Author Archives: tjackson

Katsu San

During the pandemic, I remember all of us being sick of everything. We were having the same routine, food, and work every day and it felt good to do something different. One night I organized a fancy dinner, an excuse for us to get out of the house and go for a walk, dress up out of our PJs, and eat food other than what we usually were having. It was something to do in a time of nothingness.

When Katsu San opened up they were only doing take-out at the time, no dine-in (I mean no restaurant was doing dine-in, it was still the peak of covid). My dad had talked about this new place opening up and was very eager to order it. When placing our order we had no idea it would be SO busy, to pick it up there were tons of people outside waiting for their katsu sets. In their take-out options, you could either get Tonkatsu or Chicken Katsu, so pork or chicken katsu. Either of the options come with rice, cabbage, pickled vegetables, and miso soup almost all in compact packaging.

It’s funny, it doesn’t matter if it’s just me, just my brother, or even with the both of us, if our dad is left alone with us and doesn’t want to cook he always says “Let’s go to Katsu”. So, when our mom was headed on a flight to Manitoba for work, my dad texted me saying we are going to Katsu once I was done working. With some miscommunication, I ended up meeting the two of them at Katsu and waited about 30 to 40 minutes for a table for three. There were so many people inside and other people on the waiting list that every time a table was cleared, we thought it was for us (unfortunately it was not).

Once getting a table, we already knew what we were going to get. Aidan got the Chicken Katsu set, my dad the Tonkatsu set, and myself the Cheese Katsu Set. For reference, it is what we get every time (except for me because they don’t allow the Cheese Katsu Set for takeout I get the Tonkatsu set then). All orders, in person, come with miso soup, pickled vegetables as well as unlimited rice and cabbage. Since we had arrived and were seated pretty late, they did the last call for anything and my dad got extra cabbage.

Cheese Katsu Set with rice, miso soup, & cabbage

The actual food is so good, I love katsu. It’s basically just breaded meat like chicken nuggets or anything, but much better. I think it’s cause it actually tastes like meat rather than chicken nuggets that taste fake (as good as they are). Along with how almost everything else is unlimited it is great, you can snack on some cabbage and rice along with your meal. The Cheese Katsu is to DIE FOR, I absolutely love it. Being lactose intolerant, who doesn’t love cheese? Of course, something they can do is add more meat to the set so that the ratio of meat:cheese is perfect, but nonetheless it is still amazing. I give Katsu San a 5/5.

Process Post: 🤬HATE COMMENTS 💬

Not to brag, but I’ve received many comments. Coming from my mom, friends, and even myself (I need to boost up anyway I can). Sure, some of the comments may have been forced by me, sorry Brady, but overall they have been positive and welcomed. 

I have, however, received a hate comment. At first, sure it affected me and it hurt to see that someone would go out of their way to say something hurtful but overall I tried to brush it off. It supposedly came from someone I knew, the email and name were of someone I used to be friends with. But I thought, how stupid would you have to be to put your REAL name and email on a hate comment where someone could track you? I don’t know, maybe they really are that stupid, but honestly, I think they would be smarter than that.

The comment said, “Ur writing is shit”. Okay…and? My whole website was not made because I’m passionate about writing and I hope to one day become a successful and published author, it was made because I am part of a publishing class where I have created a website about food. You aren’t crushing my dreams because of this comment, and honestly writing it shows your fan behaviour. At least that’s what I was constantly telling myself to make sure I didn’t text anyone who had beef with me and try to confront them about it.

In the article “The dark side of Guardian comments”, apparently “articles written by women attract more abuse and dismissive trolling than those written by men, regardless of what the article is about”. I mean it makes sense, I would think that trolls, those who write hateful comments, have a mindset that even behind a screen, men have more power than women. Because of this mindset, they would be less likely to post something on a man’s website or article than a woman’s. Now, I don’t think that because I am a woman that is why I received a hate comment. I think because the person feels small, has no way of expressing themselves, and feels they have no power in person to ever talk to me like they would online, THAT is why they wrote the comment. But I do think that they probably would not do the same thing if they were “beefing” with a guy.

Honestly, I could care less what this person thinks. I don’t even care if I know them in person and still talk to them on a day-to-day basis. People can write whatever they want on my blog, whatever they are thinking or feeling, but just remember that on the other side of the screen, the person who is receiving your comment, is a human being too that has emotions 😄.

Glowbal

April 1, 2023. This past weekend, it was Ben and my 1 year anniversary. Because I am the type of person to plan it all, I made a reservation back in February for Glowbal. I was thinking about what type of food we have not had yet that can be a nice change. From there I realized, after all this time of going out with my friends and family for brunch, I had never gone with Ben. Of course, I looked at the menu and saw Eggs Benny’s so I was all good to go to book it. On top of that, I wanted to find a restaurant that didn’t break the bank at all, and although some items were on the pricey side there were other reasonable options.

When we arrived at Glowbal, the entire restaurant looked spectacular. They asked us if we wanted to sit inside or outside and because it was a beautiful day I said inside. Once you sat down, you could see so many beautiful purple flowers hanging from the ceiling and beside us, there were little balls with flowers surrounding them too. The whole patio looked like a garden I would say. There was even a nice little fluffy pillow behind me and heaters all around so I was comfy and we were warmed up.

Soon after we had sat down, our waiter brought us each some type of strawberry yogurt smoothie in a shot glass as well as mini donuts to start us off. Knowing Ben very very well, I had a feeling he wouldn’t be full after our breakfast, so I gave him a protein bar I had to fill him up for some time before our food arrived. For the actual food, I had looked ahead and knew that I already wanted eggs benedict. I had ordered the “Farm-House Eggs Benedict” with a side of fresh fruit and Ben ordered the “Breakfast “FRY-UP””. 

Farm-House Eggs Benedict & Fresh Fruit
Breakfast “FRY-UP”

When I made the reservation, there was this option that said something like the reason for coming and I had put anniversary because, well, it was our anniversary. So not knowing what would happen, they brought us two complementary drinks with a sparkler in them.

Overall, the service was great, Benjamin and I were both full, and the extra things made our experience special. I would give Glowbal a 5/5 and would definitely want to try their lunch and dinner menu as well. Also, their cocktails look so cool so I will for sure be coming there in a couple months after my 19th birthday!

Process Post: foodietj’s transformation 😁

I was at a social event for a club and we were put into teams of 4 for a game show. Out of the 3 people I was teamed with, I had only met 1 before during another event. As some of you know, I post on my Instagram stories whenever I have a new blog post up. I post a cute little picture and link my website, show the location of the restaurant, and add a little caption saying “check this out!” or something along those lines. It hadn’t been long since I posted, but the funniest thing was when the 1 girl I had met previously once before said “Oh Tara, I saw your blog on Icy Bar”. I’m not going to lie, it made me feel good. People actually saw what I posted and READ it. I wasn’t just posting and hoping people would view it, but I posted something and people READ it. 

As I said, I post my newest blog posts on my Instagram stories (@tara.jacksonnn btw), and for the past month whenever I post, I get people liking my stories. Again, not lying, this makes me feel good. It makes me feel like people are supporting what I’m doing and actually like my work. THIS IS NOT BRAGGING AT ALL, BUT I have had so many people respond to my stories about how impressed they are with my website and how much work I put into it. They like my design, my comments, and even said they’ll check out the places I went to and that THEY would give me recommendations.

“Transmedia storytelling is a process. Elements of a fiction get dispersed across multiple media for the purpose of creating a coordinated entertainment experience” (Kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com, 2013). As I am able to post pictures and link my website to my stories, it allows me to disperse my blog across different medias (Instagram and Facebook). This allows for access to an audience I never had before. Without these medias, I would be a singular blog with maybe around a total of 50 people who viewed my website and 40 of them being me.

I am grateful for the experience I have had with this website. Being able to legitimately create my own platform that I haven’t been afraid of. I can post whatever I want, whenever I want, and most of all, I don’t have to care what people think. Although I may get some unwanted comments (not yours mom!), I am able to filter out what I want and don’t want to create my own food-loving platform.

References

Kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com. (2013, November 21). Pokemon as Transmedia Storytelling. Kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com. https://kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/pokemon-as-transmedia-storytelling/

Top 3 Bubble Tea Restaurants 🧋

Unfortunately, this week, I did not eat out. Yes, this means less money spent and saving money, BUT I like going and eating out. The whole vibe and aroma of the restaurant, and then the company you have as well can make everything seem perfect. But, as I said, no eating out 😞. Because of this, I have thought of the idea to create my TOP 3 BUBBLE TEA RESTAURANTS!!!

I admit it. Hi, my name is Tara, and I am a bubble tea addict. Maybe addict is not even enough. I am a connoisseur, a world-class taste tester, an expert, or maybe just a girl who loves her sugar. Also, quick fact, I recently (in the past year and a half) found out that I am lactose intolerant. Does this stop me from drinking my amazing “Original Milk Tea with Pearls”? No, of course not, why would it?

Now, we are going to go backwards from third to the ultimate first choice. And then, at the end, we are going to talk a little about what places I didn’t necessarily like.

3. Chase Tea

I had Chase Tea for the first time 3 years ago. Of course, I ordered my milk tea with pearls, and when I drank it I was filled with this unexpected taste. The tea tasted creamy and strong, I’m not sure if that makes sense but the specific taste of the drink is forever ingrained in my tastebuds. While some people don’t like it, I would say the uniqueness of the drink is excellent enough to have it on my top 3 list.

2. Bubble Queen

I remembered the day I was told about Bubble Queen, my parents had just come back from a night out and waited in line for this bubble tea drink at Bubble Queen. They had talked about how amazing it tasted and how it had with real mango chunks on top of it. They wanted to bring us there, so the four of us went. I, of course even then, got a milk tea with pearls while my parents got the “Fresh Mango Cubed slush” and Aidan had an “Oreo Slush”. The milk tea wasn’t that special, the flavour of the tea is very strong and less milky and the pearls are harder but of course, it’s still good. What puts Bubble Queen as number 2 on my list is their mango drinks. As I had mentioned before, they put real chunks of mango at the top of their drink which emphasizes not only the sweetness & presentation but also its uniqueness. If anyone is wanting to try new and original bubble tea, go to Bubble Queen.

1. CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice

My number one choice is CoCo. Everything is right, the taste of the tea and the freshness of the pearls (sometimes). The most defining factor for all bubble teas is how the tea actually tastes. You don’t want it to be too watery or the tea to taste too strong or even be too milky, but rather an equal balance of all. Unlike what most may think, I’m not too adventurous with my bubble tea flavours, but luckily when I did try something new, I did it with CoCo. I usually order the “Pearl Milk Tea with 70% sugar and less ice” but my second favourite drink is a “Mango Green Tea with pearls and 70% sugar less ice”. If I were to recommend anyone to have bubble tea for the first time somewhere, it would be CoCo.

As I mentioned, I’ll talk quickly about what places I don’t necessarily LOVE.

  • Chatime → Milk tea is too watery BUT their “Red Pocket” discounts last longer than CoCo’s
  • Xing Fu Tang → Only have brown sugar, too much sugar for me
  • Ben Gong’s Tea → Only have brown sugar, too much sugar for me
  • Milksha → Pearls are different, not tapioca which takes it away from my list
  • Fair Bee → Used to be great, but their tea is too watery (cheapest from what I can remember)

Of course, there are more places but I cannot go on forever otherwise this post will never end!

Peer Review #3

For the third and final peer review of the semester, I was assigned to review Roland’s website; however, due to Roland’s website being incomplete as well as lacking content, I randomized another person and am now going to peer review Emerson’s website. This was finalized on Saturday, March 25, 2023, anything posted after this date were not included.

Roland’s website: http://gallifreyanbro.com/ 

Emerson’s website: https://dripowensonline.net/ 

At first glance, Emerson’s website can be seen as a dark hole, a bit bland with nothing behind the surface, but then you would be quite wrong. The first thing I checked out was the “About” tab on the menu, it was only then was I able to understand what I was getting into. Emerson’s creative take on creating your website was shown, and I started to believe that I was able to get away from it all with dripowensonline.

Emerson’s audience is himself, and he doesn’t sugarcoat it. He states it in “Process Post #5”, “I don’t expect others to find it”. Rather than trying to state that their audience is whoever comes upon it, Emerson admits that they are writing to themselves and does not need to adapt to anyone’s comfort levels as it all depends on what he believes is true. Since his website audience is so small, relative to who Emerson lets into his digital garden, it allows it to be comfortable and welcoming. The minimalistic-ness of the “Home” page allows for a personal aroma for the user and reader.

I like to take a look at what other people are doing in class. I check out the google sheets page with all the websites and inquire what people are writing about or posting. Having looked at Emerson’s website I can say that I haven’t seen anything like it. In the recommended reading “How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse” by Travis Gertz, he talks about copycat culture and how companies are looking at the most successful websites and copying what they are doing. “When another company achieves success, there’s a lot of pressure to investigate what they did right and apply that to our own organizations” (Gertz, 2015). Looking at all the different websites in the class, I can say without a doubt, I haven’t seen something like Emerson’s. As I mentioned previously, his audience is himself, and because of that, he doesn’t need to copy others because he doesn’t have the same audience.

As a reader, of course, my perspective on Emerson’s website is going to be different than his perspective or even someone else’s. Because of this, it’s hard to say what I would think needs changing on his website. I am not his intended audience so of course, I am going to think of things differently than he would or he would want to. I would say, if it was my website, I would change the titles of my process posts. I like to make my posts engaging, even if it’s just for myself, so possibly changing the titles of your process posts could make your website just a little more interesting.

Altogether, I enjoyed Emerson’s website immensely and look forward to seeing more interesting and creative photos in his “Archive”.

References:

Gertz, T. (2015, July 10). How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse. Louder Than Ten. https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines 

Process Post: How Do I Want to Do Things?

When I opened the “State of Mobile” reading by data.ai I actually laughed as I went to the eleventh page and looked at the “Average Age Group Index Among Top Apps Per Category”. For Gen Z is said the typical apps, apps that I use like Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, although I was surprised that Tik Tok wasn’t on there. For Millennials it had said WhatsApp Messenger, which I thought was funny because I am on a family groupchat with a bunch of cousins as well as aunts and uncles on WhatsApp and I would say the average age on the group chat falls into the Millennial age category. And than last, but not least, where I laughed out loud was for Gen X and baby boomers where it had in fourth place, Stocard. I laughed because when I am currently writing this, Thursday March 23, my mom had JUST texted our “Jackson 4” groupchat to add her Chipotle card to our Stocard app.

That little starter may not be relatable, but for me it was quite funny. ANYWAY, while starting my website, as I had mentioned in previous posts, I never thought I would actually be writing to an audience. I thought the only ones who would read my posts would be myself time and time again, but then also those who were reviewing my blog as well as whoever was marking it. Little did I know, when I post on Instagram, people actually look at what I post or share. Now, I get an average of 43 people viewing my blog postings when I share a story on Instagram promoting it.

For my audience and my goal as a blog content creator (weird to say that after writing consistently for 2 months), I never really aimed to have my blog show up on others search pages. Sure I could include keywords for people to view my posts, but personally, my blog wasn’t meant for that. My blog was never meant to be a profit maximizing website to capitalize off of the hungry, but rather a way for me to just write about what I like. I have to admit, I hate writing about topics that I’m not interested in, and I have had teachers tell me “Tara, when you like something and are actually interested about the topic, your writing drastically improves”. So when writing this blog feels like a chore, or a job, than I might start to write more dry.

If I just focus on the reasons ten and eleven in Sam Hollingsworth’s article “15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO”, which are 10. SEO is PR and 11. It’s a Long-Term Strategy. I believe all Sam’s points are valid and make sense, but his points concerning my website do not coincide. For example, both his tenth and eleventh points relate to the longevity of the website, but for me, I don’t plan on writing posts consistently for the rest of my life or even past this course. Once the course is done, as fun as it has been, I don’t plan on keeping my website going as I have other things in my life I have to deal with and other courses to work on. Anyway, all in all, I have to decide what I want to do and want to complete in the remaining part of this class.

References:

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Sun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant

It’s currently 2:00 AM right now and I can’t fall asleep for the life of me. My brain is running and I have to be up at 7:00 AM to head back to SFU right now, so I am going to write my content post for this week. From my room, I can hear the planes overhead. The sounds of them passing by my window start to scare me and I don’t know if it’s because maybe I haven’t heard it in a while or because the plane sounds awfully close to us here on the ground. I can also hear the sirens of police cars or ambulances from my window. That I find more than normal because back on the mountain, fire alarms are pulled nightly and the norm is for about 2 fire trucks or ambulances to pass by my window.

This weekend has been hectic let me tell you that. It started with Friday being St. Patricks Day. I don’t usually celebrate it, my family doesn’t usually celebrate it, but it is a holiday and something to celebrate for some people so a group of my friends got together. Full of laughter and definitely not alcohol because we are good children, the night ended pretty late resulting in me walking back home at 3:30 AM. As one would assume, the next morning, at around 8:00 AM, my dad tried to wake me up as we had to go renew my passport all the way in Burnaby. That plan did not follow through as the partying from the night before took me out, and by that I mean I was throwing up every 30 min for 4 hours. Because of that unfortunate circumstance, all our plans went awry and my parents went off to renew my passport without me, and the plans of food after that went out the window.

Steamed Shanghai Style Pork Dumpling
Pan Fried Shrimp & Chive Cake

This all eventually leads us to today, where we decided to make up for the previous day’s distressing events. After some insightful arguing, the four of us landed on dim sum and went to our usual place Sun Sui Wah. As I have mentioned THOUSANDS of times, my dad and I are very similar, so as soon as we had sat down I grabbed the paper and started ticking off how much of what we wanted. Then, I passed it over to my dad who then checked over our list, and within 5 minutes we were done ordering and ready to eat. To be honest, I would like to admit I think my head was bigger than my stomach because we ended up with 3 takeout boxes to bring back home.

Hours: Monday to Friday 10:30 AM – 3:00 PM & 5:00 PM – 9:30 PM   Saturday to Sunday 10:00 AM – 2:30 PM & 5:00 PM – 9:30 PM

Address: 4940 No. 3 Rd, Richmond, BC V6X 3A5

Whenever we go for dim sum, our family always goes to Sun Sui Wah. We’ve taken cousins who have visited from London and friends that flew all the way from Japan over, and everyone has loved it. The food always comes fast and tastes hot. I’ve got to say, every time we have come I have tried something new and thankfully the menu here is so vast, there is plenty of ways I have got to go before I can say I have expanded my palate. The only thing I would say is that they changed their recipes. I don’t like coconut and because of that, my taste buds arise and can tell when something tastes like it or has it. Recently, within the past 2 years, they changed their egg tart recipe to include coconut milk or at least something that tastes like coconut. However, even with this slight change, I buck it up and still have it because I have got to stay true to my routine. Because of all these factors, I give Sun Sui Wah a solid ⅘.

Front: Steamed BBQ Pork Bun
Behind: Deep Fried Sesame Ball with Black Sesame Paste
Steamed Pork & Shrimp Shiu Mai

* Also a little PSA, this is not all the food we had. I just forgot to take photos which is why some look partly eaten…because they were… *

Process Post: Breadcrumbs 🥖

My parents always get mad at me whenever I try to argue with them about social media platforms. Of course, I do believe that social media is taking away the mystery of our generation compared to others, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. My dad is always saying that I am giving away my data and that the big companies are going to know whatever about me, but my response is always “so what”. How bad is it if they know I like to watch videos about murder mysteries, or what TV shows I like to watch. Is it really the end of the world, no, it’s not. Sure, I do think that some people overshare on social media and that maybe they shouldn’t tell everyone where they are exactly at every minute of every day, but posting once in a while with your friends or if you go out for coffee really isn’t that bad.

After reading the introduction of “Digital breadcrumbs: the data trail we leave behind us…” by George Philip, Jennifer Anne Lazo, Rooham Jamali and Rudy Al Jaroodi, I was astounded to realize that my trail is long. REAL long. Even right now, I’m at work and using the mall wifi to use my computer typing on google docs. Anyone who can track that type of stuff, knows I’m at the mall right now using google.

Personally, as I mentioned before, I don’t really care that much about my data trail. Sure, it’s a long one, but overall, the people that get our data are going to get it at some time at some point. Whatever you do, if you search up a store on google, ads are going to pop up for that store the next time you look at something, they are always collecting information and I can’t think of a reason why its bad. If you have self-control and a little awareness about what is going on, they really can’t get to you on their data mining techniques.

When they mentioned CCTV cameras in the article/podcast, I was interested to learn the different opinions of some people regarding them. Some thought it was unnecessary while others thought about the safety it provides. Things like these are what I mean when I say that we aren’t going to be able to stop how far the digital age takes our data trail. Sure we can regulate some things, like how the UK has a data protection law, but there are always going to be backdoors or other ways to get information that we won’t be able to control. Overall, I think as a generation and a population, we need to increase our awareness about social media and the information they can take but think about the benefits this may allow as well.