brick lane by Alex Kuhse

Brick Lane is a whole different cultural experience in itself. We ended up watching the World Cup at a spanish restaurant at the tip of Brick Lane. As soon as Spain won the streets exploded with people dancing and singing in the middle of the street. Someone was playing a big drum everyone was dancing along to. All the while cars were trying to push through the crowded streets filled with frenzied fans banging on their hoods and cheering at the top of their lungs. Basically a scene that would be considered a riot within 5 minutes in Los Angeles. It was culture shock in the best form.

However, my story of brick lane will take a different route. One towards what Brick Lane is most famous for: its Indian food.

As you venture through Brick Lane into the Indian food district, each store front is manned by a recruiter spitting all sorts of discounts and deals at you, hoping to persuade you into eating at his place over the 10 other ones around. Niku was skeptical of most places and people spouting off their routine, so she went in a few places solo to check them out while the rest of us were ready to eat just about anything with curry on it. We were hungry.

We finally find a place with second story seating that had a wonderful view of the, well, alley, but it was a really cool alley. I hold nothing against that alley. Plus it was right by an open window which gave us a vantage point into watching the people pass through the gauntlet of indian food offers. I'll be honest, I don't know much about Indian food and had to ask Niku and Naveen about what a lot of dishes were. I knew I liked spicy food though so I decided to get the second to most spicy dish, the vindaloo. I think it was vindaloo. Anyways. We all got our food and mine was pretty spicy but bearable. Until I ate a surprise pepper floating in my curry-esque sauce.

After ten seconds of housing the pepper in my saliva filled abode, it exploded into a storm of spicy. I immediately became wide eyed, which then began to overflow with tears (spicy tears, I wasn't crying. I swear) of extreme, well, spiciness.

The red on my body in this picture is not the lighting, it's the pepper I ate running through my veins and taking over my body...

After numerous shifts in body position and facial expressions, I finally began to return to my normal, un-spiced self. Confident once more, I took another bite without paying much attention. And yes, I'm sure you've guessed it by now, another little hellion of a pepper was lurking in my sauce. I think the first pepper burned off the pepper viewer in my retinas or something. This second pepper was like having the devil punch you on the tongue with a motorcycle. A lot of times. While wearing a glove dipped in...uh...more spicy stuff (I am aware of my subpar analogies. I think the pepper burned all the good ones out of my memory...).

Skeptical of my taste buds and doubting their toughness, Brian tried his hand in eating 2 peppers. Off he went into a devilish landscape of singed taste buds. At first he was fine, boasting of their mild taste. Then

about ten seconds later he was in the same burning boat I was in. Shifting through about the same movements I did, while making about the same expressions, he found out I did not have sissy taste buds. At least he was smart enough to order a milk to neutralize the taste. I went for a different beverage, appropriately named 'Cobra'.

About this time my partner Kristine, sitting next to me, was crying for a different reason. She was crying from laughing so hard at Brian and I having pepper induced seizures, along with the rest of the table. She then proceeded to tell us both we were sissies, and to let her try her hand in the pepper eating. Gladly passing my peppers away from in front of me to her, waiting for her to fall down the same slope Brian and I did, she casually ate three peppers in a row. Without a flinch. Not one body shift, not a single pepper tear, and not one wide-eyed expression of spicy surprise. Amazed and jealous of her spicy tolerance, I bowed down to her, and gained a whole new respect for Kristine and her taste buds.

This is Kristine. She is way tougher than I am. I mean look at her, she's holding a cactus barehanded! She is also one of the new great friends I made on this trip I will have for the rest of my days and am glad I had the experience to meet at Woodbury.

So to make a long story short, Brick Lane is unlike any place on earth. It is a garden of inspiration artistically as a result of the grafitti/art covered brick walls, a wonderful place to people watch, and also a place where you should pay attention to the peppers that lurk in your vindaloo. Anyone in London who is a fan of Indian food HAS to go to Brick Lane. And then they have to get back to me about the peppers. Great thanks to Graham and Niku for suggesting it and joining us on our cultural food adventure. It was an art experience in a completely, delicious new way.

Alex Kuhse

Graphic Design

Woodbury University