overidon.com Central Database for Overidon Omnimedia

Kura Sushi

212 E 17th St
Costa Mesa, CA 92627-3832

(949) 631-3200‎

Kura Sushi's Interior

A few weeks ago I went to a revolving sushi restaurant in Costa Mesa called Kura Sushi to eat with my dad. The sushi tastes good and the prices are more than reasonable. Kura Sushi has a wide selection of fish to choose from and it also has the standard teriyaki dishes that one would expect to find at any Japanese Restaurant. What makes Kura Sushi fun is that it uses a revolving conveyor belt system to distribute the sushi. The conveyor belt even brings the sushi to the tables that are detached from the sushi bar! I am personally a bit leery of revolving sushi places because I always wonder how fresh the food is. But at Kura Sushi you can have any dish that is on the conveyor belt made fresh by the sushi chefs by asking your waiter. Of course you have to wait for the food to be prepared if you ask for the chefs to make it special, but the wait is well worth it.

Tuna Sushi - Nigiri Style

The sushi comes on color coded plates that determine the price. For example, nigiri tuna sushi (maguro) is $2.25! That’s a really good price for sushi. The slices of sushi are slightly smaller than other sushi restaurants that I’ve been to, but the quality is good. I was at Maki Maki Japanese Restaurant in Irvine Spectrum today and the maguro sushi was lager cuts than Kura Sushi, but at Maki Maki the maguro tasted stringy and didn’t have as good of texture that I’d expect to get at Kura Sushi. My dad likes to take the sushi directly from the conveyor belt. He says that the quality and freshness is fine and he likes it. I researched how the quality system works at Kura Sushi, and it seems they use a computer controlled freshness system. There is a computer that scans an identification tag on each plate and it automatically discards the sushi if it has been circulating too long.

Kura Sushi Freshness System

The staff at Kura Sushi in Costa Mesa are quite friendly and they are fast to get your order. I always got my tea filled up promptly by my server and they were quick to bring extra ginger root or wasabi. Now an experience at Kura Sushi is way mellower than at Tokyo Delves Sushi Bar. The price is a lot lower also. You can have a filling meal for two at Kura Sushi for about $12-$15 per person. At Tokyo Delves it will cost you about $30 per person if you aren’t drinking alcohol and $50 or more if you are. At Maki Maki sushi today I spent $30 plus tip for a sushi dinner and I felt like I would have much rather been at Kura Sushi. The chef’s at Kura Sushi are all Asain looking and that’s actually a big deal at a Japanese Restaurant. Why? Well when I was at Maki Maki, I got laughed at when I called my sushi chef “Victor San” hahaha! I thought it was kind of funny myself. J I guess I’m used to high quality sushi restaurants that have authentic chefs. The only bad part was that I think I embarrassed “Victor” the sushi chef who clearly didn’t look Asian at all. How was I supposed to know you’re only supposed to use the title “San” if the chef looked Asian? Regardless, if you go to Kura Sushi you will probably find yourself being served up sushi by Asian chefs. I’ve also tried the teriyaki beef specials at Kura Sushi and they taste good and are affordable $7.95 for lunch and $9.95 for dinner. You get tempura and a meat item. Although I definitely recommend that you try their sushi over their cooked food. So try Kura Sushi and have fun with their revolving sushi bar yourself!

Cha for Tea (University Center – near UCI)

4187 Campus Drive, M-173, Irvine, CA 92612

(949) 725-0300 *Phone Orders Available.

OPEN 10AM-1AM DAILY

cha For Tea - Tea House and Restaurant

As a writer and a blogger, I’m always looking for new places to hang out and work on my laptop. After writing at Peet’s Coffee and Tea until about 10-ish PM, I pack my backpack and walk over to cha For Tea. This place is great! Here’s what an evening at cha For Tea feels like… I walk into the well lit threshold of cha For Tea. There is usually a group of young UCI

Pork Sausage witih Rice

(University of California at Irvine) college students hanging out near the front. Before I can get all the way inside I am greeted by the busy yet friendly staff with a, “Hi! Welcome to cha!” After entering a few steps into the store I am stopped by a smiling worker with a tray of food and beverage samples. She usually asks me if I’ve tried the California Green Tea or the veggie dumplings (I bet those dumplings would taste good with Trader Ming’s Gyoza Dipping Sauce). Cha for tea has a medium sized selection of food items that includes teriyaki chicken and pork sausage. I haven’t tried many of the entrees because it is usually so late when I get at cha For Tea, so I usually just try some samples. After tasting the crispy chicken, and the mango green tea, I proceed over to the registers to take my order. I really like the sweet butter toast at cha For Tea. It comes in a square and it tastes like the butter almost has a vanilla flavor to it. It is quite good and it accents a hot tea like unsweetened King’s Tea quite well. You can order your drinks to have boba. Boba is often called “pearls” and it is a type of gummy, chewy sweet round thing that tastes good in tea beverages. The boba, or pearls, add significant texture to any drink and they require a bigger straw. These pearls can really fill you up and turn a drink into a meal.

Other additions you can get include Aloe Vera Cubes and fruit jelly. I had a chance to try the Aloe Vera Cubes, they taste like these good Aloe Vera drinks that I used to get at the 99 cent store.

Boba Drink - Look at the Dark Balls on the Bottom

Except instead of tasting like grape, the Aloe Vera had a very clean taste. They add more texture than anything else. Be careful because the Aloe Vera seems to float at the top of the beverage, instead of sinking to the bottom like boba. The Aloe Vera tastes really good in the California Green Tea. So I make my order of King’s Oolong Tea and Hot Sweet Butter Toast and get a pleasant surprise. (If you pay with cash you get 5% off your order)

Then I sit down and turn on my laptop.

Sweet Butter Toast

At Cha for Tea you get free wifi wireless access with your purchase of a drink. The internet at Cha for Tea is more stable than at the Peet’s Coffee and Tea in University Center so it is always a pleasure to be able to upload and download my files quickly to my website. You can download files up to about 100 Kilobytes per second (Kbps) and the upload rate seems to be good too. Also at cha For Tea you don’t get kicked off the Net after 2 hours like you do at Peet’s and that is a big bonus. Although at Peet’s you can always ask for another wireless access code. After my Sweet Butter Toast and King’s Hot Tea is finished the staff at cha For Tea call my name and I pick up the items from the counter. The food stuffs at cha For Tea are served in Styrofoam containers. When picking up a drink the staff always says, “If you need any changes or adjustments let us know!” This means that if you don’t like your drink, they can fix it. This helps out a lot because the tea drinks at cha are priced like premium drinks at Starbuck’s. A regular sized tea is about $4.00 but more specifically my King’s Hot Oolong Tea is $3.89 and Sweet Butter Toast is $3.08 so this makes the whole meal $6.97 not counting tax and the 5% cash discount. So you can see how it’s nice to know that the staff at cha For Tea is willing to make your beverage to order. Because this is not a basic tea bag in a cup of hot water like you’d expect to get at Starbuck’s.

Hot King's Tea

At cha For Tea they use cool looking plastic tea infusers with loose leaf tea. The loose leaf tea is much higher quality than what one might find in a tea bag. Tea bags are known for being the scrap leaves that are sorted out from higher quality teas. These scrap leaves and dust particles are called fannings. Fortunately, cha For Tea uses high quality loose leaf tea. And the flavor is memorable. The King’s Hot Oolong Tea has a subtle, sweet flavor that only appears on the palate after the tea has cooled down a bit. After the tea has relaxed to room temperature, the sweetness really comes out. After eating the sweet butter toast and drinking the King’s Oolong Hot Tea, I throw out my trash and the staff say goodbye.

The staff always are friendly from the moment you walk in the door to when you leave. And even though it seems like it is in their job description to be friendly, the staff seem sincere enough to make you comfortable when enjoying tea in a group or alone. Speaking of groups, if you bring a few friends cha For Tea has a selection of board games to choose from that you can play. I’ve seen people playing Scrabble and other games like Taboo. Sometimes there are large groups that come into cha For Tea that overwhelm the place. This happens during Freshman Orientation for UCI (University of California at Irvine). But usually cha For Tea is comfortable enough for me to work on my laptop until it gets close to closing time, which is at 1AM. Overall cha For Tea is an excellent place for high quality teas and for using the internet. The only real thing that cha For Tea lacks for a blogger is a power outlet to plug in your laptop. But if you come charged you will not be disappointed with the lively atmosphere provided by cha For Tea. Although I recommend if you are doing computer work, that you bring ear phones in order to block out some of the sound of orders being called out and the overall ruckus of cha For Tea. If you are looking for a place to get an inexpensive cup of tea, I’d recommend that you get a tea bag at Peet’s or Starbuck’s, because cha For Tea is going to cost you about $4.00 per drink minimum. (Maybe more if you order pearls or other additions to the beverage) But if you are trying to find a place to enjoy a specialty tea drink with perhaps some cooked food dishes then cha For Tea is the place for you.

A few months ago I was about to sit down with my mom and enjoy a salad, when I realized I’d forgotten the salad dressing. So I rushed to the refrigerator in order to grab some balsamic vinaigrette. But in my hurry, I missed something. After pouring the salad dressing onto my salad and taking the first bite, I realized that I had done something wrong. That’s when I realized what I put on my salad wasn’t salad dressing at all…It was Trader Ming’s Gyoza Dipping Sauce from Trader Joe’s!

I looked at the bottle of Gyoza Dipping Sauce and read the caption, “A classic Asian dipping sauce for everything Asian.”  I scratched my chin. I was surprised by the unexpected flavors of soy sauce and sesame oil. But I wasn’t grossed out in any way. In fact I decided to eat the rest of my rather plain cucumber, romaine lettuce and spinach salad. After a few bites I realized that the Gyoza Dipping Sauce was simply delicious, and it was making me savor every piece of lettuce and each bite of cucumber. Was it the crushed red pepper in the sauce that made it so enticing, or was it the pieces of cilantro? I wasn’t sure at the time but the Gyoza Dipping Sauce as a whole tasted great!

Buy the Trader Ming's Gyoza Dipping Sauce at Trader Joe's

So I ended up trying Trader Ming’s Gyoza Dipping Sauce from Trader Joe’s on multiple types of salads over the next couple months. I tried it on ham and blue cheese salad, spinach salad and even on big plain pieces of lettuce. On all the mentioned salads, the Gyoza Dipping Sauce tasted great. It can basically take the place of any balsamic vinaigrette.

I even tried the Gyoza Dipping Sauce on grilled chicken. It brings out the smoky flavor of the grill when you use the Gyoza Dipping Sauce instead of barbeque sauce. The reason for this is because the Gyoza Dipping Sauce is very light and it let’s you still taste the flavors of the chicken. This contrasts with barbeque sauce, which seems to make the chicken flavor take a backseat to TJ’s Barbecue Sauce’s sweetness.

From a nutritional standpoint Trader Ming’s Gyoza dipping sauce has low calories (only 30 calories per 2 table spoon serving). But since the sauce is based on soy sauce it has high sodium content (730mg or 31% daily value). This is something to watch out for because the sauce tastes really good. You’ll want to douse your salad’s last patch of dry lettuce in the sauce. This can be too much salt for one sitting. So just be mindful of how much salt you are having with your meal.

Overall, Trader Ming’s Gyoza Dipping Sauce is great, and it tastes good on Gyoza but on salads especially. It may sound weird but I definitely recommend putting Gyoza Dipping Sauce on your next salad. Try it! You may like it and swear by it like I do!

The other day my dad was talking to me about how he thought he was gaining weight. We went through the list of causes and we figured out that the entire family had been eating a great deal of watermelon. Watermelon is so juicy and delicious. The flavor squishes on onto your tongue with every bite. And when you squeeze down with your soft palate, the sweet watermelon particles squish around your mouth. Watermelon is a great fruit because of its, fun texture and refreshing flavor.

At first I didn’t believe that watermelon could have many calories. But when my father emailed me this handy nutritional guide to a slice of watermelon, I was surprised. A whole watermelon is about 1300 calories. And according to this fact sheet people usually cut it into 16^th’s. That’s about 80-100 calories per slice. That makes sense, because cutting a watermelon into four pieces then into fourths again is easy with any large knife. When cutting a watermelon, make sure to use a sharp knife that is large enough to cut easily through the melon’s oftentimes tough rind. I made the mistake once of using a dull knife to cut my watermelon and I cut my finger when the blade got stuck on the rind. This happened when I was trying to cut a smiling crescent out the melon. Don’t try and do any fancy cutting with your watermelon. Remember, you can always cut your watermelon so it has the white rind on it and then make more precise cuts later. You won’t feel like an “Iron Chef” for doing so, but at least your fingers won’t bleed like mine.

So what’s inside that 1/16^th slice of your watermelon? Well, lots of good vitamins and minerals are inside most notably there is a great deal of vitamin A and vitamin C in each slice (About 35%). Watermelon also contains Potassium (9%), Magnesium (7%), Thiamin (6%), Pantothenic Acid (6%) and small amounts of other vitamins and minerals. Some researches say that watermelon can increase libido. But I’d have to say you’ll need to judge that for yourself.

Now these numbers may not seem much but when you take into account that the deliciousness of watermelon makes you want to eat slice after slice, you may actually be getting a great deal of nutritional value.

So are the calories in watermelon enough to make someone fat? That’s doubtful, watermelon doesn’t have any fat or saturated fat so all the calories are coming from natural sugar. This sugar can be burned off easily by anyone who has a non-sedentary lifestyle. But if you do find yourself sitting around a lot, you might want to reconsider eating slice after slice of watermelon, and replace it with a less sugary food like celery.

I recommend people who live in Southern California to try watermelon from Bristol Farms. This company provides their watermelons at an expensive price, but the flavor is oftentimes unmatched by other local groceries. Bristol Farms’ watermelons are also the usually the right shape and size and have few blemishes. A close second to Bristol Farms’ watermelons would be Trader Joe’s. A watermelon at Trader Joe’s is significantly cheaper than at Bristol Farms and the quality may not be exactly on par, but at least you can eat a watermelon from Trader Joe’s and not eat a face-full of rind every time you take a bite.

Speaking of Trader Joes, you might want to try watermelon juice from Trader Joes. The juice is extremely refreshing and comes in one of those containers that you’d expect to see if you were going to buy one of those “Red Machine” or “Vanilla Almondo” drinks.

Overall watermelons are fun and tasty fruits and I’d recommend them to anyone who enjoys a juicy good time.