Making a Day in Montevideo

by Erik Olsen on

Occasional Gadling contributor Blaine Zuver is in
Montevideo, Uruguay and sent in this dispatch:

Montevideo is a nice laid-back city where half of

Uruguay’s population lives. The streets are wide and empty – there’s never a traffic jam. Now that it is autumn
(opposite seasons, remember), crisp winds blow up from the south and the foliage is at its height. The markets are
laden with a bountiful harvest and the air is filled with wood smoke from parilla (pa -ree-sha) – excellent steakhouses
that are everywhere. A dinner or lunch consisting of several different cuts of beef (all natural grass fed and
delicious) sausage, sweetbreads, grilled vegetables, a liter of beer and a snifter of grappa to finish it off will run
about $7 – less than the price of a sandwich in New York. By the way, Uruguay has 36 million head of cattle and only 3
million people.

Walk off your feast, exploring the city on foot. Beautiful old beaux-arts and colonial buildings are everywhere – the
most famous being the Palacio Salvo – one of South America’s early
skyscrapers built in 1928. The port area is picturesque and great for antiquing. The Ramblas are a series of long
seaside boulevards that runs for miles along the Rio Plata – the world’s widest river mouth (Buenos Aires sits on the
other side, about 100 miles away), emptying into the South Atlantic.

Montevideo is a great side trip for those visiting BA – it is a 20-minute flight from Aeroparque or a 4-hour hydrofoil
ride across the Rio Plata.

Come On Kids, We’re Heading to the Farm!!!

by Adrienne Wilson on

This isn’t my normal kind of blog on foods, but we’ve got to give props to the farms.  All those
exquisite, tasty meals had to start somewhere and for veggies and
such it all goes back to the fields and farms.  New Mexico surprisingly enough has a nice celebration of sorts for
this kind of event and they call it
‘La Fiesta de San
Ysidro.’  Put on annually by the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, families can head out May 21-22,
2005 to pay tribute to farming tradition and experience the blessing of the fields.
(Rub-a-dub-dub-thanks-for-the-grub.)  There will be tons of food, music, arts, and book signings for the
taking. 

Sea of Beer Snarls Traffic

by Erik Olsen on


Norm from Cheers would have been in heaven. And Homer Simpson, too.

A

beer truck in Canada collided with a car and tipped over, spilling it’s entire contents into the road, and thus
creating what an observer called a “Sea of Beer”. Hmmm beeeeer. I can just picture the mayhem as thirsty Canucks
launched themselves out of their cars, dropped on their knees to lap up the free road lager.

(via fark)

Chugs and Jugs

by Adrienne Wilson on

Budget airlines in India really want your bucks and if duking it out amongst each other means
offering brewskies and extra pretty smiling faces (models) to drool
over, then they’ll give it to you!  At least Kingfisher Airlines, India’s second budget airline also named after a
beer, definitely will.  Their competitor, Air Deccan has announced fares less than a cent as a counter attack
against the new guys on the block. 
USA Today has the full details if
you’re interested in the Indian airlines. 

Sounds like fun and games, but who cares about beers and models on flights?  Give me leg room, a freakin’ meal,
and if you can get the kid behind me to quit kicking the back of my seat, I’ll fly on your budget airline.

Damn Hot Sauce

by Erik Olsen on

When I lived in Bangkok, I had a neighbor who was Thai who used to cook very hot food. One day I went over and she
asked if I wanted to eat with her and I said sure, so she said she was going to prepare a special “farang” version for
me that was less hot than her own. Don’t do that, I said. I can take it. I love hot food.

I do love hot food. I did take it. But the red curry she prepared WAS hot, DAMN hot, and while I ate the whole thing,
I confess I sat there sweating and trying to smile as my lips felt like they were peeling off my head and my tongue
felt like someone was using it to test an electric Tazer.

All this is a long way to lead up to a new sauce called
“16 Million Reserve” that I don’t think I could ever
eat. The sauce is 30 times hotter than the spiciest pepper and 8,000 times more fiery than Tabasco. Diners who wish to
try the stuff – I’m not making this up – must sign a disclaimer recommending “protective gloves and eye wear”. To me
this is not a sauce to be used for eating, this is a sauce to be used in hand to hand combat. The name, incidentally,
comes from its score on the chilli heat measure, the Scoville Index. 
Tihs stuff scores 16 million units, while a Habanero, a spicy pepper by any measure, measures just 350,000.