Oct 22, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Spring blogging doldrums

Spring scared the hell out of me this year. It is so much more radiant and incredible after living in the tropics for a while. Trees aren’t supposed to change colour and regrow. In the tropics, most trees that look as if they are dead are in fact dead with

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Oct 04, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 3 Comments

What makes a good food blog?

A few months ago someone asked me what makes a good food blog; a question that begs to find a common thread through the hundred or so food blogs that clog my feed reader with other people’s meals. As somebody that spends plenty of their working life measuring user behaviour

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Sep 20, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 7 Comments

Charcuterie fetish object

At the Art Deco exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria I noticed a diecast meat slicer made by Hobart that looked as if it was developed for the charcuterie needs of 1950s astronauts. I immediately wondered if anything of the like was available in my price range. The answer

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Sep 20, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Cambodian food reviewing: You’re doing it right.

It turns out that with only three months left in 2008, Cambodian is not the new Thai. But what has changed over the year is the tone of reviewing. Reviewers are starting to understand how to eat Cambodian food. This week the NY Times revisits two Cambodian restaurants in New

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Sep 11, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 1 Comments

Last Appetite turns one.

The Last Appetite is one year old today (if you don’t count the placeholder post that I made a few months prior to real launch). In that time, I’ve eaten in six different countries, written 100-odd posts and according to my spam protection, I’ve received 4,300 spam comments. It’s my

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Sep 08, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Fremantle microbreweries

In 1871, the Australian state of Victoria contained 126 breweries. By 1987, there was effectively one. For all the new micro-brewed beer that has lubricated the gullets of Australians in the subsequent twenty years from 1987, at present two breweries control 90% of the Australian beer market. There are microbreweries

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Aug 30, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 8 Comments

Little Creatures Brewery, Fremantle

Had I forgotten something from the menu at Little Creatures Dining Hall in Fitzroy? Had I made an unfair comparison to its Western Australian brewery progenitor? In the interests of factual accuracy, I flew across the country to Perth to find out. Click the image to see full panoramic glory

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Aug 07, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 15 Comments

Maintaining the spider rage

Ten miles out of town, my guide pulls up at a little shack on a winding roadside. This is real boondocks Cambodia. Little kids are staring at me like they’ve never seen a white man before, which they probably haven’t. From “Man bites frog” I miss the days when I

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