Prick With A Fork

This is so cool. I’d love to run an illegal bar out of Stately Prick Manor:

It’s not quite a speakeasy during the 1920s Prohibition era in the United States, but police have raided a secret, alleged illegal bar that may have also distributed illicit drugs in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.

The bar, on York Street in The Rocks, was searched by licensing police and detectives about 3pm yesterday.

Inspector Paul Simpkins of The Rocks Local Area Command said a fully operational bar was found and about $20,000 of alcohol was seized.

“It was fairly well set up. Heated meals were also available,” Inspector Simpkins said about the ground-level venue in a commercial-use building.

Of course, they got shut down eventually by the revenuers. Still, such entrepreneurialism is to be applauded, and I hope the Herald follows up: I’d love to know more, and wonder if there are any other such speakeasies going in Sydney? Readers who are aware of such things are free to e-mail passwords and secret knocks to pwafork [at] gmail.com.

We’re tied up with work and other commitments at the moment, so posting may be sporadic over the next few days. But lots of stuff on tap, too: Stayed tuned for a report of our visit to Sixpenny, the new “it”-place in Stanmore (yeah, I know! Stanmore!) that’s said to be bringing a slice of Noma to the inner-west; fun cooking the Heston Blumenthal way; and probably at least one good rant about how Wayne Swan is balancing his budget off the backs of pricks like us.

In the meantime, a good question for foodies everywhere, and especially lovers of Singapore hawker cuisine: How much is a recipe worth?

Remember, kids, the government and its associated broadcasters are never wrong:

THE ABC and SBS would be answerable only to themselves when it comes to complaints about their journalism, under proposals before Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

Television and radio stations as well as the print and online editions of newspapers would be subject to a new self-regulatory media watchdog that would have the power to order members to publish corrections.

But a panel advising the minister on media reform is recommending that the ABC and SBS not fall under the independent ”news standards body” but continue to operate independently of any media-wide system…

This would mean that cases such as one last month in which ACMA found ABC radio in Adelaide had breached the corporation’s own code of practice on impartiality would go unpunished.

ACMA had found that during an interview with a former South Australian politician, the station displayed ”a fixed prejudgment on the topics discussed, asked loaded questions and used disparaging language”.

Great news: I’m late to the party on this one, but it seems that Thomas Keller and other great California chefs are standing up to fight California’s insane ban on foie gras:

More than 100 of California’s best-known chefs have joined forces to fight the nation’s first state law banning the sale of foie gras.

In a last-minute effort, chefs such as Michael Chiarello, Thomas Keller, Ludo Lefebvre and Tyler Florence have signed a petition to submit to state Assembly Speaker John Pérez early this week, urging the Legislature to reconsider the July 1 ban.

Efforts to ban foie gras have far more to do with lefty aesthetics than genuine concern about animal cruelty: Living out one’s days as a force-fed goose on some artisinal producer’s is surely no less pleasant, and perhaps a good deal more so, than being a pig or chicken on a giant factory farm out of Sinclair Lewis. No, this sort of thing is about populist politicians trying to score points by targeting people with money and taste, restricting liberty in the process. It is amazing that even as we are beginning to finally have an honest conversation about the “War on Drugs”, politicians are still looking for consumables to ban.

Oh, and before you veggo types get on your high horse, how many fluffy bunny rabbits do you think your carrot farmer had to kill to get that salad to you unmolested?

The great baseball legend and philosopher Yogi Berra once famously said of a St. Louis restaurant, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” That’s about the same way I feel about the food hall up on the fifth floor of the Westfield in Sydney’s CBD. I was thrilled when it opened (especially because I could get a proper American hotdog – albeit at very Australian prices – at Snag Stand) but now, well, fugghedaboudit.

Take Din Tai Fung. For weeks after it had opened, I had stopped in at their Westfield outpost for lunch at least every few days: My standard order was some Shanghai soup dumplings and a bowl of noodles with spicy sauce. Great stuff, and despite all the carbs I always felt light as a feather afterwards. Then things started to change. The food hall never got any less busy. Din Tai Fung, meanwhile, went the opposite direction: Instead of opening a bit shambolically and improving, the crew became more chaotic as the weeks passed, as if they were experiencing a delayed-onset shakedown cruise. The offerings of condiments became more iffy – a bad thing when DIY dollops of vinegar and ginger and soy and chili are an integral part of the experience. Eventually, I stopped going.

Today, I went back. Sadly, it was the same old shambles, and this despite it being only noon. I had to wait fifteen minutes for my order, and I wasn’t the only one. There would have been a dozen of us cooling our heels, at least, waiting for our “fast food”. The dumplings came out early and were left on the counter while the noodles were still back clearing customs, and the condiments have been placed right by the registers, leaving diners to eddy and swirl with trays of steaming broth. Not great fun in a suit.

And the food? Fine, but not as great as it used to be. The dumpling guys and gals are still there behind the glass, silently folding, rolling and stuffing.  But the fillings don’t sing, and the noodles were, well, gluggly.

Has success, a captured market, and an until-now good reputation created the slack for things to slide at this venerable noodle institution? Let’s hope not, and check back again in three months or so.

This isn’t a half-bad idea, actually:

THE federal government will pay families up to $300 a week to temporarily house asylum seekers in their homes to help deal with the increasing flood of arrivals.

With the Immigration Department now facing a potential shortage of community housing to accommodate detainees who are being released into the community, the government has turned to householders for help.

Under a plan slated to start next month, the government will seek to access the 5000 homes registered under the privately run Australian Homestay Network (AHN) to host asylum seekers released from detention on bridging visas.

For one thing, it will give the refugee lobby a chance to put their clients where their spare room is. I reckon anyone who’s ever used the phrase “I’m ashamed to be Australian” unironically should be forced to sign up.

But seriously, I’m half-tempted to sign up, especially if we can “host” someone who can clean, do the shopping, and pick the Little Pricks up after school …

So Mrs Prick and I were wandering back through Martin Place this evening after attending the launch of the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, a fantastic organisation that deserves your support for any number of reasons — not the least of which being they get their possessive apostrophes right — when we chanced upon the Occupy Sydney camp. Keep in mind this was Mayday, when Occupy was threatening all sorts of mass annoyances.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Occupy? That thing’s still going on? “Totes”, as the kids say. And as you can see, it’s a thriving, well-attended movement:

From another angle, you really get an idea of just what a beehive of revolutionary activity Occupy Sydney is today:

Honestly, can’t the Reserve Bank or one of the other local tenants get this cleared up by booking a special collection with the Council?

P.S. Welcome, Tim Blair readers. Stay awhile, look around!

Woolies, Coles and Costco are jostling for the honour of selling the upcoming release of 2007 at the lowest price:

The 2007 Grange will be released on Thursday morning nationwide and is one of the most anticipated wine releases of the year.

US discount giant Costco, which has three warehouse stores in Australia, is yet to even receive their allocation of the latest Grange from Penfolds. Costco is believed to have concerns about the timing of the wine’s arrival to its warehouses.

Early investigations before the big launch have found that Dan Murphy’s, the big-box liquor store owned by Woolworths, will look to sell the latest Penfolds Grange release at around $580 a bottle, against the recommended retail price set by Penfolds of $625 a bottle. A Dan Murphy’s staff member confirmed initial pricing but added the price could change.

Not to be outdone, Vintage Cellars, owned by Coles, is looking to match that offer. One of its inner-city Melbourne stores has an internal price of $622.22 slated down for the Grange, but is likely to change the price at the time of its release

Although the 2007 is supposed to be a ripper (but then, when was the last time Penfold’s pushed a “ho-hum, ordinary vintage” into the marketplace?), for Australians, this still is a rip-off. In the US, it’s possible to have Grange, depending on the year, at a fraction of the price.

Booze is not the only thing we pay too much for in Australia, but a good part of the problem is our disproportionately high and complicated alcohol tax regime, which, unlike the cost of an iTunes download, Parliament could do something about tomorrow. Stephen Conroy, call your office!

It was intended as a joke, but I fear that this comment on the latest anti-booze lecture on The Punch may one day come to pass:

We should have alcohol rations. Everyone has a ration of 3 standard drinks per day, if you don’t drink them they expire. No extras.

Everyone is issued with their alcohol card after sitting a three week course in responsible consumption of alcohol. No card, no drink.

The article to which this comment was posted is the second such piece on the site spruiking the “results” of the latest report by FARE (or Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education), which makes for interesting (or rather, telling) reading in that it provides only their interpretation of responses rather than the actual wording of questions.

Thus the public has no way to interrogate what leads FARE to conclude that “76% of people believe that Australia has a problem with excess drinking or alcohol abuse”, that “79% of people believe that alcohol-related problems in Australia will either get worse or remain the same over the next five to 10 years”, and that “75% of Australians believe that more needs to be done to reduce the harm caused by alcohol-related illness, injury, death, and related issues.”

Earlier, but recent, Punch submissions have also pushed FARE’s line that we are a nation of pissheads who don’t know our limits: We need to be forced to change our ways and turn our back on the demon grog. To adults who enjoy a snifter of port at Christmas this is offensive and misleading, and it is more than a bit surprising to see a News Ltd opinion site,  where one would expect to see plenty of preaching about personal responsibility served up with healthy sides of “harden up princess”, giving such voice to nanny-state wowserism.