Green: Super Food Ball (Green?)

Since we didn't have a kitchen or a campfire handy, we ate out a lot. France had better food than England.

Anyhow. The rest of this post will be written in the style of the team roster screens for the NES game Super Dodge Ball. Why? Because Sarah probably hasn't played it.

BAdada DAda da DUM DUM, BAdada DAda da DUM DUM
BAdada DAdada DAdada DAda da DUM DUM DUM!

ENGLAND

| Team England  | SITRIC  | WAGAMA  | MAWSON  | SPARKS  | ROCKSO  | FORTNM
+---------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
| ENERGY        | 48      | 36      | 44      | 40      | 36      | 40      |
| THROW POWER   | 11      | 6       | 8       | 7       | 6       | 7       |
| THROW TECH.   | 12      | 10      | 15      | 12      | 10      | 10      |
| BALL BREAK    | 4       | 6       | 5       | 9       | 6       | 6       |
| AGILITY       | 4       | 6       | 4       | 5       | 5       | 5       |
| CATCH TECH.   | 6       | 10      | 5       | 5       | 7       | 6       |
| DAMAGE CAP.   | 4       | 5       | 4       | 4       | 9       | 4       |
| POWER SHOT    | Fusion  | Gyoza   | Poster  | No beer | Tartar? | "Poop"  |
| JUMP P.SHOT   | Irish?  | Donburi | Good    | WTF?    | Fuckers | -Lydia  |

KING SITRIC served "Irish Fusion," which is like a reimagining of California cuisine done with Irish ingredients and to Irish-ish tastes. It was interesting, and it worked. The food was all good, but fusion cuisine is where memories go to die. It all melts together in my head, and all that I can remember was that I enjoyed it. But here's a representative sample from their online menu (one which neither of us ordered): Pan fried supreme of free range chicken on a red onion, bacon & potato hash with a grain mustard jus.

WAGAMAMA is a Japanese chain that the British are apparently proud of, perhaps inappropriately so. They have ramen and yakisoba and gyoza. You know, Japanese food. It's pretty good. You can certainly find worse fare in England, but I don't say that to complement Wagamama. They are decent, though.

THE MAWSON ARMS is a pub attached to the Fuller's Brewery, and we ate there before taking the tour. The pub was rather smoky, or at least it seemed that way to my Californian lungs and eyes, but the food was actually rather tasty. Perhaps, in its own rather unassuming way, the best food we had in England. I guess part of the appeal of pub food is the low expectations. I had a shepherd's pie sort of thing, served with fries ("chips"), vegetables, and a lot of thick, meaty, Guinness-flavored gravy. I had an epiphany during that meal, that gravy and lots of it is the key to happiness, but to be honest I've had trouble applying that lesson to life beyond The Mawson Arms. Lydia had a meat and cheese plate, which isn't the sort of thing you'd expect a pub to do well, and you'd be right, in the US. What she got was very good, although it might have benefitted from low expectations. We had a bite at another pub later -- The Lounge, at the same hotel as the King Sitric -- and that was also very good, probably better than the King Sitric, even, although less grand. The lesson, then, is that pub food is the best food in England. Which is handy, since that's where the beer is.

MARKS & SPARKS, properly MARK'S & SPENCER'S, a grocery and department store, was the source of one readymade meal. I had some of the prepackaged sandwiches I'd been lusting after in secret, and I am pleased to report that the packaging was even better than I'd imagined! From the "plastic" window made out of corn starch to the pull tab that splits the cardboard shell into two triangle plates, it's a thing of beauty. The sandwiches are, well, not bad considering they'd been very cheap and sitting there for god knows how long. Lydia also had some potato salad, which was tastier but had less interesting packaging. Later we had another supermarket-derived meal, grabbing meat, cheese, and bread at a Somerfield market and eating it in our hotel room. It was pretty good. I also tried a stilton, and a lot of it, for the first time. It's cool, I guess. I really think cheddar is more to my liking.

THE ROCK & SOLE, a fish and chips place, was recommended by our travel guide book. They didn't have tartar sauce. FUCK THAT SHIT.

FORTNUM & MASON, another department store, serves afternoon and high tea. Last time we Englanded, we had a fantastic afternoon tea at the Dorchester Hotel. F&M's tea had very tiny portions, unimpressive tea, and a too-high price even before considering the exchange rate. Not recommended. By the way, and I don't mean for this to mean anything, but while we were there, like 65% of the patrons were Asian. Like "real" Asian. Not elephant-riding Asian. In that spirit, I ordered lapsang souchong tea. Lydia warned me that it would taste like "poop" or, after further consideration, "smokey poop." It was smokey.

| Team France   | CHEESE  | EGYPT   | MANKIN  | LADURE  | BREAD   | ROBIN   |
+---------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
| ENERGY        | 36      | 28      | 24      | 20      | 16      | 24      |
| THROW POWER   | 12      | 8       | 7       | 6       | 5       | 7       |
| THROW TECH.   | 6       | 10      | 4       | 3       | 5       | 6       |
| BALL BREAK    | 8       | 10      | 11      | 11      | 11      | 15      |
| AGILITY       | 5       | 5       | 6       | 11      | 7       | 4       |
| CATCH TECH.   | 6       | 5       | 6       | 11      | 7       | 4       |
| DAMAGE CAP.   | 7       | 7       | 6       | 8       | 13      | 7       |
| POWER SHOT    | Goat    | Pinenut | Mussels | over    | oh my   | hotel   |
| JUMP P.SHOT   | GOAT!!  | in Tea  | (a lot) | rated   | god     | pig-out |
`---------------=---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=---------'

France had a serious advantage over England, in that we had two friends to show us around, and also to eat with. So were were eating at reliably good places, and in good company. Anyhow.

CHEESE was the first and most important food item on our wishlist, so we had Caroline and Robin take us to a wine bar that served cheese and meat. And wine, but neither of us felt like wine, so we got Coke ... which, by the way, costs a lot more in France. The meat stuff, the prosciuttos and pates (there were like 3 different pates on the platter) were all excellent, but the cheese was really exceptional. Good bread and good meat are available in California; they just cost a lot and are not so readily available, when compared to France. But French cheese is often made in ways which make them ILLEGAL TO IMPORT (they're not pasteurized). So it's the cheese which tastes the most magical to an American tongue. And it's the cheese that makes itself the centerpiece of any meal where cheese is present. I had had a goat cheese gouda at Berkeley Bowl shortly before going to Europe, and it was excellent. Awesome, even. I had been thinking, "Damn, that goat cheese was really good," and then Tommaso said something like, "Man, that goat cheese was really good." It was really good. The cheese in France was better. The brie I had was much more palatable than the brie I was used to. They say that brie and camembert are most hurt by pasteurization. I can believe that. Anyhow, it was the goat cheese (which I apparently stubbornly and Americanly refuse to call "chevre") that rocked my mouth. I just rubbed that shit all over my tongue and the roof of my mouth and let it sit there. I'm kind of getting tingly thinking about it. Anyhow, it was good.

EGYPTIAN TEA was a must as soon as Robin mentioned that it had pine nuts in it. Not pine nut, but pine nuts. Floaters. I got the Egyptian coffee myself, though I tried Lydia's tea, and all this took place at a hookah bar. Do floating pine nuts taste good in sweet mint tea? Yes they do. The coffee was sweetened, but it was very strong, so I was okay with that.

MANNEKIN PIS, a name I "remembered" off a business card right now, was a mussel joint in Paris with red lighting and pictures of movie stars on the walls. Lydia and I shared a bowl of beer mussels and a bowl of cream mussels, and Robin and Caroline split a bowl of cheese and apple mussels, which I sampled. My stateside mussel experience hadn't been truly extensve, so I may not know what I'm talking about, but I'm pretty sure those were the best three bowls of mussels I had ever been near in my life. The fries, also, were excellent. I ended up eating so many mussels that the waiter was a little ... confused when he came to take my plate away.

LADUREE was supposed to be really good. It's on that big street between the Napoleon arch and the Mona Lisa museum. It is pretty good, but my first pick adjective would be "overpriced." A small coffee was $4. Lyd's tea was $6. Croissant was like $3. Shouldn't the croissants be cheaper in France? Very good croissants, but the coffee was a little weak for being as small as it was. Bitch, I drink pots that taste stronger than this.

BREAD was purchased from a place down the street, recommended by Lydia's friend Caroline, who also picked a hotel for us (thanks). We bought a ham bread, an olive bread, an apple brioche, and this special sheep's milk cheese bread which had just come out of the oven. Look, the ham, olive, and apple breads were just dandy, but it's the sheep bread that is making me tingle again. We (mostly I) ate it quickly, and I miss it, although I don't regret eating it so quickly. Best enjoyed fresh, right?

ROBIN had an informal dinner with us in our hotel room, our second (of two) nights. Cheese from a cheese shop, the aforementioned ham and olive breads, and a cheap but excellent pack of meats from the nearest corner market. I do regret not getting any North African food while in Paris (excluding the pine nuts in the tea, I guess?), but I can't complain about this dinner. You can bet your sweet ass I had bought some goat cheese, and god damn it as tasty.

In summary, goat and sheep cheeses are tasty.

As a small final note, I expected France to have better coffee, really. The Egyptian stuff was good, but beyond that the best coffee I had in Paris was, uh, from a Starbucks in a mall. Shape up, France! I expect this crap from tea-drinking England, but you too? In France's defense, the beans I bought there and took home to brew in my own style (I call it "competence") made for some absolutely delicious coffee. So either I just got unlucky, or France roasts coffee way better than France brews it. Well.

That's it for food.