Dining

Amidst the Pandemic, Masita is Earning Its Spot on the Collegetown Scene

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When Jin Kim and Jeesoo Lee opened Masita this past winter, they (like the rest of us) had no way of knowing what was right around the corner. The coronavirus hit restaurant owners incredibly hard, and many Ithaca businesses were forced to close their doors and regroup. Kim and Lee, having only been open for a month, were at a major disadvantage, as they lacked the dedicated fanbase of other established restaurants. Fortunately, Masita was not their first rodeo. Back in South Korea, the two women were longtime business partners and owned multiple successful restaurants together.

Mitsuba

Lost in the Sauce at Mitsuba

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While some Cornellians swear by That’s How I Roll, others contend that Plum Tree is the best, and some refuse to even step into a sushi restaurant in this town at all. But alas, I believe that I have found the winner: Mitsuba.

ramen

Mediocre Ramen at Maru Ramen

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But I felt like I paid 14 bucks for a handful of noodles, one small piece of pork and a whole lot of mediocre broth. I wasn’t satisfied at all.

Arts & Culture

JONES | Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday and Animation for Adults

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To many, animated movies seem like a medium for children: pretty, colorful and reassuring, with straight edges and corners, gaudy colors that fit just inside the lines, and a lack of  the moral ambiguity that cannot help but enter a film when the characters are played by actual humans. The work of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation studio best known for Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, has proved again and again that animated films can be complex, provocative and even disturbing, and remain enthralling for children. However, the intrigue of Studio Ghibli’s films hardly expires at a young age. I’ve only recently come to them (I haven’t even seen the Academy Award-winning Spirited Away yet), but I have been captivated by the few I’ve seen so far. The 1991 Studio Ghibli film Only Yesterday, directed by Isao Takahata, has only just been given a United States release with an English dub, 24 years later.