Restaurant Review : Shoyu Sushi

While I was back home in California, I went to a new Japanese restaurant called Shoyu Sushi that was opening up around the corner from where I used to live. They hadn't had their Grand Opening yet, but I thought it'd be good to try out since it was close and has 5-star reviews on Yelp. 

Upon walking in, we were greeted with a loud "Irrashaimase!" (common greeting at Japanese shops and restaurants) and then seated. It was actually a bit dark inside, but relaxing. While we waited for the rest of our group to arrive, we ordered drinks. While we waited, the owner came by to talk with us. As it turned out, she was from Hawaii. When she found out my cousin was also from there, she gave us a round of grapefruit Soju on the house. It was good, though I didn't drink my whole cup since I'm not very big on alcohol. ^^;

Fast forward to the food...I ordered Katsu Dinner. I think everyone else ordered bento with different options. I don't remember what they all had, but everything was delicious. We were all pretty hungry, so we didn't really get pictures of our meals. Oops again! ^^;;

We had a really fun time there and plan to go back on the next CA trip. If you're in Central California or within a reasonable distance, check it out at 3605 Mt Vernon Ave, Bakersfield, CA 93306. 

Taste Test : Ramen bombs and Ramen PIzza

I’m sure some of you have seen the little recipe video floating around Facebook for Ramen Bombs by TabiEats, right? I decided to try them out since I was feeling a bit brave...and hungry.

Alright, I wasn’t that brave. I skipped out on the Takoyaki sauce, mayo and bonito flakes since I don’t like 2 of the 3 and didn’t really have a way to get the other. They looked really good and tasted better than I thought.

The only thing I suggest is to refrigerate the ramen balls for an hour or longer. Also don’t forget to add the seasoning packet! It really makes a difference in the taste.

After watching the recipe, YouTube autoplayed another recipe for Ramen Pizza, also by TabiEats. It looked good, so I tried it out about a week or two later. It’s pretty easy if you follow the directions. ^^;

I suggest seasoning the ramen a bit  for added flavor, though you don’t have to. Also make sure you’re not using frozen cheese like I did. It made my pizza a bit watery and makes it hard to eat. Aside from that, it was pretty good!

Want to try these yourself? Here’s the full recipes by Tabi Eats~ Follow and subscribe for more awesome recipes! I’ll be trying more in the future~ ^_^

Random Cool Otaku Things That Make Being an Otaku More Special

Hi everyone, here are a few cool Otaku things I found browsing the internet. I hope everyone has fun looking at all these new Japan Otaku culture memes that are just beginning to take the world by storm. Keep watching anime and keep reading manga, keep the Otaku dream alive no matter what! 

Otaku Forever!

Move Over Belgian Waffles, the Real Keyboard Waffles Is Here (forevergeek.com)

Anime Expo 2015 in Pictures – Shenron DBZ (forevergeek.com)

10 Useful Skills You Can Learn from Video Games (forevergeek.com)

Monopoly for Japanophiles: Monopoly Japanese Traditional Arts and Crafts Edition (forevergeek.com)

JNTO Embraces Otaku Tourism (forevergeek.com)

Anime Expo 2015 Super Mario and Super Luigi Girls!

Anime Expo 2015 Super Mario Star (Forevergeek.com)

Anime House Project vol. 1 (Forevergeek.com)

Microsoft Other OS-tans (Forevergeek.com)

Gifts for the Anime Fan (Forevergeek.com)

Combining Anime and Rap (Forevergeek.com)

Delicious Ca-ke pt. 2

This series is dedicated to "Delicious Ca-ke", because in Japan ca-ke is COOL! For females and males alike, the Japanese celebrate various offshoots of culture that are dedicated to the good life and a well mannered set of ways to have fun and be humane or human. One of these, is for their people as a ethnicity, to enjoy and place value on cake.

Though they would rather use the derivative loanword which sounds and is pronounced like. 

Ca-Ke!

R e d   V e l v e t   C a k e

R e d   V e l v e t   W a f f l e   vvv

T o d a y ' s   s p e c i a l   "C a-K e"

Red Velvet Cake! 

Delicious Ca-ke pt. 1

This series is dedicated to "Delicious Ca-ke", because in Japan much commerce and culture, especially for females and cultured male persons, cake is highly enjoyed and celebrated, much like tea but much less than tea. The Japanese celebrate various offshoots of culture that are dedicated to the good life and a well mannered set of ways to have fun and be humane or human. One of these, is for their people as a ethnicity, to enjoy and place value on cake.

Though they would rather use the derivative loanword which sounds and is pronounced like. Ca-Ke!

Today's special "Ca-Ke"

Two Layer Cherry Cake! 

Otaku Talk by RPGHero

Why do otaku love animals, cute characters, stylish clothing, sweet foods, and cool accessories?

Animals are naturally cute and cool. They have marble-like eyes that see very well and they're really comfortable and reliable as friends. If they let you lean on them or be their resting companion, you will gain a familiar for life. That, and their personality is always unique. Us otaku love and cherish our unique personalities as positive and creative forces in the Universe.

Why would a cute character be appealing to a grown man or... to the average otaku? Usually Otaku ARE NOT grown men. Most strong guys always say, "I wish I could be an otaku for life" if they were an actual otaku before they grew up... Cherish your days to watch anime, it's pretty cool in the anime world!

Who would say that they actually like anime?  POV --> Otaku.

???

Cute characters are the main characters, or they would be cuter still as villains. Villians make the cutest cute characters, right? :D

 Not chibi, because any character can be turned into a chibi with little or no effort from a skilled manga artist. Chibi means a very short pudgy rep of a usually different character in an anime. Villians are not chibi when you first meet them and that goes for any main character. 

That and girl anime characters are NOT chibi but can be drawn into a chibi mode! :O

And a cute character is a idealist model of the chibi style but usually as the star of the show and main character for*ever.

If you're not a cute character, you might be a minion, or even one of the Strawhat pirates but not Luffy. Sorry about the random One Piece reference, characteristic of RPGhero the blogger!

Style is key to shoujo life! Matching colors and being the best possible individual is the goal of life and anime, right? Some anime characters don't have fashion sense but they have a unique style, usually they're shounen chars. But shoujo anime have such style and fashion sense that no shounen anime could match...


Boys and girl's characters alike in shoujo are always dressed to impress, even in the most unusual of plot-lines.

Shounen is stylish too, the clothing is unique. And remember, the key here never leave home without a smile. Most shounen heroes smile no matter what is happening to them in the present moment. They know they're gonna win!

Maybe the Tensai Shoujo Girl and the Ultimate Shounen Hero have a chance to finally take over the real world.

Ever wanted to be an Anime chef??

Have you ever wanted to make food "as seen on anime"?

The meat bone is not edible! If you ever wanted to be like Monkey D. Luffy and eat meat right off the bone! However do not attempt to be like Luffy and eat the bone because he has been known to do that...

There's a lot more where that come from on this new website called AnimeShi that has all of the recipes!

But you might have to turn on Google Translate to read it because the whole site is only in Japanese for now!

Japan Block Fair

The Japan Block Fair in NYC was May 22nd 2011

This event was the same day as Japan day. It was located 40th avenue and Park avenue.

The Japan Block Fair had a great turnout of people. Many different types of people were there, all showing support to Japan and the businesses at the fair. Since the fair only used one block of space, all of those people were crammed onto one block of street. Moving around was not easy.

There were many food stands selling cuisines like ramen, udon, edamame balls, rice balls, etc. The food was really good but the prices were higher than we would expect for the small servings of food. But I bought and showed support and loved the food. ^^

There were many opportunities to donate to earthquake relief in Japan by buying buttons, souvenoirs, etc. They did not have much anime related goods which was a letdown. We got there after the performances too but we wouldn't want to be in a much larger crowd during the performance.

Overall, this is a great event. This year had an extra large turnout. Hopefully next year there will be more space or more blocks dedicated to Japan Block Fair NYC. We hope to see you there!

Nihon New York Episode 1

Japan is right here! Where I live in New York!!
If you live in New York or are vacationing in NY check out this video!

Now I really want to go to "Little Tokyo"!!!

Make sure to check out the other episodes of Nihon New York too!

Thanks Japan Society!

Fast Metabolism? Or Genki?

It's sort of like a trademark in some shounen anime where the main character has a superhuman appetite. They'll eat way more than the average person would eat in a week or a month. Why do you think a story writer would put that into their story and why would it catch on to other anime?

I don't know the exact reasons why the creators of those animes would put that element into their story but I can come up with an educated guess.

In Asian schools of thought such as Taoism food is regarded as a source of chi, it's not as vital as air however. Different food has different types of chi. For example meat is considered a yang food, so it would be consumed when one needs a fiery, male type of energy and  watermelon is a yang food so it would be consumed when one needs supple, female energy. Food even gives off different chi depending on how it tastes because taste is a indicator of the composition of the food. Bottom line, food gives us energy. Ok nobody would disagree with that.

Note that the food of choice is usually meat.

Why would someone consume large amounts of food. Well they say that the normal man in todays world does not need much food to survive since people are sedentary these days. Your average shounen hero is many things, but NOT sedentary. Luffy spars with whales, Goku beats up Frieza... Many similar things happen in Fairy Tail.



Bottom line is that the appetite matches the activity level.

Put the two together and now we understand that they eat tons of food because that food is converted to the extreme amounts of power they use to fight!

Keep in mind that this only works for the shounen hero who's genki and brimming with power. If you were to eat that much you'd become fat. Not to say you're not genki, you just need less food to tackle that homework and take out the trash. However, if you're on a sports team then that (small) binge after practice is just what the doctor ordered.

If you'd like to read about tao here's the books I used in my educated guesswork.
References:
Ekiken, Kaibara. "Yojokun: Life Lessons from a Samurai" (translated by William Scott Wilson), 2009.

Reid, Daniel P. "The Tao of Health, Sex, & Longevity", 1989.