North Korea - The Wandering Palate

Our Cambodian Correspondent, Darren Gall, finds himself in a North Korean Room 39 enclave and partaking in a little ‘covert activity’ in the Penh!

For most of us, life north of the 38^th parallel is impossible to witness first hand and is only ever glimpsed through the eyes of the, (mostly western) media. Who can ever forget the award winning cover of The Economist: glorious leader, Kim Jong-Il, waving stiffly to the crowd, resplendent in trademark 50’s-jump-suit-cum-grey-safari-suit, under the heading ‘Greetings Earthlings’!

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Restaurants | Related to: Food, North Korea, Wine | 2 comments

From a lost play by Eubulos, (c.405 BC - c.335 BC)
‘For sensible men I prepare only three kraters (large vase used to mix wine): one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home.

The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.’

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new.”

As uttered by the vitriolic restaurant critic Anton Ego, in the film “Ratatouille”, after his epiphany.