Monday, June 27, 2011

21st June 2011

Santa Fe was, for the first time ever, booked out when we called. They willfully denied us a table, claiming there was absolutely nowhere we could sit. This is a dramatic re-creation of my dinner that night.



On the 21st of June, 7 people were killed in the Syrian uprisings. In Yemen, 2000 people had to be evacuated. 20 were killed in a bombing in iraq, Australian flights were cancelled because of volcanic ash, and an emperor penguin was seen on the beaches of New Zealand.

Coincidence? I think not. Warning signs from an angry and vengeful lord? Perhaps.

I dread to think what will happen if it happens again. Please, Santa Fe, don't think of us - think of how much damage and pain this is causing around the world.

Monday, June 20, 2011

7 June, 2011

It seemed that the cheese chef had set himself a challenge for this cheese outing: how dissimilar could he make three servings of cheese ordered for the same table?




On appearances alone, he did a good job. As you can see, the chef was flexing his artistic muscles when he added the paprika powder, it's possible that this week we might get actual pictures.

The disparities did not stop there. All three bowls of cheese had incredibly different consistencies, with all three spanning the range from runny and thin to gloopy and semi-solid.

Temperatures also ranged, with some enjoying a hot bowl of cheese and some lamenting a lukewarm offering.

The different consistencies across bowls made for some interesting results when it came to the final chip-to-dip ratios. These pictures will illustrate what I mean:




The breakdown:
Consistency: Varied.
Spiciness: The only consistent thing, all three bowls were deliciously spicy.
Appearance: A pleasing type 3 bowl.
Temperature: Varied.
Flavour: Spicy.
Chips: Varied.
Chip-to-dip-balance:Varied. Seriously, the chef must know about this blog and served us three different bowls just to fuck up the breakdown.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

31 May, 2011

The two pictures below do not appear to suggest much about the cheese dip we received on this particular outing. We have a pitiful Type 2 bowl (more on that later), chips verging on the sparse side, and powder that the chef has obviously just thrown up in the air in the hopes that it will land somewhere close to the bowl.



However, have a look at this SKIN:


That thing actually had its own cheese casing. It was nuts. It was also apparently very tasty. I was too busy taking pictures for this blog, so I did not experience the cheese skin. The things I do for my work.

As you can see in the following picture, the dip was also remarkably gluggy. It reminded us of the glue inflicted upon school children, when making paper-maches.



The ratio was quite good, as we inhaled both chips and dip with neither amount terribly outstanding.


There is one thing to note about this cheese outing that I am still fuming over. As you can see in the pictures, we received type 2 bowls. We have been receiving type 2 bowls for the past few weeks now, so we erroneously believed that they were no longer serving the other types of bowls. We were mistaken. After we had consumed our dip we saw another table receive their own dip with TYPE 1 BOWLS. We can't even remember that last time we had type 1 bowls. The insult of it all made us sulk for the rest of the night.

The breakdown:
Consistency: Gluggy, lumpy, paste-like. Cheese-flavoured glue.
Spiciness: Spicy.
Appearance: An insulting type 2 bowl.
Temperature: I wrote "hotttttttt" in my notes. It was obviously quite high in temperature.
Flavour: Cheesy.
Chips: For the most part fresh, with the occasional experience-marring stale specimen.
Chip-to-dip-balance: Refer to the picture where we have licked clean both the bowl and the plate.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

24th May 2011

Today our visit to Santa Fe started with a friendly neighbourhood abortion rally.
They were wandering along from subiaco towards the city in dead silence. I can't really tell from their signs whether they were for or against abortions, but they seemed quite polite.

They also seemed to have the entire population of perth behind them, since they continued walking past the restaurant until well into our first course. My theory: They were just walking around the block repeatedly. Subiaco on a Tuesday night is really strange place to hold a rally, and they seemed a bit lost.

The dip arrived in a type 2 bowl with some stylish racing stripes in the dip.

It also arrived freezing cold. So, back to the kitchen it went for some warming.

When it came back it was nice and hot, and they took the chance to pour on extra spice while it was in the kitchen. It also had a new attribute: Incredibly Thick Skin.

It may look like old custard, but it tasted of pure burnination - this dip was so spicy it was difficult to eat. I have no idea what the actual flavour was like, because it was impossible to taste underneath all the pure chilli.

We ate it, though.

Consistency: Thick before heating, still moderately thick afterwards. The skin was an adventure.
Spiciness: OH GOD THE PAIN
Appearance: Type 2 bowl, with bonus racing stripes.
Temperature: Started cold, got hotter, got colder.
Flavour: No idea whatsoever, it was swamped by the spice.
Chips: Awesome. All nice, crisp chips.
Chip-to-dip-balance: Almost perfect.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

May 17th 2011. It doesn't matter how I love you, or how the xbox is powered.

Santa Fe may be falling into some unfortunate habits. For the second week in a row, the dip turned up cold. It was less chilly than last time (there weren't visible iceblocks), so we toughed it out and ate it as it was served.

The table seemed to be slightly tilted this week.It lent our meal a rakish air, which I feel was a nice improvement.

The word to describe the dip was 'lumpy'. It didn't have much flavour, it was fairly spicy, and it wasn't very thick at all, but there were lumps floating around that could have sunk the titanic. It's a good thing Pork Bun doesn't have a gag reflex she wouldn't have been able to choke them down.

Jesus, that's a terrifying sight.

And for a second time in a row, their resident Chipologist decided to sneak in a mutant to test our mettle.


Is that a wedge? I'm fairly certain they don't even serve wedges. The next option is probably 'toenail'.

Consistency: Fairly thin, alas.
Spiciness: Middling spiciness
Appearance: Type 3 bowl. It looks like becoming their favourite.
Temperature: The layer on top was either ice or skin.
Flavour: What flavour?
Chips: Alternating between delicious and toenails.
Chip-to-dip-balance: Decent.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

15th May, 2011

This post is an EXTRA SPECIAL cheese post. Why so special, you ask? Isn't cheese in itself the epitome of special-ness? You would be correct, but today's post does not come from Santa Fe.

Bacon Sandwich and I got together with a few other cheese-eating colleagues for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 on the 15th, as it has been a sort of tradition to watch this joyous event each year, and then to cry when the most deserving (read: trashiest/craziest/most hilariously dressed) does not win.

So we gathered at our colleague's residence, and from this point I will refer to him as "Angry", which is short for "The Angry Man". If it upsets you too much to have a name that does not keep with our porcine naming scheme, please feel free to think of him as "The Angry Ham Man".


This here, is what we will refer to as a type 4 bowl. It is my fondest wish that Santa Fe adopts this bowl.


The powder you are seeing on the cheese is actually chilli powder, rather than paprika. This made for very spicy cheese dip.


As you can see, the depth of this bowl is quite miraculous.



As is the depth of this chip bowl. FYI, all the chips were beautifully crisp.





Possibly the most noteworthy thing about this particular dip was the texture. It lacked the smoothness of Santa Fe's dip, and had a much grainier feel. However, it was still very satisfying, and most amazingly, it tasted good even when it had cooled down enough to become a cheese paste.

The breakdown:
Consistency: Slightly grainy.
Spiciness: Reeeeeeaaaaallllly spicy.
Appearance: Type 4 bowl. We wept in happiness.
Temperature: Hot.
Flavour: Spicy.
Chips: We had fresh cheese doritos I believe. The extra cheesiness was very enjoyable.
Chip-to-dip-balance: ...I don't know, we got too caught up watching this: