just like to share (some might already know)

if you are near Shin Tokyo and feeling a bit hungry just drop by the Maki Maki Japanese Cafe in Rundle Arcade. It just recently opened and generally has all the typical japanese foods you would find

Maki Rolls
Karaage
Tempura
Udon
etc...

but yeah, I was there the other day and was quite please to find a japanese food stall that was not run by non japanese... nothing wrong with that but there is a distinctive taste difference that is for sure!

any way you can't miss it as its primary colour of the shop front is lime green.

But is it a Meido and/or nekomimi themed cafe?

You just want them to do the Haruhi dance, don't you?

What haruhi dance? *blinks, haven't seen the anime series*

[quote="Bazza"]But is it a Meido and/or nekomimi themed cafe?[/quote]

sorry none of that... if there is any consolation there is a cute waitress working there

That reminds me.

Is that cute nee-san still working at Shin Tokyo? I haven't seen her for a while.

Cute nee-san at shinTokyo? Since when?

Atory wrote:Cute nee-san at shinTokyo? Since when?

I've seen her working there a few times before. Haven't seen her for a while unfortunately. She is supa supa kawaii ^__^

Are you meaning Tovi? The Asian girl who wears the schoolgirl outfits? (Only female I know who used to work there on a regular basis).

If so, she is not kawaii. If you actually know her, she is kawai. Her cuteness is only skin deep.

Yes, school uniforms.

Sif ruin my delusions ;_;

She was studying to be a chiropractor. I think she may have finished her studies and hence has moved up from working in shinTokyo. She's still in there every now and then, usually when Shane is in there too. He doesn't work there much anymore either. Being a cosplayer I used to talk to them both quite often. Ryan's right about the new store, I don't casually talk to the staff anymore, the feel of the place just makes you want to get your stuff and leave.

Atory wrote:Ryan's right about the new store, I don't casually talk to the staff anymore, the feel of the place just makes you want to get your stuff and leave.

I get that feeling too. It's strange.

The best explanation I can give is that the old store appealed to the introvert otaku in all of us in the same way the Akihabara (did I spell that right?) district appeals to its own. What with the merchandise from floor to ceiling and stacked on top of display cabinets etc. It kept us in, and kept norms out.

The new store feels too empty and clinical. Even though a room full of otaku and hikkokmori the size of a bathroom with no air conditioning wasn't really conductive to a pleasant experience, I still liked being there.

It also attracts alot of narutards. And I don't like the console games stuff in there. Also, QUALITY floor is QUALITY. Over by the mango cases the vinyl flooring has lifted from the concrete base. -_-'

I did think shintokyo looked a bit.... empty in a way.

The new Shin Tokyo store is like a museum of anime, manga and game merch. Everything is clean and sterile, with all the products on display like ancient relics or dinosaur skeletons in glass cases, there to be looked at but never touched. It reminds me of when The Cartoon Gallery in Sydney moved locations, from a small but cosy store in the QVB to the doctor's surgery-like location in the Imperial Arcade.... It just doesn't engender any desire to browse through their stock.

So I go to Shin Tokyo today to buy Moon Phase vol 6.

Turns out this Tovi still works there and was as cute as I remembered. ^_^

I thought two things:

"I rekkon she'd look good in a sailor fuku", and, "God I'm such a weeaboo for thinking that".

Also, zOMG I talked to a girl.

Bazza wrote:zOMG I talked to a girl.

and she was of legal age too...

Yes, what is the world coming to?

I'm obviously not corrupt enough compared to the likes of you lot.

When you mentioned a Japanese Cafe, my first thought was 'Do they have okonomiyaki?'

There used to be a restaurant on the Darling Harbour promenade called the Taira that made an awesome okonomiyaki. Unfortunately, when I returned there, only a couple of years later, the restaurant was gone. Buuu....

sorry no okonomiyaki

Sad. I find it is always a benefit to a Japanese cafe to have okonomiyaki on the menu. At least, I'd eat it.

bchan5 wrote:sorry no okonomiyaki

Boo.

Now there's no reason for me to go there at all. <_<

i like their portion sizes, coz the food i get in adelaide are always too big and i never finish them, so the ones in Maki Maki, though i still can't finish them, are at least cheaper and make me waste less food...^^;;
and!! they have really good green tea latte!! XD take it from me! my friend works there! and when i first went there she made me her test subject to drink the coffee that she just started learning to make. and it was good! and now apparently she's gotten even better at it! i have a feeling the 'really cute waitress' u guys were talking abt is her...she's gonna work there even more now these days, coz she's not at school anymore and she needs more money. i could ask her to ask her boss if they're ever gonna make okonomiyaki?
*is shamelessly trying to help advertise*
she might also help ask the boss if i can get her job after she goes back to japan at the end of this year too! *fingers crossed* <---really needs a job

I'll certainly pay a visit to them now, as I tend to eat smaller portion sizes too most of the time, I keep having to tell the people working at food courts in town (i.e chinese food stalls) to put small amounts again and again, and they don't pay attention lol, so less waste and more cheaper food would be good... and the green tea latte! I LOVE the green tea smoothie from Tbar though, a bit expensive but so yum! Have you tried them, Yuki? Good luck on the job!

i havent gotten any coffee from any cafes here except starbucks... but now that you mentioned it i shall keep an eye out for it. i do love the greentea frappe in starbucks! so glad they have it here now! ^_^
hmm..i dont think the food is any cheaper than the ones in chinatown though, but if you're comparing them to the other japanese restaurants then they are. at least, they're cheaper than the one in rundle arcade (i suddenly cannot remember the name...o_O katsu-something)....

also, guys, forgot to tell you guys this yesterday. okonomiyaki is SO easy to make. it's just like how you would make a normal western pancake. me and my mom would make them for lunch sometimes when we get too lazy to cook or go out to eat. just get:
half a cabbage (finely chopped, actually, it would depend on how big your cabbage is, just use ur common sense... )
an egg
flour
water
a few strips of bacon
japanese mayo
okonomiyaki sauce (bbq sauce works fine too)
mix everything except the bacon, make sure it's thick and gooey, then just cook it on the pan! after patting it and making it roughly okonomiyaki shaped, place the bacon strips on top. after the other side is done, flip it over and cook the side with the bacon on it. just repeat until it's totally cooked. you can replace bacon with virtually any kind of meat so go nuts.
also, don't even bother buying those special okonomiyaki mix, from experience, there's no difference.

yeah the Tbar green tea smoothie is so yum, i think its basically cold green tea, icecream or milk, not sure because it was hard to see what they were doing and honey, blended in a blender and sometimes they put in green tea leaves on top to serve.. will have to check starbuck's green tea frappe..

from what i remembered the ones at starbucks taste just like greentea ice-cream...^_^ just a little too sweet, i have to tell them to put less sugar everytime...^^;;
i haven't tried the ones at starbucks here yet...might try it tomorrow! or maybe i should just go to tbar instead, huh...XD

Hehe! Tbar's $4.50, the green tea smoothie price that is, I know its a bit pricey but it's good... It's up to you hehe, Tbar's under david jones in the food court area btw. I'll go on wednesday to either starbucks or Tbar, since it's my pay day ^_^

Bickfords Peach Iced Tea and Bickfords Lemon Iced Tea >> all.

ShinTokyo looks more like a museum these days.

hot jasmine tea and green tea ice cream >>>>> all!!

Mr.T >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all!!!

yeah, but mr t isn't edible. at least not in the sense we're discussing.
mmm... so many orders of magnitude...

Stop talking about Mr. T, you're making me want a snickers.

If I hear you talkin' like a crazy foo again you're going to meet my friend PAIN!

I met PAIN on Friday night after dropping Adrian at his place, I'll tell more and show photos at AJAS tonight.

There was a funny thing on the radio today about some Woolworths employees who were fired for "drinking on the job" after having a beer on their lunch break. Funny because the article the radio guys were reading didn't identify the people involved except by their last initials, so it was "Mr T was seen drinking a beer" and "Mr T was fired from Woolworths".

Woolworths does have a zero BAC policy, but I've only seen it enforced when people are actually caught drinking. It'd be interesting to know how much he actually had and whether or not it was gone by the time his break was over.
I'd love to have Mr T as a manager, the DC would pack everything correctly and rude customers would case to exist.

yukihotaru wrote:i havent gotten any coffee from any cafes here except starbucks... but now that you mentioned it i shall keep an eye out for it. i do love the greentea frappe in starbucks! so glad they have it here now! ^_^
hmm..i dont think the food is any cheaper than the ones in chinatown though, but if you're comparing them to the other japanese restaurants then they are. at least, they're cheaper than the one in rundle arcade (i suddenly cannot remember the name...o_O katsu-something)....

also, guys, forgot to tell you guys this yesterday. okonomiyaki is SO easy to make. it's just like how you would make a normal western pancake. me and my mom would make them for lunch sometimes when we get too lazy to cook or go out to eat. just get:
half a cabbage (finely chopped, actually, it would depend on how big your cabbage is, just use ur common sense... )
an egg
flour
water
a few strips of bacon
japanese mayo
okonomiyaki sauce (bbq sauce works fine too)
mix everything except the bacon, make sure it's thick and gooey, then just cook it on the pan! after patting it and making it roughly okonomiyaki shaped, place the bacon strips on top. after the other side is done, flip it over and cook the side with the bacon on it. just repeat until it's totally cooked. you can replace bacon with virtually any kind of meat so go nuts.
also, don't even bother buying those special okonomiyaki mix, from experience, there's no difference.

Hey, I'm well aware of how to make it...but it just isn't the same unless you get it fresh from an okonomiyaki stall!

Ryan White wrote:Woolworths does have a zero BAC policy, but I've only seen it enforced when people are actually caught drinking. It'd be interesting to know how much he actually had and whether or not it was gone by the time his break was over.
I'd love to have Mr T as a manager, the DC would pack everything correctly and rude customers would case to exist.

No, you really don't want them ranting about beer o'clock all shift along with rants about ethnic groups in Sydney and failing to complete a single sentence without swearing. (While the store is open)

I've had the green tea frappe from starbucks today... it tastes almost the same as green tea pocky that I once bought from kenshin tokyo... I prefer Tbar's green tea smoothie afterall, for its price and milder taste

ooo! i love green tea pocky! and milk tea pocky too! ^_^

awww...u didn't like them? hmm, oh well, everyone has different tastes i guess....i still have yet to taste the green tea from tbar yet...>___< maybe on friday!

I like the green tea ice cream you can get at some restaurants. I've also had wasabi ice cream. Which is a bit like eating frozen cream of mentholatum....

green tea ice-cream is awesome! especially the soft serve ones! and speaking of green tea ice-cream, i had some at maki maki yesterday. they pour chocolate on top of it too! actually, i'm not sure if it's chocolate or red bean paste, but it was yummy! (o^-')b

omg..wasabi ice-cream?! -_-lll i've always stayed away from them...>__< anyone ever had black sesame ice-cream before? don't.

I liked it actually, Yuki, just found it a tad bit too sweet of course. Are you coming to UniSAGA, Yuki?

I'll have to try green tea icecream sometime..

I suppose it depends on which black sesame ice cream you have, as I've had some before at a place on Darling Harbour in Sydney, and it was really nice.

I had a nasty experience with wasabi ice cream, once, when the restaurant decided that the ice cream didn't look green enough, and decided to add more wasabi powder. The resultant concoction was inedible, even by wasabi ice cream standards.

I've had green tea ice cream with red beans at the Himeji restaurant on O'Connell Street, before it became the Hana.... Was really nice, too. Red beans, whole or jam, goes well with green tea ice cream.

IceLee, i'm not sure if i can go. definitely not next week, coz i'm gonna be off to gold coast for a week starting tuesday!! meaning i won't be coming for ajas next week either! ^^;; but yes, unisaga is not in the city right? i live in the city and it's kinda inconvenient for me to go there, especially coz it's at night. ^^;;

mappy, i never did like red bean to be honest. my whole family likes them and think i'm a freak for not liking it. my mom even makes red bean soup thingy for our breakfasts sometimes...-_-lll but i was surprised the one on the ice cream tastes nice!
and...wasabi powder?! on ice-cream!? omg....did your eyes start watering after eating that? o_O

I've always liked red bean jam and/or paste on things. I'd probably try the red bean soup, if possible.

Yep, people start talking about food, again, and Mappy's in there.

The wasabi powder is mixed into the ice cream to give it the wasabi flavour. Essentially it is an ordinary vanilla ice cream up until that point. What the dummkopf did in the kitchen was: take wasabi ice cream that was demonstrably mixed up and ready to serve, i.e. it was green, then add more wasabi powder to the mix. Instant thermal meltdown to all who tried to eat it. And they didn't realise until I made a complaint about not being able to feel my tongue, anymore. Fortunately they didn't charge me for that and gave me free chocolate ice cream on the house. This was at the Irodori on Rundle Street, by the way.... Sadly, it no longer exists. Jim and I were legends, there, as being the only people ever to order a sushi and sashimi platter for three each.

Darn just as well I cant turn up at UniSAGA either T_T Damn for last minute phone calls from edible_hat's boss changing his shifts.... UniSAGA's in Magill btw

just went there today and they had a tradition Japanese flute player today... felt sorry for the guy as it was 36 degrees today and even though it was kinda airconditioned it was still hot as the arcade was not really design to keep the cool air in.

That arcade is quite an awkward one, not really being designed all that well when it comes to hot weather. Shin Tokyo used to turn into a sauna whenever there were more than 3 or 4 people browsing when it was still at that location, so I'm not surprised that the poor flautist was sweltering in the heat that would be wafting up from the entrance....

I present this week as a counter-argument to those who deny global warming. I can remember hot spells in November going back to the early 70's, lasting 2-3 days, but never a whole week (or longer, as is the case). Can you imagine what January/February could be like? How about whole weeks above 40c? How about days above 50c? Something to look forward to.

Since we are talking about food, i was recently given a banana kitkat and a lemon kitkat that were purchased in Japan! They were delicious! They would have been more delicious, however, if they were served on top of a minderjährigen mädchen maid......

Keep dreaming...

eeehh....that sounds like it would taste bad no matter what....

So Madman has other kinds of lollies on his mind....

Madman wrote:Since we are talking about food, i was recently given a banana kitkat and a lemon kitkat that were purchased in Japan! They were delicious! They would have been more delicious, however, if they were served on top of a lolly maid......

partially fixed, for the sanity of others...
actually, that'd be pretty cool, methinks

Did someone say chocolate?... Mmm, I've tried banana chocolate candy shaped like bananas. They were from Japan. The packaging had monkeys on it, was so adorable. I've never tried lemon chocolate before.

Mappy wrote:So Madman has other kinds of lollies on his mind....

Lollies that lun on loads.

Mappy wrote:Yep, people start talking about food, again, and Mappy's in there.

Eeeewww

So I tried to look for ShinTokyo but found Maki Maki Cafe instead. Nice place.

Was able to get karaage to eat during my bio lecture.