With the couples on either side of him as hot as the flames on his grill, our solo-dining yakiniku fan finds a mental escape.
Dining at a yakiniku restaurant in Japan quickly becomes a series of choices to make. Yakiniku menus consist primarily of a wide variety of different types and cuts of meat that you grill yourself, but per-plate portions tend to be small, so you’ll need to make multiple orders to get enough food to fill yourself up.
If you’re ordering a la carte, different kinds of meat have different prices, but many yakiniku restaurants offer all-you-can-eat options that give you unlimited access to certain types, and when our Japanese-language reporter Yuichiro Wasai opted for such a deal on a recent yakiniku outing, you’d think he would have then just ordered based on what kinds of meat he thinks taste the best. Things got a little more complicated, though, after Yuichiro sat down.
At most yakiniku restaurants, the majority of the seats are at tables with space for two, four, or more diners. At some, though, you’ll also find counter seating, and since that was an option on this day, Yuichiro had grabbed a counter seat. However, shortly after that a couple on a date sat down at the counter to one side of him, and then soon after that, another couple sat down on the other side.
In other words, Yuichiro was now sandwiched between two couples, and while they weren’t having full-on make out sessions, both pairs were in clearly lovey-dovey moods, scooched up against each other with their arms around each other as they ate.
Yuichiro found himself feeling increasingly self-conscious as he sat in what was a small buffer zone between the two amorous pairs, but because he was by himself, he couldn’t just focus on any dinnertime conversation of his own, and with his counter seat facing a wall, he couldn’t stare out a window either. However, it was at this moment that he realized that even though he was by himself, he could call on two allies to help him escape his feelings of awkwardness. Who were those saviors?
Beef short ribs and pork belly.
As mentioned above, at yakiniku restaurants you cook your meat yourself at a grill set into your table or section of the counter. Different cuts take different amounts of time to cook, but beef short ribs (kalbi) and pork belly tend to be two of the quicker ones to grill, which also means that they’ll burn more quickly than others. In other words, you’ve got to pay very close attention when cooking kalbi and pork belly, and the more Yuichiro was focused on his meat, the less he noticed the heat coming off of the couples on either side of him.
With kalbi and pork belly being fairly fatty cuts, they also produce a lot of drippings as they cook, which causes flames to flare up from the grill. Usually this is a startling, or at least annoying, part of the yakiniku cooking process, but Yuichiro welcomed the distraction. Sometimes the flames were so strong that he felt the need to put an ice cube on the grill to cool things down a bit, and again, he was happy to have a reason to concentrate on what was in front of him, rather than on his flanks.
Though they’re not the only dripping-intensive yakiniku menu items, in his experimentation Yuichiro found that kalbi and pork belly have the best combination of juicy drippings and quick cooking time, letting you keep your cooking tongs, chopsticks, and brain in near-constant activity. So even though the all-you-can-eat option he’d ordered allowed him to choose from a broader swatch of the menu, he kept up a heavy rotation of kalbi and pork belly for his entire meal, as they truly are the best choices for someone who feels self-conscious when surrounded by couples.
Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
KULAI, June 9 — A marketing officer claimed to have lost RM343,190 after allegedly falling victim to a non-existent investment scheme that promised unusually high returns.
Kulai police chief ACP Tan Seng Lee said the 46-year-old woman was lured into participating in the investment programme that claimed to offer profits of between 20 and 30 per cent within 24 hours.
According to him, the woman claimed she was informed that the returns generated from the investment would be credited into her account through an application known as “Shugoa AI Investment”.
Believing the scheme to be legitimate, the victim proceeded to make 13 payment transactions amounting to RM343,190 into 10 different local bank accounts between Sept 14, 2025 and April 18 this year.
“Subsequently, the victim checked the application and found that it showed accumulated profits amounting to RM1.5 million.
“However, when she attempted to withdraw the funds, she discovered that her account had been blocked,” he said in a statement today.
Realising she may have been deceived, the woman lodged a police report yesterday.
Tan said the case is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating. — Bernama
KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — DAP’s Ong Kian Ming today suggested that local party “warlords” may have been among the factors behind the controversy surrounding Marina Ibrahim’s decision not to defend her Skudai seat in the upcoming state election.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Ong said he believed there were broader considerations behind the proposal for Marina to leave Skudai and contest the more challenging Tiram seat in Pasir Gudang.
“I suspect there were other factors at play including certain ‘warlords’ in Skudai/Iskandar Puteri who wanted the Skudai seat for themselves or someone close to them,” he wrote.
Ong was commenting on the ongoing debate over Marina’s decision after the first-term assemblyman announced last week that she would not seek re-election and was stepping away from frontline politics.
The former Bangi MP also disclosed that Marina was not initially the preferred choice for Skudai when DAP was planning its candidate lineup ahead of the 2022 Johor state election.
According to Ong, there were originally plans to field current Bangi MP Syahredzan Johan in the Iskandar Puteri parliamentary seat, which was expected to be vacated following DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang’s retirement from frontline politics.
Under that arrangement, he said, it would have been difficult for the party to field two Malay candidates — one for Parliament and another for the state seat — within the same area.
He said circumstances changed after he informed party leaders of his intention to vacate the Bangi parliamentary seat in favour of Syahredzan.
“When the party leaders knew of my intention to vacate the Bangi parliament seat, the opportunity to field Marina in Skudai came into the picture,” he said.
Ong also argued that DAP’s practice of moving leaders from safe seats to more challenging constituencies is a long-standing strategy used to expand the party’s reach.
He cited party veterans and leaders including Lim Kit Siang, Lim Guan Eng, Liew Chin Tong, Nga Kor Ming and Teo Nie Ching as examples of those who left relatively secure seats to contest in more challenging areas.
At the same time, Ong praised Marina for choosing not to engage in internal manoeuvring to retain her seat.
He said the Skudai assemblyman could have delayed announcing her decision until candidate selections were finalised, potentially placing pressure on party leaders to retain her.
“She probably could have gotten her way to remain in Skudai because it would have looked bad on the party to ‘push out’ a young and capable Malay assemblyman.
“But kudos to her for making a principled decision not to contest rather than to leave the party leadership in a difficult position,” he wrote.
Ong also defended Johor DAP chairman Teo Nie Ching, rejecting suggestions that she had acted with ill intent in proposing Marina’s move to Tiram.
“I do not think that Nie Ching bore any malice towards Marina in suggesting that she move to the difficult state seat of Tiram in Pasir Gudang to contest there,” he wrote.
The remarks come after a reported offer of a position in a statutory body to Marina following her decision to leave electoral politics.
Ong defended the proposal, saying such appointments are a common way for former elected representatives to continue serving the public.
He cited several examples, including Johor DAP vice-chairman Sheikh Omar Ali, who chaired the Malaysian Pineapple Industry Board after losing his state seat in 2022 before later being appointed a senator.
Former Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was also appointed chairman of the Port Klang Authority after stepping aside from electoral politics, he noted.
“I think that the offer for a position on a statutory board to Marina was made with good intentions by Nie Ching. This is a way to ensure that someone like Marina continues to serve the people of Johor and Malaysia in a different capacity,” he said.
Johor DAP has accepted Marina’s decision not to defend Skudai, while Teo has denied claims that Marina was offered a position in a government-linked company, saying discussions instead involved a role in a statutory body focused on welfare matters.
© Getty Images
© getty
Glass Imaging's impressive GlassAI Neural image signal processing (ISP) technology is heavily featured in the brand-new Honor 600 smartphone, promising to improve the zoom photography experience on the fancy new phone.
KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — OpenAI is preparing a major redesign of ChatGPT aimed at turning the platform into a “superapp” with stronger coding features, AI agents and partner services, according to the Financial Times.
Reuters, citing the FT report, said the planned overhaul comes as OpenAI reorganises its business to focus more heavily on enterprise customers and compete more directly with rival Anthropic.
Reuters said it could not immediately verify the FT report, while OpenAI did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
The FT reported that OpenAI’s coding product Codex is expected to receive greater prominence and resources, with changes due to be introduced in the coming weeks through updates to ChatGPT’s website and mobile apps.
The report said ChatGPT’s interface is being redesigned with new prompts and features to direct users towards coding tools, image generation and partner services such as Canva and Booking.com.
The FT also reported that most Codex users are paying customers, while two million businesses currently account for about 40 per cent of OpenAI’s revenue, with the company expecting that share to rise to 50 per cent by the end of the year.
OpenAI said earlier this year that ChatGPT had more than 900 million weekly active users and had crossed 50 million consumer subscribers, according to Reuters.
Reuters reported in May that OpenAI was preparing a confidential US initial public offering filing in the coming weeks, although chief executive Sam Altman has said the company is not focused on timing and will go public when it makes sense.
Facts to check before publication: Whether OpenAI has since issued a response; whether the FT report has further details on rollout timing; and whether the user and subscriber figures remain the latest available. — Reuters
Manuel Gual posted a photo:
Route 66 Dreams: Classic Cars Across the American Desert
Description
A cinematic visual journey through the mythic atmosphere of Route 66, featuring vintage cars, abandoned gas stations, neon motels, desert highways, red rock landscapes, and golden sunset light. The series blends classic Americana, road trip nostalgia, open-road freedom, and a slightly surreal retro mood, evoking the timeless romance of travel across the American Southwest.
These images were generated by Artificial Intelligence.
Login