Challenge: Korean BBQ

Sally's Thoughts:

I am pretty sure food challenges will continue to be my favourite challenges. This could be because I am not a particularly fussy eater, but also not massively adventurous, so there is lots to explore and the expectation is that I will enjoy most of it. This was actually the first challenge I set for myself, and was pleased to after at least a month of wanting to go, to actually go.
Korean BBQ is a thing I hear people talk about. There is no reason at all that I had never eaten Korean food, other than I guess it had just never come up, and because I had never tried it, never felt a particular craving for it. I think that may have changed now. Can we go get korean BBQ right now? It's ok, your plans don't matter. Not unless they are Korean BBQ plans.

Things I liked: The marinated beef was delicious, and the rest of the BBQ meats were at least quite tasty. The seafood pancake was great. The staff were friendly, and offered me warm tea while I was waiting outside for my friends to arrive/our table to be ready, and brought me a BBQ (a pot of hot coals) to keep warm.
I really enjoyed the communal feel of the meal, sitting around a BBQ watching delicious things be cooked was quite entertaining. I also really like meals where they come and give you an exciting array of side dishes which you don't need to specifically order.

Things I didn't like: Well, this is just a problem I have in the world where calamari that is not calamari my Dad has caught and cooked is just inferior. It's not calamari's fault. Sorry, calamari.

Rating: 8/10
Would I do it again: Yes. Can we please go now? Tomorrow? I am free anytime.


Dave’s 2 cents:

I’d never done Korean BBQ before, and I’m not sure I’ve had any Korean food before, and I had some vague ideas it was like yum cha. I went to yum cha last year and I was kinda over it, but I may have found a replacement.

For various reasons our booking went from 8 to 5, and that was kinda better – I’m not sure how 8 of us would’ve huddled around a BBQ burner they put in the centre. I liked that like yum cha it is a continuous thing – rather than having to make to cram too many dishes on the table it is a steady streamy of meaty goodness.

It as much about the condiments as the meat, which I guess is kinda necessary when you’re pretty much eating BBQed meat which can get samey. The marinated beef was the highlight and I would happily just order that if I went again. We even got a free steak because we had some onion in something that we specifically asked not to have it in.

At $25 each not including drinks it wasn’t expensive and there were lots of Asians there which is always a good sign.

Rating: 7/10

Nutshell: An innnersting alternative to the usual Chinese-Vietnamese stuff I usually have.

Would I do it again? Yes.

Challenge: Attend a poetry slam.

It is perhaps somewhat surprising I have never been to a poetry slam even before – a big fan of Carl Hancock Rux, a small fan of Saul Williams, and I have my favourite Hip-hop lyrics tattooed on my back. I’m not sure why I haven’t been to one before – perhaps I was afraid of a “Portlandia” skit inspired by Party Fun Action Committee’s “Word Up” (Google that shit!).

The revolution was not going to be televised so I ended up in person at SLAMALAMADINGDONG: Open Poetry Slam feat. Omar Musa and the launch of PARANG!. Poetry slam is egalitarian in design – the thinking behind it is that anyone can enjoy poetry not just Ivory Tower folks. For the uninitiated, there are 5 judges who are made up of the audience and there are no ‘professional’ judges as I erroneously thought for some daft (lack of a) reason, but as the hosting emcee told us repeatedly ‘Applaud the poetry not the points.’ Somehow I ended up being one of the 5 which was awesome. As it was not a ‘professional’ event we could award scores from 7.0 to 10.0, with the top and bottom scores not counting.

The entrants varied in quality which is to be expected given it was a not a ‘professional’ event. A lot can happen in 3 minutes – one really nervous young lady who stumbled and forgot her poem at the start really picked it up and took it home; I scored her highly accordingly (nothing like watching a underdog claw their way back). Some of them I didn’t immediately take to or felt were meandering were able to bring it back before they finished. As someone who has spent more time than he’d like to admit listening to Hip-hop – oh crunk who cares? It’d at least add up to weeks – it is fun listening to spoken-word following its own meter which gives it something of an interesting unpredictability, as opposed to rappers who (generally) have to keep the beat.  Also the audience clicks their fingers to show their appreciation – if you really impress them then they vocalise their approval.

What I liked most was that I was that some of the work that impressed me the most was work I wouldn’t ordinarily be exposed to; the aforementioned recovery girl and another girl slamming (?) about quote/unquote ‘female issues’ really impressed me. If they can hit home to a Dumb White Male® like me – well mission accomplished, I guess. As for the older guy talking who went from ‘personally revealing’ to ‘TMI-overload’ to ‘borderline primal scream therapy’ – well he wasn’t quite my cup of tea, but I hope it worked as catharsis for him. 

Judging was fun and for some reason I felt vindicated when my low score was booed (every judging panel needs a Red Simons, right?). If anything the booing meant they were defending each other rather than waiting for each other to fall, which is great. There is a real communal feel about it – I’m not sure I’m meshugganah about the ever so slightly cornball term ‘loveswamp’, but I do like the concept of it.

At the risk of sounding smug and worrying more about the points than the poetry, I also felt slightly vindicated that the 3 guys (yes, guys) that won I gave scores somewhere in the 9s. Applaud the poetry….

Oh yeah Omar Musa read from his poetry book and he was awesomesuace.

Rating: 7/10

Nutshell: Clicking not cliquey fun.

Would I do it again? Nah, not really my ‘scene’.

Challenge: Write a blog entry.

It wasn’t until Sally pointed this out to me that I realised this was a first (*face-palm*). I’ve generally resisted a blog because if I have anything to say it is going in my thesis.

I’ve written streetpress music reviews, - long-arsed emails, Facebook status comments and Internerd forum entries, and symbolic interactionist sociological reports for uni. It was actually the last one it reminded me about the most – the observing and getting amongst it (even if I didn’t quite end up dancing). Like most things I write I stop and start – a gradual, organic process. Maybe I should do it in one go in the future to keep it brief. But yeah I didn’t mind it.

Rating: 6/10

Nutshell: An acceptable way to procrastinate from doing ‘real things’ (read: ‘doing my thesis’), but not quite as much fun as making mixtapes.

Would I do it again? Uumm…….

#1st!

Challenge: I’ve never seen a country music gig.

“I like both kinds of music – country and western.”

It wasn’t until I was writing this up that I was thinking I have some vague, memories of me doing some country dancing as a kid – more than 20 years ago, probably under much sufferance. So the challenge was still valid and so there I was at the Victoria Hotel Brunswick, a typical, average sized suburban pub, on a Saturday night to see The Moonee Valley Drifters. With that noughties Johnny Cash biopic well in the rear-view it is once again pretty easy to shit on country music again; you know the drill; cousin courting country folk, depressing lyrics and crunking awesome hats. Yeah the jokes pretty much write themselves (And what is the deal with aeroplane food?).

But in the spirit of INSSW someone who’s country music collection begins, middles and ends with a (hardly listened) double CD Hank Williams best of collection there I was at a not-in-the-country country gig.

The crowd was made up of white suburbanite couples in their 50s and 60s who reminded me of my parents – if only my parents were out on the town having so much fun. I know more about Japanese basket weaving than I do about country dancing, but even I could see that it was the more swing dancing than boot-scooting. Same goes for the music; if you’re note familiar with it then of course all country music sounds the same in the same way that you probably couldn’t tell the difference between Waka Flocka Flame and Gucci Mane* if your life depended on it, while I on the other hand could bore you to death on the difference several times over.

What I liked the most was the communal feel – people seemed to all know each other or eager to make friends. Honestly I couldn’t have looked more out of place, but I didn’t feel out of place, well not too out of place and I think if I had made the effort they would’ve been friendly enough, despite the age gap. It wasn’t until Sally pointed it out that I realised that they were swapping partners; I’m not sure if this contributed to the communal feel of the place, or vice versa.

As for the fetching less who was possibly the only young person there and maybe I could’ve plucked up the courage to ask her to dance – I mean this is for hicks so it really can’t be much harder than getting crunk, innit? Going by snappy dressing she looked like she meant to be there (somehow I felt my plaid Chucks violated the unofficial dress code- will have to back to you about my Kangol), but when she got dancing and showed up pretty much everyone there- well, you could tell she most definitely meant to be there; it was her world and I was just visiting. 

The band did 3 sets of about 5 or 6 songs, at first I thought I thought it was maybe to give the band a break (who appeared to be much the same age as the dancers with the exception of the lap steel player who looked my age give or take), but then I realised it was probably so the dancing baby-boomers could have a well-earnt break.

After the gig I spoke to the perfectly friendly and likeable band leader ex-pat Yank Tom Forsell and bought a CD off him which he and several other band members signed. Of course, you can’t decide that you don’t like ALL country and western from one gig any more than you can decide you don’t like ‘rock music’ (hey I’m down with the kids!) from one gig, but I enjoyed myself. Even if they looked like my parents it was a fun night. Who knows? Next time I might pluck up the courage to dance…………

*Like Hank Williams both are hard-living, (self)-destructive Southerners.

Rating: 7/10

Nutshell: Friendly, unpretentious fun.

Would I do it again? Yes absolutely I’m going to keep an eye out and see them again.