It doesn't matter that it's sideways

Brunswick Heads, September 2010

It doesn't matter that you can't really see this lamb ragu. It was bloody awful. We stopped in to have lunch in 'Bruns' with Adam and Rach one Sunday. There are lots of good things to say about Bruns but their spaghetti so far isn't one of them. It tasted off, there were unwelcome root vegetables and it wasn't that hot. If something is really, really hot you can almost forgive anything because you can't really taste it. This was not the case. Apparently the place to go for good Italian there is Sticky Fingers. We haven't been able to get there yet but hopefully this week is our week. It's only open from Wednesdays to Sunday. This ragu? 1/10. Sorry!

Too excited to eat.

Noosa, September 2010

Up in the Sunshine State we all gathered for Leishas pre-wedding day drinks at Cafe Le Monde. Not that I'm an expert but I think this old bird may have passed its culinary heyday back in the early nineties. My spaghetti resembled something out of a Womens Weekly cookbook, made for the first time. Squishy pasta, lumpy mince, the kind of thing a kid would only be proud of. Luckily we weren't really there for fine dining, food was more a blockage for champagne so all was well. I ate it because it was hot and everyone would pay me out if I didn't but to be honest I was being generous for the 5/10.

Acknowledgements: Del the photographer, Giz as model

Farm-girl spaghetti

Mullumbimby, September 2010

I was momentarily concerned about posting a photograph of me in my pajama shirt but am quietly confident only a very limited number of people browse this blog so decided to go ahead. This is my first spaghetti bol in our new house on the hill in the country near the beach. The beef came from the butcher in town where our agister sells his beef and the pasta is organic low-GI schmergen from the Mullum Farmers Markets (at the showground every Friday). The only glitch was that I forgot the tinned tomatoes so I crushed some real tomatoes instead which sounds good in theory but wasn't as tasty. 8/10

Spaghetti scrub-a-dub-dub

New York, August 2010

Found these in MoMa - they are like steel wool except better because they are spaghetti. Really does look like fresh spaghetti in the packet too.

LA Baby

Los Angeles, August 2010

Please welcome my guest contributor, Elanore. Her credentials include dining at Ginos on a weekly basis in her childhood and eating eggs on maggi noodles when she arrived in London. She now resides with her partner Del and hummingbirds in Santa Monica, LA. We thought we'd pop in on our way home from europe and as it happened to coincide with my birthday, we went out for Italian. No surprises there. Elle chose a lovely spot called Picollo in Venice Beach and we both went for the pasta while the males ate meat. Elle had a cabonara with quail meat (spew) and quail eggs (spew). It's possibly my worst nightmare but she loved it and didn't want it to end. She's given it 8/10 but can be quoted as regretting her score and wishing she gave it more. Quite the satisfied customer she was. I on the other hand gave my venison ragu with fresh egg pasta a comfortable 7/10. The pasta was obviously fresh and the smallish portion was perfect.

I've included the hot dog stand photo mainly so that you can chuckle at the rollerbladers.

Spaghetti Pie

Townsville, Australia 2010

You may remember him from such antics as 'The Rejection Line', now Mark Allen is back at it discovering 'The Spaghetti Pie'. Known to cure hangovers and rival the beloved Tin Spaghetti Jaffle. It's controversial to say the least, I can't really comment until I taste it. Can you morph two Aussie favourites and get a winner? Only Mark can say.

Hot Dog, Schmot Dog

New York, August 2010

There are over 20,000 restaurants in New York. According to The Health Department anyway. When you only have 4 nights in town, it's pretty tricky to choose what to waste your stomach space on. Much to my horror, I actually fell asleep early on the first night and missed dinner. A sin in many peoples books when I'm in the most exciting city in the world. But there you go, we had flown in from Dublin and the time difference, rah rah rah. Anyway on the second night we hit John on 12th St. A restaurant recommended by Onagh in Dublin which caught my eye when it said 'old school Italian' and that it had featured in the Sopranos. Surely they wouldn't have sub-standard pasta. Turns out they didn't but they did have sub-standard waitstaff. It was quite funny, the guy rattled off the specials list and then we heard the older dude telling the table behind us the specials too. Sounds boring except that the two recitals were completely different, it was like they just made them up. I guess you have to do something for kicks. Anyway it was all old and lovely, bit too much sugar in the sauce but hey, it's America. 6/10

PS. Cool spoon hey

Ich liebe spaghetti

Berlin, August 2010

Rosh, Ricey and I went to visit my cousins Nick and Dord in Berlin. Two spaghetti events followed, much to my delight. One was when I cooked spaghetti for them at Nicks place but I forgot to take a picture. The second time was the final night when Dord took us to their favourite Italian. What she didn't mention was that they had THE biggest pizza EVER. Check it out, I couldn't get over it. It took four hungry people to polish it off. My spag was good, except they put peas in it. Who puts peas in spaghetti bol? The germans just have to be different don't they. It was alright, I couldn't really taste them to be honest, it was just a little random. Like the pizza, the spag was enormous. 6/10

Every. Single. Time.

Time doesn't seem to be helping. No matter how much spaghetti I eat I still get it on me. Spaghetti knows when you're wearing white. It does, it knows when you're wearing any light colour. If you wear black you actually won't get any on you. Promise. Oh well this batch was worth yet another stain, 7/10.

Seafood sabotage

Sardinia, July 2010

It's still Italy right, Sardinia, but it's not. It's a trick. There's no spag bol in sight. Not even a trace of 'ragu'. I turned to Pomodoro and even tried some random Sardinian sausage pasta (middle pic). Seafood reigns, I guess it is an island. Seafood restaurants serving pasta means fishiness is never far. I'm always a little sus on flavour contamination, thus the low scores but check out the beautiful water and the crusty Italian.