A $95 million lawsuit has been filed against a restaurant owner behind several top East Village Japanese restaurants, Shuji Bon Yagi for allegedly sexually assaulting an employee this winter. 

The lawsuit was filed by Nozomi Horikoshi, a top executive at Yagi’s restaurant group T.I.C., who claims Yagi allegedly assaulted her while she had passed out after a night of drinking and could not consent, according to the New York Post.

According to the allegations made in her file, Horikoshi, who has been employed by the well-known restaurateur for close to a decade, stated that he invited himself to celebrate the birthday of another female colleague “knowing that his wife was in Japan throughout the weekend.”

Horikoshi claimed that her boss forced her into a taxi sometime after 2:00 a.m. and then began groping, caressing, and attempting to kiss her when she was very intoxicated. She “tried to push Yagi off her and told him to stop, but due to her level of intoxication, the plaintiff eventually lost consciousness inside the taxi,” the filing alleges.

Yagi reportedly drove her directly to his residence on West 58th Street, as obtained from the GPS information from Horikoshi’s cell phone. Horikoshi ultimately awoke with her employer allegedly resting on top of her while she was naked from the waist down.

“I realized I was naked from the waist down … that was so embarrassing.” The 51-year-old married mother of three told the New York Post, “I was like what happened? I have to go home. I knew that something happened already,” she continued. “There was a feeling of shame.”

Horikoshi’s attorney claimed the lawsuit was about “power and accountability” for Yagi, a high-profile businessman renowned for influencing Japanese cuisine in New York.

Dubbed an “East Village ambassador for Japanese cuisine” by the New York Times, Yagi’s restaurants include Rai Rai Ken, Cha-An, Sobaya, and Bar Decibel.

Have you ever thought of opening a business during a recession? How about during the pandemic? Well, this lionhearted momma just did that!

Filipino-American Mariel Black started her baking business, Sinful Treats, in June 2009, at the peak of the recession — everyone thought she was crazy to start a business at that time. She had only one product to sell, some unknown Filipino pastry called ‘Food for the Gods’. “No one knew what it was. I had to tell people, ‘it’s like a blondie with dates and walnuts’” she said. Starting out as an online bakery, she gave out samples to whoever was open to trying her product. People never heard of it, but once they tasted it, they loved it! 

Because everyone was hurting during the recession, she found that people were more inclined to help each other. Soon, a few coffee shops agreed to carry her products, and she also kept selling online.

Her big break came in 2011 when the Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento ordered 19,800 Snickerdoodle cookies for their main holiday event, The Polar Express. A year before that, she took her 4-year-old son on the train ride, where they served cookies and hot cocoa just like in the movie, Polar Express. He took one bite of the cookie, then he told her that she should make the cookies. “Ah, the power of suggestion, from a 4-year-old!” Mariel exclaimed. 

She talked to the coordinators and gave them cookie samples and they loved them. The following year, they ordered 19,800 Snickerdoodles. “I said YES, even if at that time,” she said, “I had no kitchen and no employees to help me. I had a couple of months to figure out how to make it happen.”

She rented a kitchen in a restaurant at night and asked friends to help, “I had a crew of 5 people. Like little elves, we’d bake all night while the restaurant was closed.” They only had one oven with 2 racks, only able to bake 48 cookies every 12 minutes. The cookies were baked from scratch, scooped by hand, packaged individually, sealed with a heat sealer, and labeled — all 19,800 of them! 

“It was the most exhausting but exhilarating experience. It was then I knew that I loved the thrill and pain that came with being a business owner.” She’s been baking for the Railroad Museum since then.

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“Ah, the power of suggestion, from a 4-year-old!”

-Mariel black

Sinful Treats grew to have its own retail location a few years later and became a full-service bakery and catering company. They created and launched their first baking mix in 2015 with their signature product, “the treat that started it all” — Food for the Gods Baking Mix.

The year 2020 would have been their 10th year baking for the museum, “but 2020 had a different plan for all of us” she said. All of their Fall and Holiday events have been canceled. “Being in the baking business, our fourth quarter is when we make the most. Suddenly, all of it was gone. Having survived and thrived during the recession, I can honestly say this year, this pandemic is a lot harder than the recession.”

But the lockdown didn’t stop Mariel to continue her passion, rather she pursued another idea – to have a one-stop shop for baked goods. “Recession, pandemic, lockdowns won’t stop me. There are always opportunities even in the worse scenarios.” 

In October 2020, she launched an online marketplace where local bakers can sell their products and grow their small businesses. Sinful Treats is now home to the best local brands. Mariel’s goal is to empower small business owners, especially women and minority-owned businesses. All Bakers and Food Makers who have something special and have unique products to offer are welcome to join, “The food industry is already very competitive, but we are stronger together. So my hope is that through this marketplace, we can all help each other grow.” They ship cakes, cookies, desserts, and gourmet food across the United States.

“The food industry is already very competitive, but we are stronger together. So my hope is that through this marketplace, we can all help each other grow.”

-Mariel black

“Everything I have worked for seemed to be a stepping stone to what I’m doing now,” she said, “Having a brand that’s already established, a working website, products that have been tried and proven, years of networking and relationship building, all of this and more are now helping to make this new path easier to take and faster to grow.”

Mariel always gets a thrill watching businesses grow, she also shares over a decade of her experience and wisdom with new small business owners. “I love baking, but my real passion is business”. She guides her marketplace sellers with what they need; teaching them about branding, pricing, basic accounting, packaging, shipping, and even how to improve their products and come up with new ones.  

“I always tell my kids, when something bad happens, it’s usually a blessing in disguise,” she added, “True entrepreneurs find opportunity even in the worst scenarios.” 

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One of Southeast Asia’s biggest job platforms, Glints, just put out a report that shows the situation may not be as severe as they seem.

Glints co-founder and CEO Oswald Yeo told TechCrunch that there has been a lot of funding injected into the IT business. This is a response to the two-to-three-year bull run, and as a result, several firms grew swiftly. 

Yeo said that Singaporean firms seemed to adapt fastest to macroeconomic changes and that this wasn’t a terrible thing because other firms wanted to move swiftly, too. 

Operations, finance, HR, and certain sales and marketing teams have been hit hard, while businesses turned to Vietnam and Indonesia, which have fewer layoffs, for top-tier technical personnel. Moreover, the pandemic has created a decentralized-minded workforce.

Yeo observed that the pandemic had made remote work more convenient, necessitating cost-cutting measures. Many firms turn to remote employment to optimize their human and financial capitals. 

They have seen that remote work prospects on Glints have expanded tenfold in a year. Some regional firms in Malaysia continue to hire foreigners, while others only hire Malaysians. According to Glints, mid-to senior-level employees’ compensation won’t diminish, but junior talent may.

One-year fixed-term contracts are another trend that helps firms predict their financial destiny, as employers are wary about signing long-term contracts. 

He believes that not everything was awful — the need for technological and product skills on Glints favored job seekers.

Layoffs help startups build core teams. Yeo said that because there is less rivalry for talent, it’s a fantastic moment for organizations in a strong position to hire top managerial talent.

A well-known supporter of Asian American seniors and the founder and emeritus CEO of the nonprofit Penn Asian Senior Services, Im Ja Choi,  passed away on Wednesday, June 22, from lung cancer in a South Korean hospital, she was 73. 

A memorial service will be conducted on July 16 at 3:00 pm at the Evergreen Center in Philadelphia. Contributions in her name will be appreciated.

Ms. Choi was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1948, majored in literature, and graduated from Korea University. She moved to Philadelphia after marrying her childhood friend Jung Choi in 1971, where she studied organizational dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a top-producing real estate agent in the 1980s and 1990s. 

She started Penn Asian Senior Services in 2004 to help Asian American elders with linguistic and cultural obstacles. Because she couldn’t get home care for her mother, and after hearing horrible experiences from other caregivers, she founded the charity that provides in-home care and homemaking services in over two dozen languages.

She undertook the fundraising efforts and strategic planning of the nonprofit, for which the charity received grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and numerous organizations. 

Moreover, she has also opened an adult day care for immigrants with language and cultural barriers, a state-licensed vocational school for entry-level Asian health-care workers, and a seniors community center. 

In 2013, she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations. The Independence Blue Cross Foundation president Lorina Marshall-Blake wrote that the region needed more health visionaries like Im Ja Choi. Ken Yang, CEO of Penn Asian Senior Services, said Ms. Choi’s care, generosity, and love for her family and community matched her innovative leadership.

She was also recognized by the governor as a 2014 Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania for her “extraordinary service and achievements to the Commonwealth.” In the same year, she gave the commencement address at Penn State Abington where she quoted “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”