One of the advantages of living in an Asian metropolis is having easy access to great food. For the most part — at least relative to North America — this also applies to regional airlines. Mari Diary notes a top-10 list for the best airline food which features a sizable Asian component.:

No.1 Singapore Airlines. 66.9 points
No.2 Virgin Atlantic. 58.8 points
No.3 KLM. 50.9 points
No.4 Air France. 49.1 points
No.5 Air New Zealand. 46.9 points
No.6 Air China. 40.9 points
No.7 Alitalia. 40.6 points
No.8 Malaysia Airlines. 39.7 points
No.9 Asiana Air. 38.5 points
No.10 Cathay Pacific Airways. 38.2 points

(Image of a Singapore Airlines meal portion (first class LAX-NRT-SIN) stolen from AirlineMeals.net… the world’s first and leading website about nothing but airline food.)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, northeast asia, southeast asia

Matt at Digital World Tokyo interviews the proprietor of a ‘male clothing cafe’, where ‘hidden otaku‘ women are served by androgynous waitresses dressed to look like male anime characters.:

Word of Japan’s medo kissa or “Maid cafes,” where the staff call you goshujinsama (”master”) and serve omelets with love-hearts drawn on them in ketchup, has reached envious male geeks around the world, but what about the anime-loving women?

I spoke to one woman working to redress this injustice: Kira Ayumu, owner and proprietress of 80+1, a dansou kissa (”male clothing cafe”) in Ikebukuro, where the female waitresses dress as men for a spot of role-playing.

Can you give us a short description of 80+1?

A hideaway for girls. Our all-female staff uses dansou to embody the slim lines of anime characters in a way that men just can’t. Women can get much closer to the two-dimensional feel of a male anime character. It’s a hip cafe that appeals to both the otaku and fashion-loving side of modern Japanese women.

What’s your clientele like?

Mostly sharp-dressing kakure-otaku (”hidden otaku”) — they have some otaku leanings, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Corruption in the Olympics? A corrupt Chinese municipal official? AsiaPundit is shocked.:

The vice-mayor of Beijing overseeing the construction of Olympic venues for the 2008 Games has built himself a pleasure palace filled with young concubines on the outskirts of the city.

Details of Liu Zhihua’s colourful private life emerged today after he was sacked from his post when a foreign businessman reported him for extorting a bribe.

Mr Liu’s sacking has triggered accusations of widespread corruption surrounding the Games, and highlighted a culture of graft that is said to trouble British and other foreign companies working as specialist contractors on Beijing’s Olympic sites.

In the resort town of Kuangou, an hour’s drive north of the Olympic Village, police have sealed off Mr Liu’s multi-story development.

An unknown number of young woman, as well as waiting staff, are said to be confined to rooms there, waiting to be interviewed by investigators from the central discipline inspection commission, a shadowy anti-corruption agency inside the Communist Party.

“Liu has more than one mistress,” wrote the Wen Hui Bao newspaper in Hong Kong. “He has a secret pleasure palace for himself to have fun.”

While AsiaPundit is a strong opponent of corruption, he can’t help but be a bit impressed by Liu’s dissoluteness.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia, olympics