The day food went too far (in a good way)

There are times when everything works out perfectly, in September this year this was the case.  Although this was a while ago it's only now I've finished digesting the full gloriousness of the most outrageous and boundary breaking bit of dins ever consumed, by me at least.

So we were in Cosmo for Chris and Dani's leaving do, last time I had been there I was a year ago.  That time I had to sneakily hide drinks on the floor of the club we went to as people wouldn't stop gifting me with when I had zero available volume in my body.  This time I started a bit slower and even had some of the curries but after pudding things got silly.  We noticed that the cook stuff guy had no queue and headed up.  Turns out he was feeling generous as he treated me to 2 pieces of incredible sirloin steak and 5 scallops!  Due to the excitement this generated and the wine the next stop was the pudding area where a terrible looking custard and red pudding was put on my tray. 

Back at the table we proceeded to combine the magnificent meat and shellfish with pudding.  Scallop and grape was pleasant, steak dunked in pudding was good and steak juices squeezed into custard with scallop and melon was genius.   Imagine the meat flavours soaking up into the white melon flesh all sandwiched with scallop and MSG.

Yum

Right, X Factor - could do with Marcus for financial reasons and to prove my vision. 

Basketball free agency starts tomorrow which is also very good.  By the end of the week many a team could be ruined.

NBA is back - the year is saved

But not until Christmas!  The main thing here is that long term greed was met with short term greed to allow a deal to be reached so that chump fans like myself can follow something again.  This means a return to staying up till antisocial hours and coming top in fantasy leagues again.

It's likely this year Utah will be awesome as I want them to be and if they aren't they should get a good pick in a sweet draft so for me alone it's win win.  In reality they will probably be around mid table but with exciting young men to watch and good uniforms.


The less glamorous alternative

The best Oolong website

Having been out trying to Christmas shop the past 2 weekends I've found most of the time is spent distracted by things I want to eat and drink.  Last weekend my main achievement was pot roasting a pheasant to a mediocre standard.  This weekend I went crazy hunting for oolong in any tea shop I came across -  I actually found some in House of Fraser but it was over 5 pounds for 15 bags - and buying currywurst from the German sausage tent.

Here's a link to a brilliant website about oolong tea, http://oolong.co.uk/tea/.  It's worth reading for a couple of reasons; it will give advice on how I expect to be hosted; about half way down the page is the maddest thing ever, The Oolong Tea Song, I can relate bit to much to the lyrics - it hurts.

Away from food, Sophie from X Factor was performing in Cardiff last night but I didn't go to see her :(  Rebecca Ferguson performed on X Factor :) Rebecca singing another song.  Also my 2 bets are still alive with not many weeks remaining (££££).

Football

Liverpool beat Chelsea, yay!

It was good although the Drogba free kick was too much like a goal and made me instantleigh lose faith in Liverpool until I realised it didn't go in, then I was back to tense but bored.

There's meant to be some sport (discussion) on here.

Success

Yay St Louis Cardinals won the World Series in comfortable fashion in the end. 

Apparently it was the most exciting World Series in many a year.  In my attempts to be in on it I watched the 2nd innings of game 7 but through a combination of too tired and nerves decided it was best to sleep and find out in the morning.  Unlike all the other teams I trust my happiness to St Louis seem to deliver when it wasn't even expected.  It's Liverpool's turn now :)

They've only gone and got Oolong!

After months of no oolong tea I finally have oolong tea.  Tescos (again!) stopped selling Twinings Oolong a while ago and since then I haven't been able to enjoy the delicate lightly sweet satisfaction and refreshment a manly cup of oolong brings.  Yesterday though I had a whole tea pot full, and it was very nice.  The tea menu at the Park Plaza afternoon tea service said it was one of their favourite oolongs, if this means they have tried bad stuff and discarded it it doesn't seem fair when I would be happy with any.  So if you want some go there, it will cost about £20 pounds but you get champagne and other stuff if you aren't happy enough with those two items.

Crazily enough it turns out Amazon sell Clipper Oolong and some twpsin has given it 3 out of 5 stars thinking it would make them slim, they also didn't like the taste, but it's probably worth getting some.  Says on Amazon that it has been made famous by it's celebrity drinkers (Gin Do' Friday I presume) which actually makes sense, I recall watching the Drunken Master 2 where Jackie Chan asks for some to drink and knowing it was the drink for me.

Equally excitingly is that the World Series has gone to 7 games, and though I won't be likely to win on my MVP bet of Jon Jay it has been an amazing series and I could even watch a bit tonight when I get in as it's Friday :)  I'm sure I won't though as the tension will be too much and I am a wuss.  Unlike in the Euro 2004 shootout I won't be able to go sit in the garden for this as I don't have one.

Chili Manliness Part 2

So on to the proper sized Bhut!  Before getting into the eating we should appreciate the beauty of the chili, it started off all green but during the past week has slowly become a magnificent shade of traffic light.  I'd say if you're going to get packs of these chilies from Tescos for anything it should be to scatter around your home as art(similar to what you could do with cocktail sausages), turns out eating them still isn't that exciting.

A brief diary of the usage of the pretty large, almost tree sized!, chili above:

• 1/3 used in a salmon stir fry, 1 finger chili chopped up raw on top with coriander.  This was reasonably hot.
• 1/4 used on a pizza, this was just above mild.
• 1/4 was chewed raw by me  (the after shot of my bite is shown below) to see if it was worthy, I got pretty intense striking pain on my lips and tongue for a minute or so and I considered the end, but this came and went quickly enough to remember that the pain Western Balti chilies give my stomach is much worse in the medium and long term.

• 1/3 used in a beef curry today, medium heat in the mouth afterwards, but again this was mostly from other sources of pain - a finger chili used in a relish and the Tescos spicy poppadoms were both worse.

All in all a more promising but ultimately over hyped specimen.  As I think I said before, the next one will ruin me, at least then my 90p will have been spent on a good chili and not just on developing the phrase "the hottest" that was used on the packet (6 chili symbols! crazy considering it's usually out of 5).  I will also add scotch bonnets from Tescos (I'm afraid I don't use other supermarkets) were just as hot as this and provided a much more distinct and interesting flavour.

Brief World Series news, St Louis are now trailing 3-2 in the series in spite of winning game 3 with 16 runs :(  Pujols may only have 1 game left which would I guess make me uninterested in baseball for a while again.  Next game is Wednesday night and I won't be watching it as I'll be asleep.