Rob Brennan

Indie Chicken Watchdog

A dinner-free trip to the pub, last week, inevitably led to a trip to the nearest tasty poultry shop. Feeling boozy and ravenous, Marianna and I ordered the value meal of chixor, spicy wings, chips and drink. While fryers fried and boxes were stacked, we made the mistake of chatting and, crucially, NOT PAYING ATTENTION to the action behind the counter. Before we knew it, the bags of filth were handed over and we merrily bimbled home. Once collapsed on the couch I opened the box and a thought suddenly occurred to me:

WHERE’RE MY BLOODY CHIPS?

A text from Miss M. contained the same tale of woe and absent carbs. Moral: always check your purchase, especially during the busy holiday season. I’ll consider this a one-off oversight for now, Archway Perfect Chicken, but you have been WARNED.

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FOOD SCIENCE HALLOWEEN SUPPLEMENT: An Actual Post About PUMPKINS

Aim: Combining the aesthetic joys of Flying Fruit and the no-nonsense tuffness/springiness test of the Experiment We Did Not Do, we decided to find out what happens when you throw a pumpkin from a second floor balcony onto tarmac.

Apparatus: Some booze, a pumpkin, a second floor balcony, a car park.

Method: Under the influence of the booze, the pumpkin was heaved far enough away from the balcony to avoid any inconvenient cars below. A team of observers were on hand to note the results.

Results: All observers agreed the results were hugely disappointing. Rather than a satisfying splatter across the tarmac, the fruit bounced once and rolled to a halt, only losing a small section from the impacts.

Conclusion: Pumpkins are the BabyBels of the fruit world, in that they fail to fufil expectations when misused. It’s possible that our squash was a freakishly tuff example but further experiments could not be performed cos we decided to watch Ghostbusters instead.

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Elephants in Holloway

Thanks to the ease of finding Indie Chicken, it had been a while since I darkened the doors of a proper kebab shop. Bored with endless variations on spicy wings and with an anniversary to observe, we loaded up on Litovel at the Swimmer before popping round the corner to the bright and inviting Crystal Kebabs on Holloway Road. Everything was present and correct: lamb and chicken elephant legs revolving hypnotically, air thick with the promise of meat wrapped in carbs and lots of blokes frantically slicing, grilling, saucing and wrapping behind the counter to feed a hungry post-pub crowd.

I ordered a large lamb doner which came wrapped in a flatbread rather than a pitta. This made for a nicer kebab but presented a new eating challenge: rather than the usual overstuffed pitta balancing act, this version felt slightly too unstable to eat on the move. Instead, we sat down in a civilised manner, unwrapped and attacked them with forks. The meat was excellent, being actual recognisable lamb rather than the mystery substance that constitutes the usual doner. The sauce complemented the filling without being too overpowering and the bread proved a worthy substitute for the pitta, although not quite adequate to soak up the alarming amount of grease.

Lovely stuff then and a welcome change from [insert American state] Fried Chicken. Sadly, consuming the thing in its entirety in the shop robbed me of the Half Eaten Kebab on the Kitchen Worktop in the Morning experience that’s part of the charm of post-pub suppers.

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FOOD SCIENCE DAY 5: Feast of Flying Fruit

Aim:To determine the most aerodynamic fruit by means of distance travelled when hurled through the air.

Apparatus: Park. Measuring Device (Interweb journalist Tom E.). Throwing Device (Interweb hardman Mark C.). The following varieties of fruit: apple, apricot, avocado, banana, grape, grapefruit, kiwi, lemon, lime, melon, orange, pear, pineapple, plum, watermelon

Method: Each fruit is pitched as hard as possible by the Throwing Device. After each throw, the Measuring Device is employed to pace the distance from the throw-line to the point of impact and the result recorded accordingly. FT officials ensure consistent throwing and accurate pinpointing of landing sites. Hurling techniques are down to the thrower but largely determined by the shape of the fruit: a simple overarm in most cases but pineapples, being Nature’s hand-grenades, require a more sophisticated swing for maximum distance.

Results: An awful lot of broken fruit. Parts still edible by humans were assembled by SGS into a tasty fruit salad while the remainder was left to Peckham’s wildlife.

THE LEAGUE TABLE:

And, because this is SCIENCE, the same information in an EXCITING GRAPHICAL format:

Conclusions:
* The apricot was the clear winner on the day. This may be down to vast quantities of kinetic energy within the stone or its shape facilitating the flow of air across the surface. Unfortunately no other bum-like fruits were available at the time to perform further tests. Further experiments are required to explore the potential of nectarines as sub-orbital vehicles.

* With much of the expectation being on high-density fruits, the performance of the apple was disappointing. However, the dimpled fruits peformed well enough to justify the ‘golf-ball’ hypothesis I’d made up in the pub earlier.

* Lemons and limes are not only the sharpest but also the hardest fruits, being the only ones to survive the experiment completely undamaged.

* Bananas do not return to the thrower.

* Red grapes can be thrown further than green grapes individually but not in bunches. This may be an early indication of quantum behaviour in the smallest fruits.

* There are few sights more immediately satisfying than the splattering of a watermelon.

* This experiment provided no opportunities to point out that Tim did not have any salt.

Rob Brennan in Proven By Science • 1 Comment

DIY Corner

How to destroy the Earth. I knew that 2,500,000,000,000 tonnes of antimatter would come in handy one day.

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Greetings, Blog Readers of the Foo-char!

For anyone browsing the archives in a more temporally enabled age, you may be interested in attending this convention. Please take care not to tread on any butterflies.

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That’s no moon.

That’s no moon.

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Babbage Minifig Not Included

Babbage Minifig Not Included

LEGO logic gates! Via Slashdot.

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Indie Chicken

Indie Chicken

#4 Ken’s Fried Chicken, Albert Road, Southsea

For Southsea residents post-pub scran and name Ken are synonymous. Two Ken’s Kebabs outlets await the drunk and peckish in the town’s main imbibing quarters while satellite vans tempt those staggering home via quieter thoroughfares. Kebabs, burgers and Speedy Pizzas are the order of the day and they are, on the whole, pretty good. Ken’sFC is the most recent addition to the empire. Clearly marked by its cheeky white on red Colonel-baiting sign, it stands bang in the middle of studentville, within easy falling-over distance of at least three pubs.

On to the menu: in addition to the usual legs, thighs and wings, Ken’s also offers the non trademark-violating delights of the ‘Kinger Burger’ and ‘Popin’ Chicken’ for your off-the-bone needs. After enjoying the luxury of cheapo London outlets, the pricing in the competition-free provincial equivalent is a bit of a shock: the cheapest box meal (2 bits of chicken, chips and a canned drink) comes in at ’3.29. Oddly, none of the box meals include hotwings for a bit of spicy variety.

I bought a 2-piece meal (salt and lemony moist towelette included – hurrah!) and charged home to tuck in. The first thing I noticed was that the chicken, while tasty enough, seemed to have been somewhat underfed during its short life. Once the enjoyably greasy coating had been gobbled, there wasn’t an awful lot left to work on. The chips were freshly done, crispy and thick enough to contain a semblance of vegetable matter. I was left satisfied but with the usual guilt that comes with eating this sort of filth while sober.

Nothing remarkable then, but with their location and locked-in market of drunk, unfussy students, they don’t really need to try.

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Budget Boozing – The Lord Nelson, Urmston

Budget Boozing – The Lord Nelson, Urmston

Like many of the London-based Publog correspondents, I’m a fan of the Sam Smith’s pub. Leaving aside the tastiness of their beers and the pleasing trad interiors, the winning factor for a skinflint like me is the sheer cheapness of a pint.

On a recent visit to Manchester, it was a pleasant surprise to find myself in a pub selling Joseph Holt’s beers (less surprising for anyone living in Greater Manchester as there are around 125 Holt’s pubs). Their Ayingerbrau-equivalent Crystal lager sells for ’1.30 a pint while the stronger Diamond will empty your pocket to the tune of ’1.40. The Diamond proved to be a crisp, easy drinking pint and was just the ticket after a jalfrezi in Rusholme. For those who like to keep it real with their ale, they do a bitter and a dark mild for ’1.10 and ’1.04 respectively. Sadly, on this occasion, none of us felt up to drinking the mild but the bitter was adjudged to be The Business.

The pub itself was large and comfortable with enough strategically placed partitions to keep things cosy. Unfortunately, a preponderance of HMS Victory-related decoration only served to remind me that I had to travel back to Portsmouth and its disgraceful lack of sub-’2 beers the next day.

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