. Thatched roof huts serve as bars with hammocks, beer pong, pool and makeshift dance floors. Fire dancers light up the night. Most are staffed with expats who've elected to extend their vacation in exchange for lo/no pay and a free room. 


~Things I've learned in Laos: The party doesn't start till after midnight.

The Australian National Food

Australia doesn't have a 'food'. You go anywhere around the world and there tends to be a national dish, or, in larger countries, regional dishes. Now I love food. I love going to places and finding new food. So travelling around recently has been a bit of a treat food wise.

In Thailand we had tons and tons of Pad Thai,  and in the South, Massaman Curry. In Cambodia I discovered Lok Lak, this amazing, sort of Lemon Grass curry. In England I had fish n' chips and scones, in France I had baguettes, wine and cheese, and amazing 4 and 5 course dinners. In Scotland I tried haggis. Never again.

Back in North America there is a huge diversity in regional food ownership. In Canada we've taken maple syrup, donuts and bacon as our own (bacon in the rest of the world is not the same.) America has the hot dog.

In New Brunswick we have poutine and lobster. La Belle Province also lays claim to pouting, and the dubious honour of being the fattest province. The only separation going on there is the mitosis of engorged fat cells. Alberta has steak. Oxford NS has blueberry pie. Newfoundland has boiled dinners, cod cheeks and flipper pie. In the southern US the barbecue is so good it could make a man weep, and different places have a different idea of what BBQ is. Books have been written on the subject. I had bbq in Austin that made me question the existence of time itself. Texas has Tex-Mex. San Francisco has crab places dotting the wharf. Chicago has pizza. New Orleans has Jumablia (I've never been, but apparently the food in NO is amazing and diverse).

Poor ol' Australia doesn't seem to have their own dish. The pubs all serve schnitzel. But thats German. You can get Kangaroo, but its not really popular. It's good, not popular. So I think Australia needs to work on creating a national dish. I don't know what it could be but they need to get on it. There are millions of Kangaroo, so that is a front runner. Most people don't eat it though. I've yet to see it on the menu here. Shark are becoming endangered so thats not a good choice for mass consumption. I think killing Koala's is illegal...Look, I'm not saying I have the answer. I'm just saying they need to have a think about it and come up with an answer. And schnitzel doesn't count. Ok, i'm off to have a fajita.
Ciao.

Vegetarian Non alcoholic Indian Movies

Went out for a birthday party this week. Went to a place called Godiva. Indian food! Sweet!

So we get there.Smells good. Oh wait...somethings amiss! VEGETARIAN INDIAN FOOD! Dammit!! Sigh. Ok, no problem. I'll try it. Hey, how about a beer while we're waiting? Hmmm...something else seems amis! NON ALCOHOLIC BEER!? Dammit! I had a full on Homer Simpson moment.

The meal was actually good. Love a buffet. Eat till you can barely move. Come to find out, there's a movie theatre downstairs. AND they don't have seats, they have these big cushions you lean back on. AND its only $10. Movies here are insanely expensive. So this is great news!

Strange tales of Thai.

Thai people can't add
Yeah, that's a gross generalization, but this is my story - go write your own if you don't want to read sweeping generalizations about an entire country. You hit a shop here and the sales folks all have calculators. Big ones. You ask a price for something and they type it out on the countin' box then immediately hNd it to you for your counter offer. I thought it was just for communicating. Three days ago I bought a boat ticket for 600b. I gave dude 1000. He had to use the calculator for the change. Then I started watching. It happens all the time. Quick, three nights in a room at 400/night... How much do I owe? Thai hotel clerks need to use a calculator to figure it out.

White guys on mopeds
There's a strange cultural phenomenon here. I remember a video years back by good Charlotte or Blink 182 maybe. One of those bands with so much black eye makeup, hair dye and tattoos that they look like walking shadows dressed up like white folks for Halloween. The video had a bunch of geriatric actors dressed and behaving like teenaged idiots. Just being young and stupid. They could have filmed that in Krabi Thailand

Scores of enthusiastic silverbacks can be seen screaming through the streets at night on scooters. Long grey hair, white goatees, beer guts hanging out over their ancient crotches and resting on the vinyl seat of a 125cc speed machine. Often a significantly younger Thai girl is riding pinion , or sometimes driving if grandpa has had one too many vodka/prune juices.

You'll see them trolling along, stopping in front of the 7-11 to chat with the young Thai girls taking a break from riding thier scooters to get a coke and a new sim card. The Thai girls, some of them I mean, I know how you feel about generalizations, are completely game. They'll see some newly invigorated Ben Gay receptacle and wave saying "hello my boyfriend!". Hey quickly stops reminiscing about his Plymouth Rock landing and say "hey where you going!?" all excited and titillated. Then they become a very unlikely scooter gang, roaring off into the night to the next cocktail bar/bamboo hut.

It's like a playground for old divorcees who've found a new lease on life.
Viagra is a terrible thing...

Cultural differences
A good friend lived in japan for a spell and told me the girls there had an annoying habit of talking with hi pitched childlike voices. This has been confirmed by some other former inhabitants if the land if the rising sun I know.

The other night I was walking by some seafood place and a lady out front is saying Hi to everyone walking by. Common practice here, and tough work, the boardwalks are slammed with tourist bastards in the evenings.

So this lady is saying hi, over and over, you can hear her 3 doors down. I want to buy her a pack of "Fishermans Friends" and give her a hug. Then all of a sudden, she practically screams, in a voice a full 2 octaves higher and several decibels louder "halloooooo! Welcooooome!". I actually jumped it had startled me so.

I didn't think about it again. Well, I've walked by this place a few times since, it's on the was to the beach and near the diveshop I've been hanging out at. It's happened 3 or 4 more times. Then I noticed, she only does it when there are Japanese people walking by. I stood and watched for a few minutes last night to confirm my suspicions, it she did it again about a 2 minutes into my investigation when a Japanese couple walked by. I recognized them by their hello kitty backpacks and the professional grade cameras where their faces should have been.

Food
Some of the best food comes from carts on the street. Theres a ton of competition and there's no small amount of pride in the traditional dishes they tend to serve at a third of the price of a restaurant.

Thais generally do a pisspoor job of western food in general. Breakfast is weak at best, burgers are not made of beef. They do however do a good job on pizza. They tend to favour thin crust pizza cooked in a wood oven. I've had 3. All fantastic.

McDonalds, BK Pizza Hut, and others are slowly making their mark here. It's a shame that a place with such a rich culinary history is being diluted so a few assholes can make a few more bucks selling mystery meat disguised as cheeseburgers to a ballooning society. I hope Ronald McDonald and that creepy ass king from the BK commercials have massive heartattacks resulting in quadruple by passes, then spend their days in a home for the infirm, being visited less and less often over the years by Mayor McCheese, the Hamburgler and Grimace, all of whom are anxiously awaiting their deaths and a healthy inheritance. The petty infighting would have begun on day one.

Thats all I got for now.

Just about a perfect day

I found Nemo - Saying goodnight
Feb 7 2011
Up at 630, picked up a friend at 7 and hit the dive shop at 715  20 mins later a bus picked us up and drove us to a longtail boat. We transferred to the dive boat from there. Once there the divemaster discovered that I didn't have my open water cert. Well. Lots of chattering on German... Phone calls to the main land, heated debate about my fate. They finally decided that I would do a "discover scuba" dive, then the money I spent would get put toward my open water. Sweet

For breakfast we had sticky rice and mango, fried dough with condensed milk, bananas, and sticky rice with spicy coconut. Amazingly good.

Filled out some forms, wrote a test on material I last read almost a year ago (92% thank you). Finally I got in on the 2nd dive. Anemone reef.

My first open dive was unreal. We did some skills then descended. The coral was amazing. Fish of every colour flippered along alone or in schools of hundreds. My instructor kept tabs on me and I stuck close.  The whole thing was exhilarating.

Back on the boat we had lunch , rice with green curry, and some sort of veggie stir fry. It was all great!  We paddled to the next spot about an hour away and suited up at shark point.

The wild life underwater is amazing, giant schools of tiny fish, reefs that tower above you, stripped eels, neon finned little fish. I saw a leopard shark, they are a neat little shark.  Sharks have to keep water flowing into their mouths and out their gills to breathe. Therefore they most continually move.   This brilliant little fella sleeps all the time. He dies so by lying on the sea bed with his head in current, so water just flows through him while he dozes  Its the equivilant of sleeping at you desk while wearing glasses with eyeballs painted on the lenses.   We also saw a barracuda, great big black shrimp, clown fish (nemo), and on and on. I was limited to 12 m because of my cert issue, but still there was lots to see.

We steamed back to shore, about an hour and a half run, some folks got picked up about halfway on a longtail and went to a different beach.

We unloaded and figured out how I was going to finish the course. After much Deutch squabbling we got it settled and I left.

My new traveling companion, Bianca, had left before me to get cleaned up for dinner. I picked her up on the way and we went to my hostel so she could use the net. Hers didn't have it. I went up and showered off the salt and got changed.

We got dinner at the beach as the waves lapped the sand just yards away. Dinner was amazing. Thai barbecue, corn on the cob, baked potatoes. We ate and chatted about nothing in particular. She told me in broken English about some of the places shes dived around the world. I told her about hockey.

Later we wandered up the beach where she bought a lantern. She lit it and we waited for it to fill with heat to ascend. Finally it lifted gracefully from her fingertips and slowly floated to the stars.  We watched it sail away into the night for a long time until it gently flickered out and disappeared.

We ended the night with a drink and watched a fire show on the street outside "the Coconut Bar"

We left, and walked up the strip to her bungalo and said goodbye. She's now off to koh samoi, I've another 2 days in Krabi. Traveling is funny. The only constant is you. New hostels, new scenery, new friends; but as soon as you get to know a place, a person, or a custom, it's time to move on. The shotgun approach to life I suppose.

Koh phi phi for 3 dives tomorrow.  Can't wait

Keep Stirring and Keep Smiling - Thai Cooking Class

Chiang Mai is great. Friendly, easygoing, less hustle than Bangkok. Really nice people.

Tonight I took a Thai Cooking class. Fantastic. The guy was a ham and kept us laughing. Picked me up at my hotel and drove me and 6 others to the market. While there we toured from vendor to vendor while he described what curry paste is, what noodles are made from, the difference between coconut water, coconut cream and coconut milk is. What are vegetables, roots and leaves, and what can you substitute?

We then load up in his truck and hit the country where his house is. In his garage/back yard/patio he's assembled a series of 20 cooking stations. We washed up and got to work creating 4 Thai dishes. Every technique is explained...how high the heat should be, how to cut each thing, what do you eat and what is just for flavour...

When we were done we ate, got a cook book and a ride home. It was fantastic, highly recommended.

http://www.chiangmaicooking.com/

The food we made was amazing, you guys are in for a treat when I get home.