Food and Drink

This month I continued my research for the 2011 Sam Khok Awards. Eight flights, five countries, one cancelled flight, two evacuations of flooded Bangkok, and the nice view above of Bangsai CC and the former ATC Research Facility surrounded by floodwaters in Ayuddhaya.

I’ll start this series by posing a question: how best to divide one’s time between the full-service noodle bar at the ANA Lounge in the No. 4 Satellite zone of Narita International Airport Terminal 1’s South Wing, and the self-service sake bar at the opposite end of the same lounge?

I went undefeated in September, first winning a nine hole match in Shizuoka and making an incredible birdie that I celebrated first by planking the green and then by performing a crepuscular birdie dance.

You’ve seen the report from Wuhan, but you may not have realized how we struggled to get the pictures just right. The banner positioning, and who should stand where, was a temporary conundrum which we resolved, but not before some rather pedestrian efforts.

You’ve probably already seen the classy birdie dance photo from last week. Perhaps you followed along on twitter, or Facebook, or Google+. But those are hardly the place for copious disquisitions.

I almost took the month off from golf, but was coaxed into a match on a hot afternoon in Hanoi. And I’m glad I took part in that skins game.

Tasting notes for Buckfast Tonic Wine: a treacly tipple. Rarely have I opened a bottle of wine with so much anticipation, for the reputation of this wine certainly precedes it.

The weather at Adelaide and Melbourne this past week made me think of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and it was with some pleasure that I took this restorative to fend off the cold.

The sign is pretty much self-explanatory, isn’t it? Who can resist an ice mountain, as I like to call it, when the shop has such a magnetic appeal? I was at Sriracha last week after the Sustainable Turfgrass Management in Asia 2011 conference, bringing some friends back to Bangkok, and we stopped for a seafood dinner and then had sublime desserts at Sweety Ice.

When you think of Hokkaido, I’m sure what comes to mind is Genghis Khan and chocolate-covered potato chips. After spending the past few days at Sapporo, Furano, and Asahikawa, I can assure you that there is a lot more to Hokkaido than that.