Hold your judgement. If you are told ‘they are all this’ or ‘they do this’ or ‘their opinions are these’, withhold your judgement until all the facts are upon you. Because that land they call ‘India’ goes by a thousand names and is populated by millions, and if you think you have found two men the same amongst that multitude, then you are mistaken. It is merely a trick of the moonlight.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday. Here’s why:

1. Sunshine.
2. Pork.
3. Beer.
4. Fireworks.

Of course, just about any Japanese summer festival also features this same happy quartet. And Japanese festivals are fun, too, but they just aren’t the same. I like Independence Day partly out of nostalgia, but I also like it because it’s uniquely American. It’s a holiday I can call my own.

We Americans don’t have a lot we can call our own. Apple pie? Dutch. Hot dogs? Austrian. Mexican food? Mexican. Sure, we have jazz, Pixar, and Mr. T, and as for holidays, we have Labor Day,  Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, and a smattering of other minor holidays. But all of them are pretty lame. When was the last time you threw a party and lit sparklers for Washington’s Birthday?

So it’s nice have an American holiday that’s actually fun. Thanksgiving is fun, too, but it’s in November, a month that burdens the human soul with an inescapable air of doom and melancholy. Thanksgiving food is arguably better (and perhaps less ordinary), but Independence Day is no slouch when it comes to cookery: ribs, burgers, bratwurst, and potato salad are pretty stiff competition for turkey and stuffing.

When I lived in America, it was the specific customs of Independence Day that I enjoyed (like the food and the fireworks – the parade, never really excited me). Its Americanness was immaterial, extraneous, unnecessary – I just liked hanging out with my friends and family, stuffing myself and watching things explode in the sky. But now that I’m a minority in a strange, inscrutable island nation, the fact that the Fourth of July is a distinctly American celebration is suddenly crucial. I feel as though I must assert my culture against the indifferent shrugs of British hegemony!

It’s not like I’m some kind of patriot. Alright, maybe I am some kind of patriot, but I’m not the gun-totin’, Limbaugh-lovin’, “Never Forget” kind of patriot. This bit of Fry and Laurie pretty much sums up how I feel about that sort of thing:

I can’t even really say I’m proud of America, or proud to be American. I can’t take credit for the achievements of other Americans, and my nationality is mostly a geographical accident. I am also not proud of America in any political sense, although the Constitution is pretty brilliant, and this Obama character seems fairly capable. But if I’ve developed a certain affection for America, I think it is a direct consequence of my expatriation. For one thing, I’m just nostalgic for America – I miss it. I miss my friends and family, but I also miss very particular American things, like In-N-Out burgers, enormously wide roads, the LA skyline, honeycrisp apples, and cheap ska shows. So there’s that sort of homesick aspect to my patriotism, but then there’s also a defensive quality to it. America gets picked on a lot – rightly so, in most cases. But sometimes criticisms of American culture are provincially ignorant; I am reminded of those French girls I met who dismissed all American cheese as abhorrent yellow trash. (Then again, I suppose the fact that processed cheese is usually labeled “American cheese” doesn’t help our reputation.) When confronted with attitudes like that, my reaction is “Hey, wait a minute! America isn’t all bad!” But of course, what I’m really saying is “Hey, wait a minute! I like America!” or even “Don’t tread on me!”

So as I trawled the world wide web for Fourth of July celebrations in London, I was thrilled to discover an event that will let me celebrate American cultural autonomy, indulge in one of my favorite American specialties, and subvert certain misconceptions about said specialty all at the same time! I’m talking about beer, people. American beer. The White Horse, an airy, elegant, ale-centric pub in Parsons Green, is having an American beer festival this weekend, coinciding with Independence Day. They boast the largest selection of American draft beer ever seen in the UK – and while some pubs would be satisfied to fill their lineup with any number of InBev-distributed, mass-produced lagers, the White Horse has corralled an impressive lot of craft beers from across the USA. Some of the featured breweries are Stone, Flying Dog, Victory, Sierra Nevada, Goose Island, and Dogfish Head.

These are some of America’s finest breweries, and it’s exciting to have them represented in England not only because their beer is delicious, but because it provides an opportunity for Londoners to glimpse the innovation and diversity that have become hallmarks of American craft brewing. Like American cheese and American politics, American beer is misunderestimated abroad – few people are aware that the United States produces anything but Bud, Miller, and Coors. I see this festival as an exposition of beer that has the potential to change perceptions about American gastronomy, at least in some small way. I also see it as a chance to drink dangerous amounts of Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans… mmm.

American Beer Festival at The White Horse
3 July – 5 July 2009

1-3 Parsons Green
London
SW6 4UL
020 7736 2115

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and completely lose respect for proponents of Intelligent Design theory.

I found this disgusting little monster stuffed and safely caged behind class at the charmingly out-of-date Horniman Museum the other day. I tried my best to draw it accurately because I thought it was so weird. It is called a tenrec, and it is an ACTUAL ANIMAL that EXISTS on PLANET EARTH! Ugh!

In the Wikipedia entry, the tenrec isn’t so bad looking. It’s actually kind of cute, in a pitifully ugly kind of way. But the real thing that I beheld at the Horniman (which actually may have been a different species) was utterly demonic. Why oh why would God – whoop, I mean why would an intelligent designer ever think to make something so hideous?! There are two explanations:

1. The creator of all life on earth is cruel, disturbed, and/or artistically impaired.
2. There is no creator of all life on earth.

Take your pick!

Just in case some of you were not totally conviced that I am a gigantic dweeb, let me tell you my idea for a video game: a job-based RPG in which skills are learned based on majors at a university. In the above illustration, we see an American Studies major weilding a baseball bat and a Colt .45, an East Asian Studies major citing “Amaterasu,” and a Zoology major using the skill “Falconry.”

This is an Art major and a Psychology major. Character details, including skills, weaponry, knowledge, plot points, stats, and clothes are determined by their major.

Here we see the Central Quadrangle, an important section of campus where many violent debates take place.

Finally, here is an American Studies major brandishing a Cherokee spear and citing “Benjamin Franklin,” who attacks a Level-2 Football Player with a lighting-charged kite.

Moving on, I did some storyboards for my friend Angeline Gragasin, whose creative output is akin to a volcano, or a bottle of champagne opened with a saber. She’s working on an abstract dance video of neo-animistic feminist satire (or some such thing) called “Skinemax.”

I, for one, am looking forward to the finished product.

It was a productive spring, art-wise. I have been working on some cleanup animation for a London studio, I did some storyboarding for a friend (to be featured in my next post), and I also made some concept art for an idea for a video game that originally came to me five and a half years ago. On top of all of this, the swanky and stylish Shoreditch bar Beach Blanket Babylon has been hosting life drawing sessions every Tuesday… for FREE! For an out-of-work amateur illustrator like myself, this is fantastic. It’s quite professional, too – the crowd isn’t just a bunch of yuppies sipping mojitos, gabbing loudly and attempting the occasional doodle (as I feared it would be). Nope, it’s just like a proper art class, with all the earnest, brow-furrowing geeks that entails. It just happens to be in a bar.

The models have been great, too. So far three sessions have featured three very different body types – and the instructor said that next week it will be a pregnant woman! Crazy!

Another awesome way to practice drawing is to take advantage of London’s many free museums. Here are a couple sketches from the Wellcome Collection, a fascinating museum of art and artifacts related to medicine:

This glass flask struck me as very cartoonish.

And these wax busts display unusual folding of the flesh at the back of the head; apparently, this was one way that psychiatrists diagnosed people with learning disabilities back in the day. Neat, huh?

Though I spent almost all of high school and college consistently dreaming about moving to Japan, the specifics of my Japanophilia have changed over time. At first, I was enthralled by the general exotica of Japan as well as nerdy-yet-awesome pop cultural imports like J-pop, Super Nintendo RPGs, Pocky, and anime – I never did become a full-fledged otaku, but I love and have always loved FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, and Hayao Miyazaki movies. In college my penchant for things Japanese became more expansive yet also more focused. As I learned more about Japanese culture via classes at Occidental and trips to Little Tokyo, I became less excited by “Japan” in a broad sense, but much more excited by particular things like the aesthetic concepts of wabi, sabi, and mono no aware; art both traditional and modern by Akira Yamaguchi, Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, and Yoshitomo Nara; the literature of Natsume Soseki, Haruki Murakami, and Banana Yoshimoto; and the music of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, and Pizzicato Five. And then, of course, there was the food. What started as an infatuation with the theatrical eccentricity of Iron Chef developed into a personal quest to eat and to understand as much Japanese food as I could, from humble ramen to haute kaiseki ryōri.

When I lived in Japan, it was a joy to indulge my interests on a daily basis, and I left feeling fairly satisfied with my time there. But I also came to love other things that I still pine for almost one year later. I probably won’t ever get to live in Japan again, but I do hope I get to visit at least a few more times, so I can re-experience some of the day-to-day pleasures of life in Japan.

Karaoke

Larry David had a great line in Curb Your Enthusiasm about karaoke. He called it the “third thing” that you can do after dinner: you can go to a movie, you can go bowling, or you can go to karaoke. Obviously, karaoke exists outside Japan, but in so many ways, it’s just not the same. The standard setup in America and the UK is a completely bastardized version of the Japanese original; I have no idea why people figured it would be an improvement to change karaoke from a private affair to an all-too-public one. American karaoke bars seem designed to annoy: extroverts don’t get to sing as much as they want to because there are too many people, introverts don’t sing at all for fear of public embarrassment, and just about everybody who isn’t singing gets irritated with the noise. What a bad idea! It is nothing like the sweet release of secluding yourself in a dark room with a handful of friends, drinking heartily and singing your lungs out while admiring the absurd background videos on the karaoke monitor.

Unfortunately, unless you live somewhere with a pretty large Korean population, Japanese-style karaoke boxes are hard to find outside Japan. There are quite a few in Los Angeles (mostly thanks to Koreatown), and in New York it is a budding trend. But in London it’s slim pickings – slim, expensive pickings. You’ve got to book ahead of time even for small groups (the towering karaoke complexes of Japan can almost always accommodate an impromptu singing session) and be prepared to shell out up to £20 per hour, plus loads more for drinks – an astronomical cost compared to the all-you-can-sing-and-drink deals that many Japanese karaoke joints offer for around ¥2000. Japanese karaoke is cheap, hassle-free fun, and more often than not, it isn’t the third thing at all – it’s the delightful default option for after dinner entertainment.

Convenience Stores

Like karaoke, convenience stores do exist outside Japan, but by comparison, they suck. I read something about Japanese conbini on the internet a while back that sheds some light on why they’re so awesome. They use a distribution model called “dominant strategy” that entails placing as many stores as possible in a small area, which cuts shipping costs so that they can make more deliveries throughout the day. This allows them to use less store space for storage, so they have more room to sell more stuff, and it also keeps fresh food coming into the store throughout the day. The egg sandwiches up for sale at the end of the day aren’t the same ones that were up for sale in the morning – they’re a fresh batch, or maybe the second or third fresh batch. I remember my favorite donut shop in LA was so great partly because they were in there cooking the donuts all day long – most just make their donuts in the morning and let them sit out, growing ever staler by the hour. But cooking them in smaller batches throughout the day kept them fresh and tasty – we’d even go for tipsy donut runs late at night, and the maple old-fashioneds and apple crullers were still soft and moist with a freshly-fried crispy crust. You get the same result from “dominant strategy.”

But the joy of conbini goes beyond fresh shrimp-mayo onigiri, yuzu-chicken salads, and ham-and-cucumber sandwiches; they are also treasure troves of Japanese junk food. Ordinary potato chips and candy bars don’t excite me much, but that’s just the thing – Japanese junk food is constantly changing and far from ordinary. Stocks change on a seasonal or even weekly basis – if you want that limited-edition mentaiko-tonkotsu Baby Star, that choco-melon KitKat bar, or those monjayaki rice crackers, you’ve got to act fast. I found it nearly impossible to resist the thrill of old snacks outfitted with exciting new flavors – and I’m not the only one.

Regional Specialties

Some of the new or limited edition snacks that appear on the shelves of 7-Elevens and Family Marts across Japan are based on regional foods – like Miyazaki chicken onigiri, Uji green tea chocolate, or Hiroshima okonomiyaki crisps. But of course they cannot compete with the real McCoys, and culinary tourism is big in Japan; travel agencies advertise package tours focused on food and drink, while Japan Rail offers special discounts (called “day trip gourmet” tickets) for excursions to restaurants specializing in local foods in nearby prefectures.

Maybe I was just suckered in by the marketing, but I also got caught up in the food-as-destination mindset of Japanese tourists. Whenever I vacationed in a new city or prefecture, I researched the local food and drink as much as I could before I left, and only vary rarely did this lead to food that was less than excellent (as in my disappointing experience with Kobe beef). Usually the food I found was not only delicious, but special – not necessarily something you can’t get somewhere else, but something that tastes better the context of the region, because it’s fresher, or just because it “fits” the local climate and atmosphere. A meal of Genghis Khan and Sapporo beer would be good anywhere, but sizzling-hot lamb is simply more enticing in the cool Hokkaido air, and when it comes to Japanese lagers, the fresher the better. The same goes for soba in Nagano, takoyaki in Osaka, or pork in Kagoshima. And one of the best things about train travel in Japan are the ubiquitous food souvenirs and ekiben (station bentō) that act as samplers of local dishes or ingredients – so just in case you missed out on the meibutsu while you were away, you can still enjoy them on the journey home, a nice way to consummate your trip and soften the blow of returning to normalcy.

Hospitality

On my first visit to Tokyo, the kindness of strangers made an impression on me as indelible as the neon of Shinjuku. For our first meal in Japan, my dad, a friend, and I tried to order set meals at a First Kitchen; without a word of Japanese, we pointed and gestured and struggled our way to burgers and bags of “Flavor Potatoes.” The cashier was clearly distressed by the ordeal, and yet she tried her damnedest to help us, mustering all her fractured high school English and a patience that American cashiers seem to never have even when they do understand you. Later on, an elderly woman beckoned me off a train, smiling sympathetically as she realized I had no idea I had reached the end of the line. When I visited Japan to do research and later moved there to work, Japanese hospitality continued to impress me – in fact, it often made me feel vaguely guilty, like I didn’t deserve such generosity and helpfulness.

The pleasant (but meticulously performed) politeness of Japanese clerks, bus drivers, bartenders, and waitresses was something I didn’t fully appreciate while I was there. It wasn’t until I returned to America, where rude is simply the default setting for most customer service types, that I realized bowing, keigo, and service with a smile make life just that much more livable, even if it is fake. I became so accustomed to a certain standard of courtesy that occasionally I interpreted mere disinterest as surliness. But of course formal niceties were nothing compared to how giving and accommodating my Japanese friends and close co-workers were. Even before they knew me very well, members of my taiko team and other teachers at my schools opened their homes, cars, and refrigerators to me. Though Japan was by and large an easy place to live, it wasn’t without its stresses. I could always count on the warmth of my Japanese friends to lift my spirits, and often, to make me forget that I was a foreigner.

Novelty

One of the greatest things about living in Japan is not really Japanese at all. The sheer newness of living in another country was a daily delight. On a daily basis, and without even trying, I learned new words, sampled new foods, and discovered new places. Though the Japanese language is frustrating, it was exciting to deduce the meaning of kanji compounds based on their basic parts or to follow conversations further than I ever thought possible. There was something really fun and rewarding to realize that I could read just about every sign in my neighborhood after two years living there.

And of course I had a wonderful time exploring the peripheries of Japanese gastronomy, through samples in department store food halls and faraway train stations’ souvenir kiosks. The local pride in Japan is something that has stuck with me – I’ve developed a fetish for the local, not only because regional food is usually really fresh and tasty, but because it’s new and unique. But of course, that neophilia has also led me in the opposite direction and given me a taste for the distant and alien – which is part of why I couldn’t be happier living in London. I do miss the quotidian exotica of a Japanese existence, but I don’t think I’ll go wanting for novelty anytime soon -for if I do, then I fear I will be truly tired of life.

You never know what you’ll find at Portobello Market.

In London, Mexican food is scarce, and often so inauthentic that the descriptor “Mexican” itself must be called into question. I don’t really care about authenticity that much, and I don’t know enough about “real” Mexican cuisine to be all that rankled by the relative dearth of it here. Besides, I try to take a when-in-Rome attitude to eating wherever I go. I’m quite happy to subsist on British food, not to mention the countless other cuisines that color the London foodscape like dots in a pointillist painting. Happily distracted by Punjabi curries, English roasts, and Alpine cheeses (to name a few), I’ve sort of forgotten about Mexican food. That’s not to say I don’t sometimes crave it – it’s just that I’ve never really sought it out because I figured I wouldn’t find anything that special here. Of course, that’s not a very good attitude to have, but somewhere along the line I subconsciously decided that searching London for dishes like huaraches, carnitas, and mole poblano would be a frustrating and ultimately pointless endeavor.

I’m probably right, to a certain extent. Mainly because there just ain’t that many Mexicans in the UK, certain south-of-the-border specialties available in the United States aren’t likely to find their way across the pond any time soon. That’s what I assumed about horchata, my very favorite Mexican beverage. But what I failed to consider is that horchata is not strictly Mexican. It’s originally Spanish.

London is full of Spaniards and their delectable produce, so why I never thought I’d find horchata here is beyond me. In fact, finding it took no effort at all – I simply happened upon it while out perusing the pewter tankards and skinny ties at Portobello Market. There it was, written on the window of a place called Café Garcia: “HORCHATA,” in between “CORTADA” and “CHURROS.” I was so excited I think I may have jumped in the air a little.

Unhesitatingly I rushed in and ordered one, along with a coffee for Laura and a marshmallowy torta spiked with some kind of liqueur that tasted like vanilla-flavored house paint. The horchata came in a somewhat disappointingly tiny bottle, but that disappointment promptly disappeared when I realized that this was no ordinary horchata: it was horchata… de chufa!

Chufas, apparently called “tiger nuts” (?) in English, are hard little starchy tubers that are used mainly to produce two things: carp bait and horchata. Horchata de chufa is prized for its delicate, nutty, and fruity flavor, but in America (and presumably in Mexico), it is the rarest kind. Until now I had never tried it, and in my head it became a sort of Holy Grail. It did not disappoint. Sweet and refreshing, the horchata de chufa tasted starchy like a potato, fruity like an apple, and nutty like an almond. It reminded me of jicama, a lovely vegetable that I haven’t had in years. It was less cinnamony than the horchatas I was used to – but that’s probably for the best, as too much spice would interfere with that lovely, subtle chufa flavor.

It makes me wonder what else I’ve been missing. Sometimes in my dogged hunts for specific foods causes me to overlook all the other delicious options around me. Often, the places I just stumble upon are more satisfying than the places I seek out.

Cafe Garcia
246 Portobello Road
Notting Hill
London
W11 1LL
020 7221 6119

In my mind, there are two kinds of burgers. First there are what I would call “burger joint” burgers, burgers that are basic and uncomplicated, without a lot of fussy toppings or hoo-hah over ingredients. The Californian chain In-N-Out makes a textbook example of a good burger joint burger; secret menu aside, it’s just nice, juicy beef that’s gone just a bit black on the griddle, fresh vegetables, special sauce, and plastic cheese melted intimately into the patty’s every dimple and crevasse. Back in Los Angeles, In-N-Out was my old standard, but I especially loved Pasadena’s Pie ‘N’ Burger (good pie there, too) and Westwood’s Apple Pan (which also has good pie). Of course, my all-time favorite burger joint is probably the venerable and perpetually crowded Kewpee’s, a Racine institution beloved for its simple yet mystifyingly delicious cheeseburgers and bemoaned for its crappy six o’clock closing time.

The other kind of burger is the gourmet burger. These burgers are complicated, fancy, and often as tasty and flavorful as they are pretentious and difficult to eat, all gussied up with exotic toppings or ingredients. Sometimes gourmet burgers are pretty simple, but they achieve “gourmet” status by using things like aged cheddar from Vermont, aged beef from Scotland or Japan, and ciabatta buns from some local bakery. Others just pile on the fixins: avocados, artisanal bacon, blue cheeses, washed-rind cheeses, weird aiolis, relishes and chutneys, greens and microgreens, pestos, wasabi, herb and spice blends, Spanish and Italian charcuterie, pineapple, ostrich, buffalo, moose, and roasted peppers are the stuff of gourmet burgers. Lately, chefs in Tokyo and New York have been upping the ante by using ridiculously luxurious ingredients like foie gras, black truffles, and gold leaf to make burgers so posh they’re more like absurdist objects of social commentary than actual food.

If I sound cynical about gourmet burgers, it’s because I am. Too often gourmet burger chefs seem to use exciting ingredients as nothing more than razzle dazzle to distract from the fact that they fundamentally do not know how to cook a burger – which is surprisingly difficult. I myself will own up to being a terrible burger chef. My burgers always turn out too dry, or else they are so moist they just fall apart; I have a tendency to choose the wrong bun and cheese; and my topping-to-meat ratio is usually off. The only thing I’m good at is making sauces for my burgers, but that’s cheating. There is a certain alchemy to a good burger that I don’t understand, and that’s part of why I really love I good burger joint burger. I think the secret is in the way the textures come together; the supple meat, the gooey cheese, the crisp lettuce and onions and the crunchy-soft lightly toasted bun have to strike a harmony that’s difficult to orchestrate. Good ingredients are important, but skilled preparation is probably more so.

Many gourmet burger restaurants neglect to master the basics of good burger making, and without the basics, no amount of month-old Aussie beef or chipotle salsa will redeem you. The other day I was in Camden with time to kill before a ska show; I was looking for the BYOB Latin American restaurant Guanabana, but I couldn’t find it and eventually stumbled upon Haché, a posh burger restaurant that’s had quite a lot of good buzz. Most reviews I read claimed it was one of the best burgers in London if not the best. This review on TimeOut caught my eye in particular:

What surprised me was the number of rather glam foreigners, including an American couple who we got chatting to. Turned out they were local but the guy, a self-confessed burgerholic was ecstatic about Hache, saying they served the best burgers he’s had anywhere.

Here in England, American endorsements don’t mean much to me, except for when it comes to Mexican food and burgers – I just think Americans have a better frame of reference to judge them by than most Brits. But after eating at Haché, I thought: what a sad, unobserved life this “burgerholic” must have lead back in the States if he never found any burgers better than the unbelievably pretentious offerings at this pathetic wannabe of a restaurant.

I ordered the “All-Day Breakfast Burger,” which is topped with a portobello mushroom, back bacon, and a fried egg. A clever, tasty-sounding idea, I thought. But the beef – the “finest aged 100% prime Scotch hachéd steak” – was dry! This is completely unacceptable. A good burger should be lusciously fatty and juicy even when well-done; mine was medium and it was frankly no juicier than a squeezed-out sponge, and I expected a lot more flavor from the “prime Scotch steak” it was made from.

The toppings didn’t help matters. The mushroom was a nice accent (it was far more moist and flavorful than the actual patty), and the egg was perfectly cooked so that the yolk was creamy but not too runny. But the bacon – usually a sort of Band-Aid for blandness – only made things worse. It was terribly undercooked, all tough and chewy and not even a little bit crispy. The ciabatta roll it was on was soft yet sturdy, but toasting it would have added a much-needed extra dimension of texture.

Service was good and I can’t complain about the vaguely arty bistro-like atmosphere, but what matters is the burger. And for all the pomp and pride in its marketing, the burger was a dire disappointment.

But I’m not anti-gourmet burger in general. When a gourmet burger is good, it’s really good – I like them just as much as any good burger joint burger. In New York, I had an awesome lamb merguez burger at BLT, drippingly juicy and flavorful, scented with cumin and nicely offset by a mint-cilantro cucumber relish. And here in London, there is perhaps no chain restaurant I enjoy more than GBK – Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

GBK also boasts high-quality beef – “Aberdeen-Angus Scotch beef,” no less – but they actually make good burgers out of it rather than just using it for bragging rights. Many of their burgers are old standards, like the pesto burger, the avocado bacon burger, the Cajun burger, etc., but you don’t need to get too fancy or different to make a great burger. In-N-Out and Pie ‘N’ Burger use basically the exact same formula, but both shops’ end products are delicious and unique in their own subtle way.

My favorite burger at GBK is the relatively simple, very delicious garlic mayo burger. The robust beef throbs with moisture and flavor, matched by a cool, creamy mayo that seethes with the hot, delicious stink of raw garlic. It’s the kind of burger that leaves you wanting more even as you finish your meal feeling unhealthily stuffed – and the smell comes out of your pores for hours afterwards. Sadly, I’ve yet to find a good burger joint burger in London – there must be one out there somewhere – but for now I am quite content befouling my breath and expanding my ass at GBK, truly gourmet not only in name.

I wrote my 100th post this week! Anticlimactically, it was the one about the English beer geek I met.

In other news, I’ve finally updated the resources page. I took out all the stupid stuff, eliminated the categories (which never made any sense), added some important new stuff, and alphabetized it. Enjoy!

He spotted me writing down notes on my ale and came over to introduce himself.

He seemed excited to find a young American interested in British real ale.

His son-in-law is American, and he had been to America several times. We talked about American beer, and he said that the Americans have “mastered” the IPA.

After that he kept bringing me glasses of his ale to try. We both gushed over Black Cat, an amazing beer at only 3.4% alcohol.

Sometimes it’s fun to meet other geeks.

My recent “Viking Five” was quite a difficult one to narrow down, and to be honest there are a few other styles that are probably just as good with food as the ones I chose. Hefeweizens come to mind, as do witbiers, tripels, oatmeal stouts, altbiers, and pilsners. But if I had to choose just one candidate for honorable mention, it would probably have to be porter.

The humble porter is often overshadowed by its mutant commie cousin, Baltic porter, and by its stocky younger brother, stout, a style derivative of porter in form as well as name: stouts started off as “stout porters” back in the day. Don’t get me wrong, I love stouts, and they’re good with food, too – especially desserts and red meat – but porters, which are just a shade lighter in color and flavor, cover more ground than stouts. Here’s a Venn diagram to illustrate, because hey, I can’t remember the last time I made a Venn diagram, so why the hell not?

I don’t drink a lot of porters, partly because I’m a sucker for the up-front bitter chocolate and coffee flavors of many stouts, but also because there is something of a dearth of porters on the market. In America, they are increasingly common, but even though London is the birthplace of the style, they are notably hard to find here.

So it didn’t really dawn on me that porters are awesome with food until I chanced upon a porter at – where else? – the Market Porter in Borough Market. The Market Porter is a haven for ale aficionados, with at least a baker’s dozen of casked beers to choose from at any given time. Most of these beers come from British microbreweries and encompass a range of obscure styles, like dark milds, real lagers, oyster stouts, and fruit beers. The clientele, mostly suits taking long lunches, culinary tourists, and CAMRA members, are jovial and unpretentious, as are the beer-savvy barkeeps. The inside is austere and plastered with ale paraphrenalia, while the façade, though cluttered with smokers, is impressively decked out with pretty flowers and ivies hanging from the second floor.

It’s a great pub in and of itself, but its location in Borough Market is what really makes it a personal favorite. You can grab a pint in a plastic nonic, then hungrily wander off into the stalls to try your beer with all manner of fantastic fare on offer in the market proper: Thai green seafood curry, Middle Eastern confections, British venison burgers, Toulousean cassoulet, Swiss cheeses, Spanish charcuterie, and the list goes on.

This is exactly what I did with my pint of Wickwar’s toffee-sweet, moderately hopped, satiny smooth Station Porter. It was brilliant by itself, and seemed to meld effortlessly with just about everything I ate with it. Its buttery character and roasted sweetness found a happy home in the cozy cheese and potatoes of Raclette. Its caramel notes and lightly spicy hops linked up nearly perfectly with the peppery pork fat of a chorizo and arugula sandwich. It brought forth hidden mocha and dark fruit notes for an encounter with a chocolate-covered raisin and shortbread bar. The only thing it didn’t work with was a Cornish oyster on the half shell, but overall I was extremely pleased to have such a versatile brew in my hand as I perused the market. The porter, and the Market Porter, are indeed very lovely companions to food.

The Market Porter
9 Stoney Street
Borough Market
London
SE1 9AA
020 7407 2495

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