Afghani Food and Sound Symposium Saturday

On Saturday we checked out the Afghan Restaurant downtown before going to a concert that was part of the St. John's International Sound Symposium!

Outside the Afghan Restaurant

Since we hadn't checked out a new restaurant recently, we decided to branch out and go to the Afghan Restaurant. Sweating from the heat outside, we walked into the small dining room of the restaurant and sat at the table closest to the window.  When we arrived, there were people occupying two of the other four tables in the restaurant, so we were anxious to read the menu and order some Afghani food.

We both started with the Vegetable Pakora as an appetizer - vegetables rolled together and fried in chickpea batter. There was also a sweet and spicy sauce on them which added a unique flavour.

Most of the main course options included some sort of kabab with different meats in them; Luke went for the Chicken Kabab and Elizabeth tried the Assorted Kabab (chicken, beef meatballs, and lamb). They came with Naan bread that was more pastry-like than the Naan we’re used to, but it was definitely tasty.

While we were eating, we noticed a description of the national sport of Afghanistan, Buzkashi, on the back of the menus. Buzkashi literally means "goat bashing" and it is thought to date back to the 13th century when it was created by Ghengis Khan and his Turkic-Mongol tribes. What we got from the explanation is that it’s basically like polo, in that participants are on horses, but they’re trying to drag a goat carcass towards a goal. There can be hundreds of riders in a single match. Historically, games have lasted several days but now there are regulated tournaments that have a limited time frame. The game was actually banned in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, but has since been reinstated.

Although the game seems cruel (to the goats), it is a tradition so it was interesting to learn a bit about the culture while eating Afghani food. It also provided some context to one of the paintings on the wall of men riding horseback.

After finishing our kababs, we opted out of dessert because we were so full. However Elizabeth did catch a glimpse of a tin of mango juice in the fridge of the restaurant as we were leaving, so we bought it for the road. Disclaimer: the photo below does not fully capture Elizabeth’s (over)excitement towards finding some mango juice. 

Then it was time for the Sound Symposium concert. The Sound Symposium takes places every 2 years and features innovation and creativity in music, visual, and performance art. They have concerts/workshops/installations/outdoor performances ongoing in St. John’s all week and the concert that we saw on Saturday evening was by Doug Blackley and Andrew Czink, showcasing the Spectral Piano. The Spectral Piano is a typical acoustic grand piano equipped with electromagnets that bow the strings through a MIDI keyboard. The electromagnets output a vibrating magnetic force that is, in turn, used to vibrate the strings of the piano. The interesting thing is that the electromagnets do not touch the strings and that the device does not alter the piano in any way.

The sounds that came out of the Spectral Piano were hard to describe - kind of electronic, kind of unnatural, and kind of natural. It made no sense and it seemed to put the entire audience into some sort of trance. The amazing thing was that there were no speakers, so it was all acoustic and all of the sounds were coming from the piano. After the concert, everyone was interested in taking a closer look.

It was a pretty relaxing Something Saturday, but we still managed to eat some new food and listen to some new music. Mission Accomplished.