Chris "Toph" G.'s Profile

Respect the Buddha.

The atmosphere is mostly calm, tranquil, simple. Bring a book. Does the Buddha respect reading? Probably. Bring something here, because you've got a wait especially if you have one server and a table of six old timers whom modify every plate that they order come in before you. This for that for that, etc.

The sweet and sour ribs taste delicious; the meat was wonderfully tender and with an ample amount of bell peppers (so many, oh god, soo many.) There was one waiter, he was friendly. Asked if I was a student there. I'm 27 years old and sadly, I still am. But not in Canada! Though with places like this, maybe I should be.

Wait time: a total of six pages of Roland Barthes read.

I am really surprised that this place was rated one of the top hostels in United States! This hostel has so many kinks to work out.

The biggest issue is there's major tension between the work staff. While this may reflect the disparity in the ideology, background and age of the workers, many of the workers seem to make fun of each other behind other workers backs. Even in the first hour I came into the hostel, one of the workers bad mouthed some guy for leaving early or on a break or something; and apparently for not doing enough work. Other instances included how people acted and not how they worked. There seems to be a lot of dislike among certain people who work at the front desk.

There are other worker issues:

The workers do not remember people's faces. I really don't care if people remember me but with silly child-like restrictions like having to show ID every time you come into the hostel, it becomes annoying relatively fast. Even the guy who spent 20 minutes with me giving me tips on places to visit in Seattle halted me for my card the next day.

Also the ID can easily be forged. Find a plain white card and add a tiny gold rectangle (sticker or gold marker) to one end. Now find a room to squat in.

The atmosphere is mostly nice:

The artwork is awesome. The location is excellent. Most of the hostel is clean and well-kept. There are no lockers in the rooms which meant I kept my laptop bag with me at all times. The reception room is not a great room to gather in and there is no strong gathering room in general. The front is generally a place where people enter and exit and since the workers are generally loud and gregarious, eavesdropping on their conversations become unescapable in that area. When conversations aren't heard, some receptionists make themselves the center of attention in other ways. A night worker, for example, drummed on his hands on the desk when people weren't talking to him. I suppose the issue in general revolves around a lack of a strong space to read or do work.

I realize that the building could still be under construction and I'm be sympathetic to the hostel's recent move to its 2nd Ave location but why is the place where breakfast is served one of the most musty and dim rooms in the entire building? The room could be brighter if it was lit by candles! The tables were made from wooden doors and the chairs were as comfortable as fold chairs. I think they were fold chairs; quite a contrast to the reception area!

While looking a little more disheveled from gardening (I washed up beforehand) and wearing a sweater that was inside-out, I might have been methodically seated at a spot in the bar that was directly in front of the "free stuff" section. It seems all of the events that led me to being seated in one of the most cracked out sections of the restaurant made me come to the conclusion that I Love Sushi was one of the weirdest places I've been to in awhile. No it wasn't bad - it was OFF-PUTTING.

Servers' arms and hands were jutting in my periphery from all angles and there was constant hovering over me. I'm in absolute shock at how many servers were working on a Sunday. At any given moment, the butt of the hostess would be three inches from my head and ready to hump it. On the other side of me were servers with trays of food directly over my head.

The massive amount of "free stuff" seemed to sit for a while and it made sense why the free fried food I was given was at room temperature and had the texture of a beaten leather couch. The "free stuff" was also hastily made and stacked one by one by one by one until the sushi bar nearly overflowed with sitting food. The aroma of sitting crab (for someone who doesn't eat fish) wasn't so bad but when crab has been sitting for a while and is moved by a server, the odor sticks like a queef to a closed elevator.

Considering I don't eat fish and only ordered a vegetable spring roll in the "vegetarian" section, the "free stuff" included crab and fish. It would have been in vain to tell the server I'm vegan as the person who gave me the free food wasn't the server who took my order. The server who propelled these plates in front of me left so fast that I couldn't breathe in to say wait.

My overall impression of the staff is that they're not the sharpest knives on the sushi-cutting board. I told my primary server that I don't eat fish and couldn't eat the California roll and mentioned that I didn't touch it - and not to throw it out. She took it, shrugged and threw it out. After I finished eating, she gave me the bill and I gave her a credit card. About three minutes later, a masculine blonde woman put the card in front of my face and said "sir, we don't accept credit cards for purchases under $10 I'll be back" in one sentence.  She never came back. The food came out to $9. With tip on the credit card, it would have been over ten dollars because I'm such a generous person.

It's a shame that the fast pace of the atmosphere does not meet the intellect of the workers. The vegetable rolls and the "free" cucumbers were pretty tasty.

If they could manufacture yellow memories in the tea garden, they would. They'd sell them for $9.99 at the Gift Shop. Not only would they sell them at the gift shop but they'll come in several artificial flavors: Tangy Sensazn Citrus, Golden Arch Lemon and Pagoda Pear.

Any semblance of authenticity is out the door when you come to $5 heaven. The tea is average. Snacks that come with the tea taste prepackaged and bland like the Snak Club "Oriental Mix" at an airport gift shop. The fortune cookies that were invented here over a century ago similarly carry the prepackaged plastic incubator flavor that ends a meal at Pick Up Stix.

The perks of the tea garden include greenery, water, bridges and as many chirpy tourists with cameras as each attraction can bear. Yellow memories are short-lived here when the end of the daze leads you to an exit or when the only seats available to sit on at are the ones that face the path to a bathroom. My memories unfortunately did not take me past my first sip of tea.

Over the summer I've become very interested in mental disorders and have inadvertently met a borderline driver, a pathological lying hairdresser and a histrionic, attention-seeking eyeglasses salesperson.

I am still confused about him not only getting the hint that I am fully capable of looking at eyeglasses myself but responding to my polite decline (no, thank you) for help by tapping his fingers on the table, jingling keys in his pocket, and whistling all in a matter of three minutes.

Not only don't I need help at figuring out which Ralph Lauren models do I like better from the scant selection offered, but I DEFINITELY don't need to oblige myself to become anyones' therapist by enabling them to talk AT me and give them any more attention than they deserve.

When I allowed him to talk at me so he could stop distracting me with his tapping, he couldn't answer an easy and frivolous question I mustered. He proceeded to incorrectly state a specific frame I was looking for was already in the display case and that I wasn't looking properly. No, A V Eyes doesn't carry that model because I already know that from looking at the selection in the display case. I didn't say that as he was obviously having a conversation with the wall then with me. He continued to talk with such an obnoxious, overpowering and agitating conviction that I simply walked out the door. Luckily the Ralph Lauren glasses are located next to the door.

While I probably would have walked out of this small store and its scant selection anyway, the histrionic eyeglasses salesperson helped speed up this process. It was time for an early dinner.

There are very few exceptions to the rule that texture is as important as flavor for good vegan food. When texture triumphs taste, it holds the appeal of the curried chicken salad sandwich I tried at The Cafe. What made the sandwich phenomenal was an extra tender and thick wedge of succulent veggie chicken inside fresh ciabatta bread with a tasty bean salad that provides a compliment to the entire meal.

The Cafe is the southernmost vegetarian restaurant in the continental United States; and it was a plain cafe that could be easily passed by. There are no barkers trying to cajole you and the sign is sufficient enough for you to know that this is The cafe of cafes when you pass by. Plain Jane was filled to capacity on a Saturday night and quite a wait for food. I recall the idiom that good things come for those who wait though luckily there is no need to be rushing anywhere on an early Saturday night in Key West.

After fifteen minutes of sitting at the five-chair bar between two gay couples (older men and teenagers), the eavesdropping and people watching was ended and the eating of food was commenced. For a server who seemed as if she had command of the whole restaurant against the clock, she was somewhat relaxed as if time didn't matter here. I suppose it doesn't.

I totally based this place on looks.

Seriously though. What a 'SNice atmosphere for a warm vegan panini with savory smoked tofu, rich pesto and fresh sun-dried tomatoes with salad and light vinaigrette over a large plate. Their delicious panini had a soft thick texture and the bread was very fresh. The mixed green salad was one of the better I tried; it includes soft leaves mixed with a delicate amount of dressing. The indoors were crowded but the larger tables are located off to the sides for communal use and the smaller tables are spaced apart enough to feel like I wasn't breathing down somebody's sweaty back.

Globalization sucks but exploring the tastes of 16 drinks from around the world was one of the more adventurous/less conventional things to do on the Vegas strip. This review will be based on the flavors of 16 drinks, all owned by subsidiaries of Coca-Cola. The cost of two trays of 16 drinks is $7. Flavors seem to change weekly. They're not all soda.

Beware:

1. Bypass the paraphernalia. The stand is on the second floor. Go upstairs.

2. Seating is not guaranteed. Since it's Coca-Cola, breeder families flock to the bottle like flies to sugar. They occupied the front three tables near the stand. The parents looked more bored than their 7 kids, all of whom were playing with toy cars and plastic Disney characters on the tables. None of the toys were from the Coca-Cola store.

3. You are given two red trays stacked one on top of the other. Don't worry. Unless you are super clumsy or somebody pushes you, you will not spill the stacked trays.

4. Sitting on the floor is an option. We sat on the floor with four trays (two trays each) of drinks because there was absolutely nowhere else to sit in the area. Although I didn't mind sitting on the floor, it may be highly problematic if the sitter is old, disabled or a fat breeder. We were one of three groups sitting on the floor.

The flavors:

We were given two pieces of paper that indexed each of the drinks we were trying. We took a pen out and wrote some notes about the flavor of each drink. I recommend taking a pen out and making notes about the flavors of things you're trying. It makes you think about and remember what you're trying. The following list highlights the drinks from the notes I wrote.

Tray one:

1. Inca Cola (Peru) - Sweet, good
2. Sunfill Mint (India) - Tastes like Scope mouthwash
3. Stoney Ginger Beer (South America) - Reminds me of ginger candy
4. Aquarius Citrus (Taiwan) - Not fizzy, like a watery orange juice
5. Delaware Punch (Honduras) - Rich berry flavor, tastes like cough medicine
6. Vegitabeta (Japan) - Powdery flavor, like it was pre-mixed
7. Smart Watermelon (China) - Light taste, subtle flavor, good
8. Kinley Lemon (England) - Way too tangy, too much lemon/lime

Tray two:

1. Lift Apple (Mexico) - Reminds me of apple cider, prefer apple cider though
2. Fanta Kolita (Costa Rica) - Overwhelming and conflicting flavor, way too sweet
3. Krest Gingerale (Mozambique) - Blah! Yuck! Not a big fan of gingerale
4. Bibo Kiwi Mango (South Africa) - Not sparkling, a little too sweet
5. Bibo Pine Nut (South Africa) - Very sweet, not a fan of pineapple
6. Smart Apple (China) - Powerful, too much zing
7. Beverly (Italy) - BITTER! Unsuspectingly so; aftertaste
8. Mezzo Mix (Germany) - Tastes like Pepsi or Coke

Fantastic cactus. I never knew cactus could taste delicious on top of edible. The fact that the flavor of cactus can be so succulent makes my mouth water all over again. It makes me want to steal a potted cactus and gut it. Cooked cactus tastes like bell peppers with texture of zucchini; replace the spiciness and crunchiness of bell peppers with a subtle zing and softer texture.

The gorditas that encompass the cactus with warm and freshly made corn tortilla that comes with a motley of choices to put inside it. I prefer their fresh green sauce (served warm) and mouth-watering potatoes. The chef is amazing and prepares everything in a kitchen the size of a bedroom closet. Mind that she speaks little to no English if the vendor who normally runs the shack is on a bathroom break.

Yes, this is a shack and yes you'll have to sit outside next to seedy Pacific and Lincoln Avenues; and listen to street performers playing music like a pleb. If you don't want to be seen, wear a mustache. This place is worth the exposure.

(It's really not that bad.)

While "Kentucky Fried Falafel" could be a misnomer for falafels that marginally have some flavor, the overcooked falafels I ate last night tasted so inadequate that I couldn't tell whether the falafels were even falafels. I couldn't even tell what went wrong in the process of making them.

I have two theories though. First: the falafels were previously fried in the morning and fried again later that day in one hell of a fluke in decision-making on the cook's end. Second: the falafels were fried once but so severely deep fried to the point of tasting like large balls of fry batter - and left under a heating lamp for a while.

Although fried foods are common in places near roller-coasters, fried foods are usually greasy and have a crunch to them. These were dry and tasted like fossilized dinosaur eggs. The salad mix inside the large nest of bland pita bread could not salvage the return of Jurassic Park.