Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Comic Revolutions, Sushi Pirates, and Delicious Films
… and of course, China Updates. I’m still working on my webpage, although I’ve slowed down a bit. Beijing 1-5, Xian 1-2, and Shanghai 1-2 are now done; all that’s left is Guilin and Hong Kong. Hong Kong shouldn’t take too long, with about 20-30 pictures… Guilin however has upwards of 200 pictures right now (after narrowing it down from 400), and it’s so pretty and awesome so it might take a bit longer to write about. Then again, the pictures can do most of the talking...
China Page Updated
Comic Revolutions
On Saturday, Jia, Ambrose, Duy, Bao, Hawk and I went to Hamilton, because this neighbourhood of game stores was having a sale. Three stores, within 300m walking distance, which specialize in videogames, tabletop games, anime, comics, card games, etc. were having a sale that day, June 23. So Hawk drove to Hamilton to visit these 3 places.
The most memorable place was the Comic store, called the Comic Connection. They were having a sidewalk sale outside, with cheap action figures and cheap comics. They had these boxes full of $1 comics; $1 for 1 comic, or $5 for 8 comics. So we spent some time looking through those and bought a few.
(Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but instead they are like, Martial Arts, Adolescent, Hamsters or something)
But in addition to these, there were these boxes, each with 100 random bargain comics, for $24.99 each. Bold? Perhaps. But Jia bought one.
Later while we were at Basilisque (a pizza/wings restaurant) we opened his box and… it was a boat! … no, not quite. But the box wasn’t half bad! It had its share of.. umm… questionable comics, but also had some good quality comics and famous heroes.
And at 25 cents a comic, it’s like a penny for a couple pages of entertainment, and that’s not bad. So… haha, Hawk and I went back to the store (while our pizzas were being made) and we each bought a box!
Over the past few days, I’ve been reading a few comics. Here are the ones I’ve read thus far:
Basilisque Pizza was okay – Hawk was raving about it, so I expected better but it wasn’t too special. Wings were okay, Midnight Sun wasn’t spicy anymore apparently, and pizza and dough and whatever were okay.
After trying Tandoori Chicken Pizza from Apna’s Pizza (which I liked), other pizzas… well, they’re okay, but I do like the uniqueness of Tandoori Chicken Pizza. I could go for a slice tonight…
In addition to buying 100 random comics, I got C&C 3: TIberium Wars for PC (actually that was at Game Now, in Mississauga, but it was still part of the day’s spoils), some random card games (not on sale), and…
Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 for Xbox. It’s been a long while since I’ve played either Pump it Up or DDR, but now it’s back, and my fitness regime can begin, haha. But seriously, it’ll be fun, and hopefully it would give me all the cardio I need. Also, it’s cool, DDRU3 comes with a 30-day free membership to a fitness club! Unfortunately, the club only exists in the states, and it’s valid only in the states. But that’s pretty funny. So yesterday I started playing a few songs that I knew, on the easiest difficulty, and I passed them – but then I switched to medium difficulty and I got pwned. Aww… gotta get practicing again…
Pirates
So, we went to Hamilton, and Duy stayed there in the care of Mike and friends. On Sunday, Duy was supposed to come back, but he decided to stay there another day. Meanwhile, Geoff, Bao, Ambrose, Ray, and myself went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, or Pirates3. Overall, I liked it. People were expressing disappointment in the movie, but I came out of the movie pretty pleased.
Was it Epic? Somewhat… it did feel a bit more epic than the other movies, but not by too much, but overall it was a satisfying experience. So I liked it.
Sushi Buffet
After the movie, the plan was to have dinner. Hawk couldn’t go, Jia already had dinner, so it was just us 4. I was planning to go to Momiji, back to… hmm, I didn’t blog about that yet. I’ll do it in a few paragraphs. Anyway, I was thinking we’d pick up Jia and go back to Momiji and enjoy mountains of sushi and sashimi, and eventually the idea of going to a Sushi buffet seemed like a good choice for everyone.
So I recommend Momiji to the group, while Ambrose recommends Maki Maki. Momiji was the recommendation of mine, along with Hawk’s and Jia’s, and Ambrose recommends Maki Maki. So, Ray decides to go with Ambrose’s recommendation, since… well, Hawk and Jia will pretty much eat anything, so their recommendation isn’t all that good, haha. Anyway, now I’ve been to both restaurants so I can compare both of them, but in any case, we should visit Momiji again so that other people can make their own comparisons too :P
Maki Maki Momiji Price $23 $22
Location Good Weird? Time Limit 90 min none Service Kinda slow, slow paced; about 8-10 tables, served by 3 chefs and 1-2 waitresses TOO FAST; about 1-2 tables, served by 3 chefs and 2-3 waitresses Leftover Policy A La Carte Price per item $0.79 per item Drinks Soft drinks free Soft drinks not free Menu layout Not great, but has pictures better Sushi Selection More Less Other Selection A bit more A bit less Sashimi Selection A bit less A bit more Food Quality Good Good, but bigger?
Alright, that’s a bit confusing. Overall I like Momiji better, but Maki Maki isn’t bad either, but I would choose Momiji more often. First, there’s the time, service, and leftover policy. At Maki Maki, you’re given a time limit, the service is slower, and it costs more to have leftovers, but mainly, you’re given less time, and it takes more time to get things, which is a double negative (which is a super negative, not a positive). At Momiji, there are less patrons so you’re given more attention, and there’s infinite time and really quick service, so you can eat a lot of sushi and not have to worry about time. AND, you can order extra at the end and bring it home for cheaper than at Maki Maki ;)
Drinks, bah? Next, is the menu. At Maki Maki, there’s the sheet with checkboxes beside things like #100, #101, #600, #601, W#1, W#2, and they give you a menu that let’s you know what #100, #101, etc. is, and some of them have pictures. Momiji simply has two pieces of paper, one for sushi and one for other, and on the papers they have the checkboxes along with the sushi type, instead of a number. So when you want salmon, you look for salmon and put a checkbox beside it. It’s just more cumbersome with Maki Maki.
I said Maki Maki had greater Sushi selection, but it’s just… extra stuff. Like, Maki Maki might have salmon, spicy salmon, crispy salmon, and crispy spicy salmon; Momiji might have all those except crispy spicy salmon. It’s not too big a difference in any case. But Maki Maki does have 4 types of dragon, while I think Momiji only has 2. Maki Maki’s salmon skin is crispier, bwahaha, which makes it awesome, but that’s just an honourable mention, haha.
There were a lot of things at Maki Maki that weren’t at Momiji, like all those things that Ambrose ordered. Or, Momiji might’ve had some of that, we didn’t order it though, but it does look like Maki Maki has more other stuff.
Sashimi, Momiji wins. Ray was always mentioning how they didn’t have tuna on Maki Maki’s sashimi list… Momiji does though! Hmm, I could go for some cold white tuna right about now… Momiji has I think, 6 sashimi types, while Maki Maki has 5, one of which is a beef.
I think food quality at both restaurants is great. But I hope Ray likes it at Momiji though, or else my future restaurant recommendations will be lowered to Hawk Tier or Jia Tier :P
Momiji Visit
Anyway, so I think it was last week, Jia, Isaque, Duy, myself, and a Kyle I’ve never met before (but Isaque and Jia knew) went to Momiji, since Isaque heard about it somewhere. So we went in, and started looking at the menu. So I was thinking, we’ll order this and that, and later we can order more, but Jia and Hawk just wanted to order stuff at the beginning – so every now and then I would say “I don’t think we can finish that”, but Hawk and Jia (mostly Hawk) told us not to worry about it, because Hawk and Jia were there – Jia will eat anything, right?
Anyway, so there were about 2 patrons in the restaurant and 3 chefs, so they’re pretty much just working for us. Service? TOO FAST. Food comes out too quickly, so we don’t have time to pace ourselves between plates. They got us, they got us good. And their portions are much bigger than we expected! We expected small sushi rolls, but they’re so big and full of stuff! And the Sashimi portions were pretty huge too, not that Sashimi was much of a problem.
SO like, WOW, there was so much food, and so much more coming! And apparently we ordered a bunch of special stuff, which were actually hand rolls, the big cone like things that are mostly rice. Special stuff was limited to weekends only, and limited to two per person, and there were 5 special things, so at the beginning Hawk and Jia put down 10 of each of those (5 people, max 2 per person, so 10 of each)…
After the first batch of handrolls came, we told them to cancel the rest of the handrolls… and then they came by to confirm that we just wanted to cancel the handrolls, or cancel everything… she looks at us, and the food on our table, and she says “… I think you want to cancel the rest”… and we agree….
During most of the meal, our conversations were all about how we can minimize costs. We considered stuffing sushi down the coke cans, or sticking it to the bottom of the table, or hiding it on the floor, or flushing it down the toilet… or taking apart a handroll and sticking a bunch of sushis in it… or take out the filling of a big sushi and stick a small sushi into 1 big sushi (we actually did that for one piece, which Alan ate the next day when he came over)… or, more simply, we would eat all the small sushis and keep the bigger sushis, since all leftover sushis cost the same amount.
Wow, that was a fun meal of conversation. So, that was Momiji…
Delicious Films
Blog update isn’t over yet! Two important Toronto Festivals are coming up! First, there’s Summerlicious, which runs from July 6th to July 22nd, although I’ll be on vacation from the 7th to the 17th. Then, there’s the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF’07), which has the website going live on July 4th, and tickets start going on sale between the 9th and the 16th.
There’s no film list for TIFF yet, so we’ll discuss those later. However, there is a restaurant and menu list for Summerlicious, and reservations have started about a week ago, so… umm.. we’ll see about that. Ray is going with some other people so he already has most of his reservations done, but we can probably squeeze in about two restaurants between the 18th and 22nd. So far I looked at all the $35 dinner restaurants, chose my top 20, and from there I have my top couple and some honourable mentions. This blog update’s getting a bit long, so I’ll stick my Summerlicious stuff into my other blog – should be ready by end of day today.
Labels: comic, ddr, pirates, summerlicious, sushi, tiff
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… and of course, China Updates. I’m still working on my webpage, although I’ve slowed down a bit. Beijing 1-5, Xian 1-2, and Shanghai 1-2 are now done; all that’s left is Guilin and Hong Kong. Hong Kong shouldn’t take too long, with about 20-30 pictures… Guilin however has upwards of 200 pictures right now (after narrowing it down from 400), and it’s so pretty and awesome so it might take a bit longer to write about. Then again, the pictures can do most of the talking... China Page Updated Comic Revolutions On Saturday, Jia, Ambrose, Duy, Bao, Hawk and I went to Hamilton, because this neighbourhood of game stores was having a sale. Three stores, within 300m walking distance, which specialize in videogames, tabletop games, anime, comics, card games, etc. were having a sale that day, June 23. So Hawk drove to Hamilton to visit these 3 places. The most memorable place was the Comic store, called the Comic Connection. They were having a sidewalk sale outside, with cheap action figures and cheap comics. They had these boxes full of $1 comics; $1 for 1 comic, or $5 for 8 comics. So we spent some time looking through those and bought a few. (Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but instead they are like, Martial Arts, Adolescent, Hamsters or something) But in addition to these, there were these boxes, each with 100 random bargain comics, for $24.99 each. Bold? Perhaps. But Jia bought one. Later while we were at Basilisque (a pizza/wings restaurant) we opened his box and… it was a boat! … no, not quite. But the box wasn’t half bad! It had its share of.. umm… questionable comics, but also had some good quality comics and famous heroes. And at 25 cents a comic, it’s like a penny for a couple pages of entertainment, and that’s not bad. So… haha, Hawk and I went back to the store (while our pizzas were being made) and we each bought a box! Over the past few days, I’ve been reading a few comics. Here are the ones I’ve read thus far: Basilisque Pizza was okay – Hawk was raving about it, so I expected better but it wasn’t too special. Wings were okay, Midnight Sun wasn’t spicy anymore apparently, and pizza and dough and whatever were okay. After trying Tandoori Chicken Pizza from Apna’s Pizza (which I liked), other pizzas… well, they’re okay, but I do like the uniqueness of Tandoori Chicken Pizza. I could go for a slice tonight… In addition to buying 100 random comics, I got C&C 3: TIberium Wars for PC (actually that was at Game Now, in Mississauga, but it was still part of the day’s spoils), some random card games (not on sale), and… Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 for Xbox. It’s been a long while since I’ve played either Pump it Up or DDR, but now it’s back, and my fitness regime can begin, haha. But seriously, it’ll be fun, and hopefully it would give me all the cardio I need. Also, it’s cool, DDRU3 comes with a 30-day free membership to a fitness club! Unfortunately, the club only exists in the states, and it’s valid only in the states. But that’s pretty funny. So yesterday I started playing a few songs that I knew, on the easiest difficulty, and I passed them – but then I switched to medium difficulty and I got pwned. Aww… gotta get practicing again… Pirates So, we went to Hamilton, and Duy stayed there in the care of Mike and friends. On Sunday, Duy was supposed to come back, but he decided to stay there another day. Meanwhile, Geoff, Bao, Ambrose, Ray, and myself went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, or Pirates3. Overall, I liked it. People were expressing disappointment in the movie, but I came out of the movie pretty pleased. Was it Epic? Somewhat… it did feel a bit more epic than the other movies, but not by too much, but overall it was a satisfying experience. So I liked it. Sushi Buffet After the movie, the plan was to have dinner. Hawk couldn’t go, Jia already had dinner, so it was just us 4. I was planning to go to Momiji, back to… hmm, I didn’t blog about that yet. I’ll do it in a few paragraphs. Anyway, I was thinking we’d pick up Jia and go back to Momiji and enjoy mountains of sushi and sashimi, and eventually the idea of going to a Sushi buffet seemed like a good choice for everyone. So I recommend Momiji to the group, while Ambrose recommends Maki Maki. Momiji was the recommendation of mine, along with Hawk’s and Jia’s, and Ambrose recommends Maki Maki. So, Ray decides to go with Ambrose’s recommendation, since… well, Hawk and Jia will pretty much eat anything, so their recommendation isn’t all that good, haha. Anyway, now I’ve been to both restaurants so I can compare both of them, but in any case, we should visit Momiji again so that other people can make their own comparisons too :P
Alright, that’s a bit confusing. Overall I like Momiji better, but Maki Maki isn’t bad either, but I would choose Momiji more often. First, there’s the time, service, and leftover policy. At Maki Maki, you’re given a time limit, the service is slower, and it costs more to have leftovers, but mainly, you’re given less time, and it takes more time to get things, which is a double negative (which is a super negative, not a positive). At Momiji, there are less patrons so you’re given more attention, and there’s infinite time and really quick service, so you can eat a lot of sushi and not have to worry about time. AND, you can order extra at the end and bring it home for cheaper than at Maki Maki ;) Drinks, bah? Next, is the menu. At Maki Maki, there’s the sheet with checkboxes beside things like #100, #101, #600, #601, W#1, W#2, and they give you a menu that let’s you know what #100, #101, etc. is, and some of them have pictures. Momiji simply has two pieces of paper, one for sushi and one for other, and on the papers they have the checkboxes along with the sushi type, instead of a number. So when you want salmon, you look for salmon and put a checkbox beside it. It’s just more cumbersome with Maki Maki. I said Maki Maki had greater Sushi selection, but it’s just… extra stuff. Like, Maki Maki might have salmon, spicy salmon, crispy salmon, and crispy spicy salmon; Momiji might have all those except crispy spicy salmon. It’s not too big a difference in any case. But Maki Maki does have 4 types of dragon, while I think Momiji only has 2. Maki Maki’s salmon skin is crispier, bwahaha, which makes it awesome, but that’s just an honourable mention, haha. There were a lot of things at Maki Maki that weren’t at Momiji, like all those things that Ambrose ordered. Or, Momiji might’ve had some of that, we didn’t order it though, but it does look like Maki Maki has more other stuff. Sashimi, Momiji wins. Ray was always mentioning how they didn’t have tuna on Maki Maki’s sashimi list… Momiji does though! Hmm, I could go for some cold white tuna right about now… Momiji has I think, 6 sashimi types, while Maki Maki has 5, one of which is a beef. I think food quality at both restaurants is great. But I hope Ray likes it at Momiji though, or else my future restaurant recommendations will be lowered to Hawk Tier or Jia Tier :P Momiji Visit Anyway, so I think it was last week, Jia, Isaque, Duy, myself, and a Kyle I’ve never met before (but Isaque and Jia knew) went to Momiji, since Isaque heard about it somewhere. So we went in, and started looking at the menu. So I was thinking, we’ll order this and that, and later we can order more, but Jia and Hawk just wanted to order stuff at the beginning – so every now and then I would say “I don’t think we can finish that”, but Hawk and Jia (mostly Hawk) told us not to worry about it, because Hawk and Jia were there – Jia will eat anything, right? Anyway, so there were about 2 patrons in the restaurant and 3 chefs, so they’re pretty much just working for us. Service? TOO FAST. Food comes out too quickly, so we don’t have time to pace ourselves between plates. They got us, they got us good. And their portions are much bigger than we expected! We expected small sushi rolls, but they’re so big and full of stuff! And the Sashimi portions were pretty huge too, not that Sashimi was much of a problem. SO like, WOW, there was so much food, and so much more coming! And apparently we ordered a bunch of special stuff, which were actually hand rolls, the big cone like things that are mostly rice. Special stuff was limited to weekends only, and limited to two per person, and there were 5 special things, so at the beginning Hawk and Jia put down 10 of each of those (5 people, max 2 per person, so 10 of each)… After the first batch of handrolls came, we told them to cancel the rest of the handrolls… and then they came by to confirm that we just wanted to cancel the handrolls, or cancel everything… she looks at us, and the food on our table, and she says “… I think you want to cancel the rest”… and we agree…. During most of the meal, our conversations were all about how we can minimize costs. We considered stuffing sushi down the coke cans, or sticking it to the bottom of the table, or hiding it on the floor, or flushing it down the toilet… or taking apart a handroll and sticking a bunch of sushis in it… or take out the filling of a big sushi and stick a small sushi into 1 big sushi (we actually did that for one piece, which Alan ate the next day when he came over)… or, more simply, we would eat all the small sushis and keep the bigger sushis, since all leftover sushis cost the same amount. Wow, that was a fun meal of conversation. So, that was Momiji… Delicious Films Blog update isn’t over yet! Two important Toronto Festivals are coming up! First, there’s Summerlicious, which runs from July 6th to July 22nd, although I’ll be on vacation from the 7th to the 17th. Then, there’s the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF’07), which has the website going live on July 4th, and tickets start going on sale between the 9th and the 16th. There’s no film list for TIFF yet, so we’ll discuss those later. However, there is a restaurant and menu list for Summerlicious, and reservations have started about a week ago, so… umm.. we’ll see about that. Ray is going with some other people so he already has most of his reservations done, but we can probably squeeze in about two restaurants between the 18th and 22nd. So far I looked at all the $35 dinner restaurants, chose my top 20, and from there I have my top couple and some honourable mentions. This blog update’s getting a bit long, so I’ll stick my Summerlicious stuff into my other blog – should be ready by end of day today. |
Labels: comic, ddr, pirates, summerlicious, sushi, tiff