Long time no post.

Hi Eveyrone (ha ha - everyone....I think there are only two people in this whole world that know about my blog, thanks though for your support). It's bee a while since my last post, and now that I'm back, I'm not even posting about food. This post is going to give you a little peak into other aspects of my life, other than food.

I have other intestests believe it or not, and one of them is budo, but I'll leave that for another post. This post is about a small project I started when I used to work for Stilewood International MFG. Stilewood manufactures high-end custom wood doors and I worked there for just a few months. I started staying after hours to work on personal projects, and while everyone else made cabinets, tables, chairs....doors, I had limited skills and experience so I started with a sword stand. I had no idea how to make one, so I copied this cheap $10 POS that was made with MDF. It wasn't very strong and not long after I got it, fell apart. I made mine out of African Mahogany. I don't have an image of my first stand, but it looked terrible, much worse than the examples I made below:

Eventually, I decided to see what I could do and experimented a bit with various machines and equipment, different types of wood, and tried to make a bokken. People in class complained about my bokken because it was painted black (got it for 1,000 yen from a souvenir shop at a shrine in Matsushima, Japan) and left black marks on everyone elses' bokken. I needed something light, but strong enough to withstand tachiuchi excercises. I ended up making about half a dozen or so, all of varying sizes and shapes - no consistency whatsoever. I decided that these things were frackin hard to make and besides that, I stopped working at Stilewood.

My lame attempt to put my signature on my products....Ha ha, you know, just in case I become famous one day, this might make some of the bokken I made worth something?

The one on the left is strictly a show-piece made of African Mahogany, the dark one is made of Ipe, or Brazilian Ironwood, and so far, has not failed me yet.

So, a short while later, I found some really long strips of wood that had been binned and idea popped into my head. I remembered a few years ago, I went to a museum in Niigata, Japan, and saw the two longest katana ever made in Japan (or so the museum claimed).


It's hard to tell the scale in the picture below, but if you look carefully, you can see a couple of standard size swords to the left of this monster.So, I had to make one. I took those strips, cut them down to a uniform size and thickness, then lamenated them together on this really Micky Mouse rig I built. I let it cure over the weekend and began to shape this monster bokken. My coworkers thought I was nuts, and even I had to laugh when the thing started to take shape. It turned out pretty nice if I do say so myself. The layers of lamenate almost give it a faux hamon line. Anyways, I ended up donating the thing to our dojo summer party, it was auctioned off to one my classmates and the funds were used for future dojo events. The scale is hard to see in this picture, but Richard here is the tallest member of our dojo....

McDonald's in Japan

Since I'm on the subject of McDonald's, this is what you get when you get your meal to go.

Lot's of wrapping....just like everything else in Japan.

In Japan, combos give you the option of nuggets or fries.

This is a Teri-Tama burger. It was probably the best thing I've ever tasted in McDonald's. It's a regular bun, sausage, egg, lettuce, Japanese mayo, and teriyaki sauce.

McDonald's has discontinued my favourite drink.

I am so *ucking pissed right now, it's unbelievable. I just went through a McDonald's drive thru and found out they discontinued their orange "drink". Now I'm not talking about their orange juice or Orange Crush. It was their own powdery concoction that tasted like sweetened Tang. And what did they replace it with? Coke Zero. WTF. Does the world really need another Coke?

I can't believe they discontinued it! I've been drinking this stuff since Sports Day when I was in elementary school and I've had very fond memories of it. I'm raging right now and I had to post my thoughts right this moment. Over the last few years, it really has been the only reason that's kept me going to McDonald's. I'd take a Burger King Whopper any day of the week, and now it seems that I have to. I don't think McDonald's is going to miss my business, but I will not return to Rotten Ronnie's until my orange "drink" comes back.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Update Aril 27th, 2009*

I swore I would never go back, but I did. About a week after swearing I'd never go back, I found myself lining up with the other lemmings, and couldn't help overhearing what some of the other customers were saying when they found out there was no more orange drink. There was a bit of a revolt which led to the night manager providing us with the phone number of head office. She said that if enough people complained, they may just bring it back.

Now I don't normally do this, but I am pleading all of you who've had you sweet childhood memories of sportsday or hamburger day robbed by that sadistic clown. Bring back the orange drink! Call McDonald's at:

Toronto: (416) 446-3932
Vancouver: (604) 293-4834
Montreal: (514) 421-4881
**Please sign the petition!!**
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/orange-drink-at-mcdonalds.html?utm_medium=RSS

My Dad, the gyoza king.

I swear, my dad makes the best pot stickers/gyoza. He used to even make the skin from scratch, but it's time consuming and you can get skins for so cheap nowadays, there's no point. I think he uses a combo of ground pork, and fish ball paste and some other stuff. I actually haven't learned his recipe...too busy eating I guess.

He always makes about a hundred or so, bags them and throws them in the freezer for later. On the frying pan for X amount of time (again, too busy eating) and there you go, perfect pot stickers.

Get a little soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and chili oil and you're set.

G-Men Raman - Decent ramen in Richmond!

I'm kind of jumping out of sequence here, but I had to share this info now. Up until now, I've been pretty much posting pictures in cronological order of when I took the pictures, and I think I was in the middle of 2004. But I thought I would mix it up a little and show you something I found last week. As some may know already, I love ramen. I've been in search for a decent ramen shop in the lower mainland for a while now, and so far, have never come up with anything as good as what I've experienced in Japan. When I mean good, I mean that I will go out in the middle of the night to get my fix. Sadly, no shops around here give me that feeling. Some come close, and there are in fact three shops around town that I will go to if I've got the craving, but not enough to choose ramen over something like prime rib. There's only one shop so far that would make me do that, and that shop is in Nagaoka, Japan. Anyway, here's a new addition to my little list of decent ramen shops around town......yeah, I know, I haven't posted pictures of the others yet, but I'll get to it one of these days. G-Men Ramen shop, I think a subsidiary of Gyoza King. You can find it on the corner of Sexmith and Cambie in Richmond. It's funny, it used to be the location of a bubble tea shop called Jack's Loft, and I used to waste many dollars there on bubble tea. G-Men ramen is pretty good, and I've been there twice now. This photo is of Miso Ramen with extra chashu. Apologies for the poor quality pictures, they were taken with my phone. I'll post better pictures next time I get a chance.

Ocean Terrace

There's a place in Niigata called Ocean Terrace. As far as I know, there are only three locations, but it's one of my favourite pasta joints. They've got this Hawaiian theme going on, but regardless of the strange atmosphere, the food there is incredible.

Garlic fries that are like mashed potatoes on the inside, with a crispy golden outside. Actually, these are the best fries I've ever had. Whenever I go to Japan, this is one of the places I have to eat.

Starter salad with huge shrimp.

This was a simple omlette served on top of a sauce similar to the sauce often found on Hambagu. Looks simple, but tasted great!

I love oysters

I love oysters, just like the title says. I can eat oysters in just about any form, whether they're raw, steamed, baked, deep fried, scrabbled in eggs, or whatever. I just love oysters. I found these ones here in a restaraunt called Fisherman's Village in Steveston village. The restaraunt is no longer there, but I had good memories of the place. Here we've got these huge oysters, very fresh, and steamed to perfection with some minced garlic, black bean sauce, and green onions. Here are a some more steamed in with green onions, ginger and garlic. The sauce is basicall a bit of soy suace, sugar, and cooking wine. I was a complete pig that night and I think I must have had about a dozen of these monsters by myself.

One of my dad's favourites is a mix of stuff cooked in a stone pot. This one had tofu, Chinese BBQ pork, squid, prawns, scallops, and a bunch of other stuff.

According to my parents, honey garlic spareribs is right up there with sweet and sour pork and chop suey.......made for westerners. Oh well, whatever, tastes good to me. This place made it really good because the pork was very tender on the inside, and very crispy on the outside, even when drowned in honey garlic sauce. It's really too bad this place isn't around anymore.

More oysters, of the deep fried variety. This plate was just for me.

With all the oysters I had, I smelled like the ocean the next day. One of these days, I'll post an awesome recipe for Kaki Motoyaki. If it doesn't stop your heart first, it will defintely blow your mind.