The Best Waste of $98 EVER!?

Who: Alana and Chris
What: Hunger
When: Dinner time
Where: Boulder, Colorado
Why: Worked out
How: Via the Taurus

(Basically a review of Japango)

What a weird and pointless way to start what I want to say. So it’s Tuesday night, we just did some cardio (I swam 1650 yards, ask for the workout if interested, and she did the elliptical and bike) and then a get-back-into-shape-kinda lower body workout. Now Fred (Alana’s cousin [Megan]’s boyfriend from New Jersey) had mentioned that Japango has an all-you-can-eat-sushi night every Tuesday. Wait. Hold up one second. Did you just say all-you-can-eat SUSHI? Here in Boulder? Landlocked Colorado? Intriguing.

One of my absolute favorite things in the world and my favorite post workout meal… conveniently after our first night back in a real gym. I forced Alana to go (she didn’t put up much of a fight). So we jump in the car in our workout clothes and drive over to Pearl and Broadway, park the car for free since it’s past 7 p.m. and find the restaurant. We enter at about 9:05 and we know that is closes at 10:00, but that won’t be a problem… we’ve never had problems with all you can eat places closing early. (!)

As we’re greeted, relatively quickly for the small staff and decent sized crowd, we ask about the deal. What’s the deal? Well, in fact, it is $29.99…! What?! Thirty bucks? Oh man, have we been spoiled having it for way cheaper in New Jersey, but it’s worth it, or so we tell ourselves. The hostess continues, you can have all these hand rolls, these sushi, these special rolls, and these dishes from the kitchen. Cool. Not that we have ever been to a place that doesn’t include non-sushi items, but we started taking it for granted and to have it taken away now would be really heart-breaking. So we’re seated in a TINY table that we knew would NOT be able to fit all our food, but we didn’t bother to have it changed. The nice waitress comes, we order waters, and look at the menus/checklists. We start tallying stuff off, Alana orders a red wine sangria, we hand in the checklists knowing that we might only get one round’s worth of food because we showed up so late, and we wait for the kitchen stuff to come. (That’s right, I said stuff, so you can replace it with any word you feel is more intelligent because I love being not-intelligent sometimes)

We start with some house salads with ginger dressing. They’re big, and the greens are dark and there’s spinach! But the sauce is weak, tastes more like ranch than ginger. Bummer, I eat it all. So does she. Next, we get tuna salad! A bowl of the same greens… with three pieces of tiny seared tuna on top. But the sauce is amazing and has a nice zing to it, so naturally, I eat it all, and finish hers. Alana ordered me seaweed salad; how nice of her. And they even included three kinds of seaweed. It was good; they didn’t make it too spicy like other places often do! Next is the “tuna steak” or six-or-so pieces of the same tuna in the salad, but in more of a teriyaki sauce and it is lick the plate good! She ordered spicy calamari, which I can’t eat, and it was VERY spicy so she finished it all. She also got mussels, which were like cheesy clams casino and Alana had all three. I love cheese, but when it’s time for sushi night, cheese better stay out of the way. So far, it’s on track to be a good investment, but now the moments of truth are about to begin. (By the way, the sangria was very iced-down, very juiced down, very weak, etc. Didn’t last long but tasted good… but not worth six bucks).

Okay so, here’s my issue. I read in the Boulder Daily (I think that’s what it’s called) that Japango’s all you can eat sushi is world famous! It said the Daily Camera named it best sushi in 2010 and 2011, AND best Asian in 2010. And now I become a food snob. This was garbage. I should post a video rant because I can’t put it in text. Did they only try one place and not require that it had to be good…. or even decent? Best sushi? I’ve had tuna from my college’s cafeteria at 1 a.m., 16 hours after it was delivered from the sushi restaurant in downtown Manhattan, that was fresher than this tuna. And I didn’t just try a few things. I tried EVERYTHING (just about). Even the quail eggs. The squid, octopus, scallops, red clam, tuna, salmon, smoked salmon, white tuna, yellowtail, white fish, halibut, mackerel, etc. And to top it off, their orders are a two-piece minimum, so I got to taste two of everything. We also had eel hand rolls, tuna hand rolls, avocado roll, the Las Vegas roll, the New Orleans roll, and the Boulder roll. You can see for yourself, in the picture, what we ordered. I’m rambling, which is how I present my rants because I don’t like to prepare arguments all the time. Let’s continue.

Now, Alana does not like wasabi. Or horseradish. Anything along those lines. I know that a sushi chef does sometime have the tendency to smear some wasabi paste in between the rice and the fish, but in all-you-can-eat? With this horrible quality of fish? Are you trying that hard to mask the not fresh flavor of the fish with something so strong?

I eat sushi like this: I take the piece of sushi and put it right in my mouth. No soy sauce, no wasabi, no ginger. Why? Because that is how it’s supposed to be done. The chef should prepare a fresh piece of fish and properly cook and vinegar his rice, potentially brushing a special mixture of soy sauce and seasonings on top to compliment the flavor of the fish. Not kill it. Now I could care less what you do with your maki, hand rolls, special rolls, sashimi. I put whatever on all of those too. But sushi is sacred, the relationship between the rice and fish is crucial, and Alana doesn’t like wasabi, so don’t assume all fifty pieces of sushi should have it without asking!

I mean, you’re clearly not a real sushi chef if you’re willing to serve fish that bad! I could give you a grade of how fresh each type listed above was, but it’s not worth it. Some was fresh, some was kinda fresh, some wasn’t fresh at all. The hand rolls were okay but obviously someone didn’t rush to get them to us because the nori was soggy by the time I got it. (I always eat the handrolls first to prevent this soggy effect). The avocado rolls were ALL rice and no veggie. The specialty rolls were awful. Now, my number one rule of all-you-can-eat sushi is don’t get specialty rolls. They fill you up so you can’t eat the good stuff. These tasted like nothing. And they had a ton of great ingredients in them, on paper. But they weren’t fresh or prepared right and as a result I soaked it in soy sauce to eat it. Alana had white tuna, some avocado roll and some New Orleans roll. I ate everything else, or tried to.

Now, getting to the end. We knew that you get charged 50 cents for every piece left on the plate. I have NEVER been charged extra, but there’s a first time for everything. We got charged ten dollars, for 20 extra pieces. It was that bad. I wasn’t even full but I could not punish my stomach, who is so nice to me, by shoveling in more fish that was not fresh. I felt bad and was willing to pay. BUT we had fun! We had fun making fun of the guy behind us that was worshiping everything they put on his plate. Jiro Ono would have whooped that guy bad. The bill came and it was 30 for each of us, 6 for the drink, 6 for tax, and 10 for the extra sushi we did not eat. We gave the waitress, who was very good, a twenty percent tip of 16 dollars, and took our bag of leftovers home. (They let you bring the leftovers home, which they should because you paid for it.) And they sat in the fridge, and we threw them out the next morning. I felt horrible about it, but it was really bad. Now, could it be like this all the time? There’s no way! If it got those awards from the Camera, it must have it’s good days, but we’re never going back. And for me to not go to the only all you can eat sushi place where we live is a huge deal! Why’s that? Here’s why:

I have had sushi in the middle of the Atlantic, in Bermuda, in Peru, in South Korea, on top of a mountain in South Korea, in New York, in Los Angeles, in Miami, and tons of places in between. I’ve had all you can eat in three continents. In our last months in Jersey, we had it AT LEAST once a WEEK! We went to three places usually: Arigato in North Haledon (THE BEST!), Sushi X-1 in Ridgewood (PRETTY COOL!), and Gen in Ridgewood (Not bad!), and they cost us 20/22/20 per person. They offer more kitchen goods and sushi, free desserts, and the fish is fresh, most of the time! (LOOK AT THE PICS AT THE BOTTOM)

It must be that here in Boulder it’s hard and expensive to get fresh fish, which we understand! But if it’s not fresh, DON’T SERVE IT! Are you going to serve a raw filet at a steak house? I would hope not. It could get you in trouble. I wish the all-you-can-eat sushi crew was there to help us out. Dan Liwanag, the first person I had all you can eat sushi with, Scott Reiners, the co-founder of weekly all you can eat night, Allan Wu, aka Master Wusabi, who gets us the freshest fish by talking to waitresses in their native tongues, Scott Polhemus, the wind tunnel when it comes to downing Japanese alcohol and food in a way that would please a shogun, and Dr. Capitani for starting the original “sushi night.” (Adam and Aedan, future members of the crew, I salute you!)

Master Wusabi when he’s not eating sushi

Master of Windtunnelling Food

We want to keep this tradition alive, but if Japango is all that Boulder can offer, that tradition will die soon. We will have to try other places and not get all you can eat to see who has the best in Boulder.

Japango’s ratings!

Service: 4/5
Decor: 2/5
Music: 1/5
Kitchen food: 2/5
Sushi: 1/5
Price value: 2/5
X factor: 0/5* (No slices of oranges or pineapple!!!)
Overall: 12/30 (Maybe give it a chance… maybe… one time)

UPDATE: My weekly contest! Whoever can submit the best Japanese dining experience will be sent a special prize related to this topic. I don’t care if you’re in Malaysia or Philadelphia, I’ll get it to you for your efforts and dedication!

PREVIEW: I’ll be bashing the Boulder Daily Paper’s review of pizza. Obviously whoever wrote it and compared certain pizza to New York style isn’t from New York!

Thanks for reading! If you made it this far you get to use this free joke I stole from Alana who stole it from Twitter…

How come the T-Rex couldn’t shake hands?

Because it was dead!

(Oh, and here is the appendix, a graveyard of past, and better, all you can eat sushi nights with the individuals listed above and some extras who I apologize for not including, like Brit!)

And this…oh definitely this…is how sushi SHOULD be made. Thank you, New York

Aug282012

Home-Made [EASY] Chips & Guac

Let’s be honest. Has anyone ever in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD ever said no to an offer of chips and guacamole? No, I don’t think so.

I had two avocados hiding in our cabinet. And a tomato in the fridge. Hmmm…what could I POSSIBLY do with these two ingredients? I think you know the answer. However, we didn’t have any tortilla chips (I know, a travesty), and they just go so well with guacamole. But…we did have some tortillas that were going to get old soon. Aha! It’s all coming together now!

Okay so first, let’s get out these corn tortillas. I use Mission Corn Tortillas (see below). I’m not even going to post an “Ingredients” section for the chips because it’s literally tortillas, olive oil, and salt. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Now, go have fun and rip them into little pieces. I used only about five tortillas. Think of how many chips you can actually make if you used the WHOLE bag (30). Put olive oil on the baking sheet before you plop dem tortilla pieces on. Then sprinkle salt all over.

Now let them cook for however long you like. 10 minutes, they’ll be a little soft. I left them in for around 15 minutes to get a nice crunch. Okay, we’ll get back to these when they’re ready from the oven. Let’s get to the important matter…the guac.

Get your ingredients ready!

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados
1 tomato
1 lemon
2 garlic cloves
Plenty of salt n peppa

First, let’s tackle the avocados. Now I wish I took a picture of this, but the best technique I’ve found is to put the knife you’re using on the avocado, press down til you hit the core (the pit), and circle it all around the avocado until you’ve made it full-circle. Then grab each half of the avocado and pull! If they are the proper ripeness, they should pull a part easily, making it really easy to scoop the goods out.

Now that you’ve scooped it all into a bowl, mash it up!! And have some fun with it! Next, cut up the lovely in-season tomato (small pieces), the garlic, and constantly put pepper and (especially) salt. Once you feel everything is properly seasoned, cut open a lemon, and squeeze that baby out. The lemon (I know people normally use lime–use whatever you want) will give it that nice zesty taste, but also it will preserve it if you want to keep it in the fridge for a bit. Avocados have a tendency to brown fairly easily.

Now that the guac is all mixed up, GO BACK AND TASTE IT! Make sure it has enough salt, guacamole can be notorious for not being salty enough to fill that need. Did you hear something? DING! Chips are ready! (Just kidding, I still don’t have an oven timer). Pull them out of the oven and let them sit for a few minutes so you don’t burn your tongue (like I did after being over-eager and piggish).

They are goooood. So that’s pretty much it. We loved it so much, we made another batch of chips to finish off the guacamole. One of the best things about home cooking is that you know what’s in the food you’re cooking so you have no reason to feel guilty about it, which is an awesome feeling.

Maybe you have a party coming up (Labor Day is right around the corner) and want some awesome snacks that will impress the neighbors (or friends), but won’t cut a hole out of your wallet. Get this:

A bag of Mission Yellow Corn Tortillas (which contain 30) costs under $3. Avocados are still in season (hurry before fall ends!), so you can get them for $1 a piece. All you need are tomatoes, which can be found for roughly 59 cents each. Now you do the math. I had a whole pan-full of chips from FIVE tortillas. Imagine you did THIRTY? You’re going to have a ton of chips and if you get 4-5 avocados and 2-3 tomatoes, you’re going to have a TON of chips and guacamole, for a huge price of under $10. And trust me, your friends will love you. And invite me too, because I will do anything for a scoop of guac.

Enjoy!

Aug272012

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Raisin Cookies [GUILT-FREE!]

So I’m craving some Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Good thing we have a huge thing of Quaker Oatmeal (a five pound jar and at least ten more pounds packed away in bags in the pantry). Baking always brings me back to college years (also back to days at home) when I would walk up to my best friend’s apartment almost every night (rain or snow) to bake or cook something, drink some tea, and watch a great series like Modern Family or Beyonce Concerts.

If you’ve baked oatmeal raisin cookies, you know it’s pretty simple. It’s basically measure, pour, mix, and heat. And we only have whole wheat flour in the kitchen, so we’re making Whole Wheat Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. There’s no crap in these, so you don’t have to worry about that. I pulled the recipe off of here and altered it slightly. So, my fellow bakers, get your ingredients ready!

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter (I use whipped)
3/4 cup of sugar (I used white because we don’t have any brown at the moment)
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cup of oatmeal (I use Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats, yumm)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 cup of honey
1/2 cup of raisins
a splash of vanilla extract

Pretty basic. I have faith you can all do it. Remember to always grease your baking sheet first so that you don’t have to scramble at the last minute. I like to use wax paper and butter to grease up the sheet, just dip the wax paper in and rub around, a tip my mum taught me. If you don’t have either, then you can just use PAM or whatever you’ve got. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Alright, so pour in the butter, sugar, and egg in before anything else. Mix that up real well. You’d think it’d be hard to bake things without a mixer, or even a whisk, but we have neither and everything comes out just fine. I simply use a wooden spoon. And high-powered arms. 😉 After you beat those first three ingredients, pour in the rest and stir it up. If it’s too dry to stir everything in, pour a little milk in (that’s what I did).

Now if anyone here knows me, then you know I have to literally be dragged away from the cookie dough in order to not eat it all. It was tough, but I held myself back (slightly). So after everything is mixed up, use a spoon (or your hands) and plop ’em down on your already greased up baking sheet in nice rows like below.

And now we wait 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick you made the cookies and what your oven is like. And now you get to see what my kitchen looks like when I cook/bake! (yikes)

Ding! (just kidding I don’t have an oven timer) Cookies are ready! Pull them cookies out (with an oven mitt, of course) and let sit for a little bit and then DIG IN!

Voila. Here we have a healthy guilt-free batch of cookies, easily stored in tupperware if you can’t eat them all in one night (shame). Enjoy!

Aug142012

Welcome to Boulder!

So we’ve finally arrived to Boulder, Colorado–our new home after graduating college. We took a road trip from New York all the way to here then to California then back to here again. It was many long hot hours in a cramped car, but we got to see a lot of America which was really enjoyable.

We got an apartment (450 sq ft) and set to decorating and finding some furniture. After dumpster diving, we ended up with a comfortable futon bed, a bookshelf, and a bedside table. Although we may not have all the furniture yet, we certainly got the food down after several trips to various grocery stores.

Our first cooked meal was a breakfast. Stir-fried eggs with spinach and soy sauce to top. Pretty simple, pretty fast, all with fresh ingredients:

Happy with our first meal, we got back to work: rearranging the limited furniture we had, cleaning the floors and walls, and going out to buy goods we needed like tongs, a trash can, and more hangers. We found that the Boulder Public Library was very close, had great hours, beautiful architecture, and–most importantly–FREE WIFI! We both had lots to do online. It really throws you off after having Internet close to your finger tips at all times to going to no internet anywhere in the house (or in our case, the apartment). So we began to spend hours and hours in there, getting stuff done, job applications, and relaxing.

With our business and craze of getting the apartment together, we ate lunch almost every day at a great Tibetan family-owned place called Tibet Kitchen. Amazing lunch deals ($4.95 for a lunch plate with 1 entree and a huge bed of rice) and a great atmosphere, we had to keep coming back (plus it’s only a 5 minute walk from our apartment).

After eating to our heart’s content out, we knew we had to keep dinners in the apartment to save some pennies. We went to the grocery store (so far we’ve visited King Sooper’s, Safeway, and Whole Foods) and did our casual browsing. We came across some wild-caught shrimp for a reduced price. Chris loves to cook seafood so we scored right away.

That night, he made garlic shrimp. Very simple, throw a bunch of fresh shrimp (dead, of course) into a frying pan, pour some oil and garlic in and let it cook! One of the more simpler things to cook. We had a great messy meal, getting oil and garlic all over our hands as we de-shelled the shrimp and popped ’em in our mouths. Pretty delicious and a very low budget meal. We had plenty of leftovers the next day to make curried shrimp and mushrooms over rice the next day.

And here we are, in Boulder, slowly settling in and our apartment is looking like it’s becoming a home. We love it here. And we’ll love it even more after we get out on the rocks tonight to practice climbing with family.