jonny's brain: crisps

Showing posts with label crisps. Show all posts

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Borodubur and the world's best crisps

When the bed started shaking early this morning I thought Becci had woken up feeling frisky but no, it was an earthquake. They get them occasionally here and were hit badly with the tsunamis 10 years or so ago. Hopefully it wasn't a tremor before a big one on its way.
So the earthquake woke us up at 7am in perfect time to get breakfast before heading off to Borodubur, a 1200 year old Buddhist sanctuary with the largest Buddhist monument structure in the world. It is incredible! It's a huge stepped temple built with large blocks of volcanic stone which are carved with amazingly detailed sculptures explaining the whole story of Buddha's life running clockwise around the walls. It's topped with large bell shaped stuppas with great panoramic scenery of the surrounding mountains and forests from the top. This thing is so mind bogglingly detailed on such an epic huge scale that I feel I can't comprehend it well enough to appreciate it properly. I would continue to try and describe it but I can't do it justice with words or pictures so I'll stop here. Go and see it for yourself!
Next we go to see a nearby village and are taken around by horse and cart. I'm a bit uncomfortable with it because I don't agree with the horses being enslaved for this but it's the only way I can continue with the day so I jump on one of the carts. In part of the village we visit a small factory work shop producing fried cassava crisps. They farm the cassava then peel it, pulp it, shape it, dry it, fry it and there you have the greatest crisps in the world ever. maybe they're crackers, maybe they're crisps but they are the best either way. I bought a big bag for 5000 rupiah but there's no way these are making it all the way back home to England, not a chance!
We have some little children do a musical performance for us on some gong type instruments and then learn to play ourselves too. Good fun!
A good dinner in the village which included what was billed as the world's best soup which I can personally verify which pretty much makes it official. World's best crisps and world's best soup in one small village. Not bad going! Another reason for anyone reading this to visit this place.....
This evening bec is going for a massage spa thing with Amanda so whilst she is doing that, I kid you not, I am going to the ballet!

Friday, 17 April 2015

Do buy some crisps while you're there

With my friends the Canvins out in Dubai at the moment I was naturally interested in how they're getting on, are they enjoying the trip to see Emma's sister & family and of course the obvious question- what are the crisps like out there? Do people even eat crisps in the UAE? surely they do?! Upon inquiring I was informed that they had only come across some rather average crisps called Bugles so far but a more detailed report would follow after further investigation.

So here it is, the full Dubai crisp report as undertaken by international crisp reviewers the Canvin family April 2015.....

15/04/2015 20:40 Gaz Canv: So, Dubai crisps have been tried and tested, and here are the results.

1) cheetos cheese and tomato. Pretty standard crisp with a mild kick from the ketchup. Decent texture decent amount of crisps. 7/10

2) lays chili. Walkers crisps with chili flavour. Good crisp, hefty kick if not eaten with a beer. 8/10

3) Mr Krisps. Pretty much got a monopoly on the crisp market out here. Tomato rings, low on flavour, tasted stale, strangely ok though. 6/10

4) mr Krisps twists. See above, but a bit worse. 5/10

5) mr Krisps multigrain. Shit. 1/10

6) sinbad the sailor curry flavour crisps. Texture wise, tasted like they'd been made six years ago and someone forgot to reseal the packet. Flavour wise though - WOW! Smashing crisps flavour is curry. Not messing about with a particular type of curry, its just curry. But what a curry! 9/10. Perfect with a cobra!!

7) fuck know what these are called, but the packet depicts a squirrel flying a plane using a crisp as a telescope!!! What else is there to know? They are lina tube snacks, as the packet shows, like a tubular wotsit. Ok crisps, amazing packet. 6/10 for crisps, 10/10 in the packet.

15/04/2015 20:59 Gaz Canv: And thats it. Hope you enjoyed that. I enjoyed compiling this. See you back in Britain soon!!!

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

(almost) everything a bloke needs

Monday night was city v utd for the big title crunch match so seemed a great chance to get the boys round for beer, curry, crisps and xbox. Shouting at the tele, chugging beer, watching in wonderment at scott's warrior like goal celebration, mikes stubborn defence of gary neville's punditry, the genius of ali's over excited crisp lucky dip, yoc's obsession with stealing peoples shoes, scott's bare footed walk home, the lucky lucky luckiness of gaz's xbox triumph. Good banter all round. Love these nights! Beer, mates, footy, banter, curry, xbox, (almost) everything a man needs. Oh and city won 1-0 btw