Letter to Zero Degrees in Blackheath - re pizza droopage

This isn't the pizza in question

I was in your place on Saturday with my girlfriend and we both had pizzas. Mine was the Italian sausage one and hers was parma ham. They were both very tasty but the bases were simply too thin to function. This is, I feel, a fundamental problem with the pizzas. The middle bit - radius of about three inches - was just mush. Any attempt to pick up a full slice was sheer folly as this middle bit just collapsed, dragging the cargo of the whole slice with it. So I had to eat the middle bit with cutlery - my face burned with shame - before eating the outer half slice by hand. 

I mentioned this to a waitress as we were leaving and she said they're supposed to be eaten with a knife and fork. I batted this aside, insisting that pizza should be eaten by hand - at the very least it should be an option.
Thin bases are the only way to go but the problem with the ones we had - and it's happened every time I've been in - is the base is just too thin to pass the fold test. This is where you pick a slice up, fold it in at the edges and the rest of the slice stays erect. There may be a couple of centimetres droopage at the end but that's acceptable.
The pizza was among the tastiest I have ever had but, because of the base, it was rendered merely adequate - a 9/10 effort becomes a 6/10 disappointment.
That said, the pilsner is ace.

More pizza guff

And here

What the deuce?

Moments later the rule book was in shreds

Just having me dinner then (pictured) at the Trafalgar Cafe in Greenwich. Sat at one of those two-seater tables that is only suitable for one person reading the paper.
I was just tucking in to the first act of my mega-sarnie - chicken salad, toasted ciabatta, mayo on side - when this old woman marches up and sits down opposite me. And to make it clear she wasn't marking time she whips out her own paper, forcing me to move mine right to the side and rearrange my food and beverage. There were seats available at more ample tables.
Now I'm all shoved in the corner like an immigrant in a shipping container while she unfolds her Daily Express and takes delivery of a full roast dinner if you please. On a Thursday! The raised eyebrows of the woman on a neighbouring table were but a whisper of the full horror that was unfolding.
I had to eat part two of me sarnie trying not to catch the eye of my companion, lest her withering glance turn me to stone. She probably thought as she'd made it this far in life - at least 80 - there's no point wasting time with excuse mes or general niceties, and I salute her for that. Not a single word was exchanged between us during the 10 l-o-n-g minutes.

Wanker

After that I got to see a clamper in action. I then hung around to see him greet his 'fly' with ill-hidden glee. The wanker.

'Well you should call it a courgette pizza with some seafood then'

Red

These were my parting words as I left Deptford's Big Red pizza bus thing, next to the Bird's Nest pub (ace) just by Deptford Bridge DLR on Saturday eve.
I'd been there once before and had this mega ace pizza with sausage (I think) and black pudding - I know! - so had returned with hopes way north of high.
Like a fool, I let my fiery Latin nature interfere with the ordering process and, instead of sticking with the clear winner of the previous visit, my eye was taken by the seafood pizza. 
The menu boasted 'fresh squid', prawns and courgettes, and that was good enough for me. 
A Meantime Pale Ale later the grub arrived and I prepared to tuck into my feast with extreme prejudice. Imagine my horror when I saw the plate before me - I was so enraged I forgot to take a picture.
Three prawns, two bits of squid (which were rather tough but then that is the nature of the beast), and courgettes all over the show - scattered around with gay abandon. A sea of green disks mocking my heartache.
The pizza was alright but, unlike the previous visit, this one didn't pass the fold test - namely you should be able to cut a slice and, just folding it slightly upon itself, it should remain straight to the tip. 
This enables smooth mouth eatage - anyone eating pizza with a knife and fork wants locking up in sandpaper-and-nail prison, something I've just thought of where everything is made of sandpaper and nails, including the toilet paper. Which also has tabasco sauce in the fibres. And knives. 
On lesser topped pizzas - your mushroom, for example - you really should be able to just pick a slice up. Yes there will be droopage towards the end but you get the point. This one was flacid. The base, tragically, was too thin to maintain the toppings. My previous visit the base was good. The service on both visits was fine and the place itself is nice.
But I was gutted.
On leaving I said to the fella: 'You know, the seafood pizza is a little light on the seafood.'
'How do you mean?' he replied.
'Well, three prawns?'
'But they're real prawns.' (I didn't quite get this bit)
'Lot of courgettes though, maybe you should rename it'. And you know the rest. I shall return once more before registering my definitive view of Big Red Pizza, which is at 30 Deptford Church Street, SE8 4RZ. 

Limehouse Basin to Islington - a trudge

Gas thing

Went for a mooch on Sunday in the pissing rain because that's how I roll. Mrs Biff's insistence that i detach myself from the nerd box was the catalyst, and the promise of pizza for tea, changed at the last minute to curry, sealed the deal.
Got the DLR from sexy Lewisham to Limehouse then walked the path along the Regent's Canal. It's about 4.5 miles to Angel but we bailed at the Rosemary Branch pub because I used to live near there and hadn't been in for a while.
The pub's the same as ever - good selection of beers, normal-ish punters. There was a fella playing the piano, who appreciated Mrs Biff's slight inclination of the head and single clap as he rounded off his set.
Everyone in there seemed to be having some kind of laptop-off with each other, greedily snaffling the free wifi. Best of all though was the lad behind the bar brought out a tray of leftover roasties and Yorkshire puds (they do roast dinners in there, which look ace) and a pan of gravy for dipping. It was manna from meff-food heaven.
As for the walk itself, it's better doing this sort of thing in London than, say, the Lake District because there's none of that awful hello-ing or even worse the half-nod-with-a-smile-rising-to-a-sort-of-peer-out-of-an-imaginary-hole as you pass someone.
You just power on knowing that if anyone so much as looks your way you can lash them in the canal and be done with it. Cyclists especially. Bunch of wankers - slow the fuck down, this isn't Amsterdam. A ring of the bell doesn't make people vanish.
It's quite a nice walk but it got a bit chokka where the Shoreditch festival was on - it looked terrible, incidentally.
Best bit was a barge full of lesbians going up in the lock. I assume they were lesbians as there were three of them all together on one boat. Incredible scenes.

Dunno

A path for walking on

This is not art

Someone tied a load of meff Tesco bread bags to a rail

Evil Edna

Tennis - it's not just for girls!

Bosh!

Bobbed along to Wimbledon yesterday, joining the riff raff in the queue. Got there at 4.50pm and was in for 6.15pm, which meant I'd easily get in my two hours of top level tennis (any more than that and I get bored).
I think most people just assume there is no chance at all of getting in so they don't bother, but there were loads in the queue when I got there and loads behind me by the time I got in.
Ground passes are only £14 after 5pm (£20 for the day ones) so you can't go wrong, unless it's bad weather. The plebs entrance is gate three and as soon as you get in you see the massive Centre and Number 1 courts, around which the outside courts are scattered. It's an odd sort of place and feels like a very posh housing estate with a load of tennis matches going on.
After a bit of mooching and a beer I watched some Yank playing a Croat (the Yank, pictured right, was a whiner so I took against him) before moving on to see what else was afoot.
I watched a chick game for a bit - like most people I was hoping it would dissolve into a colossal lez-fest. Disappointingly it didn't.

Woman's very lifelike hat

What's most impressive about Wimbledon is the slickness of the operation - I wouldn't be surprised if there are Yanks actually running it. The queue is well organised, with plenty of stewards on hand to help, and there are plenty of places to get food and drink or go the bog while you're waiting (they give you a queue card so you don't lose your place if you nip off).
Once inside there are food and drink sellers every 20 yards or so, and lots of toilets. My only comparison here is football matches and there is no comparison at all - these things are gleaming. I didn't get any grub but it looked half decent, and the beer wasn't bad - usual plazzy cup festival type affair (£4.40 a pint of Grolsch).
Obviously it's very white and very middle class but not particularly snooty. Worth a dig if you're curious, although the first week is best if you're going late (more matches, duh).

Ticket information and other stuff here

Hit that ball!

The London Particular, New Cross - sarnie special!

This picture does this sandwich no justice at all

Is there a better trousers-on feeling than enjoying the first couple of mouthfuls of a mega-sandwich, knowing you've got loads left?
There's stuff about the thinking behind The London Particular elsewhere on the new internet you've read about so I won't bother with it here. Suffice to say the place, which was recommended by the Deptford Dame on the popular website Twitter is soopoib.
I had the warm sarnie of the day, in this case fancy-pants sausages, caramelised onions, rocket and some other stuff (possibly some kind of mustard) on nice, lightly toasted bread, possibly rye I'm not sure - hey, this isn't Which?
Either way, this sandwich instantly marched in to my top six ALL TIME sandwiches. And I'm a fussy bugger.
Sausages were sliced in twain, arranged in size order to fit the bread, and rested diagonally. Then the other stuff was ladled on with the second piece of bread resting atop, as is traditional.
Impressively for work of this spec, sandwich integrity was maintained almost throughout. Only one bit of sausage fell out and that was when I was trying to change the page of my book.
It also came with a sort of salad, which had pulses of some kind in there and spuds and - I think - noodles. Often the salad is an afterthought on these things but this was excellent.
Naturally I paired the brute up with a cup of coffee, and this, in football terms, was a bit special. Very potent but tasty - I asked for white and it came with barely a splash of milk as if to say, 'go on you Jessy, ask for more milk'. No chance mate.
There was a slight awkward moment with me and the lad working there when I asked the wifi code - that unique embarrassment when two people with hugely different accents baffle each other - but that's hardly his fault (or mine) and the service, like the whole visit, was good. For such a small space they fit a lot of people in comfortably and my grub was up within about five minutes.
Now this place isn't cheap - it came in at £9.30 (the sarnie was an eye-watering £7.50) but it was worth it. I was still full six hours later, not bleurgh full, just not hungry. And it was, as has been established, very tasty. Next time I'm having the baked tommies, fancy ham, and hoity-toit cheddar on toast.

A monkey?

Then I mooched off down Deptford Market where I saw this intriguing poster - what can have been in the case to illicit such a plea, and reward?
The London Particular is at 399 New Cross Road, SE14 6LA. Out of New Cross station turn right, over the bridge, past the Walpole pub, past the chippy where Paul McCartney and his mrs got chips and a pickled egg (according to the signed docket on the wall), and it's there on the right. If you live in the area you should go, otherwise you're wasting your tastebuds.

Dear Mars

devastation

I got a choc bar out of the machine just then, a Twix Fino (sounds like a Chilean gigolo, a chicoglo?). It felt smashed when I held it but I ludicrously hoped it might be encased in some kind of futuristic choc-bar-inner-sleeve-bubble-wrap. But it wasn't, as you can see from this shocking footage shot at the scene.
I've sent it back to Mars along with a note which I've added below as I want the internet to think I'm as funny as that prick who sent the smug letter to Branson about the toilets on Virgin rail or something.

3/5/11

Dear Mars,

I bought this the other day and thought you’d like to see it. It was from a vending machine but the bloke who fills them up isn’t around so I thought I’d go straight to the source.

No idea what happened to get it in such a state but I was forced to purchase an alternative bar, made by what I thought was your arch rivals Galaxy. I see however you make them too so you’ve got me there.

A mate of mine years ago said his dad sent back a busted Mars bar and received a massive box of chocs in return. I’m not after that but I would like a different bar to the smashed one enclosed. I took a punt on buying the less fat option and it’s backfired horribly.

Yours,

Biff Bifferson III

A dead bad sandwich in Deptford

Marks out of 8billion

Sarnies rule. They are one of the greatest things ever - so why is it so hard to get a good one?
I went to the reasonably-vaunted Deptford Project for a bank holiday treat of a cup of coffee and a bit of dinner (lunch if you're posh). The coffee - cappuccino with semi-skimmed milk - was fantastic, but the sandwich was an abomination.
First off they didn't have any chicken - the sandwich choice was basic at best: egg, bacon, ham - so I went for ham salad on thick white bread. The ham and salad wasn't awful but the bread was almost stale. If I dished this up at home it'd get lashed in my face, and rightly so. Normally I'd send it back but they were short staffed and it had took about 30 minutes to arrive and I couldn't be arsed waiting for another.
I ate it like. I was starving, and to be fair I was offered reparation when I pointed out after that the bread was rubbish, but it's what this represents that's the problem. The Deptford Project sells quiche apparently, but I don't want quiche - I want a sarnie. A big one. On event bread.
So why couldn't I have one? Because there is a fundamental, cultural problem in this country. The sandwich should be cherished, revered. It should be every bit as important as a good cup of tea.
As it is, sarnies are the runt of the commercial grub world, chucked out with contempt on shit bread with piddly fillings.
New York has it right, and it starts with the bread. If you're selling food and your sarnies are on basic sliced bread - brown or white - then you're a disgrace. Yes, YOU Peter de Wits cafe in Greenwich with your 'best ingredients' piffle - FIVE POUNDS for a chicken salad sarnie? For shame!
You are out of your mind - if I pay a flim for sandwich then it better be one of the wonders of the world. I want people gathering round it in awe, talking in hushed tones. And let me tell you, food-fans, the chicken salad one I had at de Wit's was moderate at best.
That was a year ago, and I'm still livid about it. The Deptford Project said they'll sort me out next time I go, which is nice, but the problems run deeper than that. Sort your act out, food sellers of Great Britain.

piss take

Red light

This is the bit of road where a couple of years ago I got a fine for parking in the red zone while I nipped in the shop to buy some ice cream (Hagen Daz fancy pants stuff). Sixty bastard quid it cost me.
Not only have these coppers in their unmarked car done the same thing (except the ice cream bit) but they were rubbing it right in by having their blue and red lights flashing - you can sort of make it out on the pictures - while they were in the Chinese on Lee High Road.

Blue light

Double rubbing-in points for the parking - look at it! Right in the middle of the bay, thus negating it as a space for whoever the crap it is gets to park in red zones. I don't know if the police are allowed to park there or not but having the lights on when it did not look like they were 'attending' (below) seems a bit rum.

I've seen coppers, presumably from nearby Lewisham nick, come out of Nando's with a bag of grub, get in the van parked outside and whack the sirens on before roaring through the lights. Presumably they want to get their food back to the rest of the chaps nice and handy, and that's fair enough, but this is just taking the whatever.

"And some prawn crackers, love"

#Meateasy

Yummo!

"What's the grub like," I demanded of the woman kindly offering her chair. She looked at me, then at her fella, then back to me, and said: "You know when you have a dream and..." before tailing off in apparent delirium. The bar was set high.
And justifiably so. What was a few weeks ago London's hippest gaff (my visit means it's clearly passé), nestling on top of the former Goldsmiths Tavern in New Cross, is fantastic (if you want the back-story about the van and that, google it, lazy arse).
From the moment you walk in you can tell it's a bit good, the service is spot on and the waiting staff excellent. You get a number, get a drink, (eventually) get a table then put your order in when your number's called. It's a nifty trick to make something which, on the face of it looks fairly shambolic, run so smoothly.
But this is a slick operation - and it starts with the bar. Bottled Meantime lager, and fair play that amber stuff is nice, or cocktails. You tell them the sort of stuff you like and they knock something up. Mine, some sort of whisky sour thing with an egg in it, was ace.

I dined with a guest, it's not all mine

And so to the food. Pictured right is a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a cheeseburger (chilli chips are out of shot). Taking them in order, the burgers are amazing - big and not remotely greasy, despite how they look in the pics. Really well packed so there's no collapsing like you get in some big burgers. And the taste - man alive, they're superb.
The onion rings are great too, really light and tasty. If you go, you have to have them. The chips are last - a real afterthought. I'd seen a few plates of these skinny wretches being dished up so went for the chilli-cheese option, which was - again - delicious. The chips become something for the chilli to stick to. Probably the chilli was the thing that pushed me over the edge. We ate at 8pm and I was still stuffed at 1am.

It had an egg in it! It wasn't this bright though

An interesting crowd in there, and pretty much as I'd expected. Seemed Goldsmiths-ish but the prices are not really student friendly (£7 for a burger, similar for a cocktail, £3.50 I think for a bottle of beer).
On my visit, the punters were almost exclusively white. There were a lot of thick-rimmed specs on display and, I suspect, a lot of people drifting down on the East London Line.
One lad said to his chum, whose haircut was the equal of any CBeebies presenter: "At last! New Cross is connected to the rest of London!" Ignoring the high frequency train services which take five minutes to get to London Bridge, by "the rest of London" he meant "Highbury & Islington".
Apparently they're finishing for good on 16 April, with rumours of a switch up the road to Greenwich (but that's not even on the tube! How will Dalston Ted get there?), but Lewisham council should be moving heaven and earth to keep this thing in the borough. To let something as good as this slip away would be insane (you can follow them on Twitter, @themeatwagonuk, to get the latest). Recommended.

Some ace things about Bruges (in Belgium)

An alley

Gruuthuse Hof, Mariastraat, is where we had our tea the first night. Very nice it was too, although I got the idea the waiter was growing weary of his lot in life. Not helped by me swinging my arm into the too-low light-shade and bringing a massive card disc tumbling out of it. I caught it because I'm ace, and it was mildly diverting I suppose, but not as exciting as the assembled diners' reactions suggested. 

Probably out with their husbands or wives as part of a last-gasp attempt at saving something that's been dead for years - trying to use the electrical charge of my presence to reanimate the corpse of long dead love. Yes I saw you, sitting in silence, praying for something to happen. And then you saw me with a sleeve-full of light shade and thought 'this is it! Look, Sheila! Sheila! Did you see that? That bloke just hit the lampshade! Ha ha ha! You see - life isn't so bad after all! Look at him! He's trying to dislodge himself and he stood on that woman's foot! Now the waiter's involved and he's saying the bracket's missing and the shade won't go back in without it! He has to find the bracket and the bloke's saying well he hasn't got time for that and the waiter's saying he can't get another one because they don't make those shades any more! Sheila, are you watching this love? Oh I do love you, my darling! I've been a fool to doubt it. To hell with it, let's have pudding!'

Sheila's leaving you.

Look at the flash on that!

It's obvious but bears repeating - the ale is so much better than the shite we get served in this country. You can order a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g in a Belgian bar and it will be, at worse, half decent. 
That cheap stuff they have - Jupiler - is better than the draft lagers in our pubs. Step up to the local brew, Bruges Zot (the only one brewed in the city apparently) and it's miles better. Up it again to any number of ace ones - just take a punt, you can't miss - and you see just how shit British pubs are. As Mrs Biff said, beer in British pubs is merely functional. Cue some beardy nob, saying 'actually that's not beer, old titsonians scribbleplop is beer, you're on about lager.' Stick it up your tank top, wanker.

Tom's gaff

Tom's Diner, West Gistelhof 23, is spot on too. Small restaurant out of the city centre (about five minute walk north from the market square) which does a small selection of top grub. I had the meatloaf because it said 'LOCAL' next to it on the menu, and it was ace. Good starters and pud, nice beer, good service.

Also ace for beer, but less so for the beer-bores it attracts, is t Brugs Beertje (beerhouse, I think that means), Kemelstraat. They have tons of beers, including some real super strength gateway-to-hell stuff. There was a real disparate bunch of English oddballs when we were in there. One lad, as soon as his beer came (in half a coconut shell) declared the smell alone was 'to die for'. Don't be fucking stupid, egghead. 

A canal

There were five lads and one girl and each was more nerdish than the last. Slightly disappointed they didn't try and recruit me. Only downside of this place was the lad serving - he seemed a bit of a nob. 


And lastly, cycling is ace beacause it's actually pleasant. It would never occur to me to ride my bike in this country for leisure, at very low speeds. But it's perfect in Bruges, big old cycle lanes with plenty of room for walkers and bikes. And, like Amsterdam, the cars give way to you because the law's on your side. Biking round by the windmills on the east of the city and then coming back into town was just brilliant. 
There's a bike hire gaff on Mariastraat, it's €4 an hour, €8 for four hours, and I think €12 for the day.

Curried mussells and chips

Oh aye, I got to see Arsenal tumble out of the European Cup with a typical display of grace and dignity from Arsene 'it wasn't me' Wenger. And there seems to be a fair bit of free wifi around, if like me you don't fancy paying O2's outrageous rip off roaming prices. They also sell Bugles - dead nice crisps - and the people seem to be generally friendly too. Also ace.

A thing for horses to drink from that's shaped like a horse's head

The day I made my own hash brown (only one which was massive)

Mere spud and onion

Lets get one thing straight from what the yanks (and British people who talk like yanks) call 'the get-go' - until today I was worthless.
And you know why? Because I never made my own hash browns. Shame. Deep shame.
Well those days are gone! And not only did I make my own hash brown, it was one so big it was an affront to god himself. And here's how I did it.
The recipe's off the BBC site. Only thing I didn't do was wring the water out the spuds in a tea towel because I forgot but it was still ace.

All you do is peel two spuds (the recipe says four but I halved it) and a small onion, grate them into  bowl. Beat an egg into a big bowl, pour the spud and onion into the egg, add a inch of salt and pepper, mix it all up right good like.

Mmm, brown

Then heat some oil in a frying pan, dollop some of the stuff in, flatten it down, cook for about three minutes then flip and cook the same again.
If you're doing a big massive one like mine because you're the sort of bloke who makes women froth with a mere raised eyebrow, put a big plate over the pan before the flip stage, then whip it straight over so the pan's atop the plate.
The mega hash brown will be sat there all golden on top, now slide it back into the pan to brown the bottom for three minutes.

Ta-daaa

When it's done, put it on the plate and place your other grub items on it because, and this is key, YOUR MEGA HASH BROWN WILL ACT AS THE PLATE. You heard.

Last night's nerd togger - a new dawn?

Th'Allianz Arena (pic courtesy of Richard Bartz)

I've been nerding on and off for a few years now and I thought I'd seen it all. Well not all but some.
Occasionally though something comes along and - BLAMMO - it stops you dead.
Last night's first two nerd-offs were the usual blend of swearing and disproportionate upset, but the third was different.
It started off much as any other game, my nerd Everton were getting a bit of a chasing off someone else's nerd Bayern. They'd had much more of the ball but I was threatening and, at 0-0, it could have gone either way Brian.
Then it happened, at half time a message flashed up on my screen. It read simply: '##### wants to be your friend'.
I was stunned.
Here were two gladiators locked in to-the-nerd-death combat and yet - and yet - my foe was reaching out to me, as if to say 'when all this is over...' I took a mighly slurp from my presumptuously-opened victory beer to steady myself.
Six simple words, cast almost nonchalantly in my direction, but they represented so much more. Are we not men? (Are we Devo) - had I been so blinded by nerd blood lust all these years?
Had I lost sight of what makes online nerding great -  the sense of community? The feeling of belonging, of family, of the cosmic interconnectedness of all things (nerd)?
I shook my head a little, a wry smile playing on these full, kissable lips, and gasped at life's ability to surprise. The teams were back out. The game resumed.
Second half - beat his brains out 3-0, refused the request and sent my customary 'ha ha ha!' victory message. Because that's how I roll baby. Proper.

Previously:
Middle ground
A day of days
Up yours, Spurs and Bayern

Fridge

A right royal bumming

A grim tale

Have that Fritz

No name

It begins 

Get knotted Tescos, you too Sainsbury's

Give me my Cornettos!

After months of putting it off I eventually gave in - beep! - and used the self-service bit at the - unexpected item in the bagging area! - supermarket. I'd been putting it off but a steady reduction in the number of people tills has combined with the rise of the DIY ones - like they're forcing us into their self-service ghetto by stealth.
If your stuff all has barcodes on then it's not too bad, although sometimes it just refuses to read the code so you're swaying a tin of beans back and forth like a rummy sailor trying to start a sea shanty. And if you've got anything crazy like loose potatoes then it turns into a really cruddy version of The Crystal Maze as you try to find the nearest approximation to what you're holding on their bizarre computer menu while a harrumph of waiting shoppers give you the stink-eye.
But that's not the main problem, it's getting the stuff into the bag without being shouted at by the horrible, prissy voice they've detailed to shame people into paying for the plum they've tried to sneak through.
I had to give up because the whole thing was getting too much. I picked up my beans and cornettos (that's two items, you've not missed an incredible fusion) and spluttered at one of the assistants who patrol the area, 'you should have more staff on and less of this... rubbish' while gesturing wildly at the crowd, each huddled with grim determination over their own machine, wildness in their eyes like kids who'd cracked the eternal-free-credits code on Defender. The assistant blinked at me before turning to aid an old war hero who was struggling to accept that his CurlyWurly remained resolutely 'unidentified'. I dumped my stuff and disappeared into the night, beaten but not mortally so. I shall return...