Spirit House fun stuff

Spirit House Restaurant wins a Hat

acland — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:41:36 +0000

The Sunshine Coast did very well in the Australian Good Food Guide Awards, with 16 restaurants picking up ‘hat’ awards. We are so proud of our restaurant team who have worked so hard over the years to keep the Spirit House on this prestigious list.
If you know the history of the owners of Spirit House, you’d know Peter and Helen Brierty started the first restaurant in Montville, Misty’s, back in 1972. Misty’s literally put Montville on the map way back then and it’s with this in mind that we feel a special fondness for Long Apron restaurant in Montville which won two hats in this year’s awards – we are already planning a lunch there soon.

Amazing packaging and amazing knives

acland — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:36:47 +0000

The packaging for this knife set by Keiji Ashizawa has been written up in just about every design blog on the net. The knives are beautifully handmade in organic shapes and each shelf uses dove-tail joints to allow the system to slide apart and lock back together. In a world of mass production, there’s still room for art in design and function.

Thai food tour in July

acland — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:14:49 +0000

Spirit House is embarking on one of their popular tag-along food tours in July 2012. If you’re into Thai food, love adventure and excitement and wanting to see a side of Thailand that most tourists never get to see, then this tour is for you.
You can find all the information, booking forms and itineraries on the Spirit House tours page.

This short video explains the tag-along concept and gives you a taste of what the tours are all about:

tag-along2 from Spirit House on Vimeo.

All the flights in the world in one minute

acland — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:36:24 +0000

I was fascinated to see where everyone is going – Europe is certainly a hot spot:

Why Asian food tastes so different to Western Food

acland — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 05:50:06 +0000

Gizmodo has a great article looking at why Asian food tastes so, well, Asian. The short version is that we in the West tend to pair our food flavours – Blue cheese shares 73 flavour compounds with chocolate. But Asian food works in the opposite way, Asian recipes seek out the contrast in flavours making Asian cuisine distinctly different to European dishes.

If you like food pairing then you will love foodpairing.com. Here you can find interesting food pairs that can help take your personal cooking to new levels. For example, who knew that oysters and Kiwi fruit made a good combination?

Baby using magazine like an iPad

acland — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 06:29:32 +0000

Super-cute video of a baby flipping through a magazine and finding it frustrating that the pages swipe ok but the images don’t respond to finger gestures, nor can she scroll.

Why are Chillies Hot?

acland — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 23:56:35 +0000

There is science behind why chillies are hot and our new favourite youtube scientist, powerm1985, eats an incredibly hot scotch bonnett and while his mouth and brain melts he attempts to explain the science behind what is happening.

Before we get to the video here’s a brief explanation – basically the chilli molecule capsaicinoid is picked up by the same receptor we use to taste vanilla. But the capsaicinoid tricks the neurons in the taste receptor sending a signal to the brain saying something is on fire. So the brain increases the heart rate, starts you sweating and increases endorphins etc. Interestingly, capsaicinoid is not water soluble which is why drinking water does nothing to reduce the burning sensation.

Now there’s an evolutionary reason for this. Birds are not affected by chillis at all. They can eat chillis all day long and not be affected by the heat. Only mammals feel the heat. A theory for this is mammals have teeth and tend to grind/destroy seeds – which is not very good if you’re a plant trying to spread yourself around. Birds, however, don’t have teeth and thus the seeds pass through the bird coming out intact. We could extend this explanation out further by suggesting humans may hate the burning sensation but we LOVE the endorphins our brain releases after eating them. So in a funny way, chillis have ensured their survival by creating something humans like and want to cultivate which works out well for both species – I’m not a scientist but it is an elegant explanation as to why we haven’t rid the earth of chilli plants if we found them so disagreeable.

Here’s the video with a scientist on fire trying to explain it all to you:

How language affects how we see colour

acland — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:13:19 +0000

You’d think we all see and perceive colours the same – after all, blue is blue right? This fascinating clip from a BBC documentary shows how language affects the way we understand colour.
Quite amazing:

‪Dancing squid bowl dish in Hakodate‬‏

acland — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:55:18 +0000

According the the notes, the squid is dead and the sodium in the soya sauce reacts with the nerves in the squid causing it to dance. Probably not something we’ll put on the Spirit House menu – it’s macabre and fascinating all at the same time.

Know your tropical fruit

acland — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:15:20 +0000

Here’s a great video that explains the relationships, tastes and peeling tips for a wide variety of Asian tropical fruits:

Can’t wait to visit the Or Kor Tor market on our next tagalong food tour of Thailand to buy some.