BBQ in Tokyo: The Rooftop BBQ Beer Garden

This week after I finished with some test for my nail art certification, to banish all the stress that accumulated, and since it will be my friend several last supper here before she go back to Singapore, we decided trying the barbecue house which already attract me for the last 1 year. It was called The Rooftop: BBQ Beer Garden.

It was located in a shopping mall Lumine, which is on the inside of Ikebukuro Station, Tokyo on the 8^th floor. The restaurant itself is an open air lounge. The ambiance is damn nice.

But for the price, I can say it was quite... expensive.

To be simple, there were 3 main set menu (3500 yen, 3000 yen, 2500 yen), which is consist of same dishes which differs only in the amount of variation you will get. The more expensive the menu you choose, for example, you get another dish such as tapas, salad or something. And, what makes it worse is, the beef steak, which is quite crucial for a bbq, is not included!! Have to add extra 1000 yen per slice of beef steak. So sad L We finally didn't order the steak.

Because me and my friend were so broke, we chose the 2500 yen course PLUS the drink set.

The drink set itself contains of 2 variation, 1500 yen and 2000 yen, for 1 and a half hour of all you can drink, plus wine for the 2000 yen set. Of course we chose the 1500 yen! We both can’t drink that much of an alcohol.

So in total, we spend 4000 yen each per person. Okay lah. For the sake of trying.

The food itself is nice though. For 2500 yen we got seasoned raw chicken wings (4 pcs each set), seafood tapas, vegetables, hamburger, and dessert.

The chicken wing is very well seasoned, we can taste the seasonings well until the inside of the meat, and somewhat very juicy after we BBQed it.

Grilling!!

The next one is the squid mushroom tapas which is very nice! They came out frozen a first, and after being grilled, wow, the smell was so damn nice.

Finish stage!

The too bad thing is tapas, which is very salty, usually served with bread however the bread itself sold separately from the set, and cost us another 220 yen for 1 baquet. We finally ordered two to balance the taste of the tapas.

The vegetables.

And photo of us grilling. Oh happy face.

And I think the best dishes for the night is the hamburger. They gave us raw meat and bread, salad, so we make our own burger style. We BBQed the meat and it was awesome. How can 1 slice of thin meat can produce so much juice I cannot believe it. It was so yummm. Final formation, is, the normal looking burger with exploded taste.

However we kinda can’t take proper picture since our hands were dirty because of BBQing things hahaha.

The dessert, is very bad, I can say. It was ice jelly with what flavor of syrup I don’t even know, and too frozen strawberry that gave me brain freeze. The look however nice though.

After we finish. 2 girls. We are monsters hahahaha.

I can say, eating here is quite acceptable, for once a year. For the food it was quite expensive although it was very nice though, because if I want to compare with another restaurant here in Japan, start from around 1500 yen we can have a proper buffet course!

I know maybe they were not selling the food. It’s soothing to see all the decoration, background music, environment they set which is quite calm and perfect for hanging around with friends for hours despite the station itself is very, very crowded. And not to mention located in quite a high end mall too. No wonder they charge the menu quite expensive.

In the end it was quite an good food experience. Although I can’t hardly say I will come back, but trying this rooftop BBQ place was never a regret for me. Time to eye-ing another interesting restaurants and cafes!!

Japanese Ice Ouca

Last week I went to one cute dessert store in an area called Ebisu. Me and my friends saw this cute looking small dessert and decided to give it a try, since sometimes in front of this store, usually have a quite long queue which make us curious about this shop.

It only takes about 5 minute walk straight from JR Ebisu station which is very convenient, I think.

Although the store is quite small and can only fit around 10 people to dine in, the nuance is very nice! I always amazed by how the Japanese can décor such a small place into a very cozy surroundings.

The menu itself is not very hard to read even though still, most of it are in Japanese. But don’t worry the staff sometimes can speak English too! They sell variations of savory and sweet ice creams (with the taste of quite you-can-never-find-in-other-store kind, such as pear, melon, grapefruits, karintou, etc), japanese traditional dessert and dessert drinks. The price range is not that expensive too, ranged from 390 yen to 490 yen, and 600 yen for the special menus such as dessert of the season whatsoever which usually came in a big portion.

We ordered Dango Ice for 390 yen, with the normal standard sauce. Actually we can choose the red bean sauce but we were afraid with the ice cream it will be super sweet so nevertheless we go for the normal savory sauce one. And we can choose the ice cream flavor too! I chose karintou (Japanese friend dough) at that time and it taste awesommeeeeee. Not very sweet and got this savory taste a little bit. The dango itself is warm, chewy, with a perfect balance of sweet-savory-soy-sauce taste like sauce over it cannot be more perfect than that.

Another menu we ordered is the red bean glutenous rice jelly dessert for 470 yen. I forgot the name precisely though, but still it was very nice! It’s not very sweet like I imagined it will be. That’s what I think as the plus point for this store. They mix jelly, red bean, dunno bout the yellow thingy though but I suppose ot was some kind of sweet potato ball, and a syrup topping. Yums!

And then, because the karintou ice cream was soo good, we went back there again several days later just only to eat the ice cream <3

And they didn’t forget to put a little bit of savory dry seaweed to balance with the ice cream even though we didn’t need it though, as the ice cream itself was in the tight level of sweetness.

And so I can say I have a full dessert satisfaction level for the week!!

Tokyo Disneysea (October 2014)

Finally!!! After 1 year of hard times finding the best time to go to Disneysea, Finally I went there on previous week. I went there with my friend from Singapore and Malaysia, Yuan, Celina and Steph. I’ve met Celina and Steph just that Sunday, however they are such a fun girls I have a great time with them!! Too bad they leave Japan so fast, I will miss them a lot.

From Maihama Station, I took Tokyo Disney Resort Liner to Disneysea. It cost around 240 yen one way I think, If I’m not mistaken. From the station onward, we were welcomed by Disney's majestic orchestra music background which set the mood to the max! 

Mickey train come! 

Steph, Celina, Yuan, Me.

Talking about best times, that day actually it’s not the best-est time that I can get. Heavy rain poured full one day as a beginning of Monday’s typhoon so we kinda cannot take so much great photos. However, the great thing is, less crowds, less queue and we can catch quite a lot of attraction in one day!! And all of them mostly the most recommended of all.

Reached, we quickly amazed by all Halloween festive season's decoration!

And from the entrance, the view of Mountain Prometheus really stand out. Haiyah. I almost believed it's a natural mountain until they told me it was man made. Jesus Christ.

However, sorry again for bad weather, I couldn't take photo's properly at that time so I only can describe a little bit of what I found interesting about the attractions.

We went to these attractions by order: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones Temple of the Crystal Skull, Sindbad Storybook Voyage, The Magic Lamp Theatre, 20.000 Leagues under the Sea, Broadway Music Theatre and Tower of Terror.

From all of them, My 3 most favorite by order is Indiana Jones, Broadway Theatre, and Tower of Terror! All must try!

Indiana Jones gave us a very pleasurable effect and pumping enough adrenaline, everything combined perfectly, not too much, not too less. Broadway Theatre, where Mickey and friends dancing accompanied by great jazz performance (If you like it!), makes me sit in awe of how can a character that can’t speak express a lot using music and gestures. The performance shocked me because It exceeds my expectation. And the last is Tower of Terror, great settings and opening story, not too high above an better be taken on night, so you can be enchanted by the pretty Disneysea’s view from above high (in case you can handle the free fall, of course).

This is one of the photo taken from Indiana Jones. Interesting expressions!!

and tower of terror. I remember this one was taken right before the drop.

And next are the lousy attractions from my pov.

Surprisingly I found the Journey to the Center of the Earth which is the main attraction of Disney Sea, quite unsatisfying. It’s a roller coaster, but the drop is only once, we kinda over expected it to be at least 2 or 3 drops, however one drop and it’s over. Booboo. 20.000 leagues Under the Sea too!! Nothing’s there. Only sit in a capsule, with a little bit shaking and vibration, bubble effect, and it’s over. I read in a blog it’s top recommended, however, thank you for raising my expectation above acceptable level. Lucky we didn’t need to queue for this (we amazingly just went in!!) or else will be heart broken...

Aside from the lousy ones, the other attraction is nice too. Actually we wanted to try Toy Story Mania and Storm Rider however because even until late night they still have quite a long queue (it’s great, I guess?) we decided to back off and shop.

And of course we don’t forget to mention about the food! We ate our lunch on Yucatan Base Camp Grill. They serve Halloween Special Set for 1450yen. Look how cute this is!

2 hours after lunch we have a quite “heavy” snack time on a restaurant near the entrance andddd forget the name of the restaurant but since they serve cute dessert with Mickey plates and stuff, we went in. I forget the price too, cause we share all of it between 4 of us.

During our stroll, we brought Curry Popcorn too!! (OMG). The smell is so obvious we can directly tell it's curry. 

The cute thing is usually every popcorn stall sells popcorn buckets that you can refill popcorn and it comes on so many different characters, but several that I see the most is Mr. Potato Head and the three cute kiddo Alien from Toy Story. However the bucket itself quite pricey (I remember it was around 2000 or 2500 yen included the popcorn, price is different per bucket). I tempted to buy but since I know I will only use it once, I backed up...  And bye-bye Mr. Potato Head.

And here are several additional photos that I managed to take:

We played around with all the cute hats and masks and take photos without even the staff bother to shoo us!! Take all the photossssss!!!!

And here is the photo while we were queueing for Indiana Jones. Raincoat is kinda become our dresscode that day..

Mike eat my head!! But I'm happy!!!

And several souvenirs that I brought for myself.. (yes I'm greedy about Monster Inc.)

I realized now why people said go here for 1 time will be not enough. If you want to explore to the details, I think it needs around 2-3 full day to explore, take proper photos, eat a lot, experience all attractions, since the queue itself can be quite long and take time. Even people queue in front of the restaurants and cafeteria, it’s unbelievable.

What makes me amazed is that how big is this theme park. For whole my life, the most proper theme park that I’ve been visited is Genting Highland, and Universal Studio of Singapore. And I realized that Disney Sea is 3 times bigger than USS. I spent USS, everything, took photos, attractions for half day only, while here on Disneysea, I went 12 hours from 10 to 10 and it’s haven’t finished yet. Craycraycrazy.

And other magic things are they create everything almost outdoors. You can see the full open sky with all these setting of docks, marine yacht, mountain, and all of it combined together you feel like you are out of this real world. They take imagination to another new level. I don’t mind to go there every day If I can, at least I can feel free from all the problem that I have with this lousy world.

After all, it’s where all the dreams come true... It’s true.

Say hello to Disney Sea holiday blues...

Nb: promise myself to go there again if I can. And take proper photos of course!

How to be a Good Customer for Dummies 101

I work in a retail company and in the most cursed department ever in retail company: Sales. Retail job sucks. Sales department in retail, is sucker than sucks. It's all result, everything you've worked hard for "supposed to be reflected" on the sales report. In the end, we talk sales. we breath sales. we think sales. maybe we even poo sales. 

Beside sales, the number two most annoying thing about working in store is how do you interact with customer. and I know you all fellow retail worker on sales department feeling, bro fist. Customer can be as kind as angels or, as annoying as Lord Voldemort.  

The more we are in contact with customer, the more of little things annoyed us.

Here, I try to represent all the retail worker complain from a shop assistant pov about customer. And hey, you, customer-ean who read this article, no offense, but yeah, this is what several of you did to us. And we kindly ask you to understand our POV. Mutual benefit, right???

For example:

1. If you ask for a stock of one item, don’t expect us to find it in 3 minutes. We got a (usually) messed and boxed up warehouse back there, and it takes us quite time and energy to remove all the boxes, take your items, and put all the scrambled boxes in the place again for God sake. Expect 10 minutes.
2. Even if you change your mind while we’re out of searching for stocks, at least tell another shop assistant that you’ll leave so we won’t have to search you like mad in the store. It’s annoying.
3. Put things back on where they belong. Don’t have to be so neat is ok, it helps us a lot.
4. Some of the complicated things we have to do even it takes your time, is just a decided procedure from our store. For example procedure for sending things, building furniture, etc. We’re not wasting your time, we only do our work. So please don’t be grumpy if it takes a little bit of your time.
5. Take off your earphone when you pay for your things in register. Sometimes we have to ask a robotic question like, do you have point card or something and we are SO PISSED if we have to repeat it several times just because you’re in the middle of hearing good music. We repeat this entire question like more than 50 times a day dude. Give us a break.
6. If you want to just pay and leave at register, at least give us time to count your money first whether it’s the exact amount or not. Don’t just throw away your money and go. First, we’re not vending machine. Second, if your money is not enough and you left already, we’re fucked up.
7. And in reverse, it is okay to take your time in register during payment. Taking out money, putting in the receipt etc. Actually, we quite don’t care as long as it doesn’t take sooo long.
8. Don’t expect us to be 100% perfect of everything. Knowing every single bit section of things, 100% perfect register machine operation, etc. Sometimes it takes us time too to learn, especially the newcomer.
9. A smile on us on register, say “thank you” or a little bit of kindness will boost up our mood for a whole day.
10. Customers always win. We’re not even defended by our manager (most of the time). So, do us a little bit of favor by holding back unneeded anger or complaint for yourself (unless our services like really, really sucks).

And the list still go on though. Can't write it all here.

But hey, fellow retail worker! please share too your complain about customer below!! I'm very interested to hear all of unthinkable POV that maybe I have never experienced before!!

I

5 days 4 Night Kyoto Itinerary (D5)

Actually for the fifth day, we only went for one last temple before we ought to catch our afternoon bus on Kyoto Station. We went for Toji-ji and spend around 1 hour there.

The inside is quite magnificent but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photo (and same rules mostly apply to other temples too.)

And then we went back to Kyoto station and went back for good to Tokyo.

I can say I am very, very, very, very satisfied with my 5D4N trip!! I feel most of the time we spent it effectively, and we didn't spend so much money at all too!!

This is my whole expense for the whole 5D4N trip (1 person):

• Bus (round trip, 3.500 yen one way)          7.000 yen
• Food                                                               15.497 yen

We eat simple breakfast like bread and milk for morning, and eat quite generous on lunch and dinner. Although we ate around 2 times sukiya (cheap gyudon) because we didn’t know what else to eat on that time, but this expense is quite generous. This already included all the snacks such as ice cream, meat bun, etc

• Hotel (5D4N)                                                   14.640 yen

We rent one room for three person, with heater, inside bedroom, small kitchen and even free rental yukata! Unfortunately I forgot the name of the hotel..

• Souvenirs                                                         5.310 yen

This is Yatsuhashi that I brought for my colleagues in office.

•  Train, Bus transport                                       4.320 yen

All in, including transport to and from Nara, Arashiyama etc.

• Tickets to temples                                          4.100 yen
• Miscellanous (souvenir for myself)             5.350 yen

I like to buy refrigerator magnets for some reason.. and I bought quite a lot. And this is included other shopping too I didn't quite remember what did I buy..

TOTAL                                                                    56.917 yen

So cheap right!!!! At first I expect it will be around 100.000 yen but eventually we got it cheaper than expected. I think if you can save more on shopping, It will be even cheaper than mine.

I found out that there’s nothing much to buy in Kyoto rather than Tokyo. Kyoto is perfect to enjoy scenery and take photos, while if you intent to go shopping, just spend one week on Tokyo and you’ll robbed out for sure. Or maybe Osaka. So sad at that time we haven’t had enough time to go to Osaka. Tight on schedule, tight on budget.

But next time surely I will go to Osaka to go to Universal Studio of Japan for sure!!!! 

And almost forgot!! Here are some tips to you for your Kyoto trip if you interested:

• Most of the temples close after 17.00 or sometimes earlier, for god sake. And have ticket fee too. So go check before you went all out and disappointed.
•  Try yatsuhashi. The triangle small cake with different flavor. They got the grilled and hard one and the "nama"/raw like soft cake. I like the “nama” better. Best for omiyage. Japanese said if you buy yatsuhashi for omiyage, they directly know that you had a trip to Kyoto.
•   Watch Memoirs of a Geisha first before go Kyoto. It's all very Kyotoooooooo for god sake and they cover all the best spots of Kyoto if you interested in searching for the details.
• Try explore area around Gion, so many interesting places and restaurant can be found. And Geisha hunting too. I saw one REAL GEISHA and it’s indescribable.  It’s very... inhuman. How can something be so pretty and perfect...
• Eat yudofu. Boiled tofu. Literally just boiled tofu, but its Kyoto's big hit ever.
• Most temple in Kyoto is world heritage, even the lousy one. So pick the really recommended one or it will not be worth it.

Okay then.. This is it. The final post for my Kyoto trip last year! I know that my post is very compact (like, straightforward and quite rushed out in the making) but however if you have any question about details I didn’t insert it here, please don’t hesitate to ask! Put a comment below and I will reply as soon as I can!

Sincerely yours.

And if you want to read the other 2 post related to this Kyoto trip, here are the part 1 and part 2.