Initial Review of IOS 7

I updated my iPad (3rd Generation) to IOS 7 last night. I have been playing with it for a while and trying to get used to the different ways of doing the things I normally do.

I'm still not liking the new look, but this is more of a personal preference and probably because I'm not used to it. The "simplistic" or minimalist look doesn't do it to me, and it looks more primitive than the previous look. Still, there are a couple of annoying features here that I may not get used to:

1. Safari. The Forward and Backwards button are still on the left side of the top of the browser window, but why did they more the Bookmarks button to the right? It used to be everything was on the left side. You can navigate rather easily and quickly. Move forward, backwards, and go to a different website on your bookmarks doesn't require a lot of moment of your finger. They were all there. Now, you have to move across the page since the bookmark is on the other side! I don't know if this can be customized to change its location.

2. Multitasking. When you swipe upwards with 3 of 4 fingers, you'll see all the active apps. It used to be that you can close apps by just taping on the "x" attached to each icon. Now, you have to do a bit more by swiping the mini window of the app upwards. Here's the thing: tapping is a lot easier and requires less of an effort than swiping up. If you don't do it fast enough, the window/app doesn't close!

3. Difficult to see. The new look of the buttons and the control panel use thin black lines on either white, grey, or semi-transparent background. They do not look as clear and distinct as the old interface. Were these designed by and for youngsters who have 20/20 eyesight?

I'm just afraid that this minimalism concept has been taken a bit too far for an interface.

Zz.

Guy Fieri's Time Square Restaurant Got Roasted By NY Times

I don't read many restaurant reviews. In fact, I don't recall when I last read one. But this one is a hoot and a half!

Now, I do love Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" on the Food Network. So when I came across a review of Fieri's new restaurant in NY City's Time Square called "Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar", I just had to read it. And man, was this restaurant got skewered big time!

Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights) in the review:

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri, would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered?

Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?

At your five Johnny Garlic’s restaurants in California, if servers arrive with main courses and find that the appetizers haven’t been cleared yet, do they try to find space for the new plates next to the dirty ones? Or does that just happen in Times Square, where people are used to crowding?{ZapperZ: This, btw, is one of my big pet peeves when dining out}

How did Louisiana’s blackened, Cajun-spiced treatment turn into the ghostly nubs of unblackened, unspiced white meat in your Cajun Chicken Alfredo?

By the way, would you let our server know that when we asked for chai, he brought us a cup of hot water?

Tell me, though, why does your kitchen sabotage even its more appealing main courses with ruinous sides and sauces? Why stifle a pretty good bison meatloaf in a sugary brown glaze with no undertow of acid or spice? Why send a serviceable herb-stuffed rotisserie chicken to the table in the company of your insipid Rice-a-Roni variant?

Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?

Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them?

Holy canolli, Batman! Those are awful reviews!

I  know! Maybe Guy could call Robert Irvine and do a Restaurant Impossible episode on his new restaurant! It sounds as if the restaurant needs an overhaul on the food and the service. Food Network will have a double-whammy for an episode since it will involve two of its stars!

Not gonna happen!

Zz.

Phoenix Restaurant

I went to Phoenix Restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown today for dim sum. Bottom line: HIGHLY DISAPPOINTING.

I've been there for dinner before. The food was wonderful, and so was the service. I've never done dim sum there before, and at this point, I never will. It is just not worth it.

First of all, we probably arrived at the wrong time. Got there around 11:30 am, and there's a long wait. Typically, this means that it is good. We certainly had high expectation because the place was recommended by someone. So we didn't mind waiting. After all, it was Sunday, and it is around Noon. A restaurant in Chinatown that isn't packed at that time isn't worth going to. So we got our number, and was told it will be about 40 minutes. Fine. We went walking around Chinatown a bit to pass the time.

When our number was called, we were all excited (and hungry). The restaurant is on the 2nd floor, so we walked up. Guess what? There's ANOTHER waiting area! This makes no sense. If they have called us, shouldn't they have made sure a table is ready? But no, this is like a Disney attraction. There's another waiting/holding area, which is in an even less convenient location than the one downstairs. We, and everyone else in this area felt like we are always in the way of everyone else, especially the staff, that have to go though this area. OK, so far it sucks. But still, if it is this busy, the place must be good, right?

We waiting another 15 minutes before our number was called again and we finally get to sit at our table. This is when things really become disappointing.

The food was SCARCE! There were very few dim sum carts going around! Some of them even missed us because the persons pushing the carts were busy either yapping away or simply didn't look at our table, and we were next to an aisle! But the disappointing part is the very, VERY limited selection of dumplings and offerings. The chicken feet cart came by at least 3 times, but where were the shumai? The shrimp dumplings? I'd be surprised if we saw more than 15 different offerings.

I've been to many dim sums before. The one I like the most is on Broadway near the New Chinatown near Argyle street - Furama. Now THAT'S a place to have dim sum. Again, it is crowded, and sometime you get the cart pusher that can't speak English. But that's never a problem. The selection of dumplings is always plentiful.

What was disappointing about Phoenix was that, I expected more. One would think that with the large crowd and long wait, there's something remarkable about it. Not only did not it fill that expectation, it also produced significantly LESS than what I expected to be the norm for a dim sum place.

I will not go back there for dim sum. It has also soured me a little bit on going back there for regular dinners, even though I had good food and service there last time. The whole experience simply made me want to go back to Furama next week for good dim sum.

Zz.