Everything you ever needed to know about herpes
Weekly Digest 05
Words: Ben Smoke
Welcome to this week’s Ralph World digest!
Today you’re getting:
Herpes with Ria Lina
Rosie Jones on the kiss that changed everything
A lover’s guide to London
Japan’s queen of hip-hop
Max Halley’s Mexico adventure continues!
Before all that, I’m sure you all saw this week’s incredible Super Bowl half-time show by Bad Bunny! (Apparently some sport also happened, but that didn’t seem like my business). American football is many things, but lacking in ads is not one of them. This is even more true at the Super Bowl. To try spice things up, we made this fun thing for your phone to tell you the actual truth of what these ads are saying (can also uses it to roast your friends videos, lives etc.) Just go here, hold your phone up to the screen and watch it go.
Ria Lina loves herpes
This week, I was joined by comedian, actress and real life PhD-haver Ria Lina, to discuss dreams, viruses, using Chat GPT as a therapist and more (plus a lovely little bonus rant about “Wuthering Heights”… quote marks and all!
Watch the full episode below and make sure to catch Ria’s ‘Riabellion’ Tour, ending March 19th!
Love Thy Neighbourhood
The podcast that starts on the street and ends in the pub
As we eagerly await series 4 of Love Thy Neighbourhood, the series we make with Time Out London, we’re looking back at some of our favourite trips. This week, ahead of Valentine’s Day this weekend, we draw a map of London for you lovers…
Rosie Jones’ favourite TV kiss
A little look back into the Head of TV archives this week as we revisit one of our favourite ever episodes with national treasure Rosie Jones’ dramatic reenactment of the kiss that changed everything for her!
Meet Japan’s Queen of hip-hop
Initially discovering her love for the genre at university, Riko Sakurai spent the late ’90s and ’00s tour managing American hip-hop artists, hosting and producing her own MTV Japan show where she interviewed the biggest names in rap, and took the likes of Wu-Tang Clan around Tokyo, introduced Jay-Z to fashion icon Nigo, was the first president of Def Jam Japan, and promoted the Japanese and global scene on her much loved J-WAVE radio show, Da Cypher... 📻
We featured the queen of Japanese hip-hop in the latest issue of Ralph. Read an abridged version in the Ralph Newsletter or read the full interview in Ralph issue 06.
Max Halley’s Mexico adventure (continued!)
Ralph’s Food and Drinks Editor Max Halley visits Cara de Vaca Temporal (Av. José Vasconcelos 1226, Monterrey)
Nestled among mountains and built down, in and around a series of valleys in their foothills, Monterrey is a spectacular city in (and the capital of) the province of Nuevo León in the north of Mexico. There is an atmosphere of excitement and cool about the place and loads of art (the contemporary art museum Marco, is the single coolest building I have ever been in). There is the vibe of, quite frankly, money about the place. Infrastructural investment appears to be going on at a level I have never seen anywhere else on earth and f*ck, can you get a good dinner.
Over the previous few days, my wife and daughter and I had been to some long-established restaurants famous for a variety of things (the city is known for its cooking of kid goat and grilled meats of all kinds) and while good/decent enough, they all felt a bit corporate and middle of the road. Then we went to Cara de Vaca.
Cara de Vaca means ‘cow’s face’ and when you read the menu the name is legit - it is littered with all manner of delicious bits and bobs from all manner of animals, not limited to the cow. The ‘Temporal’ refers to the fact that the OG restaurant burned down late one night (apparently, no one was hurt) and it is only temporarily in its current location.
With an eye for social media gold (LOOK at those octopus tacos) as much as a palate for deliciousness, chef Chuy Villareal is clearly an absolute badass, has a restaurant in Paris, and is something (I cannot tell exactly what) to do with Mexico City’s legendary Taqueria Orinoco (which started in Monterrey). The salsas served at the beginning of our meal included the single most delicious sauce I have ever eaten. Deep and rich and smoky, yet still super zingy and fresh, I thought it had coffee in it, but it didn’t and I’d have drunk litres of it if they’d let me.
Thankfully, we ordered a sausage which was served with loads of herbs and more of that wonderful sauce and also turned out to be the single spiciest sausage I have ever encountered. The pickled baby corns were out of this world, the aforementioned octopus tacos with aguachile sauce to dunk them in were extraordinary, the green rice with milk curds were outstanding and there were many other things the likes of which I have never had before. Yes, the beef ribs were a bit dry, but nothing was going to get in the way of me loving this restaurant like it was my own and if you are ever, ever, even loosely, in that neck of the woods, you MUST, MUST, MUST go and of course, if it’s on the menu, order that sausage.