Delicious pastrami at Katz Delicatessen @ New York

Katz's Delicatessen is a kosher-style restaurant and iconic Jewish restaurant. They are famous for pastrami, salami, hot dogs, bagel & corned beef. This restaurant has a unique ticketing system. As each customer enters Katz's they are handed a printed, numbered ticket by the door attendant. As you receive the food from various stations in the restaurant, the employee will write on the ticket. Be careful to take care of your ticket as they will charge lost ticket if you lost it. Although it was my first time tried on their pastrami, it was delicious. I even come back on the next day to try on their cold cut salami which taste not too bad but just because I don't like cold and raw stuff. Coincidently, this restaurant is quite near to my hotel on Bowery Street. So I can walk there for my two breakfast. A bit of history, during world war II, Katz encourage parents to "send a salami to your boy in the army" as salami is easy to pack, last long and it contain meat nutrition.

Taste:8/10(Good. Delicious pastrami, great cucumber & good hot chocolate. Their fries however is just on the par. Salami is full of meat goodness.
Price:5/10(Near expensive. Make sure to prepare to spend around USD12-15 per meal here. I am able to skip my lunch by having breakfast here. The portion is quite huge).


Look up for this restaurant from the address below.

As you go in, you may look at the menu on top of each station.

This is what I ordered. Pastrami omelette.


Well done pastrami.

Wow. I missed this pickled cucumber.

Fries.

My day two meal. Cold cut salami sandwich with baby cucumber.

The amount of salami is a lot. I take away to eat it in plane back to KL!

This restaurant is very old and has a lot of history. Established since 1888 and was a filming venue for "When Harry met Sally" comedy movie.

Numerous of stars and famous people visited this restaurant.

Katz ticketing system. Its time to go and pay the bill.

GPS/Coordinate: 40.722325, -73.987335
Address: 205 E. Houston Street, Manhattan, New York 10002, United States.
Public transport: 2 Avenue station (J line) or Delancey St station (J line) or Essex St station (J,M or Z line) on New York Subway.

Movie: Slumdog Millionaire

Review: The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Intrigued by Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out... Review from Yahoo Movies.

My rating:9/10(Good. This movie is like a typical Indian movie which have train, love, dance & police component. The acting is good and it does touch my feeling and it does show how India poorest live to the world. This has lead to their big wins in the recent Oscar).

The Dark Night

Oops... I think it is a bit too late for me to review this film. Its hard to get good seat for this movie though. However, this is a good movie and worth to watch. The Joker character is outstanding and might probably win the greatest villain. You will like this movie if you like "The Silence of The Lamb". Good dialog accompany with good facial expression, makes The Joker a great villain.

With just one year having passed after taking out Ra's Al Ghul's plan to have Gotham eliminated and the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow, and after the city was nearly plundered with his toxins, Bruce Wayne and his vigilante alter-ego the Batman, continue the seemingly endless effort to bring order to Gotham, with the help of Lt. James Gordon and newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent. But a new threat has now emerged into the streets. The Dark Knight faces a rising psychopathic criminal called The Joker, whose eerie grin, laughter, and inhuman morality makes him as dangerous than what he has yet to unleash. It becomes an agenda to Batman to stop the mysterious Joker at all costs, knowing that both of them are in an opposite line. One has no method at all and seeks to see the world plunge into the fire he has yet to light. One represents the symbol of hope and uses his own shadow to bring the peace and order he has yet to accomplish doing. Review from www.imdb.com

My Rating:9/10(You will feel suspense from second half of the movie for every minute you watch this movie. The Joker has many weird ideas of doing sinister. Exploding a hospital, poisoning a commisioner, kills judge's wife and telling great story about his life before killing his rival. Go to watch it in cinema while you still have chance!)

WALL-E

The story: In a distant, but not so unrealistic future, where mankind has abandoned earth because it has become covered with trash from products sold by the powerful multi-national Buy N Large corporation, WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot has been left to clean up the mess. Mesmerized with trinkets of earth's history and show tunes, WALL-E is alone on Earth except for a sprightly pet cockroach. One day, Eve, a sleek (and dangerous) reconnaissance robot, is sent to earth to find proof that life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with Eve. WALL-E rescues Eve from a dust storm and shows her a living plant he found amongst the rubble. Consistent with her "directive" Eve takes the plant and automatically enters a deactivated state except for a blinking green beacon. WALL-E, doesn't understand what has happened to his new friend, but true to his love, he protects her from wind, rain, and lightening, even as she is unresponsive. One day a massive ship comes to reclaim Eve, but WALL-E, out of love or loneliness hitches a ride on the outside of the ship to rescue Eve. The ship arrives back at a large space cruise ship, which is carrying all of the humans who evacuated earth 700 years earlier. The people of earth ride around this space resort on hovering chairs which give them a constant feed of TV and video chatting. They drink all of their meals through a straw out of laziness and/or bone loss, and are all so fat that they can barely move. When the auto-pilot computer, acting on hastily given instructions sent many centuries before, tries to prevent the people of earth from returning, by stealing the plant, WALL-E, Eve, the portly captain, and a band of broken robots stage a mutiny. Plot summary from http://www.imdb.com/

My rating:5/10(The story line is boring and not worth to watch it in cinema. Thru out the movie, there is little conversation and most of the time the story is told thru the animation itself. The story line is not innovative and just like normal love story. Its certainly not on the par with Finding nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatouille which I regard as the best animation).

Kungfu Panda

The story: It's the story about a lazy, irreverent slacker panda, named Po, who is the biggest fan of Kung Fu around...which doesn't exactly come in handy while working every day in his family's noodle shop. Unexpectedly chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy, Po's dreams become reality when he joins the world of Kung Fu and studies alongside his idols, the legendary Furious Five -- Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey -- under the leadership of their guru, Master Shifu. But before they know it, the vengeful and treacherous snow leopard Tai Lung is headed their way, and it's up to Po to defend everyone from the oncoming threat. Can he turn his dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master into reality? Po puts his heart - and his girth - into the task, and the unlikely hero ultimately finds that his greatest weaknesses turn out to be his greatest strengths. Review from www.imdb.com.

My rating: 8/10(Good story and funny panda. Can't stop laughing. The moral of the story is that we must always believe on ourselves. Always try the best and don't ever give up. That's the panda spirit!)

No Country For Old Men

The story: In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart. Review from www.imdb.com.

My rating: 8/10(Suspense plot and horror. Not suitable for children as this film is full of violence).

Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull movie

First of June, good time for me to watch this movie after waited for around one week since launch. The movie starts off in a secret military base where our hero Henry “Indiana Jones" is taken hostage by Soviet spies. They seek something that Jones had found ten years earlier, something that they believe will secure them power to “rule the world”. Of course Jones isn’t known for standing idly by and quickly makes a mess of a pretty bad situation. Just how he survives a nuclear bomb is worth the price of admission in itself. But when a young man named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) tells him that a former colleague of his is being held prisoner in South America by people looking for a city of gold, the real adventure begins. From wild motorcycle rides, we get to trap-riddled puzzles, ancient Mayan temples, swashbuckling on running motor vehicles with a raven-haired Soviet Villainess (Cate Blanchett), man-eating ants, and a few old friends. Kingdom is as much the roller-coaster ride that we have been on the first three adventures.



My rating for this movie:7/10(great adventure, funny (Shia LaBeouf) and still same but older Indy. Indy don't look that energized. some parts are quite illogical such as crystal skull from alien and many tarzans/mayans come out of nowhere. I admit that this movie is not as good as the previous three series).

Sicko Movie

Sicko is a documentary that look at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. Moore contrasts U.S. media reports on Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. He interviews patients and doctors in the U.K. about cost, quality, and salaries. He examines why Nixon promoted HMOs in 1971, and why the Clintons' reform effort failed in the 1990s. He talks to U.S. ex-pats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care.
In this movie, Moore exposed some of the tactics that is used by insurance companies to denial claims and doctors being paid more(some sort of commission) if they are able to denial insurance claims in United States.
A quick check on the world health system ranking, Malaysia is at 49 compared to France at number one, Singapore at 6, Thailand at 47 and US at 37.
World Health System

My rating for this movie: 8/10 (give you an alternative view on what is happening in the world where rat race is on.)

Indiana Jones

I am looking forward for another sequeal of Indiana Jones by Steven Spielberg this May 2008. Kingdom of the crystal skull. After watching the three series of Indiana Jones last year, I found that these 1980's movie is quite interesting and adventurous.

Raider of the Lost Ark(1981)
Archeologist and university proffesor Indiana Jones must retrieve the mythic Lost Ark of the Covenant before it gets into the hands of Adolf Hitler who plans on useing its power to guarantee his global conquest.

Temple of Doom(1984)
Indiana Jones finds himself on a new adventure, trekking across Asia with a gold-digging woman and a young child to rescue a village's missing children and find a magic stone. But, along the way he must contend with an evil cult.

The Last Crusade (1989)
Indiana and his father outwit the Nazis in their attempt to find the Holy Grail.

Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull(2008)
In 1957, Indiana Jones is thrust back in action, venturing into the jungles of South America in a race against Soviet agents to find the mystical Crystal Skull.

King Kong (2005) Review

I watched King Kong (2005) in IMAX cinema and this is my opinion:

Good:
1. Great Computer-generated imagery (CGI). Worthy for best visual effect Oscar. King kong and T-rex look real.
2. It is a advanture, romance, thriller and action movie.
3. Insect attack scene was sick to watch.
4. Audience can feel the relationship between King kong and Ann. The emotion that the actors portrayed really got to everyone in the theater.
5. New York city looks real and quite details with historical perspective of the 1930.
6. The battle between king kong and T-rex was fun to watch.

Bad:
1. First hour is quite boring. This movie shouldn't be too long. It can be cut to two and a half hours.
2. This movie didn't show how they transported King Kong from Skull Island to New York.
3. The plot was unbelievable. Carl Denham can't die and always lucky. Ann scream can be heard miles away. The entire crew of the ship leaves to rescue one woman, and more than half of them don’t come back!
4. Quite a number of characters manage to avoid being smushed by the dinosaur herd.
5. Repetition of ship scece sailing at the sea is awful to watch.

Overall rating: B+

All-Time Worldwide Boxoffice

Top 20 for all time worldwide box office. (Revenue collected in US dollars)

1. Titanic (1997) $1,835,300,000
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) $1,129,219,252
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) $968,600,000
4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) $922,379,000
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) $921,600,000
6. Jurassic Park (1993) $919,700,000
7. Shrek 2 (2004) $880,871,036
8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $866,300,000
9. Finding Nemo (2003) $865,000,000
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) $860,700,000
11. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) $847,762,555
12. Independence Day (1996) $811,200,000
13. Spider-Man (2002) $806,700,000
14. Star Wars (1977) $797,900,000
15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) $789,458,727
16. Spider-Man 2 (2004) $783,577,893
17. The Lion King (1994) $783,400,000
18. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) $756,700,000
19. The Matrix Reloaded (2003) $735,600,000
20. Forrest Gump (1994) $679,400,000

Narnia Review

I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The
Wardrobe (2005) on 10th Dec. Below is my review about the film.

Good:
1. Christianity is told in a simple way. Aslan sacrifice = Jesus
sacrifice. The children are referred to as "sons of Adam" and
"daughters of Eve".
2. Aslan did look good and believable.
3. Narnia world looks great. Visuals are gorgeous, the music is
beautiful.
4. This film able to send clear message to its audience about
Christianity and C.S. Lewis story.
5. Sending moral message throughout the movie. Boy (Edmund) lies to
others to make his sister appear nuts so he can hide the secret of
Narnia. Boy betrays his own brother and sisters in hopes of power and
more sweets and puts their lives in jeopardy.

Bad:
1. In the beginning, I thought I was in the wrong cinema room.
2. Story line was usual. Good against evil.
3. The visual effect in fighting scene can be much better.

Overall rating: B