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The 2011 Sam Khok Awards

Fifteen countries. Approximately 1091 restaurant meals. The 2011 Sam Khok Awards have arrived. The criteria? I ate here in 2011 and the meal, dish, or drink was worthy of further mention. Without further ado, the awards:

Best pizza - 40's Cafe, Angaston, South Australia. One would not want to take a tour of the Barossa Valley on an empty stomach.

Best restaurant name - Thai Me Up, Coogee Beach, Sydney. 

Best goat - Goat served seven different ways at Dalat. Despite a serious effort to try them all, we could only manage four. Well, perhaps not so serious.

Largest oyster - What a year it was for oysters! From Adelaide to Asahikawa and many places in between, I sampled the best oysters in Pranburi, Phuket, Halong Bay, etc. I can't pick a favorite, but I can pick the largest. Chigasaki.

Best red wine - 1996 The Holy Trinity by Grant Burge. 

Best champagne - Bollinger. At The Open Championship. Please sir, may I have some more?

Best seafood, Indian - Trishna, Mumbai. First stop for popcorn at the Bombay Gymkhana Club, proceed to Trishna for dinner, then repair to a nearby paanwala for that "addictive and euphoria-inducing" digestif.

Best tandoori cuisine - Bukhara, New Delhi.  

Most exotic dish - This is a toss-up between kujira sashimi, kujira bacon, kujira katsu, or sautéed chó. I can't choose just one. You might guess what kujira or chó are, but I'll refrain from further details. 

Best smoked meat - Schwartz's. Better than I expected, and I had high expectations. It has been described as a "maddening aphrodesiac." You've probably read Barney's Version. If you haven't, it is a wonderful book.

Best fusion drink - The Jack Daniels ハイボール. The preferred shinkansen drink of 2011. I couldn't decide if I liked this or not, and it came in such an attractive can, so I tasted it multiple times. The verdict: not the best drink, but certainly the best fusion drink.

Best soft cream - The wasabi at Shizuoka, sweet potato at Tochigi, salt at Okinawa, and melon at Hokkaido were all strong contenders in a year punctuated by roadside stops to sample every possible flavor of soft cream, but the winner is the elusive peanut soft cream from Chiba.

Innovation in fast food - McDonald's Big Spicy Paneer Wrap. Just as advertised, big, spicy, wrapped paneer. 

The awards could go on, for best genghis khan, best som tam, best kra pao gai kai dao gai sap kai suk, best bibimbap, best Pimms, best tonic wine (Buckfast, obviously), best crab, best poutine, or innumerable other dishes. I'll save those stories for another time, and close with a superb dish that is also contender for best golf course lunch.

Best ramen - The seafood ramen at Hokkaido Brooks Country Club. Absolutely superb. I don't often take videos of my food, unless it is moving. But this ramen was worthy of a video. 

This Month in Air Travel: 3

Since my last report. Seven more flights. Seven more international airports. Three countries. More birdie dances, to be described in requisite detail in the forthcoming golf report. And the amazing places than one can go by air these days.

Just when I had thought a generous portion of Lay's Lime n' Masala Masti potato chips to be the epitome of flavor, I came across this saucy tomato flavor. Naughty Tomatoes, reads the label, and I felt a bit of a naughty tomato myself as I ate almost the entire bag. So much for my diet. 

But I soon took to the air again, back to Thailand where my diet consisted of regular portions of crab, peanuts, soda water, and kra pao gai kai dao gai sap kai suk.

I took a break from air travel on a visit to southern Thailand and the island of Samui, arriving by ferry and making another boat ride across heavy seas to watch the lunar eclipse from Ko Pha Ngan.

And then it was back to flying and the lovely airport at Samui, where one can find popcorn and other delicacies in the expansive open-air terminal. 

December in the clement weather of the tropics, after a long year of travel – 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Dancing and Eating My Way Across India

In a year full of birdie dances, this was surely the most daring. Would you dance at the edge of a balustrade-free domed Mughal tomb at twilight? I didn't think so. But I did, for I'd made five 15-foot putts in a row at the Putting Studio, and a crepuscular visit to the Lodhi Course at Dehli Golf Club provided the perfect opportunity to celebrate such an astonishing feat. 

What is perhaps more remarkable is that I made those putts with a loaned putter, no warm-up, and in front of a rapt audience. I went on to play a round at the Lodhi Course yesterday, and the details can wait, but suffice it to say that I remain undefeated on the Subcontinent.

I'm here conducting a greenkeeper education program for the Indian Golf Union. One can view a selection of photos taken during this education program below.

But there is a lot more to this trip than greenkeeper education and birdie dances.

How about a Big Spicy Paneer Wrap at McDonalds? Delicious and a top candidate for a Sam Khok Award in December. How about chicken tikka and tandoori gobhi with naan and roti? Also in contention for a Sam Khok Award.

The Sam Khok Awards, of course, need little introduction. You will recall a Sam Khok Award as that prestigious distinction of being selected as one of the best dishes I've had, or best restaurant at which I have dined, during the year. Selecting the most toothsome morsels from approximately 1091 restaurant meals this year will not be easy when there are so many worthy candidates. The 2011 Sam Khok Awards will be announced in December.

Apyrexial in India

I'm happy to report that Kolkata and New Delhi have been salubrious. The days – cerulean; the nights – here I foreshadow an astonishing incident – sublime. And the breakfasts have been quite good. How about mango juice and a masala dosa? Wikipedia tells me this makes the list of the World's 50 most delicious foods. 

I'm here for a training program about grass. This report on the program from The R&A gives an overview of what they term a Pioneering Greenkeeper Education Programme.

The programme includes classroom and field training sessions, with the objective being to improve, in the long-term, the playing conditions on golf courses across India and the broader subcontinent.

The week's training ends with an exam, for which I am the invigilator, and then it is off to the next city for another week of the same. Last night we finished the training programme and ended up at a Papa CJ show at the Tollygunge Club. And then we went for a drink, under a large tree. The Tolly's grounds, originally an indigo plantation established in 1781, provide a sanctuary for many exotic birds. I knew it was time for bed when effluence from one of those birds made its way to my shoulder, which you can see adumbrated here. 

This Month in Air Travel: 2

This month I continued my research for the 2011 Sam Khok Awards. Eight flights, five countries, one cancelled flight, two evacuations of flooded Bangkok, and the nice view above of Bangsai CC and the former ATC Research Facility surrounded by floodwaters in Ayuddhaya.

I stuck to my vicinal diet this month, too, no juxtapositions -- phở at Hanoi, som tam at Bangkok, udon at Tokyo, Michael's Grill and Taqueria in Pacific Grove, and cognac on Thai Airways.

This Month in Air Travel: 1

I'll start this series by posing a question: how best to divide one's time between the full-service noodle bar at the ANA Lounge in the No. 4 Satellite zone of Narita International Airport Terminal 1's South Wing, and the self-service sake bar at the opposite end of the same lounge? Bonus question: how best to navigate the intervening section between the aforementioned bars without grabbing at least one piece of shortbread from the food bar?

September Golf Report

I went undefeated in September, first winning a nine hole match in Shizuoka and making an incredible birdie that I celebrated first by planking the green and then by performing a crepuscular birdie dance. 

My second win of September was in Hokkaido. And it had been brought to my attention that planking on golf course putting greens is signally inappropriate, especially so for a turfgrass scientist, so I took the opportunity to practice a new birdie dance that I hope will be appreciated by all.

If you were at Takanodai CC today, you would have seen me perform the new birdie dance after I chipped in on the second hole, only to stand down after I realized I'd just holed out for a double bogey, rather than a birdie.

Takanodai is the host club for this year's Japan Open Championship and as a consequence the rough is grown up to about 150 mm. The Open will be played in two weeks and I found Takanodai with its narrow fairways, firm greens, and penal rough to be a fine test as I make my final preparations for next week's Micah Woods Invitational. I played two matches today, winning one, and fighting back for a draw in the other.

We stopped for lunch after the front nine, and I'd like to think that this hearty steak lunch, a Takanodai specialty, helped to fortify me for the back nine. 

Rakish Outtakes from Wuhan

You've seen the report from Wuhan, but you may not have realized how we struggled to get the pictures just right. The banner positioning, and who should stand where, was a temporary conundrum which we resolved, but not before some rather pedestrian efforts.

Then there was the red carpet to . . . just where exactly?  Dr. Wang and I managed to keep up a cheerful appearance, despite the perplexity of a red carpet abrubtly ending in the midst of a grassy field. 

I've already mentioned the fine dinner, the baijiu, and the spicy duck feet. Baijiu is an acquired taste, and also a persistent one. The fiery liquor made a good match for the toothsome delicacies of Wuhan.

And then there was this addition to my collection of "stay off the grass" photos. This one appeals to my emotions, apparently, and it is placed on a grass ideally-suited to do so: Zoysia matrella. I was pleased to see the matrella growing so well at Wuhan and I must say that it hardly needs my compassion to repay it. For all it has done for me, I hardly know how I could repay it. 

Last Week, the Outtakes

You've probably already seen the classy birdie dance photo from last week. Perhaps you followed along on twitter, or Facebook, or Google+. But those are hardly the place for copious disquisitions.

There was a lot more to last week than the birdie dance. In fact, it was a week of inimitable rakishness. Here are the outtakes. I traveled across a large part of Japan last week, hitting the golf hotspots of Chiba and Hyogo, stopping at Kanagawa and Yamaguchi and Fukuoka as well, riding innumerable trains, and eating. How about nama oysters the size of dinner plates, and kujira sashimi? 

For that matter, how about kujira bacon? 

It looks a bit like a sliced radish, but the taste is rather different. 

There were a lot of golf courses last week, and a lot of photos of my trousers. Here I deflect attention from the trousers, pointing out that the grass is worthy of attention also. Or was I trying vainly to draw attention to my trousers? What trousers?

Whatever it was, I finished 5^th in the golf tournament against a strong field on a day so hot (liquefyingly so, it felt) that the caddie was giving us ice packs to place on our heads. To keep our brains from melting, apparently. I obviously scored a victory against the elements, if not against the field, so I'm marking my card as undefeated so far in August.

July Golf Report

I almost took the month off from golf, but was coaxed into a match on a hot afternoon in Hanoi. And I'm glad I took part in that skins game. It only took me a few holes to get warmed up and then I started winning skin after skin. 

To go undefeated in July after such a disastrous June was an inimitable comeback. There wasn't time to celebrate properly at Hanoi. So I celebrated this undefeated month, then, at a Nepalese restaurant in Japan, with an egg curry, at its highest possible level of spiciness, soaked up with two rather massive pieces of naan. 

I won't have time for flânerie in August, with multiple matches already set across the archipelagoes of East Asia. I'll be playing with just a half set in August, relying on a strong mental approach to raise my game to the necessary standard. My clubs have been sent ahead of me to Hyogo-ken, where I'll play a match this very week.