Cuisine | Kozui Green Tea

Kozui Green Tea is one of those nice little eating places that one usually sees along Tomas Morato Ave. in Quezon City. I've been seeing this place every time I pass by Morato, but have never tried it until today. After a hearty lunch with my Mom, sister, and three nieces, we headed there for some dessert.

Kozui Green Tea's nice, quaint interiors

Turns out Kozui is a Japanese cafe, with their menu incorporating green tea in one way or another. The interior was bright and clean, with a muted green and white color scheme. A large photo and paint montage that extends to the ceiling can be seen on one wall, and the entire ambience gives off a cozy, quaint vibe.

Looking up towards the ceiling

While some of their dishes include typical Japanese fare like takoyaki, soba, and tempura, most of their items are unique, with a large selection of Green Tea lattes and blended drinks. My niece Bea tried out their takoyaki, and I had some Green Tea Ice Cream, which is actually more like Green Tea Softserve Ice Cream, but it was cool and refreshing just the same.

My sister Ella tried out their Anmitsu, which is somewhat like our local Halo-halo. It consisted of shaved ice with green tea jelly, large dango balls (similar to sago), taro jam, beans, and an ice cream flavor of your choice.

Kozui's yummy Anmitsu

There was more, like their brilliant green-colored Tiramisu, or Tearamisu, and some other nice-looking pastries, but I was already too full from our lunch that I couldn't take another bite. One thing's for sure though, a return visit to Kozui Green Tea is definitely in order.

Film | Watchmen

In 1986, DC Comics released a Limited Series titled Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The series was critically acclaimed and considered a landmark in the comic book genre due to its deconstruction of the typical superhero concept.

After Watchmen became a commercial success, a planned movie version turned into a development nightmare that would last for decades, with the movie changing scripts, studios, and creative teams several times. Eventually, writer Alan Moore became disillusioned with the Hollywood treatment of his other works, and refused to lend his name to any future adaptations.

But Warner Bros. pushed through with the movie, and Watchmen finally opened in theaters during the first week of March 2009. So how was it? Having read the original series, it wasn't bad at all.

Watchmen takes place in an alternate Earth during the 1980's, where costumed crimefighters were common in America during the 1930's to the 1970's. These superheroes were in part responsible for helping win the Vietnam War, but eventually the public grew tired of them and they were outlawed and considered illegal.

The story begins when one of them is brutally murdered, forcing the others out of retirement as they try to figure out who or what was responsible. Making it worse is the growing threat of an all-out nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union. In the end, the horrible truth is revealed, making the heroes decide the course of action they must take and deal with the consequences, for better or for worse.

Readers of the original series might be pleasantly surprised with the visual look of the film, with some scenes exactly duplicating panels of the comic book. I thought director Zack Snyder did a good job, but he tends to overuse a lot of slow motion sequences that it becomes annoying later on.

With a total running time of 162 minutes, Watchmen is overly long, but it never gets boring. Some parts of the comic book were omitted, and some were changed (like the ending), but overall I thought it was good enough adaptation of Alan Moore's work. I also really liked the opening credits sequence, which was a cool montage set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin."

One other good reason to see the film is Jackie Earle Haley's badass performance as Rorschach, who makes Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry look like a wuss in comparison. Haley really nailed the character--he is Rorschach.

Even though Watchmen was given an R rating in the USA and other countries, the dumbass censors here gave it an R-13 rating, presumably so it can be shown in "family-friendly" theaters. This is yet another example of the gross stupidity of the local censors as well as the film distributors, who apparently don't understand that this film is not for kids--idiots.

Gizmos | 3 new Nintendo DSi colors

While the USA release of the Nintendo DSi has yet to happen, Japan has already added three more colors: Metallic Blue, Lime Green, and Pink.
These new colors join the current DSi lineup of Black & White, making a total of 5 DSi colors now available in Japan. I'm kinda partial to the Metallic Blue one, since it's almost similar to my Enamel Navy DS Lite.

No announcement has been made on whether any of these colors will show up in the North American DSi release; judging from the blandness of past DS Lite releases there, I seriously doubt it, heh.

Cuisine | Pepper Lunch

I first heard about Pepper Lunch from my sister Ella sometime last year, and also managed to read some really favorable reviews about it. The Pepper Lunch franchise came from Japan, and was brought here by designer and writer Cecile Zamora-Van Straten, who was my favorite writer years and years ago when she used to write a column in the now defunct TODAY newspaper. Make no mistake, this is the original franchise--people get confused about a similar local franchise named "Pepper Steak", which is not the same as Pepper Lunch.

Pepper Lunch's Beef Pepper Rice

Pepper Lunch features dishes like steak, chicken, pork, and vegetables served with buttered rice on specially designed metal plates heated to about 260 Celsius by an electromagnetic cooker. This makes the food literally cook in front of you as the plates are brought to the table, and it's up to you if you want the dishes well done or medium rare by just mixing or repeatedly turning the food on the sizzling plate. The result is just so yummy that "yummy" seems like an understated comment; let's just say that their Beef Pepper Rice is one of the best things I've ever eaten.

Two special sauces are provided to marinade or season the food with; one is Amakuchi, or honey brown sauce, while the other is Karakuchi, or garlic soy sauce--both are really good that I can't even tell the difference between them when they're mixed in.

Inside Pepper Lunch's Power Plant Mall branch

The inner dining area of the Power Plant Mall branch

Pepper Lunch currently has two branches in Metro Manila; the first one's at the basement level of The Power Plant Mall at Rockwell, and another branch opened recently at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall. I've eaten at both branches, and while the dishes are quite expensive starting at 200 bucks and make your clothes smell all peppery afterwards, the food is worth it, so I always look forward to repeat visits.

Music | Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World

The 80's will probably be best remembered for the British Invasion on the music charts, with acts like Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and Culture Club churning out one hit after another in their laughable eye make-up and shitcan clothes equipped with shoulder pads. I hated all that "New Wave" subculture crap back then, and still regard it with disdain; even their music sounds outdated and cringe-inducing now.

And then there was Tears For Fears. They started out as a cold-sounding electro-synth pop group at first, but in 1985 the duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith managed to release Songs From The Big Chair, which ditched most of synths in exchange for a livelier, cleaner sound. From that 2nd album came Everybody Wants To Rule The World, which has since become one of my all-time favorite songs.


The music video for Everybody Wants To Rule The World leaves a lot to be desired though--it looks like they're just taking a road trip through the American Midwest (actually Southern California) and intercuts footage of the band singing in a studio; first time I saw it, I went all, "wth? is that it????"

But even though the video was lackluster, the song remains one of Tears For Fears' finest work ever, and for me still sounds as good now as it did back then--a true classic.

Stupidity & the MRT 2

The photo above was taken some time in January at the Shaw Blvd. MRT station. It's now March, and the scene in the photo hasn't changed--in fact, it's always been like that ever since I can remember about MRT stations here.

The long queues you see there are either for the train lines or the cashier lines--sometimes they blend together that it's difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. There's a line for the cashier because we still don't have automated ticket dispensers, so we have to rely on the ancient art of lining up to buy a ticket.

The other long line towards the train area is created because security guards have to check your bags and whatever stuff you're carrying. Sometimes there are two guards; most of the time there's only one, resulting in an even longer line. And all this checking takes a lot of time, even more so when you happen to be unfortunate enough to have someone carrying a gift-wrapped package ahead of you, because they unwrap the gifts just to take a look inside.

I don't understand why the MRT management can't even acquire one of those doorway-type security detectors that you usually see in airports; installing these in the MRT stations would really save a lot of time.

Recently, they installed some kind of partition between the turnstile entrances; I had my hopes up that they were finally installing those doorway-type detectors. I was dead, dead wrong--it was just for some flat TV screen to show more asinine and inane commercials while people are wasting time lining up. As if I effing care about more commercials--stupid MRT management, they should spend more time making their services more efficient instead of trying to make a profit from getting more advertising.