Bastille Day & Dasiwa

Today was wonderful! It's Bastille Day, so the Eastern State Penitentiary had a revolution-themed performance. I suppose the actors were running late, so they had the guillotining occur first (before the storming of the Bastille). This included the beheading of 5 watermelons. I wanted a chunk, but I was too far in the crowd to get one. The crowd's enthusiasm died down after about the 3rd melon, though.

After a bit of improv by the crew, Edith Piaf (acted by a male, part of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret) finally appeared in heels, a dress, and drawn on eyebrows! The songs were mashed up pop/rock songs, with a melange of French (spoken well!) and English, dipped with political humour. They even mentioned "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", which is a term from The Simpsons! I wonder how many others knew the reference. The show was fantastic, with a climax focusing on the lack of bread (preceded by an original song about bread, with a giant baguette who got shot), culminating in the release of over a thousand TastyKakes (Butterscotch Krimpets) from the roof of the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Unfortunately, SP and I were standing too far away to catch any. Later on, someone threw a Krimpet and it hit me with full force on my nose. For a lump of oils and sugars, that surprisingly hurt! I'm also surprised that they expire within a month.

Edith ended the show with "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien", a song I immediately associate with Edith Piaf. As people were leaving, I looked for more Tastykakes, but there were none! However, I saw a bunch of little kids with piles of them, and it probably gives them more happiness than it gives me (my time for collecting mounds of prepackaged cake treats have ended, I suppose). Besides, SP and I were going to eat a splendid sushi dinner at Dasiwa (honestly, IGNORE the reviews from before 2012...they are seriously out of date)!

Dasiwa was neat! It is half cafe, half sushi place. As I'm not really a fan of cafes, I anticipate just coming here for sushi in the future.

In aspects that seem to be big deals for others, but aren't important for me:

1. Appropriately decorated: Beautiful art on the walls, cute bathroom walls and ceilings (fish paintings), and stylish plates.

2. Great service: The waitress was really helpful and showed us what yellowtail and flounder look like. One of the other guys also had a sense of humour. First, as I was about to take a picture of the food, he joked "$5 extra for a picture!", and as we were finishing up, he told us (quoting SP because I was too busy staring at SP's beautiful face) "I've never seen a young couple with such an eye for delicacies! You know how to eat!".

3. Plating: Nicely done. I got a hibiscus flower that smells like ham.

So now, the stuff that does matter for me: foooooooooooooooood taste! So, I guess I do eat fish and possibly other animals now. We first got the salmon maki (roll), the tuna roll, and the octopus sashimi. We were pleasantly surprised to find that there was avocado and cucumber in the rolls too!   The sushi was delicious, but I'm not a sushi connoisseur, so I generally appreciate anything rolled up in vinegar sushi rice and nori. SP, however, has more sushi experience than me, and he thought that it was "great!". 

We got 4 pieces of octopus sashimi, even though the menu said that we'd get 3 - perhaps they just sliced the same weight of octopus more thinly so that we'd have an even number of slices to share. One of the pieces looked super squiggly! Octopus is really chewy and a bit tough. I think I prefer squid over it.

Then, we got the yellowtail roll and some squid nigiri. Yellowtail flesh is differently coloured, so our sushi was quite pretty (although this time, there wasn't any avocado). The squid looked like a slice of onion, but it tasted way better! I am quite pleased with myself, because I managed to nibble on more wasabi (or dyed horseradish; I'm not really sure) than I've ever had my whole life (minus the wasabi peas). I'm actually starting to like it!

Before we left, the chef gave us each a spoonful of scallop with melted butter, roe, scallions, and ponzu sauce (with citrus). I didn't catch everything the waitress said, but it looked fancy. I envision myself eating this kind of thing when I'm a millionaire a few decades from now. Or not; I'll probably still be munching on comforting peanut butter sandwiches while working 12-hour days at the lab. It tasted a bit foreign to me: buttery, sour/vinegary, fatty/oily, and orangy. Interesting mix of flavors and tastes.

As we walked back home, we swung by Wholefoods. I was disappointed that the almond flour was $13.99/lb, but we were both satisfied with dessert - some tea cookies from the choose-it-yourself place. I tried the lemon and rosemary biscuit, which was interesting, and the vegan gingerbread with raspberry filling, which was extremely moist and delicious. SP got a cream filled double chocolate chip cookie sandwich (good), a cookie sandwich with ganache (good), and a swirly hard cookie with a dot of jam (dry and bland).

Hwang Bu Ja Soondubo Specialty (Korean/Japanese Restaurant)

Last month, my family went to lunch with HM's family. It was the day before I left to come back to Penn, and I completely forgot to document the experience! It was the second or third time I've been to a sit-down Korean restaurant (the first one or two being Korean BBQ when I was...10?), and this one was called "Hwang Bu Ja Soondubo Specialty". It was quite empty during lunch; only two or three other tables were occupied (yet it was Saturday around 1pm). Nevertheless, the owner of the restaurant was friendly, helpful with menu selections, and gave us 4 raw eggs even though there were 9 of us.

The above food items were absolutely delicious, especially the pickled cucumber. I could eat a whole jar of that stuff.

I ordered the Tofu Pot Stew with Sprout Rice in Stoneware. It was a huge bowl of chewy short-grain rice, raw sprouts, tofu, and cucumber. I cracked an egg into it but the egg wouldn't cook! So, I had to press the egg against the edge of the bowl, and it was quite delicious. The spicy sauce was also really good. There was way too much of it so I ended up not finishing it, but that may be because I also ate some of the grilled pancake and I also tried the dish my mum got ("Mixed uncurdled bean curd") and the one my brother got ("Octopus, udon noodle, vegetables and spicy sauce"). I LOVE UDON!

I kind of wish they had a non-animal version of this delectable looking protein item, so that I could try it.

My sister's meal, I think. She took this picture.

The tofu that my mum got. It tasted a bit fermented. Overall, I enjoy Korean food, but I don't think that I am a huge fan.

Ramune

A drink I've since associated with PL because she brought it to middle school one day, Ramune never ceases to amaze me. I've never personally bought it, though, because it's just a carbonated drink with a cool marble in the bottle...I had no emotional attachment to it. Now, however, I'll probably always think of the time SP bought two glass bottles of Ramune (he got Lychee flavour, I got Green Apple) from a small Chinese snack shop in Chinatown, from a fridge with the door handle on the left side, and then of us walking to the Liberty Bell, finding no line, passing by Security, SP tying his shoelace, and then opening Ramune on a bench on 5th and Market St, in the cold, and laughing as his bottle of Ramune overflowed.

Then SP recycled his empty glass bottle at the Visitor Center, but I kept mine. He carried it in my drawstring bag and when we walked to Penn's Landing, and then to dinner, and then back to Penn's campus, the marble would clang against the bottle.

 SP demonstrating the proper technique in pushing the marble down. Both the flavours were typical and pleasant, and the internet says that Octopus and Wasabi flavours also exist, so I'd like to try those one day too. I mean, fizzy wasabi?! Amazing!

  Empty bottle, skewing up my Avenged Sevenfold poster.

Note the marble. If this fun bottle is a motive for kids to buy carbonated sugar water, why not put milk into these bottles? Or, for more shelf-stability, juice? Carrot juice? ...I should start a business.

Tokyo Hibachi Asian Cuisine & Sushi!!

Today was spiffin'! I hung out with friends and I didn't stress out about anything (I will, later, though, while I lie in bed worrying about the past/future). We went to Secaucus and had sushi!!!

It was scrumptiously delicious and there was a lot of avocado sushi!! My favourite! I picked off the crab/shrimp from the sushi. I guess my brother would've been psyched to eat salmon sushi. I would be too if I still ate salmon (I'm still questioning why I don't, actually). So the Philadelphia roll (north east of image below) has cream cheese... I think, except that it was more savoury.

Also, I ate the fish egg sushi. As a not-really-strict-anymore vegetarian, where do I draw the line? I eat chicken eggs. Is it incorrect for me to eat fish eggs, then? Hm. As a joke, "genocide" was mentioned. Hehehe.

The online reviews seem to be more negative than positive. Obviously, people have too high standards (or, I just have too low standards?), because Tokyo Sushi people aren't rude, there is a huge (yes. huge.) selection of sushi, raw sea critters, dumplings, dim sum, and even mozzarella and tomatoes, and the environment was nice (bamboo frosting on the windows, live fish in the indoor waterfall/pool). Dude... if a vegetarian can find a niche here, why can't other food snobs? (Was that question out of line? Eh, doesn't matter.)

And all that lunch for the price of one meal at a college dining hall ($10, plus tax/tip=$13).
... and another thing: it was bright. I could actually see the people at the other tables. I wasn't in a dimly-lit room. THERE WERE SKYLIGHTS. Definitely a plus for photo taking and for admiring food.
Super-gelatine-ful mango pudding and orange cake and peanut mochi! They had tinned longans.

So, this is maybe my second favourite restaurant (owing to both the restaurant and to the experience I had today with friends), after Govinda's.

Tokyo Hibachi Asian Cuisine & Sushi Buffet

700 Plaza Dr. Secaucus NJ 07094

Dorayaki

The last time I had dorayaki was some point 4 or 5 years ago, from Maxim's Bakery in Hong Kong. It was something like $4.50 or $5.50 HKD for a big red bean or peanut butter filled dorayaki. So, you can imagine my excitement before trying these mini chocolate dorayaki! For those who don't know, dorayaki is a Japanese pancake thing; there are two cakey, moist pancakes, with red bean paste (or something else) sandwiched in the middle. Doraemon loves dorayaki. I don' really have an emotional attachment to them, though.

The name of the brand is "very cute", which is kinda ... well, cutesy.

Unfortunately, this dorayaki was too crumbly and dry. The filling tasted nothing like chocolate; instead, it tasted of red bean paste (which is still good, though).

Chinese Version of Mochi!

When my grandpa came to visit us, he brought over a few kilos of food [he's still here; he's going back in September], and among them was this sesame mochi. Mochi is this Japanese candy, made out of rice flour. Inside the rice flour is a flavoured filling, such as sesame paste, red bean paste, green tea flavoured cream, or chocolate [in the U.S.]. The one my grandpa brought isn't exactly Japanese mochi; the rice flour exterior was kinda lumpy and dry and of course, it was manufactured in China. The sesame had a very peculiar taste. There was a modicum of sourness. This was rather disturbing, because sour sesame filling can only mean one thing. There was a random ingredient!!! Oh no! Though, if China had a non-corrupt FDA, I wouldn't be blogging about this mochi right now. Then again, I'd rather be healthy than have sour-sesame-inflicted-cancer. However, I'm not a hypochondriac...so I digress. Anyway. One funny thing is that the wrapper said "injoy". It's pretty funny, as I have two friends named "Joy", and I suppose the mochi would be in them, if they consume it...
I love looking at Chinese translations into English, because they are truly. Fail. I'm probably going to blog about that, one day, too. All I needa do is go to the Asian food store at some point in the near future...
I didn't know my camera was capable of going into such detail. I suppose natural light is way better than flash. Anyway, you guys can see the calluses on my hand from doing push ups on the track. :) I've just realised how much I love sports... even though I've never really looked at myself as "athletic". I mean, I love XC, track, badminton, archery, table tennis, parkouring, climbing trees, pole vaulting [which I tried yesterday and today, probably for the first and last times ever]...
I just realised that none of that stuff is "big" in the U.S. The U.S. likes American football and baseball. Oh, and swimming, because of Phelps.