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Sitting back in my chair at the restaurant, I felt as though I was about to enter a “sushi coma” from all the food I had just eaten. My two friends and I were on Long Island for the weekend, and they decided they wanted to take me to dinner. We ended up going to a place called Kotobuki, a Japanese restaurant.

When we walked up to Kotobuki, I found it very charming. The first thing I noticed was the huge crowd. When we opened the doors, there was a line to get to the hostess. I immediately was happy because when a restaurant is that busy, it tends to have great food. After we gave the hostess the name and number in our party, we sat down in the foyer area. This gave me a chance to take a look around. The lighting was dim, but I found it relaxing and serene. There were larger tables in the front of the restaurant, then the sushi bar went down the middle section against the back wall, and to the back there were more tables. The décor was beautiful. Japanese artwork could be found throughout the restaurant and there was a large glass cat on the end of the sushi bar.

We didn’t have to wait too long for our table, considering how crowded it was. We were seated at the sushi bar, which I liked because it was different from just sitting at a table. As I looked around, everything was extremely clean and neat. Our waitress was very polite and her service was prompt. She took our order and then brought us hot towels for our hands. A few minutes we had the first part of our meals.

Our dinner started with soup and salad, if we so chose. The garden salad with ginger dressing was delicious. It was a nice serving size, not too big, but not too small. Then, we had our soup. Miso soup, which is dashi stock mixed in with miso paste, tofu, seaweed, and scallions, was our soup choice for the evening. Then came the main course. The presentation of the food was another thing that I found appealing. The dishes were beautiful, and the food was perfectly placed as though it was on display, which, in a sense, it was. Between the three of us, we had Alaska roll (cucumber, salmon, and avocado), eel and avocado roll, spicy tuna roll (tuna, crabmeat, and cucumber), and California roll (cucumber, crabmeat, and avocado), and a super Maki Roll (Spicy tuna, yellowtail, salmon, with crabmeat inside, topped with a spicy mayo and plum sauce).

Now, this was my first experience with sushi, and I have to say I am definitely glad it was. I tend to be particular and selective when it comes to things I eat and actually like. I was definitely nervous trying raw fish for the first time, but I am definitely glad I did. It was absolutely scrumptious. I was particularly fond of the avocado used in a lot of the rolls. It has a unique texture and taste that balance well with the fish. The ingredients complemented each other so well and gave it a “one of a kind” taste.

After sushi, we decided to get dessert. When I looked at the menu, I wasn’t sure what to get. The ice cream flavors were very different, and after what I had eaten for dinner, I was definitely ready to try more new things. So, we ordered the red bean and green tea ice cream with banana tempura. When our waitress brought us our dessert, it was, again, set so perfectly and looked like a work of art on a dish. The red bean ice cream was my favorite. It had tiny pieces of bean in it, and had a light red, almost mauve color to it. It tasted like it had a hint of vanilla which I also liked. The green tea was, of course, a dark green color, and had a hint of chocolate flavor to it. The banana tempura was also amazing. Tempura is basically a batter that is used to dip pieces of vegetables, fruits, or seafood in. Then, it is briefly deep fried. The result is a light, crispy shell encasing the food originally dipped into the tempura. In our case, it was bananas, and it was delectable.

Finally came the bill. The prices were very reasonable for the quality and service. It was about seventy dollars for three people, which included soup, salad, drinks, the main dinner, and dessert. I was really happy overall with my experience at Kotobuki. The cleanliness, services, atmosphere, and the food were all one hundred percent in my opinion. Kotobuki has received great reviews from customers, with many people stating that it is the best sushi restaurant on Long Island. I definitely agree with that. If giving it a rating on a scale of one to ten, it would definitely receive a ten, hands down. The atmosphere, service, and food make Kotobuki an excellent dining experience.

After Kotobuki, I tried out a few other sushi places. Another good sushi restaurant my friend found was, again, on Long Island. It is called Roppongi. This restaurant was appealing to me from the moment I walked in because I was greeted by a smiling woman. She sat us down and we ordered. The food here also came out in a timely manner and the server was very polite. It wasn’t very crowded, but it was late when we went, so that may be the reason. The sushi we had here was very unique. The restaurant is located in Amityville on Long Island, so they have the “Amityville roll”. This roll is not only huge, but it is very unique. It consists of spicy tuna, salmon, yellow tail, avocado, cucumber, crunched inside, eel and white tuna seaweed and tobiko (flying fish caviar) on top. It had great flavor and was different from anything I had ever tried. The bill was only thirty dollars, and again we had salad, soup and sushi. We also received free orange “desserts”, which were very unique. I would give this restaurant a rating of a seven or an eight. It was a very good experience.

My final restaurant is called Yamoto, which is in Voorhees, New Jersey. I found my experience here to be adequate. It wasn’t terrible, but I definitely have had better. The prices were a little bit high and you didn’t receive as much food as you did at Kotobuki, but I thought it was pretty decent. We ordered eel roll and spicy tuna roll, which were both great. This restaurant, however, had a slightly different atmosphere. I didn’t like that I could see boxes and other random items behind their counter. It seemed cluttered and a bit unprofessional. Also, our waitress was nice, but she was extremely slow. We waited for the bill for twenty minutes! It was also a Friday night that we went to this restaurant, and there were only two other families in there, which I found strange. Rating on a one to ten scale, I would give it a four or a five. Overall, it was my least favorite of the three.

Rating a restaurant can prove to be more difficult that most would imagine. You have to take in more factors than just the food. I worked at Chuck E. Cheese for two years, and although it is not strictly a restaurant, they still serve food there. I know that working in a restaurant environment isn’t easy. When I go out to eat, I tend not to make a big fuss if the waitress takes a long time, because I know how difficult it can be when it gets busy. However, Kotobuki was still top notch, even when they were extremely hectic and busy.

Sushi is an interesting experience, to say the least. You have to be open to new things to try some of the things that are offered. I think that Kotobuki was a great first experience for sushi and I would definitely recommend the restaurant to anyone who is going for their first sushi experience.

(Works Cited: pictures taken by me!)

]]> http://disorder8902.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/teachers-draft-for-unit-three/feed/ 0 laceyreichert07 Outside Kotobuki http://disorder8902.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/peer-review-draft-2/ http://disorder8902.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/peer-review-draft-2/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:42:24 +0000 laceyreichert07 http://disorder8902.wordpress.com/?p=58 ]]> kotobuki-critique-peer-reivew-draft2

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I think that everyone needs one of those days where they can just do absolutely nothing. Being a college student, I rarely get that. I always have something to do, whether its homework, class, meetings, projects, or just getting my life organized, sometimes I feel like I don’t even have time to breathe. The stress gets to be overwhelming.

My parents are always asking me “Why are you so stressed out? You are at college having the time of your life in New York!” My parents didn’t go to college. They don’t understand that it’s not like high school. There is a much bigger workload. I have a few papers a week to write, books to read for classes, and regular, smaller homework assignments, like this blog post for English class. The little stuff doesn’t bother me too much, and the papers aren’t too bad. What really gets me is the reading. I used to have to read 120 pages for my history class and then would take a quiz on it. I failed or got a D on every quiz because I simply couldn’t retain all that information. I used to freak out and say that I hated college.

Honestly, I love college. I hated high school. I like that everything is left up to the student. In high school I used to get annoyed with teachers harping on students about not doing their assignments. Honestly, a high school student is the same as a college student except a different schedule. Chances are if they don’t do their homework in high school, they won’t in college. Now, teachers assign things and if you do the work great, if not, you fail. It seems a bit harsh when put in that tone, but it’s the truth. Your boss isn’t going to hold your hand at work. You need to learn to do things on your own and take responsibility for yourself.

With it being the end of the term, I have tons of work to do and I feel like I have zero time to do it. I just can’t wait for the semester to be over and so I can finally relax!

Tips for dealing with stress!

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I think writing a critical review about a restaurant was a good choice for this assignment because not only was it listed in the ideas list, but I think it is a good choice because it is something that I can give a detailed description of and, in doing so, can make a valid argument about why the restaurant is a great place.

I hopefully will convince others visit Kotobuki. If you know that you are not a big fan of Japanese food, then I wouldn’t suggest going; however, they do have things that are still Japanese foods, but don’t seem like it. The first time I was there, I wasn’t sure what to order because I had never really had sushi or other Japanese foods, so I had chicken that was almost like shish kabob. It was vegetables and chicken in a sweet sauce. It was delicious. The next time I went, I was adventurous (at least for me) and got sushi. I had eel roll, or unagi, in Japanese.

If you are a big fan of Japanese food, I highly recommend trying this restaurant if you haven’t already. The food, the service, and everything is just amazing.

I hope that my critique is informative and interesting. I want to attract people to try the restaurant, and I would even like to get feedback from readers after they go to Kotobuki. I would like to hear what they thought and how their experiences went. I hope others go and have as good of an experience as I did.

My friend Chris and I took the train over to Yankees Stadium in the Bronx. Another exciting part about this game was that it was the last season of Yankees games in this stadium, which was opened in 1923. Chris is a Yankees fanatic, so on our way to the game I got a complete history of the team and the stadium. He also told me what the game was going to be like. As scary as it was, he was totally right. He told me how the “Bleacher Creatures” would chant to each Yankee on the field until they turned around and waved. I thought that was really funny.

When we got there, it was total chaos. There were thousands of people in the streets and cops were directing traffic. We went into a few stores before the game and looked at all the Yankee merchandise. Then, we walked over and took pictures of the new stadium that will be completed for next season.

We went inside and found our seats. It was an incredible feeling walking out and seeing the field and the entire stadium. It is probably awkward to say this, but I thought it was really beautiful. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and the sun was starting to set. It was just amazing.

During the game there were tons of problems. Cops scanned the area and were alert to problems that were bound to happen. Of course, they did. Yankees and Red Sox fans get pretty crazy. A guy and a girl got into a fight, and the girl spit beer in the guys face! Another group was escorted out because they were fist fighting in the stands. Yankees’ fans cheered obscenities at Red Sox fans.

Aside from the crazy fans, the game was amazing. The Yanks won 14 to 9. The best part about the game was that Chris caught a foul ball hit by team captain Derek Jeter, and he gave it to me! I was so excited. My first game, and I got to see the Yankees play their rival team, I saw them win, and I got a foul ball. It was definitely an experience to remember.

Check out lots of info on the Yankees and their season at their website!

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