Andy Gavin's Blog, page 169

Cocoa Island – Languorous Lunch

Restaurant: Cocoa Island

Location: Maldives. Tel +960 6641818 Fax +960 6641919 Email res@cocoaisland.como.bz

Date: March 16-22, 2012

Cuisine: International

Rating: ?

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We head back to Cocoa Island (and its single restaurant) to cover the second meal of the day. If you missed the endless breakfast, find it here.

Here in paradise the view from the lunch table doesn’t suck. One could eat outside there too, but it was pretty hot, like 94 degrees and humid. The food, however, was anything but tepid. It’s highly varied and international with an Indian slant fitting the location.

Tuna carpaccio with arugala and olives. Like nearly everything at the restaurant this was impeccably fresh and tasty.

Caprese salad.



Salad with beets and mozzarella.

An amazing “squid salad” with light fresh squid and a zesty vinaigrette.

Caesar salad with anchovies and spec.

Raddiccio salad. As you can see, there are a few salad options!

This typical frozen mock-tail was amazing for those with a sweet tooth. Strawberry passionfruit!

Spider roll. Fried softshell crab roll.

Some dipping sauces and ginger. The left is soy, the right a spicy mayo.

California roll made with shrimp. I like the wasabi balls.

Grilled blue fin tuna and potatoes. Sort of deconstructed salad niscose. The tuna was again perfectly fresh.

Fried calamari. Crisp and succulent.

A lot of folk went for the burger which had a kind of curried caramelized onions on it and came with salad and fries.

Goan fish curry. Local “job fish” stewed in fresh curry with Naan (house baked) and bismati rice.

Nasi Goreng. A kind of Indonesian fried rice with egg, chicken satay, mixed seafood, cucumbers, and a spicy peanut sauce. Not light, but it sure was good!

Chicken Tikka Masala. Also awesome.

We caught some local fish and they grilled them up.

And steamed some with ginger, garlic, and scallions.

Even this ugly barracuda.

And made these into fresh fish curry!

The bread was great too.

And the fries.

Plus one, day, I ordered this passionfruit semifreddo which was superb.

It’s pretty amazing that a restaurant can do this breath of styles with such excellent execution, but they did. Everything I had was great, and the same 2-3 guys in the kitchen did it all (even the breakfast, dinner, desserts, and baking!).

For more dining reviews click here.

Diablo 3 – Beta Preview

Finally, the Diablo 3 beta invite showed up in my mailbox. Unfortunately, by the time I got it downloaded and installed I was headed to Vegas for the weekend (which wasn’t so bad, really). But as soon as I returned, I fired it up, rolled a toon, and cranked through the 1.5-2 hours it took to defeat the Skeleton King and “finish” the beta. Then I rolled another class. Then another and another until I’d played them all.

General Impressions

Not surprisingly, for a Blizzard game, and one that is only a month from launch, the game looks “finished” and is seemingly bug free. I didn’t have any problems. I didn’t try any multiplayer but I’m looking forward to it in the release.

Graphics wise, D3 is kinda dark, which wasn’t a problem playing at night, but during the sunny hours it was hard to see a lot of detail. I play on a Mac Pro with an Apple 30″ monitor. At full 2500×1600 resolution the game ran fine (I have a ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB). There was occasional slight slowdown as new textures paged in (I think that’s what it was because it wasn’t during big fights but moving into new areas).

The art is fantastic and everything is modeled in detailed 3D, yet the classic three-quarters pulled back viewpoint limits the options for dynamic camerawork or even the simple ability to show enemies at any real scale. Overall, this substantially reduces the visual drama in favor of more approachable gameplay.

But in that regard, Blizzard does it’s usual slick job of babying you into the game. This is in complete contrast to a hardcore RPG like Dark Souls, which does no coddling. Here, you start each class with just one skill, gaining them incrementally as you level. The early quests are easy and straightforward. By the time you get into the depths of the cathedral and to level six or so, the real flavor of the class starts to emerge.

The overall gameplay is, as one of my friends said, like the Diablo II you remember, not as it actually was. If you boot up the aforementioned classic you’ll find a 2D game that runs in 800×600 (and that only with the expansion pack installed!). Sure the gameplay is slick, but the late 90s graphics are very dated. The new Diablo brings the same basic experience but updated to perhaps 2007 level technology. And really, it’s that great gameplay that matters.

The Barbarian

I’m normally drawn toward dark wizards, and so in D2 I mostly played a Necromancer. In D3, that niche is filled by the Witchdoctor, but neither the pet based nature or the class style really appealed. I decided to try out the Barbarian. Big and plate wearing, this is a very straightforward class. The few skill choices available in the first nine or so levels basically seemed to oscillate between heavy hitting on a single target and non-quite-so heavy hitting on multiple targets. I haven’t studied the skill system in detail but it seems to have been simplified, moving away from the elaborate talent trees. Each skill can be powered up or tweaked with runes, and there are several completely distinct skill slots (primary, secondary, defensive, etc) that you can swap in and out skills that belong exclusively in their particular category. For the Barbarian, the primary is a fury generating basic attack and the secondary a harder hitting fury sink.

Progression with the Barbarian was a piece of cake. In the limited scope of the beta I barely even had to chug a health potion, perhaps once. I didn’t die at all. Even the Skeleton King was pretty easy. The attacks definitely got more satisfying as they leveled up, but some felt lackluster like the bleed-causing whirlwind. Maybe it gets cooler later. Maybe they aren’t done with it.

Still, all and all a very fun class to play.

Taking on the Skeleton King

The Wizard

Next I tried out the wizard. This is the ranged magical damage dealer. Overall, this class is much squishier than the Barbarian and I died in one spot (right on returning to the Cathedral where there are three big sub-bosses). You have to watch your health and make sure to kite, mostly using the freeze ray or the frost nova to slow down the badies. I liked the feel of the freeze ray, it’s pretty fun. If you tune the skills toward the electrical discharges and the spark-like exploding fireball the wizard can do some serious AOE damage. On one middling outside area I collected a rather large collection of undead and then obliterated them in a big firefight (earning a 60 enemies killed at once achievement). I think there is more pure DPS output here than with the melee classes — in exchange for being fragile.

You have to pay more attention to your resources than the Barbarian. The defensive skill (on the 1 key) is crucial. With the Barbarian it was a sweetener, here, it’s key to getting out of the middle of a big cluster of foes (or blasting them down quick if you are using Crystal Armor). Although harder, it was a fun class to play and I’ll be torn what to try first in the release version.

Monk

Third up I tried the Monk. Squishier than the Barbarian for sure, but fairly similar in that you get right in the thick of thinks and wallop. At the earlier levels the different skills didn’t seem as differentiated. Theoretically the Barbarian would be slower and the Monk more nimble, but the Barb is plenty fast, so I’m not sure I yet see a compelling advantage. The teleport TO an enemy rune is kinda cool though.

At about level 7 or 8 things power up a bit and the excitement level rises. The spinning circle of fire and triple punch are real nice. Overall this was an easy class too. I didn’t die and pretty much never needed a health pot.

Witch Doctor

A few days after finishing the monk I felt it was my duty as a Necromancer player and diehard WOW Warlock to try the Witch Doctor. It was immediately obvious that this was a seriously squishy class, even more so than the Wizard. It’s harder to kite with too. A lot of the early skills are pets of one sort or another and you have to toss them out there and run. This is true of the spiders and bats. I really didn’t like trading the snaring hands for the bats and quickly went back to it. The spiders were okay though. Like the other classes, by the time I got to level 8 or so he was getting fairly powerful. The dogs were fun. The runed version of the grasping hands was a really solid snare and the machine gun blow gun too. Fun to play, but despite the cool theme, I think the Wizard was more straightforward as a ranged caster.

Demon Hunter

This is the last class I played and thematically the least interesting. The Hunter in WOW never held any interest whatsoever for me and it’s the only class I’ve never rolled. But the D3 Demon Hunter turned out to be pretty fun. Its long range and rapid fire is satisfying and I put an epic? (yellow) bow I got from another tune to good use right from the beginning. The problem with this class, like the Witch Doctor and Wizard, is that it’s very squishy. But even more than those other two it becomes problematic when you get mobbed by mobs. The Demon Hunter can go down fast. Now, even given that, I only died on the Skeleton King, but it was the only class where the boss gave me some trouble. Once I learned to kite and stun him and run back and forth for the health balls it was okay, but still harder and slower than the other classes. Up until that point I often felt I was really kicking ass with the DH, but the problem seemed to stem from the classes’ lack of AOE. I ended up having to use the “trap” as my slowing and AOE device, laying them down (up to five) in advance. I didn’t like the invisible skill very much. The Wizard, while also a ranged squishy, has much better AOE (at least at these early levels).

Gear

I enjoy the gearing up minigame in Diablo, always have. My only complaint is the still present need to manage your inventory. It’s not as bad as in D2 where one spent a ridiculous amount of time combing the trash from your inventory and leaving it on the dungeon floor, but you still have to do this. The more readily available town portal(s) makes flipping back to sell your crap much easier.

I also don’t exactly get what gear you really want for each class. Classes can use a large percentage of the items, which I guess is a good thing, but it’s hard to know if a 15.5 dagger is better for a Wizard than a 12.0 wand.

Multiplayer

I spent about an hour playing the last two dungeons and the Skeleton King with a pickup group of one other person. This does not represent any exhaustive survey of D3′s four player coop mode. Overall, it was fun, and slightly easier. It was also slower as one often had to wait on the other person. That player clearly hadn’t run through the whole beta four times already and didn’t know exactly where to go like I did . I’m assuming multiplayer is the most fun with a good or pre-made four man group. I was playing my monk (repeating the dungeons and she was level 9-11) and they were playing a Demon Hunter about two levels lower. There is no increased loot or particular advantage to playing multiplayer, either. There should be. It’s also not very competitive anymore because everyone has their own loot and there is no PVP (that’s in a separate non PVE mode like the WOW arenas).

Random

The consistent naming and art elements in Blizzard style are an amusing note. While Diablo is darker and more gothic than WOW there are quite a number of common enemy archetypes. The grotesques (abominations in WOW) are one example. These are a distinctly Blizzard baddie. Many of the spell names (and even the class archetypes) are overlapping. The Demon Hunter fires arrows and drops traps and bombs like the Hunter. The Wizard is like a WOW Mage, even down to having a Frost Nova with nearly identical effect. There was even a skeletal sub-boss with the same name as a Scholo boss.

I can’t wait for May 15.

Find more video game posts here.

Cocoa Island – Endless Breakfast

Restaurant: Cocoa Island

Location: Maldives. Tel +960 6641818 Fax +960 6641919 Email res@cocoaisland.como.bz

Date: March 16-22, 2012

Cuisine: International

Rating: Mindblowing Hotel Breakfast in paradise

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One of my oldest and best friend’s wedding brought us literally across the world to Cocoa Island in the Maldives. This little slice of paradise is an atol about two feet tall in the Indian Ocean not far from the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka.

As you can see, it was hardship duty. Completely equatorial the weather is about 88 degrees day and night year round. The ocean is about 18 inches deep and around… you guessed it… 88 degrees. Above is the view from the restaurant, which brings us to my favorite topic, food. The food at this resort was incredible, and best of all was the breakfast. It was included with the room and you could order as much as you liked. This led us to term it “endless breakfast.”

There was a cold buffet plus this menu. Again, you could order one thing, two things, or ten things.

But one must begin with a cappuccino. Or three.

The cereal section of the buffet.



They had great baked goods.

And jams.

And fruit.

The yoghurt with fruit was incredible. Rich and unpasteurized. The fruit juice was pretty spectacular too.

We’ll start with some classic Indian breakfast. Potato masala dosa (below) with daal (lentil curry) and some kind of creamy sauce.

The ultra crisp potato filled fried crepe.

Maldivian egg curry. You spoon it out onto the crepes. There is coconut on the side too.

A fantastic egg’s benedict.

And a frittata.



Or straight up eggs, bacon, and hash browns. This ain’t no MacDonalds.

They had these amazing flatbreads. This is cottage cheese, tomato, arugala, and avocado.

Or this one with top grade salmon and cottage cheese.

Or this meet and cheese plate.



Or a bit of fresh sliced mango.

Then come the starches. These incredible waffles.

Or French toast. You can see what I mean when I say the food was fantastic.

One day I spent nine hours (no exaggeration) at the table. Not only was the food continuous and great, but so was the ever changing parade of dining companions. Truly, the ultimate endless breakfast.

A review of lunch can be found here and dinner here at this incredible resort.

For more dining reviews click here.

Game of Thrones – Episode 13

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 13 – April 15, 2012

Title: What is Dead May Never Die

Summary: The wait from week to week is tough

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Intros are over (almost) and things are really starting to rock and roll. What is Dead May Never Die is certainly the best episode yet of the new series. No small part to focusing a little more tightly on a few storylines. Robb, Dany, and Stannis are all missing, but we have lots of Tyrion.

The John Snow thread moves just a tiny bit, with resolving last week’s cliffhanger with John a bit too easily. The writers take a scene to setup Gilly and Sam’s relationship and then move on to Winterfell. Bran explains his peculiar dreams to the Maester. I like that the chains come into it, but I wonder how much new viewers will get of this.

Then we finally come to Renly. Seems he has already married the lovely Margaery Tyrell, played by the Tudor’s Natalie Dormer. She’s well cast, even if a few years too old of the book version of her character. And Briene. Wow, that’s some hulk of a woman. What is she, like seven foot? Perfectly cast too. While short, this tourney looked much less dinky than the season 1 version, mostly due to a single establishing shot. Renly puts on a good show, but literarily and figuratively. But Cat is not so easily fooled.

Then Theon confronts his sister and is schooled by his father. Uh oh, seems he needs to make a choice. Old family or new. Things are never easy!

The middle part of the episode shows Tyrion coming into his own and wrestling with the political forces in the capital.  But first Shae is restless and he’s putty in her hands, but back in the palace he’s tough as nails. Cersei tortures Sansa a bit more and she is starting to wonder who she is. But when Shae shows up as her new maid, she isn’t exactly showing her best side. In this way, the episode appears to be about choices. Each character is faced questions of loyalty and role.

And so Tyrion tempts each of the three capital conspirators with a different story. Maester Pycelle, Varys, and Littlefinger. The parallel structure of the scene is quite amusing.

Speaking of choices, Renly is in his tent, first with Loras, and then with his sister. Boy or girl? Pleasure or duty? In the earlier scene’s Natalie’s Margaery was a little flat, but here not only is she gorgeous (and we see plenty of her), but when she exposes her awareness of the situation that scheming little smile is perfect. Interesting that Renly is so torn, finding it so difficult to deliver on the practical realities of his responsibilities.

Tyrion does continue to try and talk some sense into Cersei, but she isn’t listening. Which too, is a choice. And Theon. He finally makes his, and we find him baptized to the Drowned God.

Tyrion continues to play his hand deftly. His ruse has flushed out the spy in the council. But perhaps he knew all along. He makes good with Littlefinger and Varys (more or less) and deals with Pycelle. The old man is so annoying one can’t  help but enjoy seeing him get a bit of comeuppance. The writers take the time to remind us that Tyrion has a soft spot for whores. Still, the best is Varys’ little speech about power. I love how the show (and the actor) hand this nuanced character. He was great last season and continues the streak.

Finally, we get to Arya, my other favorite. After building up Yoren a bit, the Lannister forces arrive and he too makes his choice, proving to be quite the badass. “I always hated crossbows.” Poor Arya’s guardians don’t have a very good survival rate. The battle that ensues is both well choreographed, graphic, disturbing, and touching. Lorch’s men don’t quite yet have the nasty nasty feel from the book, but they’re getting started. Poor Lommy. A powerful end.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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or all my Game of Thrones posts or

Season 1 reviews: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2 reviews: [11, 12, 13, 14]

Untimed – Out on Submission!

Young Ben Franklin at the printing press

Exciting times! My brand spanking new literary agent is already out there earning his keep. Eddie (the aforementioned agent of awesome) sent out  Untimed Thursday on submission to New York and worldwide. It’s not only great to have such enthusiasm — we only signed two weeks ago — but an appropriate juncture given that the historical changes in Untimed (a time travel novel) pivot around Ben Franklin, who was one of America’s earliest important printers. People tend to remember him for the whole “founding father” bit but he was first and foremost a printer, political essayist, and satirist (not to be confused with my favorite mythological beings, satyrs).

But rest assured, Untimed is anything but old fashioned. Below and left is another awesome illustration by Dave Phillips to underscore the prose (one of approximately 21 that will be in the book). And that’s just a rough draft! Dave, like many artists, does two passes. The first (like this one) is to establish the composition, mood, and layout. Then, once we get that out of the way, he does a final with more detail. Truth is, this is little different than writing. The initial illustration is like a scene outline. Or video games, where we would rough out a level without all the visual details to see if the game play worked as intended.

The mysterious Tick-Tock gloats over a dying Ben Franklin - in 1725! — rough draft illustration by Dave Phillips

Who are the Tick-Tocks? And what do they want?

Nothing good, as far as protagonist Charlie is concerned. Their policy on time travelers is to stab, shoot, or crush first — ask questions later.

But it’s more complicated than that, as I’m working out now while making detailed outlines for book 2 and 3. Ah, plotting. I have a love/hate relationship with this phase of novel writing. Scratch that, more hate. I love the actual writing best.

This time around I’m trying to plot the entire book in detail before digging into the text, which being a pantser is against my nature. But it needs doing as time travel is complicated and I must research the periods I intend to visit. I’ve already pounded through four or five history books in the last two weeks. Hint: Buckle on your sandals, this time I’m headed way back!

The Big Break

Accidents are by their very nature accidental. And you never know when something that might change your life is around the corner. Our vacation was almost over, our flight back home from San Francisco to Los Angeles just hours away. After visiting the cable car museum, we drifted down to nearby Chinatown.

It was about noon.

For some reason, my 3-year-old son was fascinated by the Peking ducks hanging in the windows. It had just rained, and the sidewalk was wet and gritty. My son darted back toward the butcher shop and it made me nervous, him running like that a few feet ahead near the busy street. I turned to go after.

The minimal treads of my Prada sneakers flew out from under me on the slick cement. I went down hard on my butt, instinctively, I put my left hand out to break my fall. The slightly loose stainless steel band of my watch slid down to my wrist. I felt it bite into the skin on impact.

Hard. Real hard.

"Shit!" I say, a wave of pain ripples up my arm. That was hard.

Clutching my wrist, I look.

Damn! wrists aren't supposed to do that. Thoughts flash through my head. "That has to be broken. I've never broken anything, but that has to be broken. That means hospital. The car is like a blocks away. Uphill. Will I make it? Do I hail a cab and have my wife and son meet me? Will we miss our flight?"

We start walking. I'm holding my wrist. The pain isn't that bad yet, but I feel funny. There are no cabs. I don't know how long I'll last. I pound up the steep hill. The car is near the top, on Nob hill. Our son is lagging. He's not one to hurry and I'm shouting back. "Pick him up!"

As we reach the car, the pain really mounts. Getting the kid buckled into the car seat takes an eternity. My wife fumbles and drops the GPS. There are like 30 hospitals. We call a friend, a bay area radiologist, she tells us to go to UCSF. The pleasantries are like stabs of agony. We key the GPS. 3.2 miles.

It takes 30 minutes. Agonizing minutes.

I don't wait  to deal with the car, but stagger into the emergency room. My wife follows after. They triage me fast through the paperwork stage. Spelling out your name and address is never fun — 1000x less so at pain level 8 and rising. The guy helps me get the watch over my hand and my Mark Jacob slate leather jacket off. This makes me feel better. I wouldn't want them to cut it.

I'm in a room within 15-20 min. And waiting. Maybe another 30 before someone authorized to prescribe something takes a look. "Broken arm," I say.

"We can't know that until the x-ray. Distorted left wrist," she says.

My sister-in-law and son find us. I rattle off instructions about making sure the camera is in the trunk. Anything to keep my mind off the rats gnawing on my bones.

The nurse fits me with an IV and gives me a shot of morphine. It takes the edge off, but less than I would've thought.

By about an hour and a half in, they wheel me to xray. This only takes 10 minutes. 3 images. Flat, 45 degrees, and sideways. The latter two hurt more.

We wait. I think about what I did wrong. Nothing really. I pushed to walk around Chinatown. My wife didn't really want to (Chinese food isn't her thing). Was that stupid? I chose to turn on the street where it happened. I almost look a different watch on the trip, one with a leather band. We almost went to Muir Woods instead, but it was raining. I'd have preferred the mud!

It's clear the 4pm flight is a bust. We call the airline. They want $250 a ticket (x4) to change it. LOL. We can write a letter and ask for a refund.

Someone is coding in the hall. Staff swarm. I hear "clear!" and the beepy noise. It could be worse.

A doctor finally shows. She looks at the wrist for 3 minutes. "We have to wait for ortho," she says.

"You saw the x-ray? It's broken?" I ask. You'd think she'd volunteer.

"It's broken." She does up my pain meds. IV Dilaudid. It works better, I start spinning and feel queasy. They give me a shot for that too.

Ortho takes about four hours to show. The staff apologizes. He's in surgery. By the time he arrives, with a plastic surgeon in tow, I've had time to practice my story so it goes fast. They want to try a "reduction" which is doctor code for setting the bone. First they have to numb me up.

Plastics does that. Lidocaine. He explains to an intern as he does. "Wait until you feel the needle slide along the bone."

Actually, it doesn't hurt that bad, and after, even when they hang my hand in traction, I'm in the least pain since this started. But I am very hungry and thirsty and they don't let me have a thing in case they need to operate.

Ortho finally tries to set it at around 8pm. The good news is that he's a Harvard/MIT MD/PhD. We bond. The bad is that he wrenches my shattered wrist around for 20 minutes. Then he takes a break to get someone "stronger" to help. I take him up on the offer of a shot of Fentanyl in between. Good thing too. That stuff hits hard and fast but I actually hear the bone snap as he works.

And he can't get it back in place, so surgery for me. No flying either, so we have to drive back LA in the morning and find a surgeon there. In the meanwhile he throws on a cast the size and shape of Massachusetts.

It takes until 11pm to get discharged and another hour to pick up the pain meds (Vicodin). My sister-in-law had taken the boy back to our hotel a few hours earlier. We eat some room service, and I pop two pain pills. Five minutes later I'm breaking my 21 year "no puke" record. But you get used to the narcotics and that was the only time.

Surprisingly, with my throbbing arm floating on a mountain of pillows, I do sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Sushi Zo – This Time With Pictures

Restaurant: Sushi Zo

Location: 9824 National BlvdLos Angeles, CA 90034. (310) 842-3977

Date: March 29, 2012

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: Top warm rice style sushi.

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LA is a sushi town. I eat a lot of sushi (just take a look at my LA Sushi review page!). People say Zo is the best in town. I'd been once before for lunch and they denied me the use of my camera (at the sushi bar) but this time, at a table for dinner, they didn't hassle me.

Zo is omakase only. You sit down. They bring you stuff. They charge you by the piece but don't really tell you how much. They keep bringing you sushi. Eventually you get full (not me, but normal people would) and they hand you a (stiff) bill. It's closest in style and format to Sasabune (my detailed reviews of that, with photos, HERE and HERE).

This is Osaka-style "warm rice" sushi, like Sasabune, and presumably descended from the same Chef Nozawa source. The individual pieces are made one at a time, no precutting, and given to you in a hurry. The fish is superlative, although each piece seems to have been placed in a miniaturization machine set to 70%. I've never seen sushi this small. This was particularly humorous when it came to the "battleship" style ones like Uni (sea urchin). They just looked so cute and diminutive (maybe 50-60% size for these). But I'm not sure this size issue resulted directly in less value. At the end I was still just as full as at Sasabune, although it cost perhaps 10-20% more. I perhaps had more pieces numerically. But each was certainly smaller.

The fish was a bit better than Sasabune, and certainly better than Echigo. The preps are very similar, with 90% being "no soy sauce" — a fact of which we were emphatically reminded each and every time. There was a lot of use of vinegar, yuzu and other brightening flavors. I do like these, but I think it did tend to distract slightly from the fish — which was stellar.

There is no menu here. It's just omakase. They start with miso soup in a very small bowl.

It's worth noting here that this is my first meal out with the Canon 5D Mark iii (for more on Foodie Photography, see here). I was shooting with the 50mm compact macro handheld in low light. Usually, with the Mark ii, this would've made me fight to get decent focus and enough depth of field even at the slightly noisy ISO 6400. Plus, the focus sucked on the mark ii/50mm CM combo. With the Mark iii focus was effortless and I was able to stop down to 7.1 and still get 1/50 and relatively low noise. Pretty incredible.

Kumamoto Kaki/Oyster with a bit of ponzu, scallion, and the like. A very nice sweet oyster.

The sake menu is short. This $90 Kimura though is fantastic with exactly the kind of anise flavor that I like in my sake. A really really good sake.

Maguro/Tuna Sashimi. The fish was excellent, although I felt the homemade real wasabi was a little weak. Compared to what is to come, this is nothing.

Ika/Squid Noodle with Uni/Sea Urchin. Yum. This combo is similar to a favorite at Sushi Sushi.

Hirame/Halibut. One thing to note about Zo is that each normal sushi piece is ludicrously small. I guess in the end, this allows for more variety, but each does feel like a tease. On the plus side, they are uniformly excellent and this bit of halibut was no exception. It was drizzled with a touch of yuzu that brought out lovely soft texture.

Fresh marinated ginger. I ate like 6 containers of this stuff.

Binnaga/Albacore. Melts in the mouth good.

Aji/Spanish Mackerel. This fish can be somewhat fishy, but not here. This is some superlative Mackerel.

Hotate/Scallop. I love raw scallop – as long as it's fresh – and this one was spectacular.

Hamachi/Yellowtail. An overused fish in the novice sushi world. Still, when I first started eating sushi in 1978 and through the early 80s this was one of my favorites. This particular piece reminded me why.

Butterfish with a sweet miso paste. This is a bit cooked I believe and is very approachable and warm.

Chu-Toro/Medium Fatty Tuna. These were certainly some great pieces of toro. Like butter. Sometimes I prefer the chu-toro to the really fatty o-toro too because while less rich it often has a more consistent texture.

Pompano.

Kinmedai/Golden Eye Snapper.

Amaebi/Sweet Shrimp. Soft and sweet, with a bit of chew.

Shima Aji/Striped Jack.

Ankimo/Monkfish Liver. Certainly monkfish liver doesn't get much better than this, not even a hint of fishiness.

Giant clam. Chewy, with a nice bit of yuzu. Not my favorite sushi, but this was a great example of type.

Kanpachi/Amberjack.

A snapper of some sort.

One of the light white fishes with a bit of yuzu.

Madai/Red Snapper.

Kurodai/Black Snapper.

Ha-Gatsuo/Skipjack Tuna. Also melt in your mouth good.

Another light white fish with salt.

Sake/Salmon with kelp. Nice sweet salmon, although this is one fish where I think Sushi Sushi is a little better.

Meji Maguro/Baby Tuna. Real bang of flavor here.

Uni/Sea Urchin & Ikura/Salmon Eggs. While tiny, both were excellent examples of the type.

Anago/Sea Eel. A wonderful smoky flavor, and without the sweet sauce. One of the best pieces of sea eel I've had.

Toro handroll. A really great toro roll.

Crab handroll. Again, pretty spectacular (if a little small). I could have eaten about 8 of these.

Yuzu Juice. This strange bit of Japanese lemonade is served as dessert. Nothing wrong with it, and it clears the palette, but it isn't exactly creme brulee.

Overall, I was much more impressed with Zo on this second outing. Yes, the pieces are tiny, but the quality of the fish and the preparation is truly first class. One could really use two of each (or just bigger though) as each flavor is so quick as to become ephemeral. In the end you do get to try a large number of fish. It's expensive but on par with what you get, not like Sushi Mori which feels extremely overpriced. A definite contender in LA's long list of really great sushi only joints.

For more sushi reviews, check out my LA Sushi page.

Game of Thrones – Episode 12

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 12 – April 8, 2012

Title: The Night Lands

Summary: The wait from week to week is tough

ANY CHARACTER HERE

After suffering through the week, Sunday night, Game of Thrones, night arrives. After last week's tease, we open with Arya (finally). I liked Jaqen H'ghar (the civil man in the cage) but I have to wonder why they didn't make one of the others noseless. I always liked that nasty detail. Loren is fun with the knife though. Then it's on to everyone's favorite, Tyrion, and in combo with Varys, even better. The fishpie jokes are classic. "I don't think he likes fishpie." Classic.

Then the small council gets Robb's terms. Then back to Crastor's keep with some more fun between the crows. Sam and the whole woman angle is amusing. Then Gilly temps him, and we see Jon taking last week's lesson from the commander seriously. Dany receives an unpleasant gift in the waste. Her whole part in A Clash of Kings isn't huge, so I suspect we will only see her briefly in most episodes.

Essentially all of the above scenes are finishers from the previous episode. Last week we only set up the positions of the pieces on the board, and it needed at least an hour and a half to even do that. We still havn't even seen Renly (and we won't this episode)!

But with Theon approaching his homeland (Pyke) the plot begins to move a bit. And so does the sexposition. As usual he's laying into some poor girl. I like that she isn't even that attractive. The view of Pyke is awesome though, with the castle split into four or five parts. The shores of the Iron Islands (achem, Northern Ireland) look good. Then talking about sexposition, we cut to a mysterious sex on sex bit in one of Littlefinger's brothels. The momment with the wiping of the mouth and the kiss is perfect though. So gratuitous, but awesome. Then we have Littlefinger venting his frustration with Cersei on Ros. I hate Ros, but they are giving a little more nuance than the books to the personalities of some of the King's Landing players.

After Jonas Slynt perpetrated his baby stabbing last week, we can't help but cheer to see Tyrion set him up. The scene gives a nod to his lame squire Podryck, but I doubt new viewers will notice. Bronn gets a big promotion here he didn't in the books, cutting the lackluster character of Jacelyn Bywater. Arya (along with Tyrion) is one of my favorite characters and I'm glad to see more or her, but we still only get the one first scene and a second here with some nice development between her and Gendry. One does wonder how he is the only one who thinks she is a girl.

Then the delicious irony of Theon's return home. He shamelessly (SPOILER) fails to recognize his own sister and then feels her up. The whole Greyjoy look of the castle (although they skipped the windy, scary bridges) is great. And even better is Theon's shock at the culture contrast. I love how he's become a man of gold instead of iron and his father knows it. They changed his sister's name for some reason but I like that she's young.

After this, we return to Davos bringing pirate Salador on at Dragonstone. Salador is funny, and Davos is fine, but I still find this thread a bit dull — just as I did in the books. Not so with Tyrion and Cersei tearing into it. The writers have continued to develop the angle where Cersei has lost control of Joff (he ordered the slaying of the bastards). This isn't fully stated in the books but adds some complexity to her choices.

And they continue new things when we return to Stannis and Melisandre. Maybe this was implied in the books. Maybe not, but it sure is explicit here. I just have to say that map table sex has to be a literal pain in the ass. And a final bit of extrapolation has Jon Snow follow Craster out into the woods to witness him offer a baby to the white walkers. This act was implied in the books, but I don't remember any actual trip into the woods, and certainly not the little cliffhanger that ends the episode.

But I'm not a purist. I think most of these changes are for the better, emphasizing and clarifying things that Martin leaves half said. Some of the character count reductions are a loss, but I understand why they need to do it. If they don't slice fairly harshly by season four we won't see some threads but once every three weeks. As the show faded to black all I could think was "damn, I have to wait another week!"

or See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

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or all my Game of Thrones posts or

Season 1 reviews: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2 reviews: [11, 12]

The Darkening Dream in Publishers Weekly

The Darkening Dream is featured in Publishers Weekly, the "Special Spring Announcement" (i.e. the extra booklet ghetto where us Indie books go). Still, this is kinda cool. Will libraries and the like rush to order my hardcover from Ingram? It's a nice looking hardcover, plus the book is good, so they ought too.

So far, most people choose the e-book or the paperback (and mostly the e-book).

You can see the listing in the lower right. It's on the inside flap (back of the front cover). I even turned on returns at Ingram (gasp, I'm not a big fan of physical returns) so bookstores can order it without stressing their capital-shy selves. Time will tell!

Check out more information about the book here.

The Lost Gate

Title: The Lost Gate

Author: Orson Scott Card

Genre: Paranormal / Fantasy

Length: 385 pages

Read: March 17-20, 2012

Summary: Fun read!

_

It's been awhile since I read a book by Card, although in eons past I read dozens and he was one of my favorite authors. He's certainly lost none of his talent or voice. This young adult adventure hooks immediately with its fairytale-like narrative tone and engaging magic system. Danny belongs to the North (read Norse) family of degenerate mages. Their talents and legacy effectively covers a large swath of myth and superstition including the powers and belief in historic pagan deities. In fact, his relatives include Odid, Loki, and the like. Nor to say that they are degenerate deities ala American Gods or The Darkening Dream, but just that ancestors with similar powers were taken as such.

We learn about this stuff from the inside, with Danny already steeped in the knowledge of his clan. But soon enough he's on the run in the normal world and his antics — fueled by powerful magics — are equally engaging. Woven in with this is a more mythic type tale set on the world of the Mithermages origin. The relevance of this eventually comes clear, but for a while it feels quite separate, and as we learn in the afterward it had its roots as a separate and older short story. The writing is snappy and the characters likable. If there is any problem during this stage, it's that there isn't really that much conflict. Danny's powers are so strong that we don't really worry too much.

The story races along until the 80% point when both threads come together. This last bit feels over rushed and over narrated. And the coda afterward even more hurried. I really enjoyed most of the novel, but this hyper-fast and hyper-forced end bugged me. It's a common problem. Still, I'll read the sequel.

For more book reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.