The First Ketchup Rebellion

Wednesday 29/12/2004

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Diary and Notes

Bristol today to see my charming friend Mr Spook (of the Ketchup Spooks's). He lives in a little known part of Bristol behind the Downs, where back in 1875 a Mr. Cross and a Mr. Blackwell fought a duel to the death using flintlock ketchup guns. It was a messy affair and although Mr Blackwell got the upper hand, they were both eventually killed by Mr Heinz (the referee) who saw his chance to corner the lucrative black market for ketchup and shot them both with a real pistol containing real bullets.

So apart from ketchup, what does Mr Spook want for dinner? I suggested Chinese food as I haven't had any since beginning my blog. This was duly agreed upon and we wandered into Clifton Village to a small restaurant called China Black.

"China Black? Weren't they a pop group in the early 90's?" you ask. "I seem to remember them having a Chinese singer and a black guitarist."

Yes they were, and that's the strange thing about this restaurant. It's the worlds first (as far as I know) Chinese/West Indian fusion restaurant.

It may seem an odd combination I admit. When we walked through the door the waiter asked whether we would be ordering from the Chinese menu or the West Indian one. I am quite partial to West Indian food, especially a good jerk chicken, a goat curry, some fried plantains and dumplings, but today was Chinese day and that was that. Being hunrgy chaps, out on a beano, we decided to order the Chinese banquet for two, especially as it is my firm belief that when eating Chinese food, variety is the order of the day. There was plenty of food, probably enough for four. The only problem was that although they gave us chopsticks we didn't get bowls. It's not easy eating rice off a plate with chopsticks. We pointed this out to the waiter who explained that most people in Bristol don't know how to use chopsticks and just scoop the stuff up with their fingers. It wasn't so bad for Mr Spook as he had the ketchup to make his rice stick together. I only had some chilli sauce.

All in all this was a fine meal and apart from Mr Spook asking for ketchup to put on his prawn toast and then again asking for ketchup for his crispy duck, I had a great time. A few Tsingtoa beers helped the food go down and afterwards we went into the centre of Bristol to watch the drunken locals fight with The Police. It was nice to see Sting getting his head kicked in, sanctamonious git!

What jolly fun.


Cake Blog

Banana Fritter: That old Chinese classic.


Menu

Spring Rolls

Spare Ribs

Prawn Toast

Crispy Duck

Szechuan Beef

Sweet and Sour Pork

King Prawns in Ginger & Spring Onion

Chicken and Cashew Nuts

Yung Chow Fried Rice

Banana Fritter





JCBorresen@gmail.com