#my chirashi finally arrived

[dxkk1104]

Sakura was setting out the plates, Naruto helped her with the cutlery, and Sasuke slowly was taking the glasses off the shelf. Kakashi hasn't arrived yet.

The food was waiting in the kitchen until they finally got everything ready and could start serving it. Bowls with all sorts of salads, onigiri, chirashi and other dishes were in abundance.

"Sakura-chan, did you make ramen?" Naruto grinned, revealing white teeth.

"Just as you asked."

"You're wonderful!" he put his arms around Sakura's neck, squeezing a little too tightly.

She shook her head at Naruto's oh-so-familiar behavior, returning to setting the table. Ever since Sasuke returned from his journey of redemption three months ago, they had been taking turns coming to each other's house every two weeks and arranging dinners. They wanted to make up for the past two years.

"And anyway, how did you manage to cook so many dishes, Sakura-chan?" Naruto flinched when Sasuke set the glass down too hard on the countertop "I have trouble cooking one thing myself," he laughed.

"You know Naruto, cooking is not hard for everyone." Sakura felt them both send her meaningful glances, "Okay, I may not be the best cook, but I can do something! Especially since I have a little help."

Naruto opened his mouth, pulling down the eyebrows and measuring accusingly at his friend.

"Teme, you didn't want to help me!"

"It’s difficult to help a person who has no skills like you, Dobe." Sasuke stated in his usual tone.

Naruto snarled as he ran out of words for his friend and turned to Sakura.

"And you Sakura-chan know very well that we were supposed to cook only by ourselves. Those were the rules we set."

"I know, I know, I just wanted to spend some time with my Sasuke…"

Silence.

What. She. Said.

Sakura tried to hide her face in the collar to hide her red cheeks when Naruto burst out laughing loudly until he squirmed while grabbing his stomach.

Sasuke was not hers, he had recently returned, she could not rush anything.

Embarrassed, she went to the kitchen to start taking the first dishes, though she would have been happiest to hole up in her room and never leave it again.

To her misfortune, Sasuke approached her and Sakura already thought she would notice a grimace of displeasure on his face.

He, however, said something completely different from what she had imagined.

"I don't mind." he took the salad bowl, "I even like it."

[40sandfabulousaf]

大家好! The Chinese New Year office break has ended and we returned to work this week. Yuan xiao, the final day of the festival, falls on Sunday and we'll feast to mark the end of celebrations. Meanwhile, here's JL Jupiter with his own feast - crispy chicken egg rolls, creamy wat dan fan (scrambled egg rice) with chicken wings as well as ngow yoke hor (beef hor fun) that make my mouth water. The wat dan fan looks legit and something I would readily eat!

Chinese New Year feels extra special this year. It's the first time we're celebrating like we used to, pre-covid. There were plenty of smiles and cheerful greetings during the rounds of visiting as families gather, munch on festive treats such as pineapple tarts, coconutty kueh bunkit and buttery kueh lapis, as well as feast on delicacies. Bao yu (abalone), fa cai (a type of edible moss which is delicious), fish and prawns are some of the most popular ingredients used in dishes during this period due to their symbolism. Put simply, a lot of it has to do with welcoming a year of prosperity and abundance.

Salmon and ikura sushi, takoyaki and hash brown fries

Even as we eat and make merry, many of us are mindful of doing our part to reduce national and global food waste. If we over-buy and drive up food prices, this will just make it unaffordable for someone else to have basic nutritious meals. So family, several friends and I are celebrating this occasion responsibly. I'm almost sad that the festival is ending but there's always next year to look forward to. Beginning next week, we get on with normal life.

Salad and chirashi followed by fish maw and chicken soup because why not.

What does normal life look like in 2023? Well, for 1, Pa and I firmed up plans to expand our current carpooling arrangement. As it is, I take his car to work when he visits 1 of his favourite breakfast haunts. After work, I travel to my parents' to help prepare Pa's dinner by private hire car transport or taxi. Moving forward, I'll take the MRT after work and Pa picks me up at the train station.

I'm more confident about travelling via public transport and relying less on car use now than when I first began supporting our government's push towards greener living. This afternoon, I caught up with L over jiao zi in Chinatown and arrived at the meeting place by hopping on the bus and taking the MRT. I walk a lot more than I normally do because transferring trains might involve quite a long walk depending on the train station. Sometimes my feet feel so tired after a full day, like they used to during schooldays when buses and the MRT were my main mode of transport. The journeys don't take that long and are, in fact, quite enjoyable.

I'll share about my catch up with L in the next post. Chinese New Year has been amazing after the last 2 years of subdued activities. I had fun and a nice break. May 2023 be a smoother year for us. 恭喜发财!

[enzanity]

Berserk: The Golden Age Arc III - The Advent (2013)

[nosleeptilportland]

SO IT BEGINS (or, day one in earnest)

6AM: Up surprisingly quickly. Jetlag isn’t really hitting me and the lack of sleep on the flight is actually paying off.  I’ve heard horror stories of the lines at this place: 

and I was keen to avoid them.  In readiness for this (brief) journey I had downloaded the local public transport (TriMet) app (HopCard).  Given this is new tech, in a new city, to be used in a time-critical task, one might think I would have tested this before sunrise.  Indeed. Instead (likely because the NFC on my stone tablet of a phone wasn’t compatible) I had the pleasant experience of banging my phone against the reader like an idiot, holding up a line of people and an already late bus.  From this we get the first lesson in social engineering of the day; if you make someone’s life difficult they give you free stuff, in this case a 2.5 hour pass just so I’d get on the bus.  Yay me. I arrived at the DMV just after 7, and with an empty belly and an hour to kill I turned 180 degrees and selected:

as my restaurant of choice.  

Breakfast:

Question for anyone who knows: what do you call the thing on the left? Its not a pinwheel, or a scroll in Portland.  Eventually I just pointed at it and nodded.  Spinach and pine nut, because it made me think of Cat. 20 minutes go by (so, 7:20) and there’s 5 people in line.  

Did I mention the DMV opens at 8?  Its also mid-40s outside... oh well, this is what we’re here for.  I slot in at #5.  By the time the doors open, there’s 30 people in line. I won’t regale you with tales of the DMV, but 1,2, skip a few and we end up here:

yay me.  Its worth acknowledging the staff at this DMV; they were all incredibly friendly and helpful, to the point of refunding me when they realised I’d originally taken the more expensive and less optimal approach of applying for an ID Card instead of just taking the permit.  I don’t know if they do Yelp reviews of public services, but “would recommend to a friend”. Now that we can drive, lets not!

Back to the apartment for a wardrobe change, a full intro of the facilities at Yard (my first night in was a few minutes before offices closed, more of a handshakes and keys (and a lot of forms) sort of affair).  A quick bit of due diligence:

and we’re off to become a proper voter.  I picked up my skateboard at this point, which was definitely the right decision. Like most cities Portland shrinks when you have wheels, and the sidewalks are in the majority unbroken enough to make travel pretty efficient. Time for more forms!

(not pictured, actual voter registration)

It is at this point that I question the arrangement of the days tasks, having somehow planned them to incorporate the maximum number of river crossings possible.  Oh well, since we have to do it, why not skate it!

Its a lovely view, but what isn’t obvious is the FOUR times I have to take sets of concrete stairs, under the highway, out of view of anyone save the homeless and some people clearly not in full control of their faculties.  It was all fine, but I’d question whether its wise to do it after dark.

Here we learn another fun fact:if a city is built on a river, then everywhere in that city is UPHILL from the river... lesson learnt.  Bus away from the river, skate back to the river.  Destination!

Acquisition!

Food!

Honestly I chose this place because it was mostly empty and the music was quiet, and I had to make some calls to book my driving test (which I did).  It turned out quite refreshing and not too heavy, I could see it becoming a regular lunch destination if I work in the CBD. Menu (one side at least. I had the Smoky bowl):

One last big task for the day; herd immunity (for me).  February is late in the flu season and as such it was quite a task to find somewhere that had stocks remaining.  Time to make some calls.  Time for MASSAGE CHAIRS at the Lloyd Center.  Sadly no actual mall time, but rewards are earnt.  Half a dozen calls later and I discover a Rite-Aid out towards Milwaukie with a few needles left for the under 65 set.  The route takes me on my first proper light rail trip in Portland to what I think is Gresham?

short visit because we’re back on an extremely packed bus (4pm will do that) for a fairly long (20min isn’t long but its ages compared to the morning links) trip south.  

SUCCESS!  STABBED!

On the way home I skipped the final link in the public transport chain and did a bit more skating.  Nothing of note aside from the discovery of a savoury pie shop in Portland.  Challenge. Accepted.

Home, another wardrobe change (the rain started to fall post flu shot so I bundled up) and off for some local Japanese fare at Marukin Ramen.

SO GOOD.  Will try to make it back to have a go at the sushi. I saw chirashi on the menu...

Plans for tomorrow set, a car rented and a schedule laid out.  More on that when it actually happens....

[getoutofthisplace]

Dear Gus,

Today is my 37th birthday. What follows is the detailed account I posted to Facebook of how I spent the day, but I left out the part where after my meeting and before we started filming, I ducked into the conference room to see the Fayetteville engineers being introduced to the tinker kit the North Little Rock engineers opened up yesterday.

I wake up at the Courtyard Marriott in Fayetteville. It is dark. I reach for the bedside table and feel around for my phone, which lights up. My background image pictures Gus sitting in Liz’s lap. He looks older in the photo than he is in real life. Liz looks as beautiful as she is in real life. It’s 4:45am on the dot because that’s when Gus has been waking me up lately. It takes me a while to go back to sleep, but I think I finally crash at 5:30, and wake up to my alarm at 6:45. While I shower, I listen to The Cure Radio on my phone, which stops suddenly. I peek through the clear shower curtain to see that Liz is calling me. The music comes back when she hangs up. I dry off and call her back.

“Happy birthday!” she says. And then we talk about the sleep we got and didn’t get the night before. We talk about what Gus ate in the previous 24 hours. And while we talk I stare at myself in the mirror, trying to identify the differences in my body at 37 years old versus when I was in my 20s. I don’t remember my body from my 20s anymore. I try to convince myself I look exactly the same.

“Have a good day,” Liz says, “I love you.”

I get dressed and make my way downstairs to cash in my breakfast voucher for toast, bacon, fruit, and two eggs.

“How would you like your eggs cooked?” the woman behind the counter asks.

“Over-medium.” I used to ask for my eggs to be cooked over-easy, but it occurred to me last year that I have probably been ordering them that way out of habit for decades. I actually like my eggs cooked over-medium. The fascinating thing about this change in my egg order is that it hasn’t affected any change in the way my eggs are actually cooked. It turns out, most people in the kitchen don’t know how to make eggs over-medium. All of those egg orders never actually mattered, it seems. I was always going to get the same eggs, no matter the order.

I sit with Bryan Stafford and eat my breakfast while he drinks his coffee and we discuss an email we earlier that will likely mean we will soon head to Dallas to do what it is that we do. We work for a 100-year-old engineering firm that—among other things—pays us to make short videos. I write them, Bryan films them, and we direct them together. We’re a good team.

We drive over to the office and I make my rounds to say hello to the people I know and like in our Fayetteville office while Bryan unloads gear. I find an empty office and respond to emails. I run a quarterly conference call between the company’s 26 offices. Sometimes I worry that people are saying “Guy’s call is terrible. I dread it every quarter.” But I feel like if people are saying that, there is someone else close that will say, “At least he keeps it short.” On the call yesterday, though, I got worried the call would unravel when a lot of people wanted to spend time ribbing the guy in our Huntsville, Alabama office about the Clemson game. I am kind of proud of myself for steering the ship beyond that quickly.

I have another call at 10:45 about Bryan and I having to go to Dallas. We solidify our plans. After the call, Bryan and I don’t say anything to each other, and it occurs to me that we are both texting our respective wives about our impending absence.

“Liz isn’t going to like this,” I say.

“Yeah, my wife and I are sending our youngest to college and it looks like she’s going to get a little me-time in her first week with an empty nest.”

But in the end, our wives are very tolerant of our work's demands. They know who they married and how we operate.

“This is a really nice chair,” I say to Bryan. “I wish my chair in North Little Rock was this comfortable.” And then we stand up. We have a busy day.

While Bryan starts setting up for our afternoon video shoot, I take the elevator down to my truck. I need to dress our CEO up like a 15-year-old for the video. The night before, I picked him up a flat-billed Fayettechill hat, but I need to find him some kind of bright-colored jacket to complete his ensemble.

“Do you have any more of these in the back?” I ask a purple-haired girl at Hot Topic at the mall. “I need a medium, if you have it.” The jacket in question is covered in loud colors and Japanese logographs and appears to reference Dragonball Z. But when the girl comes back, she tells me they don’t have any more.

I find a store called The Geek Realms that looks like it will be gone in three weeks. Nothing is organized. “Hello,” a voice says from an unidentified place. I look around but don’t see anyone, so I simply respond loudly to a neverending rack of stickers in the middle of the store—“Hello.” I gravitate toward a clothing rack of hoodies. I find one that is an outer space print that says “I’m a dreamer” across the chest. I can’t decide if that one is better than the one that has a giant white lion’s face across the front. I buy them both.

I have 45 minutes to grab lunch before I’m due back to the office for another meeting. I want sushi. I go to Kobe, a Japanese place across the street from my hotel and bypass the line at the host stand to sit at the bar. I order the chirashi bowl and a water, and I try to order food to-go for Bryan and Laura, but the server says I can order it when I’m halfway finished with my meal. I am in a hurry and want to order it immediately so I don’t have to wait later, but I don’t insist. I don't want to be an asshole. I trust the server knows what she’s doing.

The chirashi is really good. I order Bryan the teriyaki chicken and Laura a chicken avocado salad. I pay my tab and finish my meal. The to-go orders aren’t ready yet. I have to wait. I am going to be late to my meeting with the three most powerful leaders at my place of employment. The server tells me the kitchen got slammed and so things are taking longer than normal. I make a mental note to insist that I order when I want to the next time I’m in this situation. If this were a major restaurant chain, I would start preparing my email to them.

I beat two of the three executives to my meeting, even though I'm a few minutes late. The meeting goes well, but it runs long and I worry our video shoot is going to run long. I worry we won’t be able to finish tonight and I’ll have to spend another night in Fayetteville. But we eventually start filming and it is fun to see the script I wrote come to life.

Everyone has to fight the urge to laugh on camera because we are doing something fun and funny. Our CEO is wearing the white lion hoodie. These are the days when I love my job.

We wrap up around 4:30pm. I sit down to my laptop and respond to emails while Bryan starts packing up gear. Our CEO usually leaves the costume items I buy for him, but after he changes clothes this time, he doubles back to grab the hat, the outer space shirt, and the white lion hoodie. It makes me laugh to think that he liked those clothes, that he might one day wear them in the future. Also, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to keep that hoodie.

I say goodbye to Bryan, who will stay in Fayetteville another night to accompany his son to orientation at the university in the morning. I take the elevator down to my truck and head toward the interstate back to North Little Rock.

Liz calls. She has just picked up Gus from school. I can hear him in the background. She was worried I’d be late, but for the past month we’ve been sharing our locations with each other via our phones. She checked it and was relieved to see my little dot is on the road home. She asks if she should plan on me being home for dinner, but I tell her I’ll grab something on the way.

I end up at a place called Crosswoods just off the interstate in Clarksville. The restaurant’s website showcased bright photos and referenced the chef by name, but when I got there, it looked like a strip club from the outside. Inside, there are pool tables and two men at the bar, one of whom is wearing orange camouflage. I sit down at the bar beside the video crack machine and the puffy-faced 22-year-old dude behind the bar says, “Can I help you?” in a way that suggests he gained his hospitality industry training while pouring concrete for the new local motel.

Before I arrived, I planned to order a salad, but upon seeing the place, I feel like the "chef" is probably best suited to prepare meat and potatoes, so I order a steak with twice baked potatoes. For my second side, I ask the puffy-faced kid what he likes, to which he replies, “The green beans are pretty good,” so I go with that.

Duke and Wake Forest are on the television. The man in the camouflage hat asks me who my team is, and I tell him the Little Rock Trojans. The man said his dad had graduated from UALR, but he likes the Razorbacks. “Everybody does,” I say. The man lived in North Little Rock a long time ago, but then he moved to Pope County, and now he’s been in Johnson County for 22 or 23 years. He looks at the puffy-faced kid who is handing him another Busch can--unopened, strangely--and the man in camouflage says, “Long enough to want to leave, but too long to actually do it, you know. Nothing to do here.” I nod in some kind of false solidarity.

I pay my bill and walk out. No one says anything to me. I finish disc 10 of 13 of my audiobook of Watership Down just as I roll into the Shell station in Park Hill, a couple of miles from my house. It is just after 8pm and I can barely keep my eyes open. I go to bed before 9pm these days.

When I pull into the driveway, I turn the truck off and sit in silence for a few seconds. I am tired. I walk in the front door, my dog Suki meets me immediately and gyrates with excitement. The house is quiet, Liz has already put Gus to bed. She’s on the couch studying. I let Suki out the back door and kiss Liz. “Happy birthday,” she tells me again. I unpack my bag and brush my teeth.

“Are you going to bed?” Liz asks.

“I think so,” I say. And I walk to our bedroom, lie down in bed, make a couple of moves in the Open Face Chinese Poker game I play for a quarter a point against my cousin John and my friend Barrett, and I fall asleep quickly. This is who I am at 37 years old.

Dad

Fayetteville, Arkansas. 1.8.2019 - 1.46pm.

[thehungrykat1]

Nanka Japanese Steakhouse Features Wagyu-Angus Crossbred Steaks

I have always been a certified steak lover. Invite me to a steak dinner and I will wholeheartedly say yes. There are many elegant steakhouses in Makati, Bonifacio Global City, and Ortigas, but I don’t seem to know any new ones in the Quezon City area where I live. Thankfully, I just discovered a relatively new restaurant in the city that prides itself in offering Wagyu-Angus crossbred steaks that gives diners the best of both worlds. Welcome to Nanka Japanese Steakhouse!

Nanka Japanese Steakhouse is located in a quiet residential neighborhood at the corner of Mother Ignacia Street and Roces Avenue in Quezon City. This is where Moomba Bar used to be and I fondly remember that my first time to eat an ostrich dish was at that restaurant. This time, I’m coming here for none other than their premium imported steaks served in a very homey and inviting setting.

Nanka is open daily from 11:00am to 11:00pm and its spacious gallery can serve as many as 120 guests. My friends and I were invited to Nanka Japanese Steakhouse to be one of the first to try their newly revamped menu. The restaurant previously served Japanese Latin cuisine but now they have changed their focus to be one of the best new steakhouses in this area. I believe they are on the right track.

The relaxed and homey vibe is what makes the place very appealing, especially to those working or living in the Quezon City area. At night, Nanka also adds a little more spice and entertains guests with wonderful music and live acoustic performances featuring the city’s top bands. 

At the helm of Nanka Japanese Steakhouse is Executive Chef Mike Santos, who used to work under multi-awarded Chef Cyrille Soenen at Brasserie Cicou in Greenhills. Chef Mike makes it a point to emphasize the clean authentic flavors of the steak and his other Japanese dishes, not putting too much other ingredients into the mix. 

But before we went to our main event, Chef Mike had us sample some of the other interesting items on their menu. These Shimeji Fries (P215) serve as great nibblers on the table. Shimeji mushrooms are coated with batter and deep fried to create these crispy strips. They are so good that I found myself just getting bite after bite.

Another recommended starter is the Oyster Hollandaise (P365) with its succulent oysters baked with a creamy hollandaise sauce. You can also choose the Fried Oysters (P375) if you prefer to have your oysters crunchier.

The Grilled Ahi Tuna (P355) is a healthier starter with its grilled outer layer and raw sashimi-like center. Better yet, order the Tuna and Salmon Chirashi (P299) if you want your salmon and tuna sashimi slices served on a bed of Japanese rice. Nanka has their seafood flown straight from Japan twice a week so you are sure to get the freshest items every day.

I also recommend getting the Togarashi Shrimp (P495) with its plump shrimp cooked in Japanese togarashi spices.

For pasta lovers, the Prawn Garlic Noodles (P375) is great way to satisfy those cravings. This classic pasta is made even better as it is topped with huge pieces of juicy prawns cooked with garlic.

Things are looking really good as Chef Mike brought out their Garlic Crabs (market price - around P1350). These babies go so well with rice so ask for a cup or two so you can enjoy the garlicky flavors.

And now the star of the show has finally arrived! Presenting the superstar lineup of premium steaks at Nanka Japanese Restaurant! The Black Onyx is a highly marbled, 100% pure Angus beef that really packs the flavors. 

But the specialty at Nanka is their crossbred Wagyu-Angus steaks. WX by Rangers Valley is a Wagyu cattle cross bred with the very best genetics to create something rare and exclusive. You get the best of both worlds with these steak combinations.

The WX Striploin 400g (P600 per 100g) has that unique marbling that you get from Wagyu, but at the same time, it packs that meaty punch that you get from Angus beef. It’s a great balance between the two best steak breeds in the world so it is really such a magnificent experience. Chimichurri and Japanese steak sauce are also served together with the steaks.

If you want even more exquisite flavors, go for the WX Ribeye 400g (P650 per 100g) which has layers of juicy fat to go along with the meaty steak. This was my favorite steak that afternoon because it was simply bursting with beefy goodness that you can only taste from premium imported steak.

For big groups or very hungry guests, the best way to satisfy your steak cravings would be the Black Onyx Tomahawk (P495 per 100g). This monster can go up to 1 kilo and will definitely be the centerpiece of any family gathering. 

You can pair your steaks with a couple of sides like the Sautéed Wild Mushrooms (P365), Mashed Potato (P185), Roasted Assorted Vegetables (P315), or the Nanka Fries (P265). Whatever you choose, I’m sure everyone will be going home happy and full after this round.

For desserts, the Japanese Green Tea Mousse (P215) and the Chocolate Ganache Mountee (P245) are two colorful options to end your Japanese steakhouse experience on a high note. Nanka Japanese Restaurant is a delicious new option for steak lovers like me who aspire for something more than just the usual steak experience. There’s no need to go all the way to BGC for an exquisite steak lunch or dinner because Nanka Japanese Restaurant is now here in Quezon City.

Nanka Japanese Steakhouse

1810 Mother Ignacia Ave. corner Roces Ave., Quezon City

(0977) 621-8472 / (02) 8517-9677 / (02) 8921-6772

www.facebook.com/NankaPH