Lets Go Girl

April 30, 2008 by Kingston

I haven't had bowls of cold 'dinner' cereal in my lonely kitchen table for awhile now. Yea most of us living independently would know exactly what I'm talking about;...the type of cereal you shovel down with a spoon; standing up; or staring mesmerized by television commercials or our winamp playlists mindlessly as it shuffles. *laughs* It really gets pretty sad when we take a step back to observe and laugh at ourselves.
Su always seems to 'luck-out' when it comes to making friends and meeting new people. *shrug* Who wouldn't love a girl who brings them pastries in exchange for their friendship! Hehe.. it's easy for us who make sweets huh?
Izziban Sushi a block down from the NotterSchool has been my frequent afterschool and weekend hangout. They have a amazing variety of delicious Japanese and Korean dishes on their menu. I'm often satisfied with a skillfully done sushi roll and a warm bowl of miso on the side; but there are times where my tummy yearns for a comforting bento box filled with all the trimmings.
With the number of real dingy restaurants and diners here in Orlando; It's always so incredibly nice to know a place you trust to be inviting and pleasurable. I've had many attempts at restaurant scouting... but have always been brought back here. The atmosphere; wine list and quality of fresh ingredients are just amazing. Other greasy; noisy and cramped Korean restaurants just don't cut it for me. Everything is here at Izziban; great food, excellent sakes, wines and beers, attentive waitstaff, a cozy and classy atmosphere, affordable prices.... no other place in the city compares to the quality of service they provide here.
Izziban is almost my second home in Orlando. I remember days where I've had all my 3 meals here! *laughs* I'm glad that they've welcomed me into their little family-like environment. I'm known as their VIP, who sometimes helps with folding towels and enjoys getting her own drinks. *laughs* It get's a little lonely occasionally when you're in different parts of the world; but warm folks I meet helps make it all better. The guys at the sushi bar here are funny and entertaining; the floor staff and the managers are all real cool too. I amuse them with my occasional 2 cents worth of broken 'Korean' *laughs*. I love it here!Sushi lover or not; I definitely recommend you pay a visit to this place. I've brought non seafood eaters, both meat-atarians and vegetarians here and there were never complains! They have something for everyone! Sushi reminds everyone of raw fishes and rice; it really isn't the case. Izziban makes excellent creative options on their menu to suit your palate and of course a couple of interesting items to excite adventurous tastebuds. It's always a good idea to try something new everytime you make a visit. I've brought Katie and Mindy there numerous times. It's always so much fun when I get them to have unfamiliar items. Mindy enjoys her 'baby-steps' *laughs* She's even done raw fishes recently! I'm good with persuasion *giggle*
So; you planning on making a trip to Izziban yet??
Suggestions??
Hmm...I could make a crazy long list of yummy items.. but here are my absolute must-haves!

• Gyoza;
• Kalbi; (ribs)
• Cream cheese Rangoons;
• Seafood Fried Rice;
• Salmon Kobachi Bowl;
  
• Yakiudon;
• Tempura icecream;

At the sushi bar... go for;

• Spider roll; ( soft shell crab)
• Yellow tail + Salmon sashimi;
• Spicy tuna roll;
• Butterfly roll;
• Yummi yummi roll; ( I love this without cream cheese; but *shrug* that's just me)
• Asparagus roll;
• Vegetable roll;
• Tiger roll;
  
• M80;
• Kamikaze roll

The house salad and soups are excellent too! Don't be shy to ask for suggestions from the friendly waitstaff and don't forget to have a glass of your favourite red or white with your meal. Sitting at the sushi bar can be lots of fun for us who love watching Chefs at work. They usually love a good chat too~ I get them to make special personalized rolls for my friends and I; it's always a nice warm touch to what we're having.
Who's game for dinner there tonight?~

1700 West Sand Lake Rd STE D124.

Orlando Fl, 32809

Tel: 407-850-5086

Fax: 407-850-5022

Monday-Thursday	Lunch: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
	Dinner: 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Friday-Saturday	11:00AM - 10:30 PM
Sunday	12:00PM - 10:00 PM

*Check out what other bloggers have to say about my favourite place:

• What Do I know
• Insider Pages
  

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by Kingston

My last post was perhaps not the best to entice you to read more about me, but just in case you do, Jama Rattigan has posted a thorough and lovely interview of me at her alphabet soup blog. She's also offering two personalized autographed copies of The Year of the Rat for two people who leave a comment there no later than Wednesday, May 7, 2008. Read it here: http://jamarattigan.livejournal.com/106681.html
Thanks, Jama!
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by Girl With a Satchel

The June 2008 issues of US Glamour and UK Marie Claire.

And, Kate Hudson has topped People magazine's list of 100 Most Beautiful People – she will appear on the cover of the issue celebrating the list. That's two major mag accolades for Hudson this year, adding to her UK ELLE magazine Style Icon award. Salma Hayek, Mary J. Blige, Rumer Willis, Sarah Silverman, Christina Applegate, Eva Longoria and Tony Parker, Isla Fisher, the Gossip Girl cast, Julianne Moore, Vanessa Hudgens, Jessica Alba and Cash Warren and Carrie Underwood also made the list.
Pics: people.com

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel
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by Kingston

With the Iraq War dragging on forever, the economy in the tank, record high oil company profits—how do people have the energy to get outraged over an artsy fartsy Vanity Fair portrait of the bare back of a popular tween, or a prom invitation scrawled on the bare butts of some high school lacrosse players?

The Hannah Montana pics are a little too waifish heroin chic for me, but despite what all fathers would like, little girls do grow up, even pop tarts who are such a part of our culture they have influenced state laws.

The life expectancy of Hannah Montana is less than two years. She will be as relevant to the next crop of eleven year old girls as Madonna, and her current fans will have moved on to some new music genre, most likely one their parents don't understand nor approve of.

This is perhaps the most fickle, attention deficit society in the history of the planet. If a tweenie pop tart wants life after sixteen, she best make some career moves and take the risk that some of the Christian groups will call for Disney to give her a spanking—even if the poor girl was tricked into it by a wicked lesbian Jewish photographer.

Besides, in many ways, the tween factory known as Disney is much more offensive than the Vanity Fair non-nude shot.

Disney is a Pop Tween Factory which manufactures squeaky clean adolescent starlets and pretends there is nothing sexual about their virginal grinding.

News Flash Moms: Hannah Montana and Disney are selling sex to little girls with developing minds and budding breasts.

So you might want to reconsider your well laid plans to sit around the kitchen table and thoroughly vetting this with your daughter. It's as worthless as the birds and the bees talk—which embarrasses everyone and imparts no new knowledge.

Miley Cyrus's emo shocker has upset the nation, but it is tame compared to the prom invitation Kristoff Wennersten delivered to Carolyn Campbell at Huron High School in Ann Arbor.

Kris recruited his fellow lacrosse players. They displayed the question, "Will You Go To The Prom With Me? Yes or No?" on their posteriors while mooning senior Carolyn at a game.

Miss Campbell accepted the invitation by tapping the “Yes” rump, and reportedly thought it was “cute” and was not upset in any way.

The same could not be said of the high school administrators. It was felt the prank was "disrespectful of the girls" in the school. I wonder if girls had done this, it would have been disrespectful of the boys?

Anyway, the players were suspended.

Good grief.

No one was offended. It's the school administrators who should have been suspended for having no sense of humor.

Life is too short to have a coronary over bare backs or bare butts.

By the way, in case you didn't know, Miley Cyrus isn't going to her prom.

The reason--no date.

No guys mooning over Hannah Montana??????

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by Kingston

Because of The Big Drama, I am now hiding from my doorbell. Which is incredibly difficult to do when you have 4 small children who hear the doorbell and run to it screaming "DOORBELL" at the top of their lungs. I don't need to hide, it is completely ridiculous that I feel so stressed out when the doorbell rings and I am hoping The Big Drama ends soon. But even if it does, I bet it will take a while for my heart rate to remain normal when the doorbell rings. It is sort of like cancer. Once you have it, you can't even un have it/the feelings that go along with it.

Because something in the universe knew I needed something happy, we got the best mail ever. The doorbell was my poor mail lady who got worried about us when we didn't answer the door and came around the back of the house to our giant windows to check if we were ok. When I saw someone standing on my back deck looking in at us I almost had a heart attack. Lesson learned. You can't hide from your problems because they will always find you.

The mail lady needed me to sign for a package because it was from somewhere foreign. It was from the any soldier guy that we chose last time. Holy cow! He sent us a package in return. This is actually the first time one of our anysoldier's wrote back to us, which is totally fine with me but the kids were feeling like their packages were not appreciated. I knew that they were and that the people we sent stuff to were just busy but a 4 year old doesn't understand that as well as I do!

Incidentally, we chose this guy because he had the same last name as my doctor. I had a good feeling about him at least sending an email to let us know he got what we sent. I was shocked when I opened the box and saw that he sent us a long letter that was as good as the one I sent him (and I write pretty amazing letters if I do say so myself...the one we sent him was about 20 pages long and had tons of pictures). He also sent us 4 squad hats for the kids. They are going to be thrilled when they get home from school! His squad (I don't know if that is the correct word) put my oldest daughter's picture on their hero picture board for her donation to locks of love . You can bet we will be sending this guy more packages! I only wish he would have sent us a list of what they needed in addition to all the other great stuff! He seems like such a great guy!

So, the moral of the story is when you need something, when you are hurting, you have to trust that something will happen to make you feel happier. I thank all my blog friends for listening to me complain and supporting me through this insane Big Drama, and also thank the universe because amazing things really do happen all the time if you remember to notice them.
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