PCW: The Ascoto's

You take the blue pill -- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill -- you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

- Morpheus, The Matrix

We took the red pill. And everything we knew -- well, everything we thought we knew -- is no more. And so, we enter the next chapter in the Portuguese Chicken Wars.

THE BACKGROUND

It all started here, with my nice, little anecdote about how I had been caught in the middle of a vicious feud amongst the three Portuguese chicken restaurants in my neighborhood, all separated by a one minute walk. The bad blood, according to the post, came to a head when a fire gutted Ogalo, one of the original two restaurants (the other being Ole). Some people allege that Ogalo burned itself down to claim insurance money and rebuild a new and better store. Others say that Portogali, the newcomer to the Portuguese chicken market, was simply trying to eliminate one of its competitors. Of course -- of course! -- none of this is true.

My creative liberties from the first post were -- ahem -- "clarified" here. Again, to be perfectly clear, there is no evidence of any ill will amongst the three establishments noted above, and there's certainly no evidence of any tomfoolery regarding the circumstances of the fire at Ogalo. That would just be silly.

The last installment was chronicled here, as we introduced Angelo's, the fourth entrant to the Portuguese chicken market in our neighborhood. Granted it's a bit further down the road, but it's still very much within our sphere of influence.

THE STATUS QUO

So: Ole, Ogalo, Portogali and Angelo's. Along with the three other guys in my apartment, we'd all been to each of these establishments. And the pecking order -- whether it was because of proximity to our apartment, seniority of the establishment or, more possibly, for no real rational reason -- was always just that: Ole, Ogalo, Portogali and Angelo's. And we lived every day, every week, every month with this unfounded hierarchy in our minds. It went unquestioned.

But one day, sometime shortly after Angelo's entered into our conscious, it went questioned. Why do we go to Ole and don't give Portogali any chance? Yes, Angelo's is more expensive, but maybe the food is that much better? Since the fire, has Ogalo changed for the better or worse? And, the kicker: Shouldn't we find out? We were faced, in essence, with Neo's choice from The Matrix: the blue pill or the red pill? Blissful ignorance or stark, unforgiving reality? We took the red pill. And that rabbit-hole, my friends... that rabbit-hole goes DEEP.

THE PROPOSAL

A blind taste test, pitting food from each of the four establishments, was agreed upon. But first, we had to iron out some details:

Name of contest: This actually came quite easily and naturally. We live on Ascot Street and often refer to our apartment as The Ascot. So clearly, "Ascot" had to be a part of the name. But we also wanted something that sounded Portuguese. And without much thought, the name Ascoto's was proposed, which we all agreed worked quite well. Just to do our due diligence, I came up with a few other ideas -- Ascotogali's and Ascotogalo's -- but the original name still stood, as it was the shortest and sweetest.

Food item: What kind of burger should we judge? And should we get it with or without chilli, a preferred add-on by all members of The Ascot? And what about chips? Should those be judged as well? In the end, it was determined that we'd judge each establishment's regular chicken burger, with chilli. But no chips. Keep it nice and simple.

Criteria: It was agreed that we'd judge each establishment and its burger on a variety of factors, each on a scale from 1 to 10, with taste being the overriding component. These were broken down as follows, with weighting for each criterion noted in parentheses: taste (70%), appearance (10%), price (5%), ambiance (5%), service (5%) and speed (5%). So taste would clearly trump all, but if a tiebreaker was needed, the other elements could tip the balance.

Prize: For one full month, we would provide the winner with our exclusive Portuguese chicken allegiance and patronage. And, of course, we'd provide our unwavering endorsement to any and all people who asked. We'd become evangelicals, if you will. (There's also been talk of presenting a trophy or plaque to the winning establishment, although I doubt we'll ever get around to that.)

THE DAY
January 18, 2009

Everything would change.

The four members of The Ascot convened, and we drew names out of a hat to see who would go to each establishment. The draw ended with the following assignments:

• AG Klein (aka Andy, aka Akka, aka Klein) – Ole
• M Sathiyamoorthy (aka Maz, aka Mayuran, aka Sathy) – Portogali
• AP Davis (aka Alex, aka Yogi, aka Fats) – Ogalo
• PF Short (aka Pete, aka Shorty, aka Francois) – Angelo's

For us, even the simple task of doing the draw made for quite the thrilling event, especially because no one wanted to walk all the way to Angelo's. The look of disgust on Shorty's face when he drew that name cannot be described. And then he sulked. He actually sulked.

Upon completion of the draw, we synched our clocks and headed out. All walking in the same direction down the street, we first reached Ole, my establishment. I bid adieu to the other guys as they continued down the street and I headed inside. There, I was greeted fairly indifferently by the guy behind the counter. I placed my order, sat down, and looked around to get a sense of ambiance. Now, as I've said, Ole has generally been our establishment of choice. It's close, it's fast, it's easy. But looking around the place... WOW. It's a piece of shit!!! The walls were dirty, there was food on the ground, newspapers were strewn on tables and the back door was propped wide open, providing me with a view of the garbage stacked outside. A fine dining establishment this is not. After a few minutes, the guy behind the counter very apathetically called out my order and gave me the food without so much a "Have a nice day!" or "Thanks a lot!". Left feeling quite dissatisfied and perhaps even a bit unnerved by the whole in-store experience, I headed back to the apartment.

I reached the apartment a short eight minutes after we had all departed. Quite an impressive time. And shortly thereafter, Maz showed up. Then Yogi. And then Shorty. Which means that the "speed" criterion was in exact correlation with each establishment's distance from our apartment. Makes sense.

We took a minute to record our ratings on the four criteria that didn't take the food into account: ambiance, service, speed and price. The former two are, of course, fairly subjective, with the latter two being very objective. Here's how the scorecard looked after this round:


So before we got to the big two parts of this test, here's how things stacked up (out of a total possible score of 20):

• Portogali: 14.5 points. Middle of the pack on most items, but completely unbeknownst to us, took top prize as the cheapest burger.
• Ole – 13.5 points. To no one's surprise, this won for speed. Also did well on price, but took a beating on ambiance and service.
• Ogalo – 11.5 points. Middle of the pack on everything.
• Angelo's – 9 points. No surprises here. Took top prize for ambiance but shat the bed on price and speed. The rating for service may have also been a little lower than expected.

And then, to the really exciting part: the taste test. Each burger was placed on an identical plate in the kitchen, with the name of its corresponding establishment taped to the bottom. As the other three guys waited in the living room, I shuffled the plates around so that we didn't know what was what. Shorty then went into the kitchen and sliced each burger into quarters. And finally, Yogi went into the kitchen and randomly picked one of the four burgers to bring out first.*

*There's no perfect place to make this admission, so I'll just do it here: I fully comprehend and acknowledge how ridiculously lame and absurd this entire exercise may appear to most people. I get it. You don't need to make me any more aware than I already am. But you know what? I don't care. It was awesome. I can't remember the last time I had such a fun and fulfilling afternoon.

Okay... back to the taste test!

We viewed Burger #1 to rate on appearance. Then we ate in silence. For there was to be no table talk here, no opportunity to bias the other judges.



We noted our ratings on our scorecards, Yogi cleansed his palate by gargling and spitting out water, and we then moved on to Burger #2, where we repeated the above process. And then again with the third and final burgers.

After completing the last burger, we tallied up the scores (still not knowing where each burger was from), averaged them out, and had a bit of a constructive dialogue. We all had our favorites, we all had our least favorites. And for the most part, we were in agreement. Following are the average point totals on taste and appearance for each burger (out of a total possible score of 80) and some of the group's collective thoughts:

• Burger #1: 60.5 points. This scored highly for three of us (with two giving it their highest rating), as it had a great spice and taste. Yogi was the only dissenter here. Appearance-wise, it was mediocre.
• Burger #2: 50.75 points. Generally average scores from all; certainly no one was gushing about it. However, it did very well on appearance. (It should also be noted that based on appearance, we all clearly knew that this burger was from Angelo's. While the other three burgers looked almost identical -- and we honestly didn't know where each was from -- this one clearly stood out like a sore thumb.)
• Burger #3: 56.5 points. No real consistency here from the group, as it received taste scores of 5, 7, 8 and 9. I was the vote for 9; this was my favorite burger, as it had a nice spicy, creamy sauce. This burger also received the worst scores on appearance.
• Burger #4: 52 points. No one was overwhelmed by this burger. While everyone agreed that the quality of the chicken may have been the best of any of the burgers, it lacked in taste and spice. Appearance scores were also relatively average.

So! Burger #1 finished first on taste and appearance, followed by burgers 3, 4 and 2. But which restaurant was each burger from? It was time for the unveiling.

We decided to go from last place to first. So Yogi first picked up the plate for Burger #2 to reveal Angelo's. As mentioned above, this came as no surprise to us. (What I thought was a bit of a surprise, however, was how dissatisfied we all were with the burger. Surely such an expensive burger would perform better! I guess not.)

We then moved on to unveil the third place burger, Burger #4. No one was ready for what was about to happen, for it... would... change... everything. EVERYTHING. Yogi picked up the plate:

Ole! Ole! OLLLLLEEEEEEE!!!!!! Holy crap!!! We honestly couldn't believe it. Our Portuguese chicken restaurant of choice for all these months/years had finished third in voting!!! THIRD!!! In case you couldn't tell from the above video, we were shocked, bewildered, astonished, dismayed, flabbergasted. Our lives would never be the same.

From what I can remember from the next few minutes, things were fairly ballistic. Shorty went into a corner and curled up into the fetal position. I blacked out and have been told that I killed a man with a trident. Yogi started hyperventilating into a paper bag. I think Maz may have even vomited.

But then we snapped out of it. We had come too far. We had to keep our composure. So we regrouped, had a group prayer and moved on. And now that we were down to two burgers -- from Ogalo and Portogali -- we decided to reveal the first place burger next, Burger #1. We honestly had no idea what to expect. Here's how it unfolded:

Unbelievable. Portogali won on taste/appearance! PORTOGALI!! Who would have thought it! The black sheep for all this time, and it easily won! We were all stunned.

And when we added up all the scores for each of the six criteria (click here for full tally of the voting), Portogali still stood on top, followed by Ogalo, Ole and Angelo's.

PORTOGALI! Winner of the first ever Ascoto's. Amazing.

THE FALLOUT

One person who didn't find this amazing at all, however, was Yogi. For he gave the Portogali burger a 5 on taste and would now have to get all his Portuguese chicken burgers from there, and only there, for the next month. Watch his reaction in the above video. He was shattered.*

*Ironically enough, Yogi was actually the first person to go to Portogali after the Ascoto's. And he's been back several times since. Guess he got over that one pretty quickly!

Yogi wasn't the only person who was shocked and dismayed by this outcome. Other members of the community couldn't believe what we had done. Nugget, a previous member of The Ascot and currently living in Canada, expressed his severe disapproval via Facebook. Joe, upon seeing the scorebook, threw it away in disgust. And so on and so forth.

We took the red pill and opened our eyes to a whole new world order. Was it what we expected? No. Was it without shock or disappointment? No. But it's the truth. It's the stark, unforgiving reality. It's the latest chapter in the Portuguese Chicken Wars.

PCW: Enter Angelo's

First there was Ole and Ogalo. Then there was Portogali. Then Ogalo went away for a while. Then Ogalo came back. And now... now Angelo's enters.


A month or two ago, a few friends and I made our maiden trip to Angelo's. As you may recall from my last post on the Portuguese Chicken Wars, Angelo's is taking a new tact in the ever expanding Portuguese Chicken market in Kensington. For instead of your basic over-the-plate offerings of fast food Portuguese Chicken, Angelo's has gone classy on us. And I'm not talking Ron Burgundy "You stay classy, San Diego" classy, oh no. I'm talking classy classy. This is a restaurant first, with its take away operation very much secondary. So on this first trip of ours, the group decided to do the full sit down experience.* And I'm far from thrilled to say that it was a mixed bag.

*If we're being completely honest here -- and when it comes to Portuguese Chicken, have I ever led you astray?** -- this choice was forced on us more than anything else because, well, Angelo's hadn't even started to offer their take away menu yet.

**Don't answer that.

We started off with two appetizers*: garlic prawns and BBQ chorizo. Both very solid and succulent dishes, although not great value considering the small portions and price. Then we moved on to the mains. Two people had the steak, two -- myself included -- had the slow roasted lamb and one had the BBQ chicken. The lamb and chicken were both very good. The steak, on the other hand, a little bland.

*I should note here that in Australia, appetizers are actually called entrées, and entrées -- or at least as we know them in the US -- are called mains. Which, when you think about what the word "entrée" means, really makes a lot more sense.

So like I said, a mixed bag. But we all left determined to try those chicken burgers once the take away operation was up and running.

A few weekends later, we finally made our move. Shorty and I planned ahead on Saturday, so for that afternoon, I starved myself. No way was I going to go in there on anything but an empty stomach.

Three of us entered the restaurant later that night. Shorty and I ordered the Portugalia Burger, which the menu describes as follows: "Chicken breast on a sesame bun, topped with cheese, a slice of smoked chilli chicken breast, lettuce, tomato and mayo". Ummmm, does that mean there are two chicken breasts in there? And one of them is plain while the other is a smoked chilli chicken breast? Or is that just a typo? Our other friend ordered the Angelo's Burger, which is described as follows: "Chicken breast on a sesame bun, topped with pineapple, onion, a slice of smoked chilli chicken breast, egg, peri-peri, lettuce, tomato and mayo". The kitchen sink! And again, the two pieces of chicken! What is that??

To top things off, we also ordered some French fries* and some of Angelo's homemade peri-peri sauce and mayo.**

*If it hasn't been hard enough for me to start to use the term "chips" instead of "French fries", a few restaurants here actually use the latter term, which just further confuses things. It's one thing that McDonald's does this; that I can accept. But when a restaurant such as Angelo's also starts to use the term "French fries", well, that's when my head starts to spin.

**Secretly -- okay, it was no secret to any of us -- we wanted prego sauce, but we thought we should give these a try. The insane thing though is that while the fries cost $3, so did each of the sauces! That's right: the sauces cost as much as the fries. That's some wacky, wild stuff.

After ordering, we sat down and waited. And waited. And waited. And WAITED. Finally, Shorty and I got our orders. But our friend's burger was nowhere in sight. And it would stay that way for another ten minutes or so, at which point my stomach was imploding, my burger was going cold and my fries had gone soggy from the steam in the plastic bag. Faaaaaantastic.

Eventually, mercifully, our friend got his burger, we rushed back to our apartment and the true test began. But our impressions of those burgers... well, that's going to have to wait for another day. Because some events transpired just today that have brought the Portuguese Chicken Wars to a whole new level. And it absolutely requires a post of its own.

PCW Redux or: The anatomy of an exercise in creative writing

One year and one day ago, I told a story. Which may have included some creative liberties. It's for the best, I thought at the time. For the premise was there. And to become something great, all it needed was some patchwork, for some holes to be filled in, for a little softening around the edges. You know, like -- ahem -- adding in a whole middle and end. So I did that. And the resulting story went over fantastically. Like gangbusters.

A few days into my visit to New York in August, it occurred to me that if the stars aligned, a potential situation could occur that would bring the walls of my little story crumbling down, thus exposing the few creative liberties* that I may have taken.

*When I say "few creative liberties", I really mean "ridiculously huge amount of stuff that isn't all that true".

I panicked. And began to plan for the worst. Should it arise, what could I do to get myself out of said situation? Awkwardly change the topic of conversation? Dive out of the closest window? Scream "FIRE!" in a crowded theater? No, none of those would do. In fact, I came to the depressing conclusion that there really was nothing that I could do to avoid it except hope and pray that it wouldn't be raised. So I hoped. And I prayed.

And then on that fateful Saturday night, at dinner with Dave, Erin, Robert, Maz and Laurie -- before the party that welcomed Robert and me back to New York for the weekend -- my prayers were smashed. And the walls? Oh yes, my friends -- the walls, they came crumbling down.

So let's just get it out of the way right now: the majority -- okay, the vast majority -- of what's in my infamous Portuguese Chicken Wars post is made up. Not so much a lie, per se... let's use that term "creative liberties" again. And then multiply it several times over.

It all started off so innocently. For the premise of the post, that Shorty had emailed me before coming to Sydney to tell me about Ogalo, the fire there, and to never go to Portogali? True. The rumors of some tomfoolery regarding the fire and Portogali's possible involvement? (Not the rumors themselves, perhaps, just that there were rumors.) True. Everything else? Wellllllll...

Fine. I decided to have a little fun. And got carried away. It started off as a vague idea, quickly snowballed into a stream of consciousness, and became something great. And none of you can deny that, this much I know. That story is great. You all said as much. In emails. In comments on that post. In phone conversations. And in many more emails that followed.

But yeah, the story mostly belongs in the fiction section. With a bit of an emphasis on "mostly", because there is some truth to it. So maybe it should go into the "Based on a true story" section? Yeah, that's about right. In fact, let's call the story this blog's The Perfect Storm. Literally and figuratively. (And if you don't get that reference, just look at the first paragraph in the upper right part of this page.)

Anyway, no more creative liberties, no more beating around the bush, no more half-truths. Just the full truth, as we do PCW (Portuguese Chicken Wars) Redux:


A perfect segue indeed! For not only have I been back to Ole, not only have I been back to Portogali, and not only have I been to Ogalo since it (finally) reopened, but... BUT... BUT...

Well. Before we get to this "BUT" -- and it's a doozy -- let's first quickly hit on these three establishments and give you the 100% honest truth on each of them. Because if I'm not an open book, what am I?*

*This is a very rhetorical question. Please don't answer it.

Ole: This is the default establishment for our apartment. It's the closest (by a good ten seconds!), and, well, I'm not sure there's any other good reason. (As if that's good enough of a reason on its own.) The sauce that they serve with the hot chips* -- errrr, fries -- is good? One of the girls who works there is semi-attractive?

*This would be prego sauce, and it's amazing. I'm not sure exactly what it's made of, but it's some concoction of at least mayo, vinegar and maybe a few spices. That description absolutely doesn't do it justice, and may even perhaps make it sound disgusting, but believe me, it's earth-shattering stuff. Maybe not quite as good as sweet chili sauce and sour cream, but it's a close second. Anyway, each of the Portuguese places has their own prego sauce, but I'd probably rate Ole's as the best.

Portogali: A bit of the black sheep for us, although this of course -- of course! -- has nothing to do with the claim in Shorty’s original email that they burned down Ogalo. More simply, it's probably because this was the third entrant into the market, with Ole and Ogalo having already established themselves. I hardly ever go there, and based on my own grandmother research, it's the least frequented of the three Portuguese establishments. If that says anything.

Ogalo: Shorty's old favorite, and after he talked it up for the six freaking months that it took them to rebuild, I was beyond excited to try it when it first reopened. But to be honest, my first experience let me down. Maybe the expectations were set too high? Perhaps. Although I think the most telling sign is that Shorty doesn't frequent it as much as he did pre-fire. Has Ogalo lost whatever mojo it had going for it pre-fire? Or is there just no difference among the three establishments, thus allowing us to default to Ole?

And that last point, my friends, that may be the thing. There's a certain perceived level of parity among the three establishments, because they really don't do anything to differentiate themselves. Consider: They all have near-identical menus. They all are laid out in a similar fashion. They all have friendly employees, who would never, ever even dream of berating you for going to one of the other two places. (I mean, honestly...) So how do we choose? In our case, I think it's simply a matter of proximity. Even if that proximity is a matter of ten seconds. But that's not a good reason, is it? I say no, that there has to be a better way. However, that’s very much a conversation for another day. And we'll address it sometime soon.

Okay, back to the "but".

BUT...

Upon arriving back in Sydney from the US at the end of August, I was greeted with this news: a fourth is coming. A fourth Portuguese chicken restaurant. Right down the street from the other three. I shit you not. Because not one, not two and not even three Portuguese chicken restaurants within two minutes of each other is enough. Oh no. Someone actually thought, "I'd love to open a Portuguese chicken restaurant. I know, let's put it right near three others!" A conversation to this effect actually happened. And then it was acted upon. It's mind-boggling, it's inconceivable, it's fascinating, it's bewildering, it's hilarious, it's... well, it's any and every adjective ever invented.

With that said, let's welcome the newest Portuguese chicken restaurant to my neighborhood: Angelo's!


Excuse me while my head explodes. And as I prepare for the next stage of the Portuguese Chicken Wars.

One year and one hundred posts

This absolutely bewilders me, but this post marks the crossroads of two achievements, mostly unrelated to each other, yet both significant in their own right.

First. This is the one year anniversary of my (third) coming to Australia. For it was a Friday night, exactly one year ago, that I deplaned my, uhhhh, plane and set off on this adventure that I've documented on this blog.

Second. This is my 100th post on this blog. One freaking hundred.

Of these two achievements, the most surprising, without doubt, is the 100 posts. Yes, I've been slacking on updating this thing recently, but that can really be attributed to a rough patch at work and a mild case of writer's block. This will change. And I'll get back to something that resembles a routine, with a couple of posts a week.

But 100 posts?? Still displayed on the right, in the "What is AK All Day?" section that I should probably get around to updating one of these days, I say: "In two months, the easy money is that I won't have updated [this blog]." Believe me, at the time I wrote that, I had every reason to fully believe that statement. For despite how brilliant and witty and inspirational and beautiful my words may appear, let me assure you that they don't come easily. Oh no, my friends. Maintaining the quality of writing on this blog, to the level that you've all come to expect and respect, is work. And work is hard.

Now, back to the first point: being here for a year. Surprising, this is not. For unless I simply couldn't find work here, the plan was always to be here for at least this long. Notable, however, this absolutely is. For it's been a fantastic year, full of new people, new adventures and new places. And it's with this in mind that I'd like to take a look back at some of the posts that have led up to this one, as I review my One Year in Sydney:

Welcome to Andy Blog 2.0
Kicking off a new era in style, with an immediate reference to zombo.com. In case this hasn't already been made abundantly clear, at zombo.com, the only limit is yourself.

A precursor
Do toilets in the US and Australia really flush in opposite directions? This was my first foray into this mystery. And much to my glee, we've yet to get a conclusive result.

The defence against hating cricket
Includes the comment, "I can't see how I personally could ever warm to [cricket]." Twelve months later? I've been in a freaking cricket winter league and played a position that I really had no business even attempting.

This is the story of seven strangers...
My first official accommodation! And a nominee from myself to myself for one of my best-written entries on the blog.

Portuguese Chicken Wars
Yikes, this one has gotten me into a bit of trouble as of late. Without a doubt, this is -- or I guess because of some recent revelations, was -- the winner of the People's Choice Award for best blog entry. Friends constantly asked me about it, and if there had since been any developments. Random people who somehow found this post online sent me strange and somewhat creepy emails about it. And well, let's just say that with these latest revelations, things have changed. More on this in the next few days, I promise.

The weekend trips have commenced
My first foray outside of Sydney on this trip, and a weekend full of randomness, with debates about shrimp/prawns, naked ninjas jumping off of cliffs and a movie about a gang of tap dancers from Newcastle. As well as the first appearance of the AK All Day Face in a post!

Two pictures tell a thousand drunken words
Still depresses the hell out of me.

There are cane toads, there are kangaroos... and then there are cassowaries
One of the recaps from my trip up to the Great Barrier Reef, detailing the horrifying night drives, with especial consideration given to the terrifying cassowary.

Melbourne -- there's an angle in here somewhere
The epic recap from my weekend trip to Melbourne. A fantastically awesome weekend that also contained some pseudo awesomeness and some not-so-awesome stuff.

A new home. And the grueling agony of an impossible choice.
The move into my next house! Which was a monumental decision to make at the time. And in hindsight, it worked out in every conceivable way possible. I don't think it would be an understatement to say that the entire course of the universe was influenced by that decision.

Worst idea ever
I still have nightmares from which I lurch out of bed in a cold sweat.

Meeting and exceeding expectations, Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3
Every other weekend trip up to this point had offered a nice bonding experience with a friend, or perhaps the chance to experience some culture. This was just pure raunch. And I loved every minute of it.

A postcursor... of sorts
The follow-up to my study on which way the toilet flushes in Australia. The video here? Anything but conclusive.

The toilet flusheth again
No more finality here! Will there be in the next video I post? Yeeeeaaaahhhh, probably not.

Bringing it full circle
Changing accommodation again, this time into my current place! I'm thinking a video tour is due sometime soon.

Back in America
Most of the entries on this blog -- including this current one, unfortunately -- are written and posted far too quickly, without enough time devoted to the crafting of my words. Because if there's one thing I know that people are expecting out of this blog, it's Pulitzer-caliber writing. But "Back in America"? It's easily my favorite of the 100 that have appeared on the blog to date.

And we'll end it on that! One year, one hundred posts. Where will I be on September 14, 2009? No idea. Will I have made it to two hundred posts? Or maybe just a hundred and two posts? I have no idea. But for now, we know I have to cover at least a few topics: some Portuguese chicken, some more flushing of toilets, a few Kleinballs here and there and many, many, many more AK All Day Faces.

So there's that.

Portuguese Chicken Wars!

Several posts ago, I alluded to a certain Portuguese Chicken War but didn't elaborate. Well, the time is now!

I wish this was just a cute name for some little phenomenon going on in Kensington, my old neighborhood, but it is exactly like it sounds. There are three Portuguese chicken restaurants within two blocks of each other, and they are literally at war with one another. And not war as in, "oh, we're really fierce competitors and have a lot of price wars", but more like war as in "we will burn down our competitors' restaurants." Because that has actually happened.

A week or so before I moved here, Shorty emailed me with a few tidbits about the apartment and neighborhood. The most interesting part of his email? It went a little something like this:

You'll see there are a lot of Portuguese chicken take away places in our area. They are like rival gangs so you have to choose one and stick to it. Now some people will try to lead you astray but may I highly recommend Ogalo. It was recently burnt down by another store (Portogali) so never go there. While they are restoring Ogalo you have permission to eat at Ole but the moment Ogalo reopens, you must flock back there.

Ha ha, I thought. Cute little Portuguese immigrants and their cute little wars. Nope.

A few days after I arrived, I went to Ole to have a gander and some food. As I walked in, the people working the counter gave me quite the friendly hello. Something along the lines of, "Hello, my friend! How are you today?" You know, just imagine your favorite Yemenite establishment and how they greet you when you walk in. Just like that. So I ordered the spicy Ole burger, which was quite succulent. Very good fries, er, chips, as well. Here's Ole:

After finishing my meal, I continued down the road. Not more than 30 meters further, I passed Portogali. And the men had seen me exit Ole. Not a big deal, right? Well, it didn't seem like it at the time. I just got a bit of a stare from the guys there, and didn't think much of it. Here's Portogali:


Only another 50 meters or so, I passed Ogalo and witnessed the devastation that had been brought upon it. Completely gutted and empty inside, it stood there, cold and alone.


Now, there are two schools of thought regarding how Ogalo was burned down:
1. Ogalo, with a kitchen and amenities inferior to those of Ole and Portogali, burned their own place down with the hopes of using the insurance money to rebuild a newer and better store.
2. In a fit of jealous rage over Ogalo's success, the owner of Portogali had his men burn Ogalo down.

Apparently the police are still looking into it, so no official ruling has been made yet. But this is your classic case of Portuguese guy said/other Portuguese guy said; the folks at Portogali swear that Ogalo burned its own store down, and the folks at Ogalo swear that Portogali burned their place down. We'll have to wait for the authorities to sort this one out.

Anyway, a few days later, I thought I'd try out Portogali. Sure, Shorty had specifically warned me against this, and sure, I had received a bit of a bad stare from the guys there, but come on. I mean, we're talking about Portuguese chicken! I wanted to give Portogali a fair shake in this, and besides, there's no way there's truth to any of this, right?

I quickly found out there was truth. The second I stepped foot into Portogali, the man behind the counter began to absolutely berate me. "You were in Ole the other day, I saw you! You leave right now or I make you leave!!" The kitchen staff came out, then some other dude from inside another door. So, yeah. I left.

As I scurried back to my apartment, I turned around to see three or four of the men standing outside Portogali just watching me.

But I was still hungry, and I needed nourishment. So after I regained my composure, I went back out to Ole. But much like the mother that turns her back on the baby that leaves the herd, I was damaged goods to Ole. "We saw you in that other place! You cannot go to them! You must leave now!!!!"

I apologized. I said I didn't understand the bad blood, that I just wanted food. But they would have none of it. I must leave, and I must leave now.

I'm still trying to piece the history together, but from what I've been able to determine, the tension between Ole and Ogalo is somewhat similar to that of Pat's and Geno's in Philadelphia. Ogalo, like Pat's, was the original. But some time after its foundation, some of the employees had a rift with the owners and split off to form Ole, just like Geno's. But while Pat's and Geno's can kind of coexist, Ogalo and Ole clearly cannot. And then when Portogali opened its doors for business right in between the two, the entire situation boiled over. I wish I were making this up, but girlfriends got involved, there have been rumblings of tampering with each other's food, there have apparently been several verbal and physical confrontations, and it all culminated in the fire at Ogalo. Again, no official cause has been announced yet, but it's looking like Portogali could be in trouble here.

I no longer live in that neighborhood, and when it comes to Portuguese chicken, that might just be for the best. I had been blacklisted from both of the establishments that are currently open, and I'm not sure what would have happened if I went to Ogalo when it finally reopens. They're feverishly working to rebuild it, and I know they've seen me in the area. Might just be best to steer clear of Portuguese chicken for a while.

My boring life

God, I wish I had something exciting to say about my life from the last few days, but it's actually been overwhelmingly and surprisingly mundane.

My last day of work was on July 20, and the 67 days since then have been fantastic. But now that I've actually started to look for work, I think the unemployment bug has finally caught up to me. And being in a new city and country doesn't seem to make it any better. I guess that the monotony of jumping through the same hoops for different headhunters every day can only be so fulfilling, regardless of where you are.

My one constant source of entertainment? The vicious Portuguese Chicken War being waged in my neighborhood. But it's late and I'm tired, so an explanation of that will have to wait for another time.