love for Japanese

Recently, I just bought my third pair of Onitsuka Tiger sneakers. This time the Mexico 66 slip-on shoes.

I am a fan of this Japanese brand of shoes. It all started while watching Game of Death and learned that Bruce Lee was actually wearing a pair of Mexico 66. Bruce Lee himself was a fan of the shoes for its lightweight design. Since then I have always wanted to own my pair of Onitsuka Tiger.

 Was able to buy my first pair in Sydney, boy was I so excited when I saw that there are some outlet stores down under. The second pair was bought in Singapore by a friend. Have to ask a friend since there were no outlet shops that time in Cebu and the brand is kind of a rarity. Then my third pair in Cebu, finally they have an outlet store here in Cebu. This brand used to be so rare and hard to find that a friend of mine even has to buy online and have it couriered just to get his pair of yellow Mexico 66. Well at least I don't have to buy online and have it mailed to me, however, still need to wait for that Game of Death yellow Mexico 66 to be available here at the outlet store.

A few weeks ago, me and my girlfriend dined at this small sushi shop in Talamban. It is about a few meters away from the University of San Carlos.

I always love and enjoy eating Japanese food from tonkatsu, chicken teriyaki, sushi and sashimi, ramen and yakiniku to name a few. Ramen however has been claimed to be of Chinese origin, although there are also claims that it was invented in Japan. Maybe because ramen uses Chinese wheat noodles, that is why there are theories that it originated in China. It doesn't really matter, as for me ramen is Japanese cuisine. Yakiniku on the other hand is as popular in Korea as in Japan.

So we tried out this small Japanese restaurant, Sushi Boy. The place is small but cozy.
The place is decent and very clean. But the atmosphere of the restaurant does not feel Japanese.

They have a small parking space in front, and we were lucky to find a parking spot when we arrived.

The prices are affordable and not too expensive for a Japanese restaurant.

We ordered pork tonkatsu and gyoza and it was served within a few minutes. I was impressed as you do not have to wait that long for the food to be served. Almost feels like a fast-food restaurant.

Tonkatsu

Gyoza

The tonkatsu was just right. The meat is tender and properly seasoned. Tasted good with the soy sauce and the salad.

The gyoza however seems to feel a bit bland and different. I think their dumplings are prepared and then stored in the freezer. Whenever there are patrons ordering it, then that is the time they thaw and cook it. Or maybe the gyoza they are serving are just those ready to cook packs from the supermarkets. Ours seems that it was not properly thawed before cooking. The dumpling's wrapper felt a little bit thick, but otherwise is okay. Just to add, gyoza is of Chinese origin too.

Overall I was still satisfied with their food, and here's proof , =).

The place is clean and decent, the prices are affordable and actually cheap for a Japanese restaurant. Food is fairly good too. So if you are for a Japanese food, you may want to try this out. (There is though another popular and affordable Japanese restaurant in the city, Joed's Lutong Hapon, winks*.)

Mr. India

The other night, me and my girlfriend were hungry and we're not sure where to dine. We were looking for something that we have not yet tried together. So while driving to the place where we do not know yet exactly where, we tried considering a lot choices from Korean to Japanese food.

And bham!, an idea just popped and we decided to go for Indian cuisine. Since there is an Indian restaurant over at Banilad, we set out to head that way.

It is conveniently located outside of the mall, on the facade at the left side.The place is clean and decent. It is manned by one of the Indian owners. Their waitresses are dressed in an Indian fashion too. Then, there is a widescreen LCD monitor playing various Indian music videos. I can't understand a single music video that was shown. But still enjoyed watching it, considering the artists (women) on the videos are sexy and beautiful, wink*.

There are a lot of food choices to choose from. It actually took me a while before finally deciding on Chicken Tikka Masala. It is interesting to note that the origins of chicken tikka masala has not been confirmed to be from India. In fact, chicken tikka masala is kind of a national dish in the United Kingdom and is as popular as fish and chips. It has been claimed that this dish might have been invented in an Indian restaurant in the UK.

Well, be it be from India or from the United Kingdom, it is still an Indian dish for me, chicken tikka in an orange colored creamy yet spicy sauce. Chicken tikka literally means chicken chunks or pieces.

My girlfriend ordered a sampler of different Indian recipe (sort of a combo meal). Her order has rice, roti, beans and chicken with vegetables, and dessert. The beans and the chicken were actually delicious and we enjoyed it. The dessert was just polvorón (sort of, it was not a real polvoron).

Overall the food was good and satisfying. It is also not too pricey, however it is not cheap either. But generally affordable and worth the price.

I was so satisfied with the food that I plan of going back to this place and look forward to try out their other offerings, 'til next time then. Namaste...

60+ USE YOUR POWER

It is not yet too late. We can still make a change. The power to change is within us. 

Let us use our power to save mother Earth. Join Earth Hour's Back a project.

Support and join Earth Hour 2014 on March 29, 2014 Saturday from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Lights off everyone!

Lights off to save the planet

Less than five days to go and we will be celebrating the 2014 Earth Hour. Earth hour is a symbolic way of reminding everyone to do something to help save mother Earth. It is held annually towards the end of March since 2007. For this year it will be held on March 29 from 8:30pm to 9:30pm local time around the world.

While some would not care, and others would criticize its effectiveness to reduce carbon footprint during the hour, Earth Hour is symbolic and it does not necessarily aim to reduce carbon footprint and energy use on that hour. Although, there are significant reductions in energy usage during the Earth Hour event as reported by the various city participants.

This global event started in Sydney in 2007 as a lights-off event. Since then it has become a global event with more and more voluntary participants each year with the aim of raising awareness for climate change and other environmental issues.

Turning off lights is a symbolic event to promote and encourage people to turn off non essential lights and other appliances that are not in use. For example, television sets and home theater appliances on standby mode are still consuming energy even when not in use. These are considered "vampire loads" since they are still plugged to the outlets and electrical currents are still passing through the appliances. It may not be that much, but it is still consuming energy. Unplugging unused appliances will help to cut power use by a few watts.

Aside from energy use, Earth hour also raises awareness for other environmental issues. One of the local activities here in Cebu is the Earth hour night ride. It aims to promote the use of alternative transport, specifically bicycles. It is sponsored by a local outdoor equipment brand. You can also read on my brief article about alternative transport within this blog.

With all the natural calamities in 2013, one being super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) that hit the Philippines, it is only more fitting now that we change our ways and attitude and reduce our carbon footprint.

There are a lot of things that we can do to still help reverse the effects of climate change.

I. Reduce the use of electricity:
  1. Turn off non essential lights.
  2. Turn off lights and appliances not in use.
  3. Unplug appliances that are on standby and not in use.

II. Use of alternative transport:
  1. Walk instead of commuting.
  2. Use bicycle. (Bike to work)
  3. Use the stairs instead of the elevator.
  4. Commute in public transport.

III. Support and join in clean up activities and tree planting activities.

We should also turn off non essential lights and appliances not only during Earth hour but as a daily habit and way of life.

Let us all support and join Earth hour on March 29, 2014 Saturday from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm local time. It is time to take action, it is time to do something for mother Earth. Lights off everyone.

Sunday Noodles

Last Sunday, while nothing to do on a lazy afternoon I tried on cooking a popular Cebuano noodle recipe. It is called Bam-i and is a localized Chinese noodle dish. It has roots and influences from the Chinese being a noodle dish yet it is very distinctly a Cebuano cuisine. 

The ingredients include flour sticks or egg noodles and is commonly referred as Canton noodles (Pancit canton) and glass noodles or Chinese vermicelli (also referred as Cellophane noodles). Typically the ingredients for this recipe would include shrimps and squid, chicken breast, chorizo bilbao, pork, vegetables (which includes brocolli, cauliflower, cabbage and carrots) and spices (which includes red and green pepper, garlic, onions and mushroom). For the seasoning, you have soy sauce, cane vinegar, ground black pepper and salt.

Our version of bam-i is quite simple and easy to prepare. For this recipe, only pork is used and with just less vegetables. Cooking this recipe is very simple and easy.

Prepare the spices: onions, garlic and pepper.

Cut the meat into small pieces.

Shred the vegetables: carrots and cabbage.

 

Sauté the spices: garlic and onions.

Add pepper.

Then sauté all the spices together.

Add the meat.

Cook the meat together with the spices.

Add a little soy sauce and cook the meat until brown.

Add water.

Then add the vegetables and let it simmer for a while.

Add the canton noodles.

Cook the noodles for a while.

Add the glass noodles.

Mix the noodles and the ingredients and let it simmer.

Add some salt and black pepper.

And it is done.

Served it hot.

Recycled teleserye

There is a bill being filed at the House of representatives seeking for a ban of foreign television soap operas during prime time slots. The author claims that foreign produced soap operas are eating prime time schedules and is unfavorable for locally produced soaps. It claims further that this bill will push local creativity and empower local producers to create content and employ more local talents.

The thing is, locally produced shows lacks creativity that would satisfy the audience. This is one of the reasons why foreign produced series are gaining popularity and occupying the prime time slots. It is because they are more profitable. Local shows, not just soaps, but sitcoms, talk shows, variety shows and full length movies have not evolved at all. The plot is the same, the formula is the same and there isn't much creative juice. Other than changing the character names, the location and backdrop, everything is just the same with each show and movie.

Lets take for example local soaps or as it properly termed here, "teleseryes". Which of these shows that does not feature a lead character as being from a poverty stricken family? The poor lead falling in love with the rich lead character. Or if not, the two lead characters are somehow related, most of the time as sisters separated at birth. Only to cross each others path when they are adults, the other suffering from poverty and the other being famous and rich. Different shows will just add some minor tweaks like the other was never a real sister or that the rich one is the good guy while the poor one is the evil half and they will just reverse these roles, play around with it but never going out of this concept, the plot is the same.

Another thing so common and one that I find disgusting is the plot of kidnapping. Why do they always add this on their stories? To add spice? Maybe, but it is lame. Jealous characters exacting revenge and resorting to shooting the lead or the lead's mother or wife. Then the police arriving very late or if not late has no purpose at all in the scene other then being just there for the sake of it. If it doesn't add anything relevant to the story then why put them in the scene? To make it more realistic? It only makes the scene stupid and not to mention stereotyping the police force as being useless.

Then there's the characters as being super rich and famous, really unrealistically super rich. Why can't they keep their stories grounded to reality? Owning large corporations, Presidents of a conglomerate or super rich politicians. And the sons or daughters of these rich guys will fall in love with the sons or daughters of a street vendor or circus clowns. It may be a modern day storytelling of Romeo and Juliet but it is way overused and ineffectual.

Plus take into consideration that most of these shows are immoral. Promoting adultery and sexism. Shows that portray women as weak and more of sex slaves. Always oppressed and suffering. Most shows would feature adulterous relationships. Then there's the portrayal of traitors. Thugs who will demand ransom from their kidnapped rich lead characters. Thugs who are related or close friends of the lead characters. Or if not, the traitor would contract hired guns to do the dirty jobs. Always most of the time the series will go on a darker tone towards the end of the show's run. It always does. What started as something that is wholesome , romantic and heartwarming will always go down the path of the dark side.  

This is the reality of local soaps, recycled plots or stories just being retold differently. Very little creative juice if at all there is. No wonder foreign shows are dominating the boob tube. Is not fair to blame the foreign soaps for eating prime time slots and moving out the local show to a less favorable schedule. All the more it is not fair to blame the foreign shows for killing the creativity of local talents. It is the lack of creativity of the locally produced shows that pushed them away from prime time. It is the lack of creativity that made them less profitable and thus resulting to producers to giving up on making productions.

Even if there is a ban of foreign shows during prime time, who would watch local shows if it were lame and lacks content? If the show is immoral, like almost all are because this is the formula, then it makes it even worse since TV shows and the media are very influential. More influential to young audiences.

The solution here is not for a bill banning foreign shows on prime time, but on writers and producers to think more out of the box. Throw out the plot formulas and stop recycling them. Instead of blaming foreign shows, they can learn from them. Learn from them but not copy them. Because another problem with local shows, is copying plot lines from foreign series and localize the stories.

This bill being filed will just be a useless and pointless law. We do not need this. It is up to the local producers to come up with something new and creative. They have to take the risks and push the boundaries of story telling and not be confided within the same plot lines and formula.

There are already some shows that are not so stereotype and not falling prey to the same old plot of siding with the dark side as the series comes to a close. There is the soap of teen love story which is lighter in tone and filled with humor. I said not so stereotype because although the show is refreshing, it still used same old formulas of rich falling in love with the poor (the female lead being a housemaid and of the rich male lead's family), the plot of the male lead having amnesia and completely forgetting the female lead (something borrowed from another foreign show) and the complete turn around of the evil mother to someone totally new and defecting to the light side of the force on the show's last episode. Cheesy!

Again, a bill banning foreign shows on prime time is not the solution. The bill is in ineffective and will not do much to improve local shows. It lies with local producers to reclaim the prime schedules of daily programming.