RANTS & RAVES

Restaurants, get your act together

These days, eateries appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. What’s the deal? I wanna know why. I have many ideas but here are a few I think definitely need to be addressed.

Honestly, I’m tired of there not being much variety in Kota Kinabalu. When one forward thinking person brought in boba tea… everyone wanted to open up a boba tea place. When croissants became a hot item, everyone wanted to do croissants. Sheep… I tell you, sheep. Be innovative.

To put it bluntly, I still haven’t found a great nasi lemak in Kota Kinabalu that rivals the stalls in Kuala Lumpur. Everyone has the staple dishes like spaghetti bolognese and fried rice and that’s fine. Just give it a twist, make it different from the average, make it taste good!

Restaurant owners, make sure your chefs know their dishes well or do some research. One incident that still upsets me to this day is a restaurant in the city centre advertised they had Philly Steak sandwiches. I was overjoyed as I had been missing this from my years in the U.S. When the sandwich was placed in front of me, I looked at it in disbelief. It barely resembled a steak sandwich but I proceeded to eat it in hopes that the flavors would win me over. I was utterly disappointed and frankly, quite mad by the time my family & I walked out. I will never go there again cause they false advertised. By the way, the rest of the food we ordered was average. Don’t make dishes you have no business making... just don’t.

Quality control barely exists in this town even when it comes to drinks! Why?

Recipes change depending on who’s cooking or mixing your drink. Sure, in a pinch you gotta use an alternative product and that’s fine but don’t you taste it or check to see if it’s still fit for consumption? Side question, do chefs and cooks lose some of the sensory cells on their taste buds after tasting and burning their tongues? I mean that has to be the reason. I once tried out a Ramadan buffet at a hotel that served sweet potatoes that had gone bad. Unacceptable.

Lastly, be consistent with “EVERYTHING”. From operating hours to customer service to taste, have standards and elevate yourself.

by Noor F.Z. Ali Image | Unsplash

You’ve heard of the World Cup and the Olympics. Well, have you ever heard of the Super Bowl? This huge American gridiron football event garners millions of fans from around the world, especially from the United States. While most fans tune in to watch the action on the field, many are also eagerly waiting for the halftime show and weirdly the commercials. Well, you’re in for a treat as you find out about what’s special with Super Bowl Sunday.

The Super Bowl is a championship game of the National Football League (NFL) played between the winners of the leagues American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. It’s played in January or February, and hosted by a different city each year. Then called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, the first ever game was played on January 5, 1965 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The first winner were the Green Bay Packers, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs with a score of 35-10. The first use of the Super Bowl term and the use of the Roman numerals were in 1969. This year, the Kansas City Chiefs became Super Bowl LVII champions after overcoming the Philadelphia Eagles.

It unofficially became the biggest American holiday, with 100 million viewers tuning in from the United States alone. With that many fans tuning in, it’s no wonder the Super Bowl can generate billions in revenue. TV rights to air the big game have reached tens of billion dollars while ad spots can cost up to $7 million per spot. This doesn’t include the sale of tickets and copyright costs to promote the game yet. Companies have always been aware from the amount of people watching the game, that’s why they pay a lot of money to feature their ads during commercial breaks. Some fans also tune in to specifically watch these ads, expecting something iconic, silly, or a combination of both.

These commercials aren’t the only non-football entertainment viewers yearn for, as the halftime show is an event on its own. This year, we saw Rihanna strutting her baby bump and singing her biggest hits on “floating” platforms. However, since viewer expectations keep growing on how the halftime show will be topped each year, it’s no stranger to criticism and controversy. One of the biggest incidents involved Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson in 2004. Other times, it’s left people with enough content to produce memes, such as the “Left Shark” meme from Katy Perry’s performance in 2015.

You see, even if the Super Bowl is mainly an American event, we can’t deny the impact it’s made on people around the world. Either you’re a fan of sports, entertainment, or generally surf the web often, you’re bound to see something from the Super Bowl when the game comes around each year.

by Noel Jinguli Image | Various Sources