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03 August 2005

Angeles - Final Day


Woke up 5.30am to catch the first-light tee off at Industry Hills Golf Club. Here's the interesting tidbit. The land where the hill is sitting on now used to be flat ground. Under the lush green grass of the fairways and rough is a mountain of garbage. Yes. I was standing on "Top Of The World" of human waste. The amount of rubbish that we humans churn out on a daily basis is quite horrifying. If the garbage is bio-degradeable then fine as the garbage is broken down and returned to the Earth eventually. Problem is when we come up with stuff that are non-biodegradeable and here to stay for a long long l-o-n-gt time. Hong kan.


I think the City of Industry has made good with this rubbish dump by converting it into a hill and adding a golf resort on top of it. Actually, there are going to build another one across the street. Yes folks, they have a new mountain of garbage.

Surprisingly, there is no garbage smell in the air. The air is fresh and clean, especially in the morning. Only thing is that the ground water looked highly suspect whenever a rain storm passed by.



Went to this little Japanese restaurant in Monrovia called Sanaka. It is as Japanese as it can be as the chefs and waitresses all speak Japanese with only a smatter of English. The ang mohs were having a hard time trying to order but still they still come in droves. The chefs must be doing something right.



The Uni is damn fresh! For most of the restaurants in Singapore, the uni are probably processed before landing on the door step of the restaurants. The better restaurants would fly them in directly. However, some of them may overlook the in-between step process of removing the thin layer of slime which gives it a yucky taste.

Well, I am glad that this hole-in-the-wall restaurant takes extreme pride in their preparation and I enjoyed every bit of it, although to the uninitiated, it looked like crap. No?



That's the owner (moustache) and his wife (apron). While we were eating away happily, there was a loud male yell of "BAKA!" followed by a profuse female repeating of "sumimase" "gome" "go men". From the "private limited" standard of my command of the Japanese language, I could, with the aid of body language, vaguely figured out that the wife had written an incorrect order which resulted in a huge public dressing down. How more Japanese can it get?

All of us were stunned into silence with the outburst and we were all silently feeling bad for the wife who had to have her head chewed off. Yet, we were all to cowardly to defend her (especially when the chef of a husband is armed with a super duper sharp sashimi blade). I guess the only way to make her feel better was to leave a slightly more generous tip. Then again, maybe they do this every time in order to get fatter tips? I wonder.



Well, this would be the last picture of my trip and I find myself bored to death in the cabin of a Boeing 742 heading to Narita, Tokyo. Will be back again in the US in 2 weeks' time. *groan*

- Voxeros

1. akk left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 12:03 am
hehheehhe....u sure sumimase and not 'go-me-neh' or 'go-me-na-sai' for sorry?


2. Vandice left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 1:41 am :: http://twiuc.blogspot.com
Wah uncle, you are a compulsive blogger leh... Respect. *bow*
Ooh, steady lah. I like uni too! It takes quite a few sea urchins to make 1 serving of uni, tt's why so exp. But I agree, Sing/Mlysia uni not nice. Only tasted nice uni once, in, of all places, Australia...


3. Jaslyn left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 5:06 am :: http://precious-jas.blogspot.com
What is uni?? What does it taste like? Errr...sorie, but the pic looks kinda errrr...to me :p


4. JayWalk left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 11:07 am :: 
akk: You are right about the gome vs sumimase. In my haste to post the blog in between flight connections, I made the boo boo. Thanks for pointing that out.

Vandice: Not compulsive compulsive compulsive compulsive lah. Just needed to keep up the momentum or it will be damn difficult for me to return to blogging once I slacked off.
Anyway, you are right about the strangest, most unexpected place to get good Uni. It is usually at those places where the locals think nothing of it. As such, it is severely marked down in terms of price, giving the restaurants the chance, for the same amount of money, to get the higher grade stuff.


5. JayWalk left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 11:35 am :: http://voxeros.blog-city.com
Jaslyn: Uni is sea urchin.
This is what it looks like

This is what it looks like when served as a sashimi on a half shell


What does it taste like? Er... it tastes like er... Uni?

It's got its own unique taste is as best as I can describe it. Perhaps you should try it yourself? Like durian, it is an acquired taste.

This is what it looks like when served as a sushi.

Very high in Vitamin A & E. Bon Appetite!


6. Pam left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 5:07 pm
it's not 'go-me'. it's 'go-men'!


7. JayWalk left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 5:37 pm :: 
Pam: Thanks for the heads up!


8. vanna left...
Thursday, 4 August 2005 10:05 pm
somehow, i dun really appreciate japanese food.

i got sick & tired of eating jap food cos i ate it very frequently.

there are nice japanese food tat is delicious which i will try but once in a blue blue moon. hahaha

by the way, i think good japanese food costs really expensive..


9. JayWalk left...
Friday, 5 August 2005 1:37 am :: 
vanna: I do get sick and tired of it after a while too coz we kept ordering the same thing on the menu!

Sometime, we just go to the restaurant and plonked ourselves down at the sashimi bar and just, without ordering from the menu, tell the chef to whip up something that he thinks we would enjoy.

A good chef would be one who, using his intuition, be able to figure out what we would like to eat/try even if we are not regulars at the restaurant.

I do however, agree that good japanese restaurants' prices in Singapore don't come cheap unfortunately.


10. Jaslyn left...
Friday, 5 August 2005 2:15 am :: http://precious-jas.blogspot.com
Jay....tks for the pics. Hmm...I shall try it out one day! Never try, never know ;)


11. JayWalk left...
Friday, 5 August 2005 4:58 am :: 
Jaslyn: Just a word of advice. It is a very very unique taste. Try it with an open mind.
The ang mohs get especially put off by the texture.
For me, I loved it at first bite!

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