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I've had an upset stomach the last few days, even had yesterday off work. Not very pleasant, and I missed the Melbourne Cup festivities. To help recover, I've been eating quite bland food, without spices or dairy products. Last night that meant some tomatoey broad beans on toast, which went down fine.
Today, back at work and hunting for a bland lunch, I discovered On Ramen on Hay Street, Haymarket. Ramen entered my repertoire of comfort foods on a cold Winter day in Tokyo. One of my colleagues took us down the road from the Spike offices to a tiny ramen joint. The place had about six bar stools and you sat slurping at the bar while the owner cooked up your simple, but delicious, noodles. There were also gyoza on offer.
Behind the owner, a boiling pot of stock looked like it'd been going since the post-war reconstruction, with the occasional onion or pig thrown in and the water topped up each day. The owner would take some parboiled noodles, dunk them in for another boil, then serve them up covered in the amazing stock and whatever meat you'd selected. Even for this simple meal, the presentation was brilliant.
So does On Ramen, Shop 4, 181 - 187 Hay St, Haymarket match up? I think so! Tasty noodles and soup. My pork belly and miso ramen was pretty good, though the pork was probably a bit sweet for my tastes. The salty, rich broth is exactly what my recovering body needs. If chicken soup is Jewish Penicillin, surely ramen is the Japanese version?
Note to Americans: Ramen does not mean instant noodles.
05 Nov 2008 13:18 [category: /food] #
It's US presidential election time again, and the big story as always in America is long queues at polling places. I don't get it. They have the simplest voting system going, where all you get to do is tick a box for your preferred candidate. Yet it takes ages, despite (or is it because of) the use of the latest voting technology.
Australian elections use a relatively complex system of tabulating votes, yet a clear winner is almost always known within a few hours of voting closing. The most I've had to queue to vote (outside of voting at Australia House in London, which often has queues around the block) in an Australian election is about two minutes.
So what is it that makes the voting process so slow in American elections? Why are there over 30 minute queues as standard?
So without even going into the serious problems with voting machines, it seems they don't actually solve any actual problems, and I suspect cost a lot more to operate than having a bunch of casual vote counting staff on the evening of the vote. In Australian elections I've been involved in (as a party volunteer) the same staff who operate the polling place all day stay back for the vote count in the evening.
The big question is, given this is likely to be the first election of a non-Republican since Bush stole the vote from Gore in 2000 (assuming they don't pull the same trick again), will the Democrats look at reforming the voting systems to prevent these state-based tricks?
