Free Republic

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas spent less than six hours visiting hurricane-hit areas of North Carolina on Thursday — before retreating to Washington to grab an early takeout dinner at Nobu. Mayorkas touched down in the Tar Heel State around 10 a.m. before jetting back to the nation’s capital, where he was spotted by The Post at 5:15 p.m. carrying bags of food from the posh international Japanese restaurant chain — where sushi and sashimi selections are priced at $60 a plate and the highest-grade Wagyu steaks go for $40 per ounce. ...

“Next time don’t order so much food,” he said dryly. Those weren’t the words I expected to hear from my server at San Francisco’s buzzy Ko in the Mission District, but I quickly learned that if you plan to visit the all-you-can-eat restaurant during its $25 happy hour deal, be prepared for some unforeseen ground rules. Allow me to start from the beginning. Ko first came onto my radar one evening as I idly scrolled through Instagram, only pausing when a video titled “$25 AYCE sushi + drinks” caught my eye. What followed was a montage of fresh salmon sashimi,...

A new study has found evidence linking the intake of small fish, eaten whole, with a reduced risk of all-cause and cancer mortality in Japanese women. The study highlights the potential life-extending benefits of habitually eating small fish. Japanese people habitually eat small fish, such as whitebait, Atlantic capelin, Japanese smelt, and small dried sardines. Importantly, it is common practice to consume small fish whole, including the head, bones, and organs, which are rich in micronutrients, such as calcium and vitamin A. The research team investigated the association between the intake of small fish and mortality risk among Japanese people....

Morel mushrooms Public health officials have signed off on an outbreak investigation in Montana saying that morel mushrooms were most likely what made dozens of people sick and killed two. In addition to the two deaths, the outbreak traced to Dave’s Sushi in Bozeman, MT, sickened more than 50 people and sent three to hospitals. People became ill between March 28 and April 17 this year, according to the Gallatin City-County Health Department. The local department worked with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as the U.S. Centers...

Braised Sea Cucumber Food New research from the University of South Australia suggests that sea cucumbers, a marine delicacy loved across Asia, could play a significant role in preventing diabetes. The study revealed that processed dried sea cucumber with salt extracts can inhibit the formation of Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs), compounds associated with an increased risk of diabetes and its complications, such as heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, kidney disease, and cancer. ********************************************************** A new study reveals that sea cucumbers can inhibit the formation of a compound linked to an increased risk of diabetes. The research opens possibilities for the...

The social media views just aren't worth it.Japanese restaurants have had enough with so-called "sushi terrorism." On Wednesday, Osaka prefectural police announced the arrests of Ryu Shimazu and Toshihide Oka, two men who posted their recent antics to social media. The video shows them eating pickled ginger from a communal container with personal chopsticks at a local Yoshinoya, the Associated Press reported. The men openly confessed to their crimes, stating they wanted to make people laugh as they joined in on the hashtag "#寿司テロ," which translates to "sushi terror." As Business Insider explained, the trend involves pranksters visiting popular conveyor...

Japanese police arrested three people on Wednesday in connection with an unsanitary prank at a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, according to the Japanese state broadcaster NHK. The viral videos from early February showed one of them — 21-year-old Yoshino Ryoga, dubbed a "sushi terrorist" by the Japanese public and media — putting his saliva on utensils and sushi and licking the spout of soy sauce bottles at a Kura Sushi restaurant in Nagoya City. The restaurant chain filed a complaint for damages with police on Tuesday and received an apology from Ryoga. Police also arrested two teenagers on suspicion of obstructing...

The thing was the size of a pickup truck. It reeked of decomposing mammal, and it was covered in what appeared to be long, white hair. “We’ve seen whales wash up before, and some that had been stuck on the shore for a few weeks, and never have they grown hair like that,” she said. Lynn touched it and said it was “firm but squishy” and felt blubbery. She could tell it was the body of something; she just didn’t know what. Tegner was confused by the long tendrils that appeared to be attached to it. He could see them...

I bought some new gadgets and products recently. I think the most interesting was the ‘Sushi Bazooka’. There are lots of these available, but they all work along the same lines and make it much easier to fill and roll Maki Sushi, California Roll, etc. It doesn’t always come out as perfect on the first try as some videos make it look, but with a little practice it’s great. 'How Daily' shows how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe8GsJ3M4F0I was introduced to this type of sushi by a Korean friend who calls it ‘Kimbap’. She made it with imitation crab (but the little...

Anyone able to input best locations to eat really good sushi in Austin these days. Know of a good place in Pflugerville, but haven't been in a long time. Thanks in advance.

A sushi enthusiast shared a photograph of his meal on Facebook, only to be pranked by netizens who ordered more food for him via the QR code in the image. On Saturday (Oct 2), a man in Hong Kong posted in a sushi and sashimi interest group on Facebook, showing him dining in at Genki Sushi at East Point City in Tseung Kwan O. The accompanying caption of the post wrote, "Eating at Genki again today". The picture showed a plate of sushi, some empty plates in the background, but more incriminatingly — the QR code used for ordering food...

Do not adjust your screen, and do not reach for the soy sauce. What you see before you is a real, living, breathing marine animal currently on display in a Japanese aquarium – a creature that just happens to look exactly like a piece of salmon sushi. This snack of a sea creature is one of the most popular residents of Aquamarine Fukushima, a large aquarium on the east coast of Japan. In a Twitter post, aquarium staff identified the creature as an isopod – an order of long, flat, armor-plated crustaceans that are plentiful on land and in the...

In 2014, MIT computer science student Jeremy Rubin offered all undergraduate students on campus $100 worth of bitcoin. Seventy percent of the student body participated in the free bitcoin giveaway. Some ended up wasting their coin at a sushi restaurant that took bitcoin. Others launched side hustles helping classmates set up crypto wallets. “One of the worst things and one of the best things at MIT is this restaurant called Thelonious Monkfish,” said Phu. “I spent a lot of my crypto buying sushi.” rabucco now runs Alameda Research, which manages over $1 billion in digital assets and trades up to...

Our culinary repertoires are bursting at the seams – all thanks to TikTok. Over the past year, we’ve learned how to make both feta and Boursin pasta, French onion chicken, whipped coffees and more. But now a new craze on the platform is turning traditional food genres on their head. People are making their own Oreo sushi, by deconstructing the popular sweet treat and turning it into a Japanese-inspired dessert. TikTok user @siennasweets_ shows how to reinvent the classic snack at home in one of her videos. Anyone looking to give it a go should first remove all the Oreo...

Nearly 100 similar blob sightings have been reported around Norway and the Mediterranean Sea since 1985, but the mysterious gelatinous masses have always evaded classification. Now, thanks to a year-long citizen science campaign and a new DNA analysis, researchers have finally identified the blobs as the rarely-seen egg sacs of a common squid called Illex coindetii. According to a new study, published March 30 in the journal Scientific Reports, each blob may contain hundreds of thousands of teensy squid eggs, encased in a bubble of slowly disintegrating mucus. Remarkably, while scientists have known about I. coindetii for more than 180...

A top Taiwanese official issued a plea today for people to stop changing their name to “salmon” after dozens made the unusual move to take advantage of a restaurant promotion. In a phenomenon that has been dubbed “Salmon Chaos” by local media, around 150 mostly young people flocked to government offices in recent days to officially register a change in their name. SNIP Under the two day promotion which ended today, any customer whose ID card contained “Gui Yu” – the Chinese characters for salmon – would be entitled to an all-you-can-eat sushi meal along with five friends. Taiwan allows...

Doctors at a Tokyo hospital examined a patient complaining of throat irritation and discovered a 1.5-inch worm living in her tonsil. Photo courtesy of The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene ======================================================================= July 14 (UPI) -- A team of Japanese doctors shared details of the case of a woman suffering throat irritation who actually had a live worm inside her tonsil. The doctors said in a study published in the July issue of The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that the 25-year-old woman came into St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo complaining of throat irritation five days...

A Phoenix woman reportedly sent a man she met on a dating website more than 159,000 texts – including one stating that she wanted to turn his kidneys into sushi. According to police documents obtained by the Arizona Republic, Jacqueline Ades allegedly sent the man the messages over the span of nearly 10 months. She had originally been accused of sending him more than 65,000 text messages but the number was reportedly more than double that. The arrest records listed the woman as “showing signs of mental illness,” the newspaper reported. Ades reportedly met the victim, a Paradise Valley man...

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller threw out $80 worth of sushi after a bartender at the restaurant he ordered from flipped him off as he walked out of the restaurant, according to The Washington Post. The bartender from the restaurant, located near Miller's apartment, reportedly followed Miller out the door and shouted "Stephen!" The bartender then flipped both middle fingers and cursed out Miller, who then threw out the sushi in disgust, Miller later told colleagues. Earlier this year, Miller was shouted at "Better be better!" by a stranger while walking through Dupont Circle in Washington DC, The Post...

Sushi lovers in South Korea will be able to taste a new breed of tuna in local restaurants and gourmet shops as farm-bred bluefin tuna is coming to the market this year, the fisheries ministry said Friday. Local fishermen have tried to cultivate bluefin, one of the most popular fish with its rich red meat, to meet the high demand, but their efforts were fraught with challenges like typhoons and cold winters. After a lot of trial and error over the past decade, Hongjin Fishing Association said it succeeded in growing bluefin tuna in a pen in waters off Tongyeong,...