Cuisine

Aug 14, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Eggs, Penang

The logistics of food is endlessly interesting when you step outside the reach of the robotic hands of supermarket distribution. Along with the produce, transport is what adds a degree of regional variation to most markets. One of my most enduring memories of one market in Cambodia is seeing a

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Jul 26, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Anglia Shandy

“Brewer”:Guinness Anchor Berhad (Diageo/Asia Pacific Breweries-Heineken). One of my dreams was to become Asia’s leading reviewer of canned shandy, the worst thing to happen to beer since the discovery of shandy. Today that dream is horribly realised. GAB Says: “The real shandy. Malaysia’s pioneer shandy, since 1978, recently took on

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Jul 21, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Satay

Chicken satay from Gurney Drive, Penang

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Jul 21, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Tek Sen, Penang

This is deep-fried pieces of boneless chicken coated in a crispy shell of batter, covered in mayonnaise straight from the jar. It’s a dish that the world’s food writers conveniently overlook when they heap well-deserved praise on restaurant Tek Sen in Penang because it doesn’t fit the clean narrative of

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Jun 30, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees 11 Comments

The end of food reviewing

I’ve just read all 94 reviews of Melbourne restaurant Chin Chin on Urbanspoon. Few are longer than a hundred words and a handful of photos, so you don’t come away feeling any great sense of achievement. If I was to then describe Australian restaurant review bloggers in a single word,

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Jun 28, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Warning to Coles shoppers: ROBOTS TOUCH YOUR FOOD.

You know what the average shopper at Coles Supermarket fears? Robots. Giant robots who touch their food. This secret informs their latest sleight of hand that boasts that their home delivered food is “Hand picked, hand packed and hand delivered”. Screenshot from http://www.coles.com.au/Shop-Online.aspx/ (full page, 28 June 2012) This was

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May 23, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Is authenticity xenophobic?

My favourite Mexican cookbook is Marilyn Tausend’s Cocina De La Familia because it is not devoutly Mexican. Tausend isn’t Mexican and collated her recipes from interviews with home cooks across America rather than in Mexico. Recipes come with the location that they were collected and the Mexican state where the

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Apr 20, 2012 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

When fried chicken went awry

He still puts on a white linen suit every morning, rides in a chauffeured white Cadillac, visits Kentucky Fried Chicken’s white column headquarters and plugs his “finger lickin’ good” chicken around the country. But Harland D Sanders, everyone’s favourite Kentucky colonel, is disturbed about what has happened to his chicken

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