Comic for Monday March 15th, 2004

"Decent hibachi dinners" Sunday - March 14th, 2004

This weekend, The Kelly and I went out to a restaurant called Tokyo Seoul to try their Hibachi dinner. For those that are not familiar with this type of restaurant, it's also called a Japanese Steakhouse or that place where the chef comes out to your table and cooks right in front of you. The big granddaddy of Hibachi-style restaurants are the Benihana chain which are world renown. What most people don't know is that the brother of the man who owns Benihana started his own chain of Hibachi restaurants. He styled the architecture of the restaurants like the old Gasho farmhouses in a specific farmland community in Japan. The tall thatched roofs that needed no nails would become the theme for his Gasho Hibachi style restaurants. The main restaurant sits in Central Valley, New York and is surrounded by a beautiful Japanese Garden.

I happen to be very familiar with the one in Hauppauge, Long Island and the food there is second to none when it comes to hibachi restaurants. It could be that I am biased to Gasho since it is what I grew up with. However people I have taken there that have grown up with different hibachi restaurants all swear by Gasho.

In any case as you can imagine I am very picky when it comes to eating at hibachi restaurants. There is a huge one here in Syracuse called Ichiban and I can tell you that Ichiban is crap. Well not entirely... the steak is decent, but that's about it. It's a bit too Chinese-based for me. I mean don't get me wrong... I love Chinese cuisine, take out and traditional (yes, there is a difference). It's just that when I go to a Japanese Hibachi restaurant I expect things to be... uhh... Japanese.

So I went to Tokyo Seoul in hopes that it would be closer to Gasho and not at all like Ichiban. I had high hopes for I happen to know that the head sushi chef at Tokyo Seoul also happened to work at the Gasho in Central Valley and a number of Japanese Restaurants on Long Island including a few my mom had worked at. That and I liked Tokyo Seoul. It was primarily a Korean Barbeque and a damn good one at that. On a side note, anyone looking for a GREAT eating out idea might want to see if they have a Korean Barbeque in their area. You can order marinated beef and you cook it right at your table on a mini dome grill. Dinners usually come with a mountain of vegetables and a variety of traditional Korean side dishes.

Anyway to end the story, The Kelly and I had our dinners and we had a great time. The show wasn't as flashy as Ichiban or as polished as Gasho, but the food was really good. I mean not Gasho good, but a hundred times better than Ichiban. The prices were comparable to Gasho, but the portions were considerably smaller. In it's favor the sushi was top notch and is still the best I have gotten here in Syracuse.

Before I get to the comic I will do something here that I saw someone do in their blog somewhere. I threw all of my songs into one playlist and will now list the first ten songs it plays with the random turned on no matter who embarrassing the results may be. I'm crossing my fingers...

Actually that wasn't so bad. Nothing really embarrassing. I'll try again on Wednesday...

Let me tell you that seven panels for today's strip just seemed like nothing after last week's 15 or so panel extravaganza for Spirit 100. I actually liked the art too. There are some issues with P2-4, but I loved the way the fish eye effect worked in P2. No filters, in case you didn't notice. The rest of the panels worked for me and I had no problems with them.

So it seems that Dave is really going to be a cripple after getting hopes up at the end of Spirit 100 that he might not be. Leave it to Yuki to be assume that just because Tenko is a Kitsune spirit fox, that he has these amazing powers of healing. Luckily for Yuki it seems that Tenko at least has the key to Dave's recovery. Or will Joe have something to say about that.

Either way the countdown to Yuki's showdown against Tom begins!! What will Yuki be able to do to defeat someone who defeated Dave so easily? Does Tenko have a plan? What does Joe know? Where the hell is Kelly and what will she do? Where is Key Lime for that matter? (she's off frame.) Expect for a confrontation on Thursday between two allies!!

Vote for Ninja Spirit!!

River says Happy St Pats.