Annie's Way Mask Gallery Arbutin + Hyaluronic Acid Jelly Mask review

I have heard about this mask for ages and I finally have it in my hands! I know this isn't the newest product out there... but if it is good... it doesn't matter... right? 

So for a quick background, this mask made its debut 4 years ago (2014) and every beauty guru was talking about this product. A lot of them claimed how this mask has changed their skin. 

Fast forward to 2018, the product is almost nonexistent. Their website no longer works, and everyone has moved onto other products.

I wanted to try this product for a long time, but when I received this product (online shopping) I got busy and forgot about it until now.

ingredients

the instructions are very straightforward: after washing your face and applying moisturizing lotion (Asian kind) add a 0.5cm thickness to the skin. Wait 30 minutes and wipe it off. Put an extra thick layer to your nose. After you are done, wash with water and apply a serum or other masks to make this mask more effective. 

pros

• moisturizes skin

cons

• need to use a lot of product each time
• messy (you need to apply 0.5cm thickness of product)
• uncomfortable, I couldn't wait to remove it

I can see how it quickly came and how it quickly went. While this mask does its job, I found it too much of a hassle to use. You MUST put a 0.5cm thickness of product or the product will dry on your face and reverse suck out the moisture from your skin. It was hard to slab on THAT much product without making a mess. It also felt incredibly uncomfortable on my skin. The thickness of the product caused it to stick to my eyelashes and while it did not have a droopy feeling, my skin did not like the texture after 10 minutes.

There are way better products out on the market which can do what this mask does without the mess and hassle.

score: 5/10

website: http://www.annies-way.com/ (no longer works)

Classification: gimmick

if you are interested, please check out my personal blog and follow me around Tokyo :)

Anna Sui nail polish review

These are NOT Anna Sui nail polishes

Over the years I have accumulated over 400 bottles of nail polish (no pictures... since they are scattered around... and some are in Japan and some in Toronto)

I always thought OPI was a trustworthy brand but after a terrible experience with their Top Coat I concluded that not all OPI products are good.

Anna Sui 709 - Made in Japan

However, not to be pessimistic. There is one go to brand I would always go back to... Anna Sui. I have started using Anna Sui nail polishes since university (back in 2008) and never had a single complaint.

Pros

• no nail polish smell (has a nice subtle floral scent - the Anna Sui signature floral scent)
• thin layer yet very pigmented
• long lasting on nails (I can go on for about 2-3 weeks before I find a chip)
• affordable (compared to other similar brands)
• fast drying (takes less than 10 minutes for the first coat to dry)
• one coat is usually enough
• ever swipe puts on an appropriate amount of glitter and sparkles

Cons

• lack of colour choice
• extremely hard to remove from nails

one layer

you can see how watery the consistency is which makes it so easy to apply. The brush is very standard but it does a nice job picking up the glitters and polish and spreading it evenly on your nails.

score: 9.8/10

website: https://annasui.com/collections/nails

if you are interested, please check out my personal blog and follow me around Tokyo :)

CONA pizza @ Ebisu review

Let me see how long I can keep this marathon :)

my friends were raving about this place, so I decided to give it a try (with my friends).

the menu

The reason this place is popular is that their pizzas are all ¥500 each!!!

drink menu

I was a bit upset that they force everyone in the group to buy a drink and food item... in addition to a table charge of ¥300 per head (that is quite expensive...). All prices do not include taxes.

drinks we were forced to get

 The Mimosa was a bit flat...

the otoshi... which was a rip off

For a table of 8... they gave us this tiny thing which enables them to charge us ¥300 /head... the sweet potato was SO DRY... it literally crumbled.

Avocado and Tomato pizza

I liked the avocado and tomato combination... but felt the tomatoes could have been more "cooked".

Carbonara pizza

This was strange... it was like eating pasta and pizza at the same time... nonetheless we were surprised they provided an onsen egg to go with it.

Carbonara pizza egg split

The egg was more for show than the practicality. The pizza and carbonara sauce was quite flavourful so the egg's taste was barely there.

Garlic and cheese pizza

 This was one of the better pizzas! Really enjoyed it. But then again... how can garlic ever go wrong? (except for garlic breathe XD)

Basil and seafood pizza

 This was also quite good... I was impressed with the generous amount of seafood they had. The Basil/pesto sauce was really well made too!

Hawaiian pizza

 Like other Hawaiian pizzas (bacon and pineapple). I also learned an interesting fact from one of my friends.  Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada.

Okonomiyaki pizza

Literally tasted like Okonomiyaki お好み焼き のピザ. I have no words to this... other than it was just strange. The Okonomiyaki sauce was not a good match with the pizza crust >___<. Interesting to try... but not to eat or enjoy.

Mushroom and bacon pizza

This is very straightforward... so nothing much to say about this one XD

Gorgonzola cheese with maple syrup

This was quite a surprise... the Gorgonzola cheese was very strong... and flavourful... and the maple syrup made it into a different taste. Reactions were quite mixed... half of us liked it and the other half kind of hated it.

verdict and takeaways

• the pizzas were super thin so it made sense they were only ¥500 each.
• the serve was a hit or miss... sometimes they felt nice but sometimes they felt very cold
• they were nice enough to cut up the pizzas into 8 slices (for 8 of us to share)
• they didn't give us extra water or ever attended to our needs
• they made the pizzas in front of us, everything was made to order
• the pizzas were cooked in a stone oven
• there were only counter seats... cozy but not a fan
• I didn't like the hidden fees

good to know

not all CONA locations serve so many different kinds of pizza. FYI: I went to the one in Ebisu.

score: 7/10

website: http://cona-pizza.com/

if you are interested, please check out my personal blog and follow me around Tokyo :)

Buruzu Azabu Juban Yakiniku short review

Happy New Year!!! I ate this back in 2018... but I didn't have time to write about it... so here it is! 

the name of the place is: ブルズ焼き肉 (BULLS in English)

I had one of the best dining and also worse services at this restaurant. I was torn when I had to rate this place. The food was fantastic but the service was one of the worse.

This was the set menu... unfortunately, the ¥6000 set required us to tell the restaurant well in advance. Out of ¥8,000 and ¥10,000, we chose ¥10000. The reason was the UniNiku (雲丹肉 Sea Urchin with Beef)

 The 雲丹肉 was the deciding factor when we chose the restaurant as well as the set. (only the ¥10000 included this in their set... regular price is ¥800 / piece).

Pumpkin soup and beef tartar

presentation of table

Add caption

in the dish next in front of the uniniku, you can see a sauce dish. Left is a strong yuzu sauce and right is salt.

the sauces from left to right: onion sauce, some sour sauce, lemon sauce

the salad was really good. I really liked the salad dressing... it was salt based.

the kimchi Korean platter

the meat platter... :9 (is your mouth watering yet?)

it deserves another picture

and another one

the stove was big making the meat look small... but they weren't... 

in the end they gave us pickles

this dish required us to cook on the stove 5 seconds each side.

the result (there was a piece of rice we had to wrap around

we had an assortment of ramen to choose from cold, spicy to mild. I chose the spicy one

a sherbert to finish the meal off

and finally... the candy basket. which contained a lot of random candy, breath mints, some mints to clean your stomach and gum.

the service:

it was terrible. First, the servers did not know what food was included and couldn't answer any of our questions. They were unprofessional and extremely rude.

the restaurant closes at 11:00. But they started kicking us out at 9:15... and then ushered us out by 10:00... (we gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe we were the only ones left... BUT when we walked out of the booth, there were two more tables still eating... and there was no line).

During the moments they think they could charge us extra (for the ramen, if we chose a Spanish Paella, we had to pay ¥700 extra) they came acting nice and trying hard to convince us to upgrade when we declined they gave us a dirty look and left.

service score: 4.5/10
food score: 9.5/10
website: http://yakiniku-bulls.com/

if you are interested, please check out my personal blog and follow me around Tokyo :)