Thursday Nom-day: Tteokbokki (spicy rice cake stew)

For Korean food lovers and fanatics like me, tteokbokki is a really familiar dish. I bet if you are, you have eaten this in a Korean restaurant or even tried in in Korea. I learned to cook this based from online recipes as I always do. If I want to eat something (especially Korean food), I try to cook it at home so that I could eat it again whenever (because I already know how to cook it). Tteokbokki is one of them. Once you have all the ingredients needed, it's pretty easy to make.

Tteokbokki.

The tteokbokki I made in the photo above lacks some ingredients needed for a legit tteokbokki. This is the third time I'm making this dish and I think this one's the best in terms of the sauce even though it lacks some essential stuff in it. I don't have a recipe as I'm just following those found around the internet but what I used in this one are the following: cylinder shaped rice cake (used for tteokbokki specifically), gochujang (hot pepper paste), soy sauce, brown sugar. In the photo above, you can see some bits of white and green things. It's the vegetable packet from Shin ramyun because after this photo, I added noodles to make a combination of tteokbokki and "rabokki" (ramyun-bokki, basically).

Tteok+rabokki.

The ingredients that were supposed to be included in a legit tteokbokki are the dried anchovy+dried kelp stock, green onion, hot pepper flakes, and eomuk (fish cake). I whipped this meal because I was desperate for some tteokbokki and fortunately, there is a Korean grocery nearby.

I hope next time I can also provide a short video of the cooking process. Also, next time I want to cook it in the "real" or "legit" way. Expect some other homemade Korean food here (since that's mostly what I cook). 

Bye bye~

TV Wednesday: Haikyuu!! (Spring, 2014)

I don't watch much sports anime, except for Slam Dunk when I was younger. Not even the popular Kuroko no Basuke can make me watch anime centered around sports. This time, however, I got hooked. Haikyuu!! is a sports anime about high school men's volleyball. Believe it or not, I was a volleyball player when I was in high school and our school team even won first place in a big inter-school event. Our team wasn't that good in volleyball because most of us haven't really participated in volleyball competitions in the past. However, with much training and dedication, we made it to the top. I was a receiver since I really don't have much talent with setting or spiking, but I wasn't the libero (the one with the different or contrasting uniform from the rest of the team and enters the court freely but can only replace the players in the back positions). Anyway, I know volleyball and I like anime stories about male camaraderie (like Kimi to Boku perhaps), and so I watched Haikyuu!!

There are currently seven released episodes and I've watched all of them. I still don't have a favorite character but Tanaka-senpai and Tsukishima might just be one of the candidates (yes, both are not main characters). 

Tanaka-senpai and Tsukishima.

The screenshot above might give false impressions on the anime, but that's a memorable scene for me, from episode 6.

I didn't have much idea of the flow of the story before I watched it that's why I won't bother sharing it here. Just the information 'volleyball' and 'male camaraderie' or bromance as I like to call it, are enough to make a person watch or not watch the anime. 

I think that's it! Let the plot surprise you, if ever you're planning to watch this anime. It is good though, in my opinion, which might be an opinion of most shoujo-manga/anime avid watchers.

Soundtrip Tuesday: Michael Jackson, Ji Yeon, Spotify!

Young people of our generation have easier access to music, and have more convenient gadgets to store it in. That's why it's easier to listen to music these days. Even those people who really don't take time to look for songs that could put them in a good mood, or just represent what they're feeling, like to listen to pop songs perhaps. I am one of those people who are not really into music as a "music lover" is usually described as, but nowadays, with more convenient locations (online) to stream music (like Spotify) I have grown to listen to other genres that I don't usually touch on back then. Spotify is now available in the Philippines and I was one of those people who were thrilled because of it. I now have a separated weekly blog post dedicated to music because I want to be more adventurous in listening to different genres of music all over the world.

For this first post, I will talk about some recent releases in the pop genre.

From what I found out, Michael Jackson released a posthumous album entitled "Xscape" and one of the lead singles in that album was Love Never Felt So Good. I like the version with Justin Timberlake. It's a feel good song that captures a disco-like rhythm that just makes me move my body along with the beat. It's one of those songs that you'd want to listen to when you wake up in the morning, or at night when you're just having fun with your friends at home and probably enjoying some drinks. 

Love Never Felt So Good by Michael Jackson & Justin Timberlake

The next pop song is from the K-pop scene. Park Jiyeon or Ji Yeon just released the music video of the lead single of her mini album. Check out the M/V below.

Never Ever [1분1초] by Ji Yeon

I like Ji Yeon ever since I watched a bit of Heroes (K-Variety show) and of all T-ara members, I am quite fond of her. This is her first single going solo, and I think it's pretty different of her usual cutesy actions. However, it's also a bit expected that she'd be doing something like this, and by this I mean a sexy concept. As she's just transitioned into an adult K-pop artist, it's about time she did a sexy concept song on her own, especially that together with Hyomin and Eunjung, she's the most "out-there" or "omnipresent" member of T-ara. The unique choreography matched with the sexy song is enough for a K-pop song to become popular, and I think this video just might make it if people are not tired of such things. Other than that, the song and music video is good, and it reminds me of Sistar's Alone and Ga In for some reason. I'll be looking forward to her live performances and of course the response of the K-netizens and actual K-pop fans.

Movie Monday: That Awkward Moment (2014)

That Awkward Moment stars Zac Efron, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan as the three main male characters. These three are best friends, and based from the trailer, the story is about those three men who promised to be single in order to support one of them, Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) who just broke up with his wife. However, things got messy when the two, Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller) seem to connect with what they thought was just a hook-up.

You can check out the trailer below.

I found this movie because its trailer was shared by one of my Facebook friends and I thought it was interesting enough.. Okay I admit it. It was interesting because of Zac Efron's naked scene on the toilet. I watched the movie and here's what I thought. The movie is about men who glorifies being single and loves living the life of having just hook-ups and never a relationship. The only man who was in a relationship was Mikey, who just broke up with his wife. That's why the two single men encouraged him to live a new life as a single man and try to find women in bars and have a one-night fling. The two, however, finally found "the one" that was a keeper that will literally keep them from finding women to just have hook-ups with. That's basically the movie. Zac Efron's love line was given more attention to as the flow of the story started with him and ended with his love story. 

I would give the movie a 3 out of 5 stars. It was entertaining, the jokes were funny enough and the stories were average. It was focused on the men growing up and falling in love thing and that's the selling point of the movie but I just don't think that the way it was portrayed was the best thing to show it. I say this because I think that their "promise" to be single together was nonsense and it's not a good enough reason for this kind of story to revolve in. I finished it though, and I found everything other than that good in this movie.

Update!

I haven't been posting lately because of my busy schedule in school and in life (haha). I've been on vacation from school for a while now, but I haven't thought of anything to post yet because I also haven't been watching a lot these days. I do have some anime that I've actually finished (well, they only have about 12 episodes with 20 minutes each) and I'm currently watching Suits (American TV series), Emergency Couple (K-drama), My Love From the Star (K-drama), and Isshuukan Friends (Anime). Going to start posting again starting on Monday!