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Category: Food and Drink (page 1 of 4)

Birthday surprise

It’s my birthday today (yay, me!). Laura took me on a mystery plane journey to “somewhere”.

That somewhere turned out to be …. Barcelona!

Laura, you have surpassed all other presents in the world and given me the best gift I have ever received! Thank you so much x

Birthday Boy in the pool

Birthday Boy in the pool

Birthday Boy at the pool

Birthday Boy at the pool

Pancho Villa maracas

Pancho Villa maracas

This photo was from years ago when I still drank and it was taken in Glasgow, anyway… but … pic is related…

Happy Birthday, everybody!

Toni’s Pizzeria 27 inch pizza challenge

“Nae bother”

“A could dae that!”

“90 minutes? Pffft!”

… just some of the things that go through your mind and everyone else’s when the Toni Pizza Challenge is mentioned.

A friend and I took on this monster at 3pm today.

Here it is being made… or doesn’t even fit on the ruddy worktop!

Pizza is bigger than the worktop

Salvador Dali Special to sit in, please!

Contenders, ready!?

A photo posted by @tonispizzeria on

The challenge is to finish a whole pizza to yourself, but seeing how it is a small place, they only had room for one at a time. We were to finish a half each then bring out the next one to walk to victory!

My strategy was: as soon as the clock started ticking… just go for. Simple and logical one really!

This worked immeasurably well (Toni said so!). All Those years of greed finally paying off! I got half (of my first half) down in 10 minutes. Up to this point the pizza was delicious. But that was before the regret made an appearance.

Shortly after the 10 minute mark, the pizza cooled down below the point of the “enjoyable mozzarella zone” and became thicker, and harder to quaff.

This was the turning point. After this, the end goal kept looking back at us and laughing like we were a right couple of inexperienced food challenge competitive eaters…. fair enough, then.

After 25 minutes I had my half completely down except half the crusts. This is when we were asked if we wanted the other pizza made up and cooked for us. Delirious with joy that the other pizza was not being cooked for us, we bowed out of the second one and I finished the crusts of my remaining cold slab of failure.

David managed to eat half of his half and got the rest boxed up to take home… I don’t know why, because I wouldn’t be able to look that thing in the face again.

A painful and slow drive home then we said our goodbyes and decided to never speak of this event again!

All in all, a great day out.

Cheers Toni’s Pizzeria!

I took a “before” picture and I got my camera out to take an “after” picture. I even pointed the thing at the empty table and I believe I took the “after” shot, but my phone doesn’t seem to agree. The pizza must have got to my head and caused me to hallucinate some post-challenge photography. Sorry about that.

p.s. according to the staff, I apparently managed more than what most people could manage. I ate the equivalent of two 16″ pizzas. So that’s something to take away from this because I certainly wouldn’t be taking any of their pizza away any time soon… regardless of how delicious is really is!

Getting back in to my stride

Now… this is food!…

Fish supper

Best!

Free burrito

Oh Yes! What a gift to alleviate the post-holiday blues!

Bar Burrito queue

Bar Burrito queue

Free Burrito time

Belter

One year sober

It has been a full year since I gave up the demon drink.

Never again do I hope to have as monstrous a hangover as I did on the 28th of June 2015.

Thank you GRAF!

Last day in Ho Chi Minh City

The War Remnants Museum is a fantastic place to go to learn about the atrocities of the war with America.  We spent at least 2 hours in there… so much photography of events that are unfolding in front of you, like you are there at the time of it happening. Horrendous, but it is a must!

Went to another one of the many markets in the city… Some treasures amongst the sea of tat in there. Takes patience, though!

Went to a chocolatier’s and bought some bars of lovely chocolate as gifts and some for ourselves.

Had a huge a burger to adjust back normal food.

Burger

Biggest burger

Had a drink at the rooftop bar while we waited to go to the airport.

View from Grand hotel rooftop bar

View from grand hotel rooftop bar

Nearly home time 🙁

Suitcases

:(

Boarded flight at 12:30am….

*Sigh*, gone!

Motorbike street food tour

On our last night we booked a motorbike each to go round the various districts of Ho Chi Minh/Saigon and sample some street food. It was one of the best things we did during the whole holiday. We are so glad we did it because it nearly didn’t happen due to a small mix up at our hotel.

Laura and her driver

Laura and her driver

We hoped on the motorbikes after meeting the guides and went on our way. We stopped at 5 places during the entire night, and the tour lasted 4 hours. totally worth it. We ate some food that I would never have picked myself, but it was fantastic and I’m so glad I tried everything put in front of me!

We had Vietnamese pizza (not a pizza), spring rolls, noodles and pork, and at one of the stops, we got to make the thing we were eating. It was a sort of pancake made out of rice milk, with a filling, all wrapped up.

Laura making some food

Laura making her Hanoi summer roll

The tour guides were very pleasant and had a lot to talk about when asked, and had plenty questions of their own for us! So much fun and we were glad we did it. It will certainly help with the thought of having to fly home tomorrow.

First night in Ho Chi Minh


Lovely hotel room. We booked one of the oldest rooms in the hotel as this girl was built in 1930. Nice wee room. One minor quibble:

IMAG5367

We went out of dinner to Baba’s Indian curry house in the backpacker district. Fantastic curry. I asked for a spicy prawn dish, and they didn’t hold up on the chilli seeds. Really good! Definitely give it a go of you find yourself in Ho Chi Minh.

After that we wanted to go for a quiet drink in a nice pub…

We went her went the lols… it was painful…

IMAG5370

Found another pub that was showing WWE so we watched that and had a few.

Much Rainier here but it is a lovely place.

Hoi An Silk Village review

Fantastic pool, albeit mentally hot for … water.

The best room we stayed in, by far. Had everything you needed, plus more.

Great location just outside the Old Town so it was quiet at night without being a trek to anywhere (15 minute walk)

poor breakfast.

9 Reb points
😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹
(Removed 1 because breakfast wasn’t as good as it could be)

Beach day

Cycled to An Bang beach for the day.

Laura cycling

Bike ride

We saw a man and his buffalo in the rice fields.

Rice fields

Rice fields

An Bang beach

The beach

Me jumping

Picture of the holiday

Wasn’t too busy, but it is low season and a Monday.

Nice place!

After the beach… we found this place:

This is a very useful thing!

Husband daycare

Husband daycare

Went to old town for dinner. Found a place called “Nu Eatery”.

Fantastic food. We both had steamed rolls with pork. Then a pulled pork burger. Small portions, but that is a good thing because they were so filling. Plus the entire meal was $9, and that includes a beer and 2 bottles of water! Amazing!

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