Kick off- Finally

Countless hours, days, weeks, months and years of procrastination, finally starting this damn thing after thinking about it for so fucking long. 

While creating this blog I realized I had already saved a blog named gastromanic a few years ago......number of posts... ZERO. And before that was another blog Tip of a bottle, total posts 2 !! Hopefully this blog doesn't suffer the same lethargy as my previous tries. 

As a type this, my wife Nino sitting next to me, leans over and says, "please don't make this pompous as some of your Facebook posts". I will try and keep that theme as I share what I eat, what I cook and where I travel to. This blog is supposed to connect at some point with my website The Fat Bastard once its up and running. I am hoping to create a space for sharing food ideas, recipes, pictures, reviews, travels and my opinions, of which I have many. When researching names, the biggest and only fan of my first blog, my sister, Himali, suggested I keep it edgy, because "you are an opinionated bastard". This was supported unanimously by my friends Mark, Matt & Tom, who are all part of the Congee Snowball Team(the sexual connotation is indeed the play here)  

To break it down further: 

Reviews: As an ex-chef (previous life), I suppose I still have an insiders perspective of the industry and might be kinder, but as an opinionated bastard, I will write what I think and feel about the place and food. It is for that reason, I will not review places owned by my friends, because its not going to be pretty and I still want to eat out with them. I also don't plan to write that many reviews because its tedious shit and I am lazy. 

Street Food: I fucking love street food, I think the soul of the city and its people is found in the food they cook, eat and share. Some of the best food in the world can be found between the dodgiest alleys, served up by professionals that have earned the respect and trust of the locals who patronize them. If one more self proclaimed foodie ever says "I just don't do street food, because its yuck" I am going name a turd after them and double flush that fucker. 

Cuisines: The world is way to fucking PC and throws the word cuisine around like American kindergartens give out certificates of appreciations WTF !! You have to have a complex layered historical reference to call a food a cuisine. There have to be regional and cultural layers, multiple flavor profiles to be called a cuisine. There has to be a genuine love affair between the people and their food. An examples of a cuisine is: French, Italian, Chinese, Indian, Thai.....What is not a cuisine, but just a food: Filipino, Dutch, German, Cambodian....A Crispy Pata and Adobo make not a cuisine, its just meh !!. Likewise if you don't know fuck all about the particular cuisine, don't drop knowledge on it. Its tiresome to hear expats talk about Chinese food because they live in China and have had Dim Sum on Sundays. I am ranting on about this because......I feel like, it annoys me. Plenty more rants on this subject coming up. 

Vegetarians: I have grown up a bit, so I will be kind, sort of. 
Vegans, gluten free snobs: I have one word for you, GITMO 

China, Social Media: Its all banned here, so this is not going to be easy, I have a VPN, but its shitty on my mobile which is what I use to take the countless pictures. BTW, as I try to publish this, my VPN is not working at all...bloody ominous. 

Backdated: A lot of the early posts are going to be from my previous trips, of which there are many, because we do a lot of travelling. in 2014 alone we hit up: Bangkok, Koh Samui, Siem Reap, Phnom Phen, Bali, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Indore, Baroda, New York, Boston, Houston, Istanbul, Tbilisi. 

on that note....here we go