A pasticceria, Civitanova, Italy, April 2011

What a delight! This unassuming pastry with a red flashy centre was calling for me in a pasticceria in Civitanova. What was it? In true Italian way, there were no labels on the counter. The little delight was called 'diplomatico'. What an odd name for such a delightful fancy.

This pastry had such a delicate looking frosting on top, I was worried that the tiny air current caused by me bringing it to my mouth would blow it off into the Marche air. Luckily I gobbled it up faster than Obama producing his birth certificate. Just like today was a day to remember (for the houses of Windsor and Middleton), that first bite was a joy. There was certainly no Kung Fu fighting going on in my mouth. The diplomatico was diplomatically sweet but not too sweet. No taste was overpowering. It was pure harmony. I can only imagine it was composed of a light custard cream with a hint of cherry to keep the experience thrilling. The pastry just crumbled and melted like QPR's automatic promotion to the Prem as I munched through it. Washed down with some Estathe (pronounced 'esta teh') on the rocks, this was the perfect spring buccal tickler.

The Ho Down says: grazie mille, Italia!

Good enough for Obama then good enough for me, DC, November, 2010

This was a pilgrimage. A convoy of 2 SUVs made their way to Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington DC. The street was rather dim and murky, then this beacon of light shone like a chili bowl oasis in a desert of grimness. Seriously, Ben's was like the Star of Bethlehem. This was the main event on U Street.

After taking my photo with the multicoloured bear outside I was greeted by an unofficial homeless usher. He kindly opened the door for me and I remunerated his service with a polite 'thank you'. Ordering the signature Bill Cosby's Original Chili Half-Smoke, I gave the prep area a coup d'oeil. Homies were tending to glistening dogs basking on the grill. They were lying prone on the piping hot grill waiting to be wrapped in a cocoon that is a finger bun then slathered in the main event - the chili. After receiving my Bill Cosby I threw my other eye to the rest of the restaurant. This place was an institution. There were loads of photos of randoms - supposedly famous - who knows. Even Mr Obama lavished his gnashers here. Maybe Wills and Kate will rock up here for their reception? I tried to engage some banter with a happy nosher but he was either 1) enjoying eating his sausage in a bun too much to talk to me, 2) he did not understand the Queen's English, 3) he was a prick or 4) he was deaf and mute.

I let Bill Cosby marinate and fester in its foil wrapper and brown paper bag much like England in Easter week before I tucked in. To me, a hot dog is a hot dog. Whether it has chili on it, the sausage has been split and smoked or not, a hot dog is still a hot dog. There were no surprises just like Real Madrid finishing El Classico with 10 men.

The Ho Down says: buy some sausages, cook them; make your own chili and dump the two together; call it some crazy name claiming that it is the best god damn chili dog this side of the Milky Way and you have yourself a chili dog to rival Ben's. What a load of tosh.

'One of those' and Bob Ho @ The Mayflower, Bristol, The England, 2009 (Happy days)

Probably 4 Gaddafi units on the Gaddafi scale of bizarrity. Two behind Wright's (oh so wrong) Farm Restaurant. The Mayflower was recommended to me by a fellow Chinese guy so this place must be the nutz. Sure enough, The Mayflower is situated in a bit of a dark dingy place where one would sneak off to for a bit of illegal gambling and to eat some steaks on the endangered species list. Fantastic!

The interior looks like it should be an office or a shop floor. But instead there are tables - some round, some square, some large, some small. The first (and best) time I went was for a post midnight snack. We must have got there at around 0030. For you Yanks if you are a bit bamboozled, 0030 = 12.30 am. Engaging in a bit of non-Chinese banter, or rather pigeon Engrish, with the waitress she concluded that I was 'one of those' and swapped my chopsticks for a knife and fork. Thank you very much. What is unusual about this Chinese restaurant is that they serve dim sum between 12 pm and 4 pm, and 10 pm - 3 am. Amazing.

Where do I start? Chicken feet! There is something barbarically romantic about eating chicken feet. The way they flop lifelessly off the end of your chopsticks (or in my case, on the end of my fork) just screams obscenities at the camera. But having to suck the soft skin off the bones then letting the flavours of the tangy-like sauce trot around your palette is strangely satisfying. I had never had congee before but this is the Evander Holyfield when it comes to winter comfort food. It is a piping hot rice porridge with a density similar to gold. Good luck getting this thing moving in the Tevatron. My congee was perfectly bland with a hint of flavoursome saltiness punctuated by the innocent virgin flavours of the egg, spring onions and other meaty titbits lurking in the bowl. My favourite dish without doubt is the pork cheung fun. This brought back memories of when Mad Alan and I used to dust up to China Town in London Town for dim sum on Sunday afternoons. The memories of throwing rio snappers out of a car window at unsuspecting pedestrians was like reminiscing about the glory days of Gazza and Italia '90. Emotional. And the 'sticky rice'! Another winter favourite! Reliving that experience is bringing more tears to my eyes as if I have been trying to dice onions using my eyelids. Those long road trips up to North London on a Sunday afternoon to the Chinese supermarket with the bank of Mum and Dad... Happy days.

The Ho Down and Bob Ho

The Mayflower place became such a favourite of mine that this place was frequented on multiple occasions with a large inpromptu groups of mildly autistic neuroscientists. A couple of things I would really like know though. What was really in the tea? That stuff gave me the giggles all night long as if I had read the story that Ashley Cole shot a work experience kid in the buttocks for the first time all the time. Did the lighting really fluctuate or was it the tea? Or were they really stealing electricity from their neighbours? Why does the English menu look completely different to the Chinese menu? Is it true that the Chinese menu is cheaper than the English menu? Can you get special off-the-menu dishes such as panda T-bones and golden eagle wings? The Mayflower has character. Loads of it. More character than a herd of thespians auditioning for part of Joey in Joey. The staff have character too, especially Bob Ho (real name Duncan) - you sarcastic joker!

The Ho Down is honoured to have been 'one of those' at The Mayflower.

Steak this place out, Cranston, RI, April, 2011

The first thing you will notice are the peanut shells strewn across the floor like confetti. There was more neon in the lobby than the set of Tron. I thought I was going to get an epileptic fit at The Texas Roadhouse. We passed some proud steaks displaying themselves on their refrigerated catwalk. One of the waitresses asked if I would like to choose my own steak. Hold your horses, cowgirl! I just stepped in and I am still wondering whether this place has a squirrel infestation from the peanut shells on the floor.

Walking through the dining area I felt Harry Stamper getting ready to launch into space to save mankind. This restaurant was Brash with a capital B. Everything is big in this place. The drinks are big and the food is big. The lady in the booth next to me was rather big too... Quite how our waitress brought over 4 pints of water, one 22oz beer, a 300 ml (or so) cocktail and a 18oz margarita in one go without any spillage was very impressive. Judge Douglas Field must have stopped here regularly for cocktail lunches before going back to work.

The bread rolls offered as tantilising palate teasers were little bundles of joy. They came piping hot and glistened like Nicolas Anelka's cranium under the Stamford Bridge floodlights. They had a pleasant sweet taste to them. I later found out that had a glaze of cinnamon butter that gave it that Anelka cranium-like finish as well as that odd sweetness. For the main prize, I got a 20oz Bone In Ribeye steakeroonie with a side of green beans and mashed potatoes. This badboy was meant to be the lone star on the menu.  The steak was good but it was a pauper in comparison to the Kobe Cap Steak I had previously (see Grill23 blog). Imagine getting chauffeured in a Bentley to your new car - a second hand VW Polo. Nothing wrong with a Polo but it is not a Bentley. Each bite was a slight effort, but not enough to enforce a government shutdown. A good steak, in my opinion, is one where the fat is as much of the steak as the steak itself, and adds a little adulterous flavour. The fat on my bone-in was unfortunately just fat. It reminded me of when I was dissecting a foot in anatomy class and whilst struggling with the ligaments I accidentally flicked a piece of my cadaver's adipose tissue into my mouth.

The Ho Down says: it is worth steaking this place out. 

Meat me in Cape Cod, August, 2010

Thank you, evolution for me being a carnivore. Also thank you, bank of Mum and Dad for not bringing me up to read The Guardian.

The combination of a satnav and a magic phone negotiated us to Cape Cod on a glorious August Sunday afternoon. The restaurant was pleasant. What else can I say but: pleasant. I know what it meant to be Leandro Penna for an hour or two at The Brazilian Grill Churasscaria - I was there for the meat.

For those who have never been to a rodizio, you basically pay at the door and pay no more to take your seat to chow down some meat. I can really empathise with Leandro now... After wetting my whistle with some rather gustatory acceptable caipirinhas I flipped my card over to green and sat back and waited for the amino acids to come my way. I was like Yusuf Raza Gilani salivating waiting for a healthy cheque signed off by Mr. Cameron. As expected, it did not disappoint. The highlight for me was munching down on the chicken hearts. Each heart required some hearty mastication- these little critters pumped out tenderness pulsated with a whiff of charcoal from the grill. What does a chicken heart like? Very tender chicken is the answer.

The steaks were offered rare and oozing succulentness from every sinew. No fancy seasoning with the Colonel's secret spices. Just throw on some salt and grill like a virgin. Delightful. Unlike my Kobe, these steaks were rugged like a barbarian. The way they just peeled off the carving knife would have raised Hannibal Lecter's heart rate ever so slightly. Other pork offerings were on offer but for me it was all about the steak and chicken hearts spearheading the attack in a 4-4-2 formation.


On a side note, the black pudding was really rather good. It was an unsung hero like Gilberto Silva. Spicey, crunchy with a dense heavy taste, if Blade were British he would be employing a strategy of winning hearts and minds by firing these slabs of black pudding at Deacon Frost instead of silver tipped bullets.


The Ho Down says: I would not throw a banana at The Brazilian Grill Churasscaria.

What is BBQ sauce?, NYC, June 2010

If Eagle's Deli is 110 % American, this place is 111 % American. How my belly sat itself down here deserve a short interjection. I was on the Amtrak to Newark Airport when a lady with a civilised English accent sat next to me. We partook in some small talk where I asked her where would be a good All American American place to nosh down whilst I am in the Big Apple. She mentioned Dallas BBQ where the portions are insane and is as American as an American trying to parallel park. So where was this place? Somewhere in the west side. I was never going to find this place. Something to chew on for future trips me thought.


By Jove, I should have bought a lottery ticket on that day. As soon as I walked out the Metro station where my hotel was, bang! Dallas BBQ slapped me in the chops with a bit of gristle. It was my destiny. Not even Nostradamus could have predicted this. This place was brash and noisy. It was like going to an American sporting event - loads of people wandering around eating. While waiting for a table to be cleared we had to endure the maitre d' announcing on the tannoy every 2 minutes whose table was ready. Extremely irritating like a wart.

We finally sat at our rather sticky table and perused the menu. Not much to it. It was like reading a tabloid newspaper - full of cheap nonsense. What caught my eye though were huge goldfish bowls of luminous beverage being whisked around by waiters on a minimum wage. I needed one of those badboys. To this day, I still can't work out what I drank. It was a cocktail of some sort - a Texan sized cocktail (maybe about a pint and a half) and I am sure it glowed. These glowing cocktail things would have made the Fukushima 50 squirm in their radioactive suits.

Reactor 6

Onto the food. I got a combo platter to try the best Uncle Sam could offer. This consisted of meat of some sort and battered seafood of some sort. The seafood stuff was definitely battered. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is how the meat was covered in thick angry BBQ sauce. What is BBQ sauce? Tomato ketchup is meant to taste like tomatoes, so is BBQ sauce meant to taste like a George Foreman grill? Anyway, the BBQ sauce was like bitumen. This stuff would do a great job filling the potholes in the roads. Mayor of Croydon, make a note. How can I describe this meal? Slow roast your leather shoes for a couple of hours, melt some tarmac and liberally pour onto your laces. This slab of meat had as much taste as Wayne Rooney's rant at the camera.

Verdict of The Ho Down: the Pastor Terry Jones of fine dining....