Restaurant Review Assignment

Dining Café Home

Reviewed by Moe Yamamoto and Miyo Shinozawa

 
 

 

A Secret Hiding Restaurant

              Even I got lost finding the restaurant and took a while to notice it. But when I found it, I thought what a cute, quiet and peaceful place and got really excited. Totally different atmosphere from the many people and big road of Omotesando, when it is just a few meters away. In the front of the restaurant, there is a narrow path that you have to walk down, which gives you an excitement to the entrance. And before you walk down the path, there are colorful signs, and a menu stand which was really easy to understand.

              When you start walking down the path, the restaurant staff notices you and they open the door saying “welcome” with a warm smile and a bright voice. Inside the restaurant was decorations that make you remind of Christmas and the holiday seasons. There were 8 little tables each with 2 seats, and the table cloths were alternately red and green. Since there were only a few customers, we were able to choose our seats. Next to the table was a little basket to put our bags in and I thought that was really nice. As we soon as we sat down, the waitress came to our table and set waters and menus. It was lunch time and there were 3 main dishes and I chose the Steak Hamburg Plate with rice, while my friend, Miyo, chose the Boiled Seafood Cream Pasta. We also ordered drinks and they came within 2-3 minutes. We also were served welcome drinks, which was plum juice, and that was a happy surprise. Our dishes arrived no more than probably 5 minutes. The first thing I noticed about my plate was that the rice was not white rice. It had a light purplish color and I found out they use mixture of 16 different grains in the rice. The salad was crispy and fresh, the dressing was perfect with the vegetables. The French fries were just the right saltiness, hard on the outside, soft in the inside. Finally, the hamburg steak. It was a little hot at first, but I was able to forget about that as soon as I put it in my mouth. It was big and thick, and the meat was soft and tender and juicy, also the sauce was perfect with the steak and it was heavenly. A taste I never had before. The pasta that Miyo ate, she said it was delicious and creamy.

              The service, food, atmosphere, everything was perfect. I was able to have a really relaxing and fun time. It’s a restaurant that I definitely want to come back to again and also tell all of my friends.

Happy New Year!

Wow! It's 2015! I'm so excited for what's going to happen this year! My plan or goals are to be on a healthy diet and enjoy everyday and not waste any time doing nothing. I want to really think about my studying habits and what I want to do in the future. Also, start a part-time job and save money!

Okay, so my first post for this year is about a restaurant review article and a video about a review which is totally different from the article.

So, the article was about a restaurant in Winchester and a guy name Rick Stein started it. The reviewer's name is John Walsh and he is a writer and a commentator. This restaurant has mainly fish and seafood dishes. He says the inside atmoshpere is very relaxing with white-topped tables, sea scenes on display, cushiony banquettes, and copper lamps hung over. The waiters and waitresses are bright-eyed and welcoming, and they rush over to bring water, bread, and menus. Some menus include salt & pepper squid, hake which is a well roasted white fish, and dover sole. It looked like he was satisfied with the friendly service and stlye but he said "only a heavy hand with the butter let the kitchen down".
 This was probably the first time for me to read an actual review from a professional point of view so it was really interesting to read it.

Next, I would like to talk about the video which was about a restaurant in DISNEY! And in Florida! It's my dream to go there! The restaurant's name is Be Our Guest Restaurant. The video showed how it's like inside the restaurant and it was beautiful. The theme was the princess story Beauty and the Beast, which is one of my favorites and there are 3 different rooms. The food dishes are French inspired with a little Disney touch and it looked delicious. But I wished they showed more of the food choices than the surroundings.
Watching this video made me want to go there even more! Someday, I'll definitely make this come true.

I'll post the video below for everyone to watch it. I recommend it!

Organic farming

Good afternoon! How was your day today? My day was fun because I danced with my friends after school.

Well, in one of my earlier posts, I talked about the book that I'm reading right now which is about organic farming. But the book is written a little difficult, so I searched for videos that can explain it a little bit easier for me and I found a lot! So I would like to introduce one that I thought was really easy to understand and fun to watch. The video title is "What is Organic" and let me give you a short description of the video. To the people who don't know what organic means, it means products with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. 

The opposite word for organic is conventional and this was a new word or fact I found out. Conventional  farmers use many harmful chemicals and pesticides. Another new fact I found out was organic farmers use flame weeders (made of clean natural gases) to kill the weeds, and this type of gas is used when we have barbecues. 

Now I think everybody is wondering how do we know what is truly organic. We need certification. And this was another new fact for me and Australia has 8 government certifiers and some international organic certifiers. I added some pictures of those certifiers below. If you search on google, there are hundreds more!

And on this video, a website www.pureandgreen.com.au was introduced. When I looked at it, it was a site with whole bunch of organic facts and products! This got me really interested in reading it, so when I have time, I definitely want to take a look at it.  

Here is the video: 

See you at my next post! 

Last week"s assignment

Hello and I am so sorry for not posting the last two weeks or so. I would like to be more careful and make this blog more fun to read for everyone.

On this post I would like to talk a little about a another food related blog that I looked at and that is neverseconds.org. My first impression was that the first post said 10 million hits and I thought "wow!! That's a lot!!" And as I started to scroll down, there were pictures of some volunteer work, meals, and it looked healthy too. While reading some posts, I was so moved by how much volunteer work she has done and how much children she has helped, it made me want to help other people also. I should be thankful that I have food to eat everyday, every meal.

This picture is when I ate spaghetti for dinner :)\

It also looks like she has been going to many places around the world and I really admire her for how big she's working. My dream is to work worldwide also, so I would like to take her work as an example. 

Hmmm....volunteer work.  I wonder if there are any that I can do. I really love children and doing things for other people that make them smile and happy. So to the people who read this, if you know any, if you could leave some comments I would really appreciate it! Thank you!

Analyzing a food blog

The blog that I analyzed is thedomesticman.com. As the website opened, there was a big picture of a delicious looking food and it got me interested. As I read along, there were advices and recipes written and I thought it was really useful. The author introduced many balanced food recipes and so maybe when I have time, I'll try to make it myself. The past years, I wasn't that interested in cooking but reading this blog made me motivated and want to cook. Also, to learn about diet and the things that we put in our body. I recommend everyone to take a look at this blog!

The Book I'm Reading

The book that I started reading is called "Good Growing Why Organic Farming Works" by Leslie A. Duram. To give a quick summary, the author researches and interviews working organic farmers from all across the USA to find out the realities of organic farming; the pleasures, problems and concerns about it.
The first chapter is "Organic Farming and Geography." From reading part of this chapter, I found out that there are 5 geographical regions in the United States which helps the investigation of organic agriculture. Organic agricultural researchers and farmers define organic farming in many ways, such as crop rotation to build healthy fertile soil that has few pest problems. Crop rotation is changing the crops grown in a field each season. Organic farming also means growing large number of crops both for ecological diversity and for sales diversity. And lastly, it means innovation which is to try new crop rotations or varieties, timing, new machinery, and new sales venues to meet the consumer's demands.
The opposite of organic is what they call conventional agriculture.  This kind of agriculture relies on synthetic fertilizers and toxic chemicals which kills most weeds and insects but pollutes the rivers and oceans. Some chemicals stay on the food and it affects the consumer who eat it. When I read this, I got scared what the farmers are doing to what we eat. I was glad my mom relies on organic food and products, and that she told me about it. That is why I chose this book; to know more about how organic production works.
This book is really scientific but I'm really interested in reading more about it and challenging myself to a higher level of understanding.