Bahrni's Website

Portable Barbecue
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning..."
Sunday 20th March 2005

This page is sort of a hybrid as it's less of a travel page and more of a review. Okay, we did have to travel to Lower Hutt to get the barbecue, but we used it in our own garden. But on the other hand, we didn't intend to buy a barbecue and that wasn't the purpose of going to Lower Hutt, so what the hell.

We had gone to Lower Hutt as our Honda Civic was acting up. Lamentably lacking a manual 5-speed transmission it instead possesses something called Honda-matic, which gives you P(ark), N(eutral), R(everse), *(the actual driving gear, so why it's not D I don't know), OD(OverDrive - a higher-speed "cruise" gear that enables you to run along motorways without the engine sounding like a blunt drill going through brickwork) and finally L (for going up steep hills when * is too high). Given that * copes just fine with even Wellington hills, I can't imagine what kind of slope "L" is designed for. Perhaps it's used in conjunction with the optional grappeling hook for ascending vertical cliffs.

The upshot of all this is that you still have as many gears to deal with as a manual, you just don't have to change those gears as frequently. Which is obviously a huge saving and has prevents me from being crippled with carpal tunnel syndrome and RSI like I was in the UK and owned a Citroen.

The problem is that this particular Honda-matic seems to lack torque or traction or something along those lines when put in the OD gear. You're driving along at 80kph when you drop it into OD. The engine whine drops to a contented hum and the speed levels out. Hit an incline though, or attempt to accelerate slightly and the engine suddenly starts to over-rev and scream like crazy and the car starts to lose speed. It's as if the engine suddenly loses grip on the transmission.

A colleague at work suggested that the engine might be low on transmission fluid. The embarrassing fact of the matter is though that I can't work out where the hell to put transmission fluid in the engine. I've found the oil, brake fluid, radiator reservoir and wee bag to put windscreen wash into. I just can't find a place to insert transmission fluid!

So... the reason we were driving around Lower Hutt was an attempt to locate a Haynes manual for the Honda and find an answer to this connundrum. Instead we bought some more stuff from the Kathmandu sale and a barbecue, which illustrates my ability to stay focussed on the topic at hand.

Passing over the Kathmandu stuff, the barbecue was an absolute bargain (in my opinion). It's a wee red and black portable one, with a removable ash-tray in the base which also acts as ventilation to keep the fire evenly supplied with oxygen. The cost was a paltry $30 (NZ), although with a packet of firelighters and a box of charcoal bits that price was closer to $40.

Stopping off at New World to get some food to sacrifice to our new toy, we headed home and I took great delight in setting up our outdoor chairs, our burning concrete lump from Martinborough and the barbecue outside the Hobbithole. I added some crumbled firelighters to the tray, poured charcoal over them, applied the lighter and waited.

At this point I think I should reiterate for the non-British readers what usually happens next, at least in a British barbecue. The firelighters burn and the charcoal doesn't. You add more firelighters to the charcoal and the same thing occurs. You add the remainder of the box of firelighters (often including the box itself) to the tray and try to balance the charcoal in piles on top to desperately get a fire going. This succeeds in creating small isolated fires with cold patches between them. Raking the coals to get them to burn more evenly then puts most of them out. At least until you put the burgers or sausages on, at which point the fat drips onto the smouldering charcoal and cause huge gouts of flame to remove your eyebrows accompanied by plumes of smoke that thankfully mean no one can see how silly you look without eyebrows. Half-blind and asphixiating, you flip and prod the burgers around the grill until you get hungry enough that they start to look appetising, or the drinks you've been having have numbed your tastebuds. At this point the charred lumps of meat are traditionally hidden within a floury bun and drowned in various sauces to hide the fact that the outside is thoroughly carbonised, the inside is raw and the whole things tastes like a dead rat caught in a forest fire.

Sounds appealing, doesn't it?

This time though, something went wrong. Or more accurately, went right. The wee lumps of charcoal all caught, burned evenly and didn't blast flames and smoke. The meat cooked evenly, didn't burn and tasted absolutely fantastic.

I can only attribute this to some combination of the following factors. Firstly, the barbecue was a good design and the airvent in the base meant that the charcoal burnt well. Secondly, the meat we used was good quality and not the usual semi-frozen burgers that are 20% "beef" and 80% sawdust. And finally, Jo (an Australian) was present and the Gods of British summer cuisine wouldn't make their presence felt. Who knows.

So to draw a conclusion, the barbecue was a massive success, although Jo's attempt at a marshmallow kebab was considerably messier than we'd anticipated. It was going to be brought out (the barbecue, not the kebab) for Lindsey and Max's visit, but the weather in Wellington finally caught on and it decided to pour solidly instead. But more of that on the Pinnacles page.

Oh.. and if you're interested the barbecue was from the BBQ Factory on Jackson St in Lower Hutt. Highly recommended.