Japanese restaurant; Matsuki

Despite being almost pokai at that time due to excessive shopping for CNY, I still went along with my church friends and few friends of friend to Matsuki Japanese restaurant before the start of my CNY holiday break.

Why?

Why wouldn't anyone want to go to a japanese restaurant where you can haz cushion to sit on floor eating on low table like real japanese with real japanese sliding doors for a real good Japanese dining ambiance?


..


On with the food!

Majority of us sakai (I look crappy in this pic sighs)

From left ; Sharon, me, Mei Kian, Kai Bin, Wong, two friends of friend, Jasper and 

another boy in far right whom unfortunately the waitress somehow missed spotting him at the corner so he's not in the picture.

The rooms are separated by sliding doors. This one connects to an empty room the other side. The sliding doors (fusuma) are a bit heavy to slide open, creating frictional sounds. Plus the white screens are made of plastic when it's originally made up of screen paper (shoji) where you see in most anime you can actually poke your finger through and ruin it. =w= the owner probably wants to save cost from constantly changing the damaged screen made by sakai customers like me.

Waiting for our food.

And when the food came, everyone's cameras were out and went all "I want to take pic of your food can I can I?" 

The funny thing was that the Japanese food came mostly with unfamiliar ingredients and we were baffled bout how we were going to eat them. Lol

example,

Mei Kian's Yakiniku Shabu Shabu. It came along with RAW egg. She and I were both staring hard at the egg. Took me a while to figure out that the egg was supposed to be poured over the broth when the broth was still boiling in order to either cook/half-cook the egg.

Sharon's tempura udon (wheat flour noodle) set.

Comes with vegetables and meat crisply fried.

Again, there's raw egg but this one was it quill egg.

The rest other than Mei Kian, Sharon and I pretty much have food served "normally".

Like this one, the only way you eat it is eat the meat together with the rice.

This one too.

Chuka idako (baby octopus). My side order which costs RM10 per plate. I always wanted to eat this one whole plate for myself rather than small servings with sushi rice.

This is my set. I had udon too but mine was temaki roll udon set. So not worth it, seriously! I got attracted to order this set just cuz the temaki comes with the temaki roll stand!

Looks nice but tastes horrible. Bro Kai Bin did warn me not to eat it cuz he had it before but his advice fell on deaf ears who have a big lurve for temaki. The sashimi(one on the left) was urgh... Only the california temaki (one on the right with fish roe) was bearable to eat.

 

back to the quill egg dilemma. 

The thing is, this set came with a small bowl of shoyu (soy sauce) soup other than the miso soup. This shoyu soup was placed under this saucer of quill egg, wasabi and stuff so we didn't see it at first. We thought the bowl was just a stand.

Then I remembered watching Culture Japan by Danny Choo on Animax which showcases Japanese lifestyle, he was eating udon too. He ate the udon by sort of dipping and swishing the noodle into the shoyu sauce...

 ...Like this.



 Mmmm now that taste good. Not to mention, I just love looking at the slippery glossiness of udon compared to our oily kolo mee.

 After that i taught Sharon. 

Now aren't you glad you have an otaku among us?

 

 Free tofu pudding for each of us. Nyum~

After that we had a surprise for this boy here.

Mr. Wong turning 21.

Celebrating his birthday!

Final group picture before we leave.

The rest of them paid bout 15-20 per meal. Mine totaled up was RM35 including service tax. Lol I just don't know how to hold back when it comes to Japanese food. 

It was pretty late already but we still went for movie at Queensbay. 

We watched Shaolin.

This is like the mostest !@#%% saddest movie to air in the cinemas RIGHT before CNY cuz almost everyone died in the movie including the main character. We didn't expect the story to be like this cuz at most we expected there will be a lot of kungfu action. So wth. Totally emo'ed right after coming out of the cinema.

 Huh! Mood spoiler much.

Update - Liese Bubble Hair dye review

This post is WAY long overdue. And I have few events piled up on my to-blog list. Maybe I should've blogged bout my most recent event but I wanna review KAO'S LIESE BUBBLE HAIR DYE (on my not-so-dye-virgin-hair). Because it was my first time dyeing my hair without professional help.

First and foremost I don't remember where I shove my pictures at after clearing the memory space on my laptop. So I can't find most of my before and after pictures, also the pictures of my hair while doing the dyeing. Don't want later after posting this I found my pictures pula, FTS really.

Anyway I had my hair dyed the first time with professional help using REVLON. I really liked the color cuz it was burgundy red purplish. Only problem was it looked so saddeningly like highlight instead of full head dye cuz only can be seen under certain lighting and sun.

Plus at most times I can only spot the color in my REFLECTION in mirror or when taking pic using camera. Certain people noticede the color change cuz previously my hair was charcoal black and the rest of them are pretty oblivious. 
The color started to dull after a month. So I really agree with my mom cuz she's dyed her hair for many times and she prefers L'Oreal.

 Hair color seen only in certain bright lighting.

 As seen in camera under natural sunlight.

I'm doing the review only. So to blog about the whole process of dyeing my hair without my own pics plus there are tutorials online, it's pretty redundant. 

here's the link :http://www.lipglosseater.com/2010/11/product-review-liese-bubble-hair-color.html

 

the how-to manual. Click to enlarge. I sharpen the picture for you to see leh.

the bottle of mixture. After that recap the bottle with a foam dispenser cap and bubble will come out instead of liquid! So innovative.

This is basically how my hair color looks like after. I chose [Sweet Pink] which supposedly have at least a little red tint but all I see is like a natural brunette color on my hair. But few people said they could see a little red tint left on my hair.

Here's my review :

Plus points! 

Satisfaction - Okay. Cuz my hair looked lighter.
Convenient to use - innovative bubble dye which spreads easily over the hair for even color.
                              Took only about an hour plus to dye and wash off.
Professionals commented - consulted my regular stylist and he said LIESE is better than the fake L'OREAL dye or REVLON because it's more suitable for Asian hair and makes hair less dry. 
User friendly - includes free gloves, full bilingual manual with pictures for easy reference and even allergy test manual.

Minus points :(

After effects - Hair got really dry while washing off the bubble. So extra extra conditioner is needed.  Takes few days to go back soft.
Texture and shine - A little bit dry and hair loses its natural shine. Professional commented that it's because the color dye isn't infused into the hair strand but rather just covering the strand that it also covers up the natural glossiness.
Smell - Strong ammonia smell that can make you tear up in your eyes.
Lasting - Only for a month.
Color - Depending on the natural lightness of your hair, it might not turn out as shown on the box. Example if you expect ash brown, it might look just like ordinary brown.

OVERALL

Use Liese if you're the type who's easy-going and won't go heartbroken after your hair loses it's natural shine. Or you just want a quick change of hair color including covering your black roots. It's very convenient to use and if you want to get back the shine on your hair then after dyeing go for treatment at saloon or do your own hair mask at home.

Personally, I would much prefer to have my hair professionally done even if it'll cost me more. Cuz I wouldn't have to fuss so much about the dryness/color/less shine problem after dyeing.