Great food!!!
So tomorrow's my sister's bday and tonite we went out to have dinner. I had recommended this restaurant that I had saw in the newspaper numerous times and was consistently rated very well. The little Japanese place is called Maneki and it's on Jackson in the ID. I got to try it out for the first time tonight and I'm very pleased.
When you walk in, you should take notice to the poster of special items listed on scattered sheets of paper. They may seem a little weird if you're not into "exotic" seafood but they sure are tasty. Recently in the paper, it was written that the current owner believes her restaurant to have been in existence for about 100 years. So sometime in late October, she decided to just mark a celebration day. Unfortunately when I called at the time, they didn't have any specials for that day. However, I heard from a friend who drove by, that the place was still jammed packed and even had a line of people waiting outside to get in.
Tonight we had the following: beef Teriyaki w/ tempura, chix sukiyaki (both for 7.50), Spider Roll (6), broiled black Cod with some miso on top(6), 2x seafood custurd (each 2.25), broiled oysters with more miso paste and japanese mayonaise on top(4). (# following each item is the rough price off the top of my head)
If you do go there I recommend trying the "authentic Japanese" cuisine stuff on the yellow page of the menu. For some people the items may sound weird, but trust me in that all of it will taste good. I feel that confident about this place even after just eating here once. The cod and oysters were excellent albeit a little on the salty side in my mom's opinion. Looking around, most of the customers were actually caucasian, with a some Japanese (and other asians). I'd have to say roughly 60% were white. Now when one thinks of that statistic, and then remember that this is an asian restaurant, they would probably ask "Wait, white washed asian restaurants are complete crap in asians' taste!" This place was truly an anomaly. The food will surely tickle your taste buds. If not then, I don't know why this place was rated the best Japanese restaurant in multiple publications. I'm really disappointed I did not find this place earlier. Another great thing about this place is that the prices are pretty low for the amount of food you get. I mean, don't expect to get full off one sushi roll, but if you manage to get one or 2 people to join you, you can probably have a very nice dinner for about $20. Oh, that reminds me of one thing that isn't so great. This place is only opened Tues through Sun 530pm - 10pm... Agghhh, yes, it isn't open for lunch. Only dinner.
Final thoughts... A great, small restaurant for all ages and even better in groups. Big groups may be a little hard and end up being pricy unless all of you are cool with sharing everything. I would recommend groups of 4 be perfect for a place like this. Also, try their spider roll, good stuff. If you're into the more tame like, try the seafood custurd, nice bite for only 2.25. Now I'm going to do something I don't think I've ever done before... rate a restaurant. I don't plan on doing this often as I am very poor and my family doesn't eat at different restaurants often. But I'd actually rate this place an 8.5. It's no elegant prom night place, but it's great for a date or a friendly get together.
distraught...
So, on Friday I checked my email to find that Newegg ended up refunding the money for the MP3 companion thing because they were out of stock on it. I dunno what to do now. I've got 2, 512mb flash sticks that costed me almost $100 already. I could take my chances and try buying another MP3 companion thing from sandisk (which it's price has gone down a few bucks) or I could just wait save up a little more and plan on another different player. One of my friend's just got an iPod and says it's quite nice. I'm still not going to invest until I find out how long the battery is going to last. I'm skeptical like that. Not to mention it's a friggin $300 now, well I guess $270 with a student discount at the UBS. I've read other reviews about the ~$45 dollar Sandisk MP3 Companion and all of them say that it's been working fine for them. I just need a little advice here. If anyone has any, I'm open to all opinions.
If you also know for a fact and have evidence that the iPod's battery will last for a long time (uhh greater than 3 years perhaps?) and not die, like I've heard before, tell me so.
Long days...
So it's Veteran's Day. Got a good break, but I'm completely spent now. Went to sleep kinda late, later than usual around 130am, then hadn't planned on going to the IMA in the morning, but eventually did. Played a few good games of basketball, worked out, had lunch in chinatown and then had to work... I was thinking, "At least it's a holiday, it's supposed to be double pay." I don't know if it's double pay anymore because of all the recent conflicts between the union and QFC, I dunno what has changed. Man, but was I tired today... I moved around the store like a slug the entire day... The only times when I actually tried to move fast was when I almost dropped a box of goods and when I needed to clean up a broken glass dressing bottle. Although it was a abismal time at work, some interesting things happened...
Weird thing #1: So my manager (well the 4th one, the one that usually works with me at night) offered to buy me beer whenever I wanted to. Him: "Screw the law, leave it to someone else to follow it. You're my little helper, I gotta watch out for your interests." Yeah, my manager, who by the way is only 23, calls all his helper clerks "my little helpers". Little weird and freaky huh. @_@ So I told him "thanks....." and went on with my business.
Weird thing #2: So I'm in the backroom moving stuff around and (we have a bathroom in the backroom) I notice this girl with short hair, probably in her late 20's walk out of the bathroom. 10 seconds later, I notice this somewhat big guy come out, with a T-shirt on and his jacket in his hands... suspect? Very. His face even appeared a little red. I'm not even going to imagine.
Weird thing #3: Well, not really weird, but during the last 15 minutes of work, the 3 of us (manager, cashier dude, and me) just stood around chatting b/c all of us were just beat and didn't want to work. I wish all my nights were like that.
In other news, Bio 200 is kicking my ass really bad. OChem turned out to be not so bad b/c the prof is just an oddball. Clas seems fine I guess, I just hope the TA keeps dishing out the extra credit. =D I've hit that point in the quarter where you just want to be lazy. Lack of motivation has resulted in me playing some video games again... *sigh* This could be disasterous.
Something I just remembered; so those of you that remember about my MP3 player, and how I had to send it back since it was defective, the replacement still hasn't been sent back @_@ Yeah, I sent it in like 2 weeks ago. I called them monday, the guy said there was some misunderstanding that was cleared up there, and then he said he would even upgrade the shipping to overnight. It is now Thursday and I just recieved email that the item has JUST been processed and it SHOULD be shipped in the next friggin 2-3 business days. What is up with this >_< I thought I should have been greatful for the free upgrade to overnight shipping, but it didn't get me the package any sooner. If I don't get it tomorrow, I'm going to call them again. This is just absurd since they recieved the package about 2 weeks ago. Lesson to be learned: I don't mean to be bashing on Newegg, everything else about them is very excellent, but handling this RMA replacement is taking just too damn long. I almost don't even want it, and would rather them credit back to my account. Then maybe I could invest into something better. Perchance an ipod? I still have yet to be convinced that the batteries won't die in a year and I have to send it back to Apple. If anyone can reassure me of this, and you have valid proof, please let me know. Well I have a Bio midterm on monday and a blasted oral presentation on wednesday, AND I really need some sleeeeeeeppp... so zai jian.
