What's the fun in playing safe? Think I'll rather misbehave.

Eyelash extensions vs fake eyelashes

2012-01-27T01:04:00.000-08:00

Today, I have decided to broach on a subject that is mostly for the gals. LASH EXTENSIONS!

These days, lash extension are super popular. Of course. Who doesn't want luscious lashes to frame their peeps? And thicker and longer eyelashes does make a big difference for the eyes!

So why don't you just stick to mascara, you say? In case you haven't noticed, asian girls are not exactly know for our thick curvy lashes. Most girls have stringy, sparse, straight eyelashes. And as the saying goes, putting mascara would be like painting on a pig to make it look less ugly. It's pretty much useless, for the most part.

How about fake lashes? Fake eyelashes are fine, and does provide a better effect than plain mascara alone, but it does give off the very essence of its being: being fake. It's easy to tell when you are wearing fake eyelashes, for most of the fake eyelashes available out there. Then you get the "trannie" effect, as my friend Alice calls it, where you end up looking either like a transvestite or a hooker.

And then eyelash extensions hit town, where you can transform your eyelash-less eyes to boomers...

Like this! And the best thing is it looks super natural! Whenever I wear eyelash extensions, I get people coming up to me asking if those were my real lashes (only in Singapore, because they are asians themselves, and they know how it's like for us. T_T).

Obviously, most of us would love to roll out of bed every morning looking like Cinderella. And the best thing is, you don't really have to put any eye makeup! You just look like you have perpetual eyeliner on. It's the best!

Ever wanted to put off a picture with you looking demurely down, with your luscious lashes showing? Worry no more!

Ever felt jealous of all the countless Loreal or Covergirl advertisements, where they have va va vroom eyes?

Eyelash extension are super awesome for the above advantages. But as you know, there is no such thing as a perfect system......

Cons of eyelash extensions (for girls who are curious and possibly want to explore it):

1) The beautician is tres important. I cannot stress enough how important this point is. Thus far, I have tried about 4 different beauticians, and the variation is stunning. The first two times I did, (and they were over a hundred dollars), they used clusters of fake eyelashes that felt of broomstick-consistency, and they glued the clusters on my EYELIDS instead of my eyelashes. Hence, searing pain and red eyes for the whole of one day, until I was able to find another place that could take it off for me. The third one was the best. This vietnamese lady who has been doing Jenn's for the last five years. She would put human lashes one by one, and was very meticulous. Those were the wondrous times. Ahhhh.

And then I had to move back to Singapore. So I had to explore options here again.

Sophie Browhouse at Toa Payoh does a decent job. At least this girl called Alicia does, because my friend Nicole had clusters falling out the second day when she got a different girl to do it. But they mixed clusters with individual lashes. And the lashes are not of high quality, quite stiff.

I heard good things about Browhaus, so I will try it next, but I would look for these things before considering:

- Ask the beautician if they use clusters or individual lashes. Clusters are not as great as individual lashes, not only because they are heavier and weigh more on your poor lash, but once they fall off, they leave this gaping hole on your lashline and it looks super awkward. Use individual lashes if possible.

- Ask the beautician if they are going to apply on the eyelash or eyelid. Very important! The pain you feel if they stick it on your eyelid is like one of those ancient chinese torture gadgets. Where they pull your eyelashes one by one.

-Observe the general hygiene of the spa. If they have lashes all over a dirty towel, please don't try.

2) Washing your face is a bitch. I apologize for the language, but there's no better word to describe it. After a long hard day of work, you cannot just scrub your face in a circular motion like you're used to. Nope! You have to have a long regime of firstly removing your eye makeup using Q-tips, and then gingerly applying facial cleanser, avoiding the eyes. If you wash your hair, you have to avoid getting water on your lashes. It's like the kiss of death, cuz if that happens, you cannot open your eyes. Well, you could open it, but it'll be flooded with water. So you'll have to move around completely blind until you wipe them with your towel.

3) Having to touch up every two weeks. It's a chore.

4) Removal is painful! They don't tell you this, but they have to apply this chemical on your lashes to dissolve the glue, and usually for a couple of times, it gets onto your eyelid and it hurts like someone just cut a piece of your eyelid. Serious.

5) Every couple of months, you have to remove them to let the lashes rest for a month. If you don't do that, your natural eyelashes will stop growing, and then it becomes a vicious cycle because you don't want to stop doing it because you have very few lashes, but not stopping means they will drop even more, so well you get the drift. It adds to the cost, and also during that month, you will feel "naked" and exposed. True story.

I think that's about it.

These days, I'm so sick of maintaining it, I use fake eyelashes, when I feel like making myself pretty! I know I said fake eyelashes look fake, and I still maintain it, but there are some brands that looks less fake than others. Ardell is a good one that looks the most natural, and it is relatively inexpensive and you can get them from any Watson's, Guardian and sometimes Sasa.

Okay I wasn't expecting to write so much, but it just came out in a gush. Hehe!

Happy weekend!

Ryan Gosling!

2012-01-25T18:40:00.000-08:00

This article about Ryan Gosling made me tear. I was giggling so hard in the office, my colleagues probably thought I've finally lost it.

Hilarious Ryan Gosling link

I heart Ryan Gosling! Hawt! Hehe.

Dang! More pageviews than expected! And men on MRT trains...

2012-01-25T18:12:00.000-08:00

First of all, I would like to comment that one should never under-estimate the power of facebook. Seriously. I admit I've been lazy about updating my blog, so my daily view ranges somewhere between 1 to 10. After updating my status on facebook yesterday about my new year resolution, I am flabbergasted to find that the page views jumped to over a hundred overnight!

Okay, I know it's nothing compared to some of the big name bloggers, but it's really nice to know that people care enough about me to read my blog! ^___^ I appreciate every one of you taking the time to stop by to read about my life.

Anyway. Today, I thought I would talk about the general male population and their behavior on the public trains in Singapore.

Why do we, the women of Singapore, have to fight with the guys for seats on the train? Maybe I have been out of touch with the local culture for too long, but I do get a considerable amount of annoyance when I see a train carriage of men sitting down, and girls, women, old ladies standing up, wobbling in their high heels.

Are gentlemen extinct in Singapore? What happened to opening doors, giving up seats? I hate to come out and say it, but it's really extremely unattractive. The other day, I actually saw a guy ACTIVELY rush towards the seat so the old woman can't sit on the empty seat that just opened up. Seriously?

Occasionally, I would witness a guy give up a seat for a gal struggling in heels, or for a middle-aged lady. Instantly, his attractiveness scale would soar heights!

Some guys are always trying to make themselves look better. A new haircut, new clothes, a new swagger, but honestly, here's a tip. Girls don't really care about what guys look like. Of course, it's a plus if the guy is staggering, but what really attracts girls is good manners and confidence. I've seen guys who are not lookers, but get hoards of girls, because they have a good heart, and they carry themselves well!

So guys, stop wasting your time and money on the next new hair gel, and just be a better man.

BE A MAN. GIVE UP YOUR SEAT!

Note to self: Have to control my insatiable appetite.... but the morning bee hoon is sooooooooooooooo good!

BLOGSHOP!

2012-01-25T02:56:00.000-08:00

Really focusing my attention on opening a blogshop. Well, that, and trying to find someone to renovate my new place. And booking tickets for vacations for the rest of the year. I really am such a good worker, aren't I? I feel kinda bad taking my salary. Hehe. I really should work harder, I know...but Chinese new year just passed! Excuses... I guess there's always going to be a few, yes?

Anyway, back to the blog shop.

As a concerted effort to promote my blog shop, I am going to try to write more in my blog. Hehe! I know I've been so lazy, but this is going to work, I promise.

Sourcing for clothes now to buy to sell. It's harder than it looks. Photography is so advanced these days, it's hard to pick out possible flaws. And I want every piece of my clothing to be flawless. Hopefully I can gather enough capital from this to design my own clothing line, which is my ultimate goal. After browsing through countless dresses (did I mention that I'm only going to sell dresses? People who know me well should know that I only wear dresses. Heck, I even have my own "soccer mum" outfit in lab so I don't have to wear pants outside of work), I have realized that there are a few fashion details that I really dislike:

1) The curtain top. I'm not really sure what these are called, so I'm just going to name them myself. These are the tops that makes your front look like a set of curtains. That's right. I really don't understand why people would even consider wearing something like this. Lemme see if I can pull an example...

I can see the relation to the once-so-popular flapper dress in the old days, but it makes your top look huge, and the general effect is just not flattering!

2) The garish bows either in the front, side or shoulders of a dress.

I mean, I can see why it would be cute for an anime character, but let's face it. How many of us actually look like anime characters? Especially when the bows occupy half the dress, and comes in different prints. *shudders*

3) Over-embroidery. I understand that people like shiny beads/pearls on their tops. If positioned well, and used sparingly, they can give off a classy, elegant effect. But most of them are over-decorated, falling flat and looking like what your maid will wear. I especially dislike those with wooden beads!

4) Dresses with more than one print. One print is enough. Enough said. Unless you are trying to entertain your two-year old.

5) I'm probably going to offend the most people with this, but I really don't understand the drape in front of dress trend. Why is the piece of extra cloth in the front alluring? It's not even a pocket! Hmmm... maybe to facilitate your guy pulling you along in a club?

That's it for now, but I'm definitely going to update this as I come across more stuff. I really hope I don't look back on this blog in 20 years time, and found guilty of committing all of these fashion crimes......

2012 so far......

2012-01-06T00:39:00.000-08:00

Sucks. I don't know what it is. It's the first week of 2012, and I

1) have a foreign lower abdominal pain and leg cramps for weeks now, and the docs can't find anything wrong with me. And so the pain continues... and my visits to the doc's continue. It's Friday, and I've already been thrice. Going a fourth time tonight.

2) Splattered my face with Trizol yesterday at lab. For those non-sciency people, trizol contains phenol which causes chemical burns. So I had a splatter of red dots on my right cheek that looks like mosquito bites. Thank god that Raymond and Lai lai in my lab managed to neutralize it with PEG, so at least it's all good now. But man, the scare! I just finished reading the book "Beautiful", which is a true story of a girl who had acid poured on her face!

So I've been feeling crampy, crappy and unhappy the first week of January. Sigh. I hate feeling sick, and I hate it even more when I don't know what's wrong. :(

Experiments are going slow as usual, and when there's an actual experiment, most results are negative. Just a few more years...

Looking into opening up a blogshop. Everytime I go on the mrt, there are a selected few individuals I wanna dress. I just look at them and think "man, they can look so much better if they are not wearing what they are wearing!" I mean, I have my fashion mistakes too, but these people are just jarring to look at. I'm not saying that I have fantastic taste, but I think there will be people out there with similar taste who will appreciate buying clothes from me at affordable prices. Like H&M said before, fashion doesn't have to be expensive!

Prolly gonna go back to San Diego in March, looking forward to it. I miss my friends there. :(

I would write more, but I'm squirming in pain. Poop.

Halloweeeen (the tamest ever).

2011-11-10T02:24:00.000-08:00

Halloween this year, is the first year I spent in Singapore since like 5 years ago. Ariane and I decided to revisit our halloween get up 7 years ago and paired up as the Japanese schoolgirl twins from Austin powers again: Fook Mi and Fook Yu.

I convinced her to let me be fook yu since she's single, and should be fook mi. Haha!

It was fun, and we got our costumes for cheap! I really like it! I know...I've been schoolgirls too many times now, but hey, who's counting?

Went to a house party at the Beaumont. It was fun, my only regret that night was that we didn't make it to Avalon, I really wanted to see other costumes, and there was only a total of maybe 20 tops in the apartment. Oh well.

Some pictures from that night!

This last pic was taken right after I put the hair gel in an attempt to make my hair look more japanese style, but obviously, you can see that it failed miserably after that. Ha!

Back in the motherland!

2011-10-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

Been back here for a week now. Been swarmed with so much logistics! Taking a breather for now. Feeling a bit better, since I got all my bank info under check, secured my job, and am in contact with property agents to scour for a new pad. Also am getting Deron's PR applications, my home loan applications under check, and all the gazillion pieces of document I need to submit all over the place to start work. Oh, I got a new phone line though, my sister's awesome corporate plane allows me to get an iphone for free. Love! Ah.

Jetlag hasn't been too bad this time round. I find myself being more positive about being exhausted as I've come to the conclusion that the more tired I am, the more energy I require, and I can eat as much as I want! I think I'm going to go broke in Singapore soon, since I order two plates of food instead of one for every meal! Yday, I decided to reduce it to one plate, only to find myself almost fainting of hunger at midnight. My mum had to resuscitate me with instant ramen. Love!

It's been raining a lot these days. I appreciate it a lot since it does wonders for the weather! Even if that means I had to troddle out in the rain, I'm perfectly fine with it! It's nice taking a breather in the afternoons and curling up with a book.

Gonna start doing animal work and clinical research at this cancer lab, I'm insanely excited about it! I hope it'll go well, but my initial dread about working in Singapore has subsided, and I'm looking at it through clearer eyes. They say, you should take each opportunity as a gift right? I'm happy to be back, to shift again from my comfort zone of california, and learn to understand my motherland.

It's amazing how much I'm NOT in touch with this country. Don't have a clue when it comes to property buying, don't have a clue of pretty much anything! I guess I'll just have to settle into it, but the common theory I've conceived during this short week is PROTOCOL PROTOCOL PROTOCOL. It's frustrating, but I'm sure that's what makes Singapore such an awesome country.

Deron's coming tonight, woot! At least I have a fellow tourist with me in tow. Ha.

Positive day!

2011-09-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

Today was a very positive day! Went to Bristol Farms to get some prosciutto and cheese for the p-club meeting, and the lady behind the meat counter remembers me! She asked why I wasn't around for the past month, and said I was beautiful, and I look like a celebrity...in Hollywood! She was so nice. And she gave me helluva big chunk of sample prosciutto, and even added some cantalope! I have to say, for some weird reason, some ladies in their late 30s-50s really like me. Hmm. And then I ran into this cute group of boy scouts who were selling popcorn, and when I was handing over the money for a pack, one whispered to another not so quietly "I think she's cute!" Man, I love attention from 8 year olds. :) They are the best kind! And at Carmax (had to bring my car for a quote :( ) the guy was like commenting how an "attractive girl" like me shouldn't let people test drive my car with me alone. To top it off, this group of korean guys who came to test drive my car asked if I wanted to hang out to drink after and called me a singapore princess. Ego trip! I just want to document this so I can make myself feel better on my down days. There's still hope! :)

Roma+ Florence

2011-09-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

We spent three days in Rome, took a rental car to tuscany and back to rome for the last two days of our trip. Rome was nice, I didn't like it as much as the other big cities because there were just too many beggars around, but I loved it for the beauty. Vatican city and Sistine Chapel was unbelievable, and I loved the Pantheon and Colosseum. The Trevi fountain was cool, but it was just too crowded to be picturesque, and I really don't see the big deal about the Spanish steps. But wherever I go, the buildings were beautiful and possessed an old charm. We walked around A LOT. Mosquitos everywhere, and it was HOT. The last day, we went to these bath ruins, and it was cool. It was sparse, but there's something about the ruins that felt like you stepped into an ancient era. It was nice. The food that stood out was the spaghetti with pepper and sheep cheese, a roman favorite, at casa copelle, and the fried anchovies at this restaurant next to the pantheon. We had dinner at Al Duello the last night, which was rated the second best restaurant in Rome, and it didn't disappoint. I got the tasting menu of seafood, and the seabass carpaccio in orange sauce was the best thing ever. They made their own olive oil and bread too, which was nice. It was a really nice meal.

I have to say, Tuscany wins hands down in the food department, despite the gruelling long winding drive you have to take to get to any of the small town. Castellina in Chianti, I will be back. The restaurants there blew my mind. It was at Alberggacio, which is 1-michelin star-rated, where I had my best meal of this entire trip. And the pizza at Fonderario in the same town that prompted me to eat my crust (I've never liked pizza crust). It was soft, bready and chewy at the same time. Yum!

The castle Meleto in Gaiole in Chianti where we stayed at the honeymoon suite was beautiful. A courtyard so beautiful it's unreal, which overlooks the rolling hills in Tuscany, the vineyards next door, the infiniti pool. Our suite was huge, and aside from the lack of A/C, it was really nice. I have to admit, it was a bit intimidating staying there just because we were isolated and it felt soooooo old and ancient, but it was beautiful, with a canopy bed and all!

Florence was blah, so I dun wanna talk about it. The duomo was nice, I guess. As for Sienna, I'm glad we made the hike up the bell tower in the square, the view of sienna from there was so exquisite!

In all, it was a great leg, thinking back on it. The wines were superb, the food was great, and it was nice being in the countryside for a while, although, next time, we're coming back in autumn. Ha. It's way too hot in August.

Vatican City.

Inside the Vatican Church.

One of the dead popes. Deron said that they believe that pops were immortal, so they don't decompose, and hence the open glass style of the coffin.

The Colosseum!

Pantheon, us at the restaurant for lunch.

A roman favorite, fried anchovies! It really was quite good, not fishy and not salty. Fresh anchovies!

The Pantheon at night. Pretty!

One of the vatican museums.

One of the rooms in the museums.

Us posing in front of a modern art bronze sculpture of a mass.

The Sistine Chapel!!

Our bathroom in the castle/

The guest bedroom. Deron calls it the mother-in-law bedrom. Hurr hurr hurr.

Our bedroom! :D

Sienna with the bell tower we climbed.

The view was breathtaking! :)

A random artist doing chalk drawings on the ground! Italians are real artistic. Saw a mother and daughter selling pencil drawings of the Colosseum for 5 bucks. Should have gotten it the first time we saw it. They really are talented!!

The courtyard of our castle. The picture doesn't do it any justice at all!

The infiniti pool. :)

The plating at my fav restaurant!!!

A roman traditional soup, tomato bread soup as an amuse bouche!

Yum!

The steak tartare blew my mind. It had so many layers of flavors, peppery and sweet and the steak itself was so sweet and fresh. Mannnnn.

Deron's squash blossom filled with ricotta cheese was outstanding. Possibly the best taste of the meal. It was filled with tender cheese which was soooo fresh, and perfectly flavored to bring out the delicate taste of the blossom itself!

The basil ravioli with pinenuts was good, but falls short compared to the rest of the dishes.

Deron's risotto with sausage and garden vegetables was the best risotto of the trip. It was so flavorful, meaty and chock full of nicely roasted vegetables at the same time!

My locally hunted deer meat was soooo tender, so sweet and flavorful. Mmmm!

I couldn't resist ordering another course, and got the gnocchetti with fried sage leaves and basil, in a saffron broth, it was crazy wonderful. Best gnocchi of the trip! :)

My fav white wine from our vineyard.

The duomo at Florence.

The raping of Sabbadinian women. This sculpture was carved from a single block of marble!

Perseus with Medusa's head.

The BEST pizza, with anchovies and garlic. The dough was soooo good.

The best pasta of the trip! With sheep cheese and pepper. The pasta was fresh and aldente and the flavors were so simple but strong.

Home made pistachio panna cotta with hazelnuts. This was really good, a bit heavy but the pistachio taste was so natural and good! :)

The bath ruins that we went to.

The most amazing grilled fresh prawns in choc sauce. The amazing thing about this dish is that the meat was soooo seasoned and flavorful, which seemed impossible since it's fresh and you can't marinate it for that long!

The freshest burrata ever!

I can dream of this dish, the seabass carpaccio with orange sauce!

Deron's gnocchi with seabass was wonderful, light orange sauce, and wonderfully light. Yum!

Paris.

2011-09-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

J'adore!!!!! My favorite city in France, for shizo! The shopping, the glam, the lourve. I love all of those! Stayed in a hotel which had Versace tiles, Hermes soap and Bang & olufsen appliances, can't fight with that! We spent the days going shopping, and the nights drinking. It was loads of fun. Went to the chanel flagship store on rue cambon, and Ariane and I happily spent 2 hours there while Jenn and Lier went to Louboutins. Had the best hot choc's at Angelina's near the Lourve, best meal was at Le Chatriebriand, where we had to line up for 1.5 hours, which was totally worth it, best shop Chanel of course, and funniest incident was when we went to station Cambronne, which was a pretty shitty neighborhood, trying to find Cambon where Chanel was cuz Ariane thought her friend misspelt the name of the street. The lady at the train station was SO confused, and we were trying to show all our designer stuff to her face so she can understand us. Ha! Man, did we look dumb. And grossest bar was at Le cab near the lourve, where we saw this guy flash his weiner at another girl and the carlsberg beer was 15 euros. 15 euros for CARLSBERG??? I was NOT a happy girl that night. And let us not forget the never ending stairs at all the train stations, which was especially miserable when we were lugging the suitcases around (when we got to the hotel finally, Jenn said with a note of finality: Gonna CAB IT to the airport when we go!). :P People were surprisingly friendly, especially when we keep hearing from our french friends and others that they were not. Not to mention the catcalls, and the random declarations of love we got along the way. I guess they just haven't seen enough groups of asian women who actually made an attempt to dress up! We had a cab driver who was singing to us the whole trip, and also a street guitar player who switched to "sakura" when we walked by. It was magical, this city. So much beauty, so much glam! :)

Us at Hotel du Nord, a local french restaurant.

My favorite restaurant's tasting menu!!!

Drinking wine is cheaper than water, I swear.

Scallops so tender, with a sauce so delicate.

The freshest and sweetest tomatos in a saffron seafood broth. Yum!

The most tender squid, with fresh vegetables. Loved it.

The ending dish, which was amazing cuz they are just bits of cantalope dusted with this amazing array of spices which explode in your mouth. Yum! I didn't put down the rest of the courses, which were good too, but these were the highlights.

Notre dame!

The tower, of course.

At a bar on Avenue des Champs-Élysées the last night, it was great!

Arc du Pompeii I think. It was really pretty!

Nice!

2011-09-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

Nice was fun. We stayed at this b&b called Nice Home Sweet Home, and I have to say, it really is the most comfy B&B I've ever stayed in. The room was huge and airy and pretty, and I love it that the big and spacious bathroom had a huge cabinet where we can put our toiletries away so all the people who share the bathroom will not clutter the bathtub with stuff. And the owner Genevieve stocks up the fridge with cheap big bottles of water, which is so much cheaper than the vendors outside. To anyone who travels in France, DRINK TAP WATER. All the tiny bitsy bottles of water were like 2 euros or more, I swear I spent over a hundred euros just on water alone. But the owner sells a big bottle for 80 cents. Which was awesome, although we found the same bottle in rome's supermarket for 23 cents. Man, these people can survive on just selling water to tourists, I swear.

Nice is a nice seaside town, which has a very touristy vibe. There's people suntanning naked on the beach, there's old gross guys just standing there to get off on the naked bodies. Oh well. We bought 3 euros straw mats, and walked around looking like china tourists! Ha! It was fun, the shopping was great. Got a shawl that I heart! It was really interesting cuz it was hard to find a french restaurant! Most of the restaurants were oddly, italian. Maybe they have a huge italian population. I think the best meal I had was the anchovies salad I had during the first meal there, and the rest were touristy fare which was fine, but not great. The worst dish of the place was this uni pasta that the waiter swears by, and is utterly gross. It tastes somewhat like child vomit and rotting fish. Urgh, I can feel my stomach hurling around just thinking back on it.

We went to an american bar called Wayne's. Apparently it's hip and Jenn and I were like, what are we doing in an american bar. Met these two guys, but I think the cuter one (which we wanted for Ariane) was just wingman to the other who was trying to get in my pants. They followed us the whole night, adorning us with free drinks, and the guy was actually pretty fun to talk to because he's french but learning spanish, and whatever I don't know to say in French, I could speak in Spanish, so we were just talking in French and Spanish! Super fun, but not so fun when he kept asking me mournfully why I am married. Ha!

Went to Monacco, just a 15 min train ride away. It's nice, but too oldish for me. It was an eye-opener seeing all the fancy cars parked in the self park lots and the luxurious yatches.

Other than the fact that the nights were hot with no A/C in the room, I really enjoyed my time with the girls. :)

On the streets in Nice.

At a fancy restaurant overlooking the harbor in Monacco.

Us with our straw mats (so unglam!) and delicious crepes!!!

Us suntanning, with our suits ON, on the beach. :)

Niceeeee.

Sorry, stumbled upon my dream car in Monaco, had to take a picture of it!!!

Geneva (not my favorite!)

2011-09-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

We took the train from Verona to Geneva via Milan. I really want to like this place and if circumstances were different I'd have loved Geneva, but it just turns out that we had to make the best out of a shitty situation that is no one's fault. We were supposed to stay over at Deron's friend David, but he contracted stomach flu at the last minute. Hence, we had to put up at a severely overpriced hotel near the train station which looks like hotel 81 but was 400 usd for 2 nights. And David was nice enough to come over the next day, and brought us to the lake, over to his place in the hills for lunch (which was lovely) and up the mountain to see the whole expansive view of Geneva. It was great, truly. We just didn't appreciate the sky rocket prices in the city! A starbucks plain coffee, no milk, no nothing, you buy a venti cup for 8ish francs! Which is like 12 usd! WTH. And I was grumpy and tired the first night, and Deron went to buy a bottle of water, a bag of chips and a bag of cookies for 15 francs! Geez. I don't know how people survive over there.

Went to this interesting restaurant for dinner. It originates from Paris, and features only 1 pri fix menu with one salad, one steak in beurreblanc sauce and pommes frites, for like 50 francs. And that's all they serve! It's like the french gourmet version of in-n-out. Deron didn't like it cuz it was super crowded, loud and hot, and he claims that the meat wasn't good quality meat, but I enjoyed it. After all, you can't really complain much about a semi rare steak smothered in butter, can you? :)

Glad to leave Geneva, the train station was super confusing, almost missed my train to Nice. Urgh.

The lake at Geneva. It really is quite stunning.

Up on the mountain which has loads of un-identifiable bugs!

Deron with his pulled-up-too-high white socks, the Tom Sawyer look! :P

We tried walking to Old Town and we got lost. This is the furthest point that we got to so we wanted to document that. Ha!

The delish salad! It was really one of the best tasting salads. The secret is in the dressing.

The steak smothered in herb butter. Apparently the sauce is a family secret. Oh well.

So that concludes my Geneva part. Onto Nice next! :D

Verona

2011-09-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

Went to Verona next! I have to say, I didn't really care for Verona, but the things I like about it is the hotel we stayed in. It's a modern italian farmhouse, and I really like it because the restaurant served one of the best meals we had in Italy, which is surprising because this hotel is tucked in the outskirts of Verona, away from foot traffic. We went to Juliet's house, and it was really nice. Hoards of people of course, but the walls were scrawled with declarations of love. We had to put our mark down, as which deron said sarcastically, an immortalization of our love. Hehe. It was fun taking pics on the balcony! And the opera house was really pretty, reminds me a bit of the colosseum in rome. And the highlight of the trip was when we had dinner at this really fancy restaurant near the opera house, which was playing "Il tivoli" that night, and when we were having dinner, the waiter and waitress burst out in the first part of the opera! And they were super awesome! Turns out that they were music students from the university (Verona is really well known for the opera degrees, apparently), and they do the singing bit often. It was great. :)

The opera house.

Me posing with the walls of scribble of love!

The balcony!!

Happy!

I liked this passage a lot, decided to take a picture of it.

That's us! In weak ballpoint pen. Probably going to last the whole of a day.

The castle in Verona

The plating at the fancy restaurant. Super cute.

The waiter and waitress singing italian opera! It was super awesome! And the pasta with saffron and lobster was really good. Fresh pasta, delicate seafood flavor, and the lobster was great.

Deron's gnocchi with gorgonzola was really nice. It had the heady and sweet taste of gorgonzola but not the stinky taste. It was really delicate, and light.

The mushroon pasta with fresh shaved truffles was pretty good. The pasta was infused with the mushroom taste, but the truffles didn't help much.

The courtyard of our hotel.

Part 2.

The front of the hotel. It really was a beautiful hotel.

Deron having a cuppa at the cafe.

Me waiting for him. Heh.

Friggin' awesome pasta. The pasta was not just one note, with a great shrimp flavor, and had a slight sweetness to it. It was really really delicious, and the tomatoes were fresh and juicy.

The roasted rabbit was the highlight. It was wrapped with "pink lard" which turned out to be proscuitto. The fattiness of the bacon leaked into the rabbit meat, making it tender and moist and sooooooo flavorful. I loved this because it respected the natural taste of rabbit, enhanced it and made it delicious. Most places that serve rabbit braise it in a red wine sauce, which is good too, but the sauce usually masks the meat taste. LOVED it. And the potatoes were delightful, crispy outside and very moist and soft inside.

Europe

2011-09-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to write down highlights of each stop in my europe trip... so here goes!

Venice
Arrived in Venice hot, sweaty and annoyed. Our flight from Chicago was late (surprise surprise American airlines), and we had half an hour to clear customs and get on a train to our boarding gate in Madrid. We arrived with 10 minutes to spare, all thanks to running like a maniac, only to find out that they already booked us on the next flight because our luggage can't make it on this flight in time. The next hour was spent in line (extremely slow service, welcome to europe!) even though there was only 4 people in front of us. So when we finally stumbled to our b&b (4 season's vivaldi) in Venice, we were exhausted. The room was roomy, very italian with narrow stairs leading to the bathroom. Very local. The window overlooks foot traffic on a bustling street. Thinking back, it was a pretty awesome room, even though to get to our room, we had to climb a total of 84 steps. All I can say is, Venice is not built for handicapped people or people with strollers. Bridges everywhere, no cars. It was crazy, but in a good way. We walked around a lot, to St. Mark's square and to the far end to the beautiful park with a cool museum. We had pizza under the stars, and really great pasta. Had the best table white wine, a mezzo (0.5L) for 5 euros, can't get better than that. It's at Patatinas. Yum!

Posing next to our town car, ready to board!

Hot and sweaty and pissed at Madrid.

At Patatinas! With 5 euro white wine!

One of the best gnocchi (with semolina wheat) and crab. Yum!! The gnocchi is soft with a very distinct herb taste. Mmm!

Spaghetti with seafood. The spaghetti was al dente with infused flavors of mussels and seafood. Thinking back, this was really good.

On the Rialto Bridge!

Fancy gondolas!

St. Mark's Cathedral.

Picturesque area of local living quarters.

The gorgeous park at the far end of the island.

A display piece on exhibition linking the two towers together.

SPRITZ! It's a light summery cocktail, you can choose bitter or sweet. The bitter tastes terrible.

Antico Dolo. The food is really nice here.

Very black squid ink linguine. The squid was super tender, but I'd rather the linguine in another sauce, seriously.

Hef approves of this place!

Okay that's all for my Venice trip, will start on Verona tomorrow!

Ikko!

2011-07-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

OMG. The best Japanese place (other than Okan, but they are different) in Irvine hands down!!!

They are expensive, but some of their food items are to die for. Not going to gush too much, but I'll just put up the pictures...

I started with the tofu mousse with ginger noodles in a light caviar soy sauce. It was the best ever. The tofu mousse blends with this ridiculously light but flavorful sauce, and with the caviar exploding in your mouth, it's like heaven!

Live giant orange clam....the sashimi was soooo sweet. Mmmmmmmmm. I've never liked clam but this is in a class of its own.

Possibly the best looking uni that I've had. It was sooo creamy, and the chef glazed it with some sort of sauce that accentuates its taste. Mmmmm.

MY FAV! Chawan mushi with uni sauce and black truffles. Omg. The egg melts in your mouth, enveloped by a layer of uni and black truffles. What more does a girl want!

Home made black sesame ice cream with black sesame past in hot coffee. The bitterness of the coffee blends in with the sweetness of the ice cream to perfection. Mmmm. The far side is black soy ice cream, which is good too, but too subtle for my liking.

Pomodoro is awesome!

2011-06-12T00:25:00.000-07:00

Deron and I decided to venture out and try a new Italian restaurant that we've never been, and it's awesome!!! It's called Pomodoro in Point Loma. It's delish and it's so affordable!

Had the burrata salad. Blew my mind. I think creativity wise, it's not the most whimsical dish I've had, but it's a solid dish! A glob of burrata melty cheese on top of sauteed spinach with fried garlic bits and cherry tomatoes in an olive oil sauce. It's really awesome.

Deron had the homemade gnocchi in a cream sauce. It's so good! The gnocchi is home-made and soft but firm, and the cream sauce is on the light side with hints of speck. The sauce is delicious and the gnocchi is too, sooooo good.

Had the BEST black ink linguine ever! The linguine is fresh pasta and cooked al dente and cooked in this seafoodish cream sauce (which is again not too heavy, and soooooo flavorful) with leeks and bay scallops. What really tops this dish was the huge perfectly cooked shrimp which was sweet and just sublimeeeee. AHHHHH. Soooo goood.

Okay, I'm done drooling over this place. :)

More upbeat!

2011-06-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hi guys!

In a more upbeat mood since my last post, so I thought I'd share. :)

Just finished booking all the hotels, train tickets and plane tickets, rental cars for our Europe trip! Lier and Ariane are on board with us for the France segment, so I'm happy!

So the current route for my trip:

Venice --> Verona --> Geneva --> Nice --> Paris --> Rome --> Florence --> Sienna --> Rome.

It's going to span over 3 weeks, never been on such a long trip, hopefully it wouldn't be that bad.

Gonna be an Italian princess in Florence! We got a nice room in an ancient castle for two nights... woot woot!

I have to say, I'm looking forward to this trip so much, definitely more than my defense and probably more than my wedding. I'm sure my fiance will agree. Ha!

Weddings are such a waste of money. It completely changed my concept of money! In the past, we'll be like oh 20 bucks, that's cheap. Now we're like oh 300 bucks for a celloist? That's cheap. I feel like I'm being ripped off. Sigh.

In the bubble now, before my paper gets back from review (which will prompt another frenzy of experiments and writing), and before my dissertation is sent out, and I have to meet with one of my committee members in mid-June.

Have to enjoy this moment before it's gone. Could be any day now.

Gonna take our engagement pictures this weekend! I bought a nice dress from A&F, and will have my makeup professionally done, so I'm excited! :)

I guess I should go to work... I guess. :P

Updates

2011-04-29T18:04:00.001-07:00

It's been a while.

Been extremely busy the last few months. It's funny how on days like these, no amount of hours can ever be enough for you to deal with your life.

Things have happened in the last few months.

Deron proposed, so I'm officially engaged!

My friend's fiance died. Suspected suicide. :( It was grim, the funeral, with the grandma crying over the coffin.

Set my defense date.

Submitted my paper thrice. Still waiting on it.

Lost weight (Guess all the stress did some good).

Building talk next Friday. Guess who's presenting!

What happens to the days when you don't feel like doing work? I have this internal conflict where I am not inclined to do work but I have to, with this impending stress on my shoulders.

I worry.

I worry about Deron not finding a job in Singapore.

I worry about my defense.

I worry about my talk.

I worry about every aspect of my wedding.

I guess the last year of Ph.D is always stressful. No easy way about it unless you're Mike graduating so you can step right into med school (kidding if you're reading this, Mike.)

I have 5 months left here in San Diego. I might come back but it's so far in the future that I don't know. I want the 5 months to be happy so I can enjoy and cherish the remnants of the life I built for myself here. I can't. There's just too many things going on, too many things I need to tend to, too many things to worry about. Ay.

Romeo & Juliet's soundtracks cheer me up. It's nice to know that some things get frozen in time and don't change.

To be happy.

2011-01-14T16:07:00.000-08:00

Today, I was in the mouse room when I ran into this guy who works at the mouse room. I know him because one time, I was going in while he was pushing the door to get out, and he pretty much slammed the door in my face. He kept apologizing for days after that, and obviously I hold no grudge. He's one of those happy-go-lucky simple guys who is nice to everyone and is always super cheery and happy.

Then I found out that he actually has multiple sclerosis when he had an episode one day in the mouse room and had to be sent to the hospital. It makes me sad. We study MS in the lab, but it's so detached from the actual reality of the disease that everyone conducts their experiments in a logical cool manner.

Today we were talking about how he has to shoulder the cost of the ambulance because the insurance might not cover it, and how he was forced to get on the ambulance because his manager said he doesn't want him "to be a liability to Scripps". It makes me sadder. How can colleagues be so cold towards him?

I started to put myself in his shoes. I can't imagine someone with MS being the person he is. So cheerful and so happy! He has to give himself shots every single day to prevent episodes from happening, and he was joking that he was sick of jabbing himself every day like a heroine addict. Not to mention that he is seriously compromised in the dating field. Not everyone would want to be with a person who is going to be severely handicapped in his old age. I have seen videos of clinical cases of MS, where a lady who is barely 40 lost all control of her limbs. How sad a life is that? The bad thing about MS is that after every episode, the condition gets worse, and there is no knowing when an episode will occur. And he is so cheerful still, and still working, cherishing every day he has. :(

Why does it take someone like that to make me realize how good I have it? I just wish that people in general are more content with their lives, me included. My new year resolution is to be content with what I have, and to cherish everything I have. Health, my lovely family, my education, my loving boyfriend and my great friends. Happiness... it's not as elusive as I thought.

2011

2011-01-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

It'll be a year of changes, good ones I hope. :) I had a great countdown at this awesome club with a few of my good friends, at Filter. And the new year celebrations with girl friends at Wine bar, Zouk, butter factory and Overeasy. :) I was dead tired after NYE, but all my friends took naps before they came out so the whole time, they were trying to wake me up. -_- I had fun regardless, esp when Lifang got drunk and kept saying how cute I am. Lol.

Lately...

2010-11-23T18:07:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been kinda pensive. Maybe it's nearing the end of the year, and I don't feel good about starting a new year. I just feel so old! And I'm about to get older! Urgh. Deron says it's fine, and when I get way older, I will like it more than I think.

I doubt it.

I know I don't look old (yet), but I feel so old! I hear giggling young girls laughing about silly things and I go "man, they act so silly and immature". I just feel like a 80 year-old trapped in my body. I remember when I was 21, I thought people above the age of 25 were OLD. Like crazy old.

And I'm just so tired. Been having this pseudo-flu for the last two weeks, and it kinda sucks. It's nice how it came right after I felt better after my wisdom teeth extraction. The only upside of this is that I lost weight because of my suppressed appetite.

Have to start writing my paper so I can publish it for graduation. Graduation. Time flies so fast that I don't know how to react to it just yet. I have mixed feelings about going back to Singapore for the next few years. The obvious perk of it is that I get to be with my family again! I miss all of them soooooo much (esp. my sister), and I can't wait to be part of family vacations again! I just am so used to living here that I don't know if I can adapt back......

Sigh.

Sometimes I hate Singapore so much. It's so age-ist. At every age of your life, people find different topics to stress you up. At 10, they ask you what stream you got into in school. At 13 they ask you which secondary school you got into, and how you did on your PSLE. At 16, they ask about your 'O's, at 18, they ask about your 'A's. And just when you thought you're off the hook, between the age of 18 till 28 or 29, they start asking you if you found yourself a suitable partner for marriage and whether you want kids or not. Doesn't help that the entire population of your high school friends and JC friends start marrying in bulk and pumping out kids like there's no tomorrow. And I'm not even 28 yet!

It's not that I don't want to get married. It's not that I don't want kids. I just hate the idea of fitting in a mold that everyone assumes you're going to be in. This is the main reason why I like living here better. People don't give a shit what you do. There's respect in every profession, and every life decision.

Don't mean to rant. Just annoyed, and possibly PMS-ing.

On a bright note, going back to the motherland next month! I get to hug my little sister again. Woot! :)

Mai sista!!

2010-09-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

My younger sister is coming to visit in less than two days now. Woot woot! I am soooooo excited! First of all, I can't even really believe this is happening, since she is NOT a fan of long haul flights. Second of all, I've been waiting since April, and the trip took a couple of months to come together, but it just feels like the summer months just whoozed by, and it's Sept already! :)

Happy happy. Sigh, now lab, if you could just buck up, maybe I can be the happiest ever yet.

Fremch Laundry

2010-08-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Napa, and of course, a blog about French Laundry is in order.

I had my expectations up really high, because it was such a bitch to get the reservation. Recap: I read on the website that they only take reservations 2 months in advance, no earlier than that. So I called on June 14th, at 10am, when they open their phonelines. Busy tone. Tried redialling till 11ish, till I got through, and it was fully booked! Booked TWO months in advance! I couldn't believe it! So the next day, I got Deron to try calling the same time I did, and he was also clicking opentable with his right hand, and redialling his phone with his left (which was kinda comical, but we were too annoyed to laugh about it). He got through at 1030, and it was BOOKED FULLY again!

Finally I called my Nordstrom Visa Signature concierge, and got them to take care of it. They said so many people called in, they dedicated a whole TEAM to doing that! Can you imagine working in somewhere as glamorous as Nordstrom, and your whole career is dedicated to calling in for reservations at French Laundry? Man, that would be sad. Not that I'm dissing them! I heart them cuz they got me that reservation!

So there was only one menu - the tasting menu which consists of nine courses. I was so stuffed at the end of the meal, I wanted to roll over and faint.

Did my hair 5 min before the meal. Ghetto style.
Calla lillies. My favorite!

Excited!

Le Menu!

Menu (according to me, if you want the precise description, look at the pic:
complimentary

1) small puff pastry with aged gyrere cheese
Kinda boring, but tastes good, sorta like a cheezit, hot.

2) salmon tartare with red onion marmalade and creme fraiche on a sesame wrap
Amazing, the flavors of the salmon blends right in with the sweetness of the marmalade, and buttered by the creme fraiche.

1st: Caviar with Pearls: sabayon of creek oysters and stuargon caviar with tapioca pearls in a butter chive sauce
Tastes straight from the ocean, but not overpowering, all thanks to the butter sauce

2nd: Foie gras terrine with white honey glaze and hazelnut puree in an aged balsamic with figs, served with a brioche and Jurassic salt
The hazelnut was amazing with the foie gras, the overall taste was great, but for 30 bucks more, I'd expected more foie gras. The taste of foie gras was very faint, and not very satisfying.

3rd: Cucumber-cured kanpachi belly
This was very refreshing, but

Deron's sauteed branzino fish was way better. It was just cooked to perfection.

4th: Sweet butter-poached maine lobster tail in a vanilla-saffron emulsion with wilted arrowleaf spinach. My fav! The tail was cooked to perfection, very tender and very sweet. It was heavenly. I thought this was the only dish worth of a three michelin star.

5th: Veal heart with swiss chard and comte cheese "pain perdu".
Meh. The veal heart tastes like gamey salami, but not as salty as salami. Meh.

Deron's white quail was awesome, but Whisk n ladle's quail was on par with that.

6th: Lamb chops with pearl barley, summer squash, marinated toybox tomatoes in a spanish caper sauce.
Good, cooked perfectly, but boring.

7th: Boho Bel cheese with griddled cornbread, with pickled blueberries and australian truffle.
Cheese was good, but not exceptional.

8th: Watermelon Sorbet with compressed summer melon and garden mint and persian lime.
Very refreshing, the compressed melon had a crisp juicy amazing texture.

9th: Peaches and Cream dessert: Very ripe peaches coated in a sponge like cake, served with vanilla bean basil ice cream.

Marshmallow brulee tart.

The peaches were AMAZING. Nice dessert.

I'm not saying that it's not high-quality food, just that Joel Robuchon was way more superior in the presentation, and the decor of the restaurant was so much prettier. The more important difference is that for Robuchon's food, you look at it, and you imagine how good it will taste, and it tastes far better than your wildest imagination. For French Laundry, the taste falls flat. There was no imagination nor surprise in the food. I loved the imagination and creativity in Joel Robuchon's foods. I will definitely bring my folks there when I graduate, that's daym certain!

P.S: Sorry some of the pics are so dark. My camera is dying. :(
Happy! :) It's not an engagement ring, if you're wondering. Just a lovely present from a lovely person. :)

Dinner tapas

2010-08-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Did a small party a few weeks ago, for a keg opening at my place. Wanted to blog about the food I made before I forget...

Did a fresh avocado and grapefruit salad with arugula, fresh corn (off the cob) and lemon zest, in a blossom honey dressing ...

Everything was made from scratch, cuz I hate pre-cooked foods...

Bruschetta, also made from tomatoes, and basil (from my basil plant) with tons of garlic for a punch!

Brussel sprouts (farm-fresh) in a lemon white wine sauce..

Sautéed (three kind) mushrooms, with caramelized onions and a shard of parmesan for kicks.

Finally, a 2 minute poached egg in tomato consumme, topped with tomato jam, parmesan cheese, and basil. My personal fav. :)

Celebritiez.

2010-08-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

So, I have a closeted unhealthy love for trashy magazines, and subscribe to US weekly. I have to say, out of the trashy gossip magazines, this is at least honest (does not report fake pregnancies etc). I only read it when I'm on the elliptical at the gym, so when my magazines build up, I know it's time to hit the gym. Lately, I've been seeing a bunch of celebs pics here in San Diego! I feel so cheated cuz I NEVER see any celebs around! Have to get out more...

For instance, this week's copy, I have the following celebrities showing up here...

Who's wearing Dior in San Diego?

Eva mendes!

And Brangelina buying pillowcases in Solana Beach. I go to the farmers' market and restaurants there frequently!

Liv Tyler! I love her! :(

On a unrelated note, they did a feature of celebs with the beauty products they use, and I use two of them!

Kim Kardashian with the same brand of moisturizer, toner, and beauty goods I use.

And the Olsen twin with my conditioner!

Makes me feel like a celeb! :P I still remember the time when Jason drove me to LAX, and got me an obscenely big bouquet of flowers (for no reason), and the staff asked if I was a movie star. Hoho. Cheap thrill.

Just got my very weathered jeweller polished and cleaned (they had to send them to the NY office), and they're so pretty now! :D

And my new pair of shoes. Love!

My foodzzzzzz.

2010-08-05T00:25:00.001-07:00

I have been really diligent about cooking at home this week! Lemme show yer.

I made tilapia with ginger and tomato garnishing in a soy sauce, and large seared scallops covered by a bed of fresh corn and tomatoes (and fried shallots), with tomato jam rice!

Also, I got HUGE colossal shrimps from Point Loma Seafoods, and so I cooked it in butter, and doused it with a stir-fry garlic soy paste with organic mushrooms. Even I have to admit they taste good. Hehe.

And tonight I made pan-fried tofu with ground pork, topped with sauteed parsley.

Okay I know this is my third blog post for the day. Will stop now and go to bed. Nights!

P.S: This made me laugh. Chanced upon it when I was walking by the beach. :)

Oh well...

2010-08-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

I saw a youtube video of PAYCO performing at the Esplanade today... and it just fills me up with nostalgia. I wish I cherished the times more, all ten years I was with PAYCO. The most junior and youngest kids in our time have now emerged to be the leaders of the orchestra, and when I look at them, I remember how it was to be part of a big group of kids/teens from very diverse backgrounds. Saturday afternoons were nothing more than just hard core music practice, and Saturday evenings were spent having dinner at selected malls as a big group, and just sitting around and just enjoying one another's company. Nothing more. No pretense, just plenty of warmth. One can only get that sense of warmth and comfort when he or she is in the company of individuals who, well, grew up with him/her. I really miss the good old days... and wish I could go back to it, but I can't.

But I know that I'll look back onto my life twenty years from now, and ache as bad as I do now, to go back into the past. So, for the sake of the future me, I have to cherish and appreciate every single day.

"Today is the youngest you can ever be for the rest of your life."

Sometimes, I feel that people age too fast but the mind has a hard time of adapting to it. When I was 18, I thought people in their twenties were positively ancient. But now, I don't feel ancient, like I should. Rather, I just feel like a 18-year-old trapped in my body. I don't feel much older, but my ID says otherwise. Sigh.

I don't feel unhappy, really. I just get pensive sometimes... heh.

11 followers? And Vegas!

2010-08-03T23:16:00.001-07:00

So I was just browsing my blog and I suddenly realize that I have 11 followers! Which is an astounding number considering that I didn't even know I had even one follower! Maaaan, makes me happy! :D Thanks guys!

So Vegas came and went. It was a pretty sweet trip, and worked out really nicely logistically. And the best thing is, us girls didn't have to pay NOR queue for entry into any of the clubs we went into, and 2 out of 3, we had free drinks, more than we could drink! It was ironic because the only time we had to get in line was the brunch buffet at Paris hotel on the last day. And the boys were like sniggering at us because I think secretly they were bored with all the bragging we were doing for the past couple of days (we all have gotten really big-headed.) Hehe. Who wouldn't!

First up we went to Tao. We stayed at the Venetian, so it wasn't hard getting on the VIP list and getting the guys in as well. It was reeeallly sweet, showing up and getting straight to the front of the line when you see the line go around and around, and people in the line looking fed up! Hoho!

The girls had free drinks, so we got the guys drinks too. It was really nice. :) Everyone was fascinated with the toilet doors that becomes opaque once you lock the door. Heh.

I think the highlight of my trip was when we went to XS. Seriously, the first time I went to XS last time, it was a feat trying to get in. You get on this promoter list (so you don't have to pay for cover, they only put u on if you're a big pack of girls), but you still have to get in line for like 1/2 an hour cuz well, there are MANY packs of girls in Vegas. This time was unreal. We got hooked up by this guy who knows the doorman of XS, and we showed up at midnight (which in any other case, you can forget about getting in), and we got to pass by hoards of people waiting in line right to the FRONT! Daym, if people can actually shoot daggers from their eyes, I would have died like twice. Hehe! And all this without paying a dime! :D

We went to Encore beach club (for free, no line too!) and went to watch KA. Got to see Deron drunk for the first time, and it was very entertaining, to say the least. He turns into this loud obnoxious drunk who yells across the craps table and waves wildly and bffs with everyone at the gambling table! Hehe.

Gonna post some pics up. Yay pictures!

The girls at Encore beach club. I am the whitest, cuz Diane was taking this picture. Hehe.

Deron (pretty drunk at this point) and I at Tao.

Me and Paula! Daym, those Brazilians are hawt!

Me and A-cakes! :D
The four of us (Jenn's taking the pic) in our suite.

Our room ( I swear this pic was taken 15 min after we reached the room, but it looked messy already. -_-).

Paula making herself at home!

People were dancing in the pool in XS! How cool!

Finally a good pic of Jenn and I. She's very fussy.

After KA! :)

Our sink was used for beer and mixers... :P

Our alcohol collection that would shame any modest bar.... :P

The water, which was only fit for the floor.

Inside of XS. Isn't it gorgeous?? My fav club hands down...

Ahhhhhh, I love it.

Will update about food in the next post! :D

New post! :D Just updates :)

2010-07-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

Time for my monthly post! :) It's about time now, you'd think. I know I've already attributed the lack of posts to the lack of time too many times now, so I'm just going to come clean and say it: I've been too lazy to write. Ha! Never been a big fan of writing, and there's no explosive news in my life that I would like to declare to the world, so it's just hard to find that motivation. Gonna upload some recent pics and snapshots of my life in recent times. :)

Last Saturday was Deron's sister's wedding. Never really did fancy the groom very much but since I don't predict him coming across my blog, I think I'm pretty safe about discussing my feelings towards him. Essentially, a good-for-nothing who was born in a stinking rich family, and never really amounted to very much.

Anyways, it was a beautiful wedding, and the best thing about it is that it brought a lot of Deron's family to town, so it was a party for the whole week of the wedding. Woohoo!

I was vain and got a headpiece for myself at freepeople.com for the wedding. Hehe.

Avella, the flower girl! She's Deron's niece and we like each other loads. She likes to hang out with me and her mum says she loves me. But of course. Woot!

My favorite toddler in the world, Oscar, and his dad. He's the smartest kid in the world, only 3 and he talks like a small adult. If you ask him what SCUBA stands for, he'll find the closest step to stand on (so he can look taller and more impressive), and yell out "self contained underwater breathing apparatus"! And his dad swears he only told him that one time too! Amazing memory. :)

His sister Ione and his mum Cindy! :) Cuteeee.

I asked Oscar to pose for a picture and he decided to start picking his nose to antagonize me. He's the sweetest thing, the last time we left him when we left Portland, he was wailing by the door. The cutest!

Deron and I at the vegetarian reception dinner. Everyone went home hungry and split our separate ways to get burgers and pizza after that. Ha ha.

Avella and I! She was very distracted at the wedding, so all we could get out of her was this very forced smile. Cute though! :)

Tomorrow's the 4th of July. Come to think of it, it's my first 4th of July here despite being here for sooo long ( I always am not in the country when it's July. Odd. :p) You know, I've always wonder why people always say 4th of July instead of Independence Day. Isn't it a mouthful to say the date? Anyways, gonna go watch the fireworks display. Woohoo! Prolly gonna take the bike up Mt Soledad, and watch many fireworks displays at the same time. :)))))

BTW, I managed to get reservations at the French Laundry for next month! It's only the other 3-michelin star restaurant on the whole of the west coast, if you're wondering. Hoho! I'll blog about it just like I did with Joel Robuchon. This place seems a little cheaper (250 bucks for 9 courses) but VERY snotty. It's ridiculously hard to get a reservation! You can only make reservations 2 months in advance, and if you call exactly 2 months in advance at 10am when they open, you can't get through till 1030am or so, when the receptionist will tell you the whole place is booked! For dinner and lunch! It's crazy! Finally I gave up and got Nordstrom concierge service to do it. Apparently they get so many requests for that, they set up a WHOLE TEAM dedicated to making reservations! No wonder I can't get through. Damn it. If you google how to get a reservation at french laundry on google, you get so many articles about it, it's amazing. Anyways, google French Laundry and read it up on Wikipedia. Hehe. Then envy me. Hohohoho! :P

I'll blog about it I promise. :)

Going to Vegas with the lab in a week. Happy! Research is not so great now, so it's time to bail and enjoy myself before I shoot myself in the head over research. Heh.

Psychics

2010-06-09T16:01:00.001-07:00

Jenn just told me over lunch that she went to see a psychic when she was on Catalina Island, which got me to thinking:

Are psychics really legit? Logically, they must be, since so many of them are in business and making money right? I've always heard stories about friends of a friend of a friend who got their fortune told and it was spookingly true, but I always take it with a pinch of salt. I mean, seriously, when you hear stories of "oh my friend's sister's cousin", chances are that the story (if there even were a story in the very first place) got distorted and exaggerated along the way.

So, back to psychics.

Honestly, I think psychics stay in business not because they are awesome at telling fortunes, I think they survive because people WANT them to be true. So hope against hope, they help keep the business adrift, in the hope that they get some indication from "a higher power". I mean, when it comes down to it, there really isn't much of a difference between that faith and faith in God. Ultimately, religion and psychics persist through generations because people WANT them to exist, want them to be all-empowering and wise.

There's nothing wrong with that, I guess it's just a necessity of mankind. To be able to rely on a higher power. The comfort of it justifies it all.

louboutins

2010-05-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

Maaaan, I wish I can get over my principle of not spending too much money on shoes... so I can get a pair of louboutins...

http://www.barneys.com/Tinazata/500724457,default,pd.html

Absolutely stunning.

Definitely going to Neiman Marcus the next time I'm at fashion valley to try it.

If I publish my manuscript before the end of this year, I will reward myself with this winner.

Hoho!

I've been so slack about my blog, I feel really bad. Been so busy though! Going to Portland next weekend for Memorial weekend. Wooohooo!

Thinkin of doing an impromptu trip in June. Really wanna go somewhere further. And exotic. I wish I could take more time off. Sigh.

Will post pictures soon. Work is going fine, just slow, but at least it's better than bad. Farmer's markets are kinda my thing now! The produce is more expensive, but the meals you get out of it feels soooo good. :)

Just made poached eggs with fresh tomato and basil jam. Woot woot!

P.S: I heart the comments from Millionaire Matchmaker. The girl cracks me up.

P.P.S: Went to a pirate party last Sat. Decided I still love jello shots, and that I am not fat. Woot woot!

You know...

2010-05-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

You know, something is really weird. I seldom check my blog, but everytime I check it, it's when someone posts a comment! Like out of the blue I'll check my blog (like once in 2 months), and someone posted a comment on the same day! Creepy.

Okay will write more later, after I cook for Deron. Hehe!

blahblahblah!

2010-03-22T20:53:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone!

Actually I was just checking my blog randomly. I think I haven't checked it ever since my last post! I was sooo touched by my dear friend HB who's always supporting me and reading my blog, and all the other exciting random people who leaves comments on my blog!

Things are oookay now. I have my lab meeting next Monday! In the past, whenever it's close to my turn to present, I work extra hard the week before. These days tho, every day is pretty much the same. Soooo worn out. Pfeh.

To people out there who thinks they love research and think that they want to pursue a phd, think again. I think with respect to other disciplines or jobs, research is the most unrewarding. Why, you might ask? Well, simply because you can work your arse off, you can be real smart, but ultimately, if luck is against you, it all results into nothing. Nothing.

There is no true satisfaction in research, because 90% of the time, your experiments don't work. Out of the 10% that actually works, 90% of the results are negative, and 5% are results that do not repeat. So you're left with that tiny percentage that you eventually publish, and then doubt yrself in the middle of the night: Did I do all my controls? Am I publishing the right thing?

So.

Anyways, moving onto more uplifting events.

I got a post bday bouquet from Jason and Jeff. Jeff said he was only responsible for three stalks of the bouquet cuz it was too expensive. Jason always surprises me with incredibly extravagant bouquets. I really appreciate it. Sometimes, all a girl need is flowers.

And it was double flower day, cuz I took the wrong train from L.A on the way back, and ended up sulking at Union Station for 2 hours. I was pretty much the nastiest person you can ever run into at a train station. The bouquet was so heavy I had to carry it over my shoulder like a sack of rice. And every time someone goes "Awww, those flowers are GORGEOUS!", I'll grunt and mumbled thanks. Or when someone asks "What's the occasion!" and beams at me, I just glared at them and go "nothing!". So when Deron came to pick me up, he had a bouquet of stargazers. Which was really sweet. And his first response when he saw my gi-normous bouquet was: awww, now my flowers look so sad in comparison. AWW!

My LV speedy looks puny next to the bouquet...

Anw at the end of the day, I was a happy girl. Hehe, sorry all you peeps I was rude to! A girl has her moments you know! :D

2010-03-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wish that people don't lie.

Maybe like that movie "Invention of Lying".

Maybe life would be simpler that way.

Cuz it hurts when someone dear to you lies.

You know why?

Cuz someone wise said this before: The thing about the stark truth is that everything else seems like lies.

The truth is good, only if you find it out the right way.

Not when someone is calling you at 8pm on a Friday night asking for help, and the truth tumbling out like that.

Not like that.

Joel Robuchon

2010-02-21T22:22:00.001-08:00

So, finally I get to blah about the best meal in my life thus far. My only regret is not getting to it earlier....

When I called to make a reservation, the maitre d' asked which hotel we're staying. Turns out we get a complimentary limo ride to the VIP part of MGM Grand. Which was awesome, because I wanted to save on the cab, but in the end, Deron tipped the driver 20 bucks per way, so it worked out to be the same. -_-

I hate taking pics in the car. But was excited about my meal!

The limo dropped us in this courtyard of the VIP area, and we had a loooong walk to the restaurant. It was breathtaking tho, cuz everything was out of a fairytale. I would paste more pics of the walk, but I really want to talk about the food. Ha.

Walked into this very private restaurant adorned with fresh purple orchids, chandeliers, and crystals everywhere. It was a dream. We got the corner couch, which was spacious and awesome. I think they reserve it for the bday peeps, cuz 3 of the four bday girls got the corner couches. And there were people from all over the world. I overheard French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean. It was awesome. And all the other bday girls were so beautiful and elegant too!

Our table setting.

Me looking more excited than ever!

Part of the menu. Of course, they print the menus everyday on sparkly paper. ..... ahhh.

I couldn't resist getting the 6 course meal, which was priced at 200 bucks as a base, and I added on another 40 bucks for shaved black truffles. Heehee! Poor Deron got the three courses, and split the bill with me anyways. I told him not to pay for me this time cuz I would really feel uber bad about him paying this much. He put up a good fight, but finally conceded. Hee!

All I have to say is "wow".

They started the meal with the bread cart. There were a gazillion of breads, all baked that day in their pastry kitchen. And they were sooooo yummy! I got the saffron ball, basil ball and two brioche. Man, never had bread so delicate and yummy. Not too starchy, not too sweet, all the flavors were in harmony.

The next course was the "surprise" dish, which was black caviar on top of fresh dungeness crab. There was a certain acidity to the crab, which combined with the black caviar to give a rich seafood taste...without being too rich. I forgot to bring the booklet of our menu home, so you guys have to rely on my memory of the description of the dishes. But yes, this dish was outstanding. It was rich, yet refreshing at the same time.

Then this was followed by a cheese tart topped with shaved black truffles. The black truffles were a little sweet, and not too overpowering. Definitely not like the conventional truffle oils you get at the normal restaurants. So delicate and fragrant. And the cheese tart just melts in yr mouth. Not surprising, since the french is known for their pastries.

The second appetizer I had was the veloute of chestnut cream with foie gras and seasonal vegetables. Hands down, the best soup I've ever had. The soup, like the other dishes, was brinking on the edge of being too rich, but stopping right there at the brink. It was awesome. It was sweet, not too creamy, and the foie gras was flavorful and melts in yr mouth. Even the seasonal vegetables had different flavors of their own, so you know they were each seasoned differently.

The first entree I had was the lobster langoustine, which is the spiny lobster with daikon and cod roe. It was heavenly. The cream was just the right degree of sweetness and punch, and the lobster was lightly fried in a tempura batter. The texture of the lobster combined with the meaty taste of the daikon to give a truly intriguing play on texture. It was like nothing I've tasted in my life.

The foie gras and duck sous vide was my second entree, and it was just a solid dish. It wasn't as exciting as the first few courses, but the execution of the duck and foie gras was right on spot. It was a joy to eat.

Even the mashed potatoes was light and rich, all at the same time.

Then along came the cheese cart. All kinds of exotic cheeses from all over the world. I chose three of those, and they were delightful. The brie was stink, yet not too stinky, and extremely creamy. It was awesome.

And our dessert, which was orange jus infused with coffee, with cebayon, and ceylon tea. Served with a lemon sorbet. It had surprise little bits of meringue for a little punch, and it was great. Very light, very flavorful. Just a great ending to a heavy meal.

Finally the server came with a birthday ice cream cake! It was layers of mango mousse, and meringue (their meringue was OUTSTANDING), and ice cream. It was awesome.

Last but not least, the eclairs cart. I was too full at this point to put anything else in my mouth, but Deron got some nougat and macaroons. It was great, according to him. Heh.

And they left us packing with a box of orange/strawberry squares. Ahhhh, I was in heaven.

When I'm crazy rich next time, Imma dine here everyday. I swear. Ciao, Robuchon. Not for long though......

My bday part II

2010-02-17T22:56:00.001-08:00

Okay, I know I should stop blabbering about my bday, but I have new pics to post, so I shall just go ahead and post them anyways. Hehe.

My lab has a bday cake and card when I came to happy hour. Woohoo! I was caught off guard. Heehee. Deron went to one of my fav bakeries to get the strawberry shortcake. Hehe.

My cake!

Me looking very happy at my cake. Hehe.

My lovely friend Alice with me posing for the cam!

Some of the presents. Most from the dinner from the last blog. There are some that came later, and I don't have pics, but I will remember them! :P

Went to Johnny V's with some of my friends from lab to "celebrate my bday" Washington apple shot with Lara, who's leaving for Boston this week! :(

Us drinking the shot.

Happy!

Yun and Tevy! Cutest couple.
Me and Vicky! I don't see her enuf!

Came home to find this big box of flowers from my little sister! Sooooooooooooooooooo happy and touched! They're my fav flowers, and they're Vera Wang! Hehe. Love!

Drove up to Las Vegas for my bday weekend!

Deron driving, slightly irritated that I'm taking pics of him while he's driving and stuffing food in his mouth. Hehe!

Me!

Went to Golden Gate Casino for their famous shrimp cocktail!

Went to watch Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian. We got ballin' seats, a surprise from Deron. Hehe.

Me again, waiting for the show to start.

I'll have to blog about the awesome 3 michelin star meal I had on my bday on another blog. Hehe!

Hawaii and my bday!

2010-02-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

Man, work has been so crazy these two months, I hardly have time to breathe, let alone write my blog. I promise to blog about Hawaii soon. It's waaaay due. Wanted to blog about my bday thus far, so I wun forget about it before long.

Just celebrated it with a few of my very close friends here at this decent seafood restaurant. Had a cake filled with bavarian cream and fresh strawberries, and whipped buttercream on the outside with hazelnut truffle drizzled on it. It was awesome.

Not as awesome as good company tho, and I'm really grateful for such good friends... even when the going gets tough, it's good to have friends like that...

Just random pictures of the dinner...

It was really good food, with a 4 pound lobster, scallops, shrimp and peking duck! :)

Gonna have a sorta party night with my lab peeps tmr night, so I'm excited... and on my bday (the day after), I'm headed to Vegas. Woot! :)

Gonna try my first three michelin star restaurant. Woot! :)

I think I have a really good life. I really do. When work is going tough, I really have to remember this more......

Xmas!

2009-12-30T21:15:00.000-08:00

I had a really nice heartwarming xmas this year. Nope, I didn't go back to Singapore, stayed here in California and spent Xmas with Deron and his family. It's just nice, with the giant xmas tree they have, and the chrissy food, and the company. His family is soooo warm, and they actually asked him for hints about what I wanted for Xmas, and I got two presents from his parents, one of which was signed off by "Santa". How sweet. :)

Deron got me a Wii playstation. Apparently I've been talking about it and how awesome it is, although I really had no idea I was doing that. But it's nice, since now we spend hours playing super mario bros on the couch. :)
Wii cheer squad. Possibly the lamest game ever.

And! He got me a present that I WAS hinting about, and it was a surprise present after the Wii (I apparently looked quite disappointed when I got the Wii, so he gave me the surprise gift earlier than he planned. Hehe.)

It's this brass and crystal necklace I fell in love with on the Nordstrom catalog, and was too cheap to buy. Plus, I think it's more meaningful to wear something given, not bought.

Tadaaa! Love!

And apparently all Deron said to his family was that Keira would like anything that 1) smells good 2) sparkles 3) or a mercedes keychain (cuz I broke mine a while ago, can't believe he remembered that). And they got me all that!

Santa gave me a mercedes keychain and a sparkly mercedes top to boot!

Yay! I love love it.

And his brother Nick gave me the prettiest scarve from Nordstrom.

And his other brother Jeff and his wife Annie gave me a philosophy bath set that smells gooood!

And his parents gave me a reed diffuser set...sweet tea flavored! I love love reed diffusers. :P For some reason, a lot of people spell my name wrongly. But I forgive them this time! :P

And Cindy (his sister) and Steve sent us a card, with pictures of adorable Oscar!! And a candy cane he made which was hiliarious. Have to post up pics soon.

And Lisa (Deron's bff) gave me the ring both of us were oogling in Nordstrom one day! Will post pics soon too! :)

Our bag of presents for his family. Joint effort in the wrapping! :)

This is her adorable daughter Adeline, the happiest toddler ever! :P

Found the best mani/pedicurist in town! She's Japanese (of course), learnt nail art in Japan for 2 years, and she's tres good. But a little takai.

Gel-based nails with 3-D flower design. Love! :)

In Hawaii (Oahu) now for the next 7 days or so! Happy! :) Will update soon. :)

2009-12-15T22:46:00.000-08:00

I'm in a very happy place right now, despite my sucky work. ^__^ Not even because of my upcoming trip to Hawaii, it's just the little things in life that make me happy. When you offered to pay the electricity bill cuz I was too cheap to turn on the heater. When you offered to go to the store to get the full version of the game when I feel bummed that my trial for my new game expired. I'm just happy.

Who knows how long this will last?

I hope it'll last forever. :)

New post! Portland and blahh

2009-12-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

I realize I haven't been blogging for months. Shame on me! :P It's just hard to find a time when I'm not feeling overly happy or overly depressed, cuz that's when I wanna blog the most. :P A lot of stuff has happened in the last 3 months, and now I'm just trying to find inner peace with my lab work in the midst of holiday festivities.

Went to Portland! We stayed with Deron's sister's family, and it was cold damp but very cosy! The food culture there is awesome. :)

Went to this best restaurant 2009 in Portland called "Beaker and Flask". Portland has a yearly issue of best restaurants, and people talked so much abt food and produce, it feels like Singapore. :)

The chanterella mushroom and bone marrow had such a delicate flavor, as the soft oily texture of the charred bone marrow complemented the rustic mushrooms to perfection, with a hint of lemon rind. Yum!

The risotto was great, with creme fraiche, and the roasted tomato was the best tomato every! It was sweet, and toasty on the outside, soft on the inside. Mannnn.

Even the deviled eggs were awesome.

The decor of the place, with barrels as seats. :)

The pork belly, with swiss chard (so fresh! in a cream sauce) and toasted kabocha pumpkin on top. Heavenly! I always enjoy a well cooked pork belly, the meat was tender and the fat was melt in yr mouth without being too oily.

My fav part of the trip, Deron's nephew Oscar! He wanted to be a xmas tree for halloween. Teehee! :)

Went to a farmer's market, where they sell the freshest produce ever. I bought the cherry tomatoes for 2 bucks, and Oscar and I finished it in 5 min. Sweetest tomatoes ever!

Had the home-made chicken and potato curry. It was very flavorful, and not too oily. Very homestyle. :)

They had a live band playing too. So cool. :)

Went to Deron's broter in law's cheese shop. Such a cool logo for the shop!

Went on a hike to a waterfall in the middle of a forest. It was breathtaking, the air was moist and crisp, and it was soo peaceful.

Walking...
Chui Kueh taking a break. :P

walking...

There! :P

Went to another waterfall too. Deron looking very "rustic" in his plaid shirt. :P

Went to this purely local produce restaurant called Ned Rudd, where EVERYTHING is cooked in this giant charcoal oven. So cool.

Had the best pork pie EVER. The crust was sticky and flaky, and the pork was soooo tender and bursting with flavors!

Roasted turnips and carrots. Yum!

Went to this other breakfast place that was great too, but a little lazy now... heh!

Like Oscar. He wanted me to take a pic of him while he pretended to yawn. Hee!

Blah.

2009-10-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I haven't been blogging of late, I think my life has become very domesticated and monotonous. Ha. Not that I'm complaining. It's kinda nice, taking a backseat, and letting my friends go on about their own drama. :) I like my life now, even though my project might choke and die any day now, and my stomach's still kinda acting up. Cuz I'm surrounded by my friends, by Deron, and people who loves me. And I'm healthy, not handicapped in any way, and don't have to worry much about financial matters.

Anw, the only highlight so far was a dinner at Pamplemousse Grille in Del Mar on Sunday night with Jenn. Jenn's boss wanted to give her and her "significant other" a treat, so she decided to take me along. Heh.

Between the two of us, we ordered so much food, the waiter tried to ask us to order less. The bill came up to 300 bucks. Whoops!

We both had the seared foie gras. We ordered two orders cuz we didn't want to share. It was served on top of a house-made brioche, with boysenberry jam in the middle, and accompanied by a fried encased quail egg, with wine jelly. It was heavenly. Seriously,

Then we had the 40 bucks grilled cheese sandwich, which was essentially truffled cheese, chock full of lobster meat, in between perfectly buttered and toasted bread. To die for.

We had the lobster pot pie, and jumbo sea scallops on the grill, served with a delicate goat cheese pumpkin ravioli, and some persimmon salad. They were a-okay. We decided to shy away from the usual entree we get, which is the chilean sea bass, served in a basil tomato torched sauce, with fingerling potatoes. That I love.

For desserts, I got the blackberry brown butter tart, served warm with berries. And Jenn got the peanut butter bombe, which is a choc peanut butter cake. All desserts are made from scratch in-house, so they tasted pretty good.

Yes, that is all I have to update. Plus I just put in a link to my earrings blog, which will showcase all the earrings I've made so far. :)

Oh, and I'm headed to Portland, Oregon this weekend. Apparently they have a strong food culture there. Love!

你没想像中爱我

2009-09-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

你小心翼翼牵我手
其实是担忧藏不住我
自尊也投降活在她之下
我好傻
你字字句句说你不爱她
那又是什么让你害怕
我疑惑但是原谅因为你留下
我好傻
不是我不说就不在意空等候
原来你没想像中那么爱我
我不懂该拿什么安慰我的难受
你的存在让我更寂寞
你寸步不离像天使的她
挥霍我的爱从不放心上
我有一丝无奈也有一些明白
该放开
不是我不说就不在意空等候
原来你没想像中那么爱我
我不能再从你的怀抱感觉到什么
不爱我别再说假装爱那是撒盐在伤口
啊~~ 谁说我不在意空等候
原来你从来都没深刻爱我
我才懂不是我不心痛
其实是心没了感受
你没想像中爱我

My DIY earrings (and random foods)

2009-09-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was so sick of paying 50-70 bucks for a pair of crystal earrings, so I trooped down to the bead and jewellery store to buy supplies for my own earrings. Came up to a bill of 130 bucks. Shit. I think the cashier was so affected by my look of dismay that he gave me 40% off my tools. Oh well.

But! I spent the whole day making earrings yday and it was soooo fun! A lot of chipped nails but it was all worth it. I really like what I made. :)

I've always wanted looooong earrings, but I could never find any that was long enuf without being garish, so I made this one as my first pair. I love it, and how it shows even with my hair down.

I love this, cuz every crystal was wound with sterling silver wire and attached loosely to the chain.

I like this piece because there's a lot of dangling pieces, so as you walk, they glitter a lot.

This was inspired by the shape of a monkey toy. I put a little dangling tail and a smoked amber bead as it's head.

I just made this because the ice blue crystals go so well with the red crystals.

And I know this sounds dorky, but I wound the wire into a DNA helix psuedo shape. And added the dangling parts to intertwine with it.

Me with one of my creations. :)

In short, I loved everything I made. :) So if anyone likes what I made, lemme know, and I could make to custom. :) Think imma sell every pair for around 20 to 40 bucks, depending on crystal quantity and friend status. :D

Went to Whisk and ladle for a drink or two and tapas on Friday.

Tom staring at the huge tv screen showing this *yawn* football game.

Ariana and me and mike and deron!

BTW I love love love Okan. Seriously that place just gets better and better and better. Everytime I go, there's a new dish that tastes out of the world. There's a difference between good flavor, and amazing flavor, and I think Okan gets the latter tag. Everytime I put food from there in my mouth, it's a mixture of pleasure from the 10 diff flavors that hits your palate, and the texture too. I love love.

They have this local spotted amaebi (sweet shrimp) sashimi that was out of the world. The shrimp heads were still moving, and their pinchers were moving around and everything. Can sashimi get any fresher? The flesh was still clear and succulent....

They cook the shrimp heads after you're done with the sashimi, two ways, either in a miso soup or tempura style. Super good.

They have this grilled pork jowl that was awesome. It looked so boring, but the sauce was heavenly, and the pork was grilled to perfection. It was tender, with the pork fat oozing out of your mouth, with a hint of lemon to it.

The cold chawanmushi I love. It has seafood stock in it, and served with a strong lemon rind flavor. Sooooooo good. :)

I would have more pics but I keep eating and spoiling the arrangement of the food before I could take pics of it. For the record, the ramen noodles with mayo and perilla dressing and local ranch tomatoes was frigging awesome. The ramen noodles were al dente, and the soy ginger and mayo dressing was AWESOME.

And the earl grey tiramisu was really good as well.

And we went to this REALLY good Italian restaurant called de medici in the gaslamp quarter, and seriously I think it's the best italian restaurant in San Diego, hands down. On par with Pamplemousse Grille in my opinion.

The lobster langostino we had as an antipasti was AWESOME.

Langostino
Baby Icelandic lobster sautéed in extra virgin olive oil and roasted garlic butter, served with fussili pasta in a béchamel sauce

The lobster meat was sweet and the sauce was so delicate. Not heavy at all. Sooooo good.

Sole Portofino
Fresh fillet of sole stuffed with lobster, crab and shrimp, then oven-baked to a golden brown

This was the signature dish of the restaurant and it deserved its name. I've always thought sole was a boring fish and usually overcooked too easily, but in this dish, it just melts in your mouth, with an explosion of sherry butter sauce of delicious lobster, crab and shrimp meat. Even the mashed potatoes on the side was the best I've ever tasted. It was made with a rich chicken stock and rosemary and burnt on the outside, and melty on the inside. On top of it, the baby carrots were just wild. I don't even like baby carrots to begin with, but it was soaked in a rich butter brown sugar sauce with a red wine reduction that it was just fabulous. Melty, rich and nothing resembling boring carrots.

And the lobster risotti was a dish the owner brought back from Sardina a month ago, and it was crazy good. The rice was al dente, and the lobster sauce was light, rich and sooooo delicate. Attacks your palate left, right and center. This was the first time I like the rice more than the lobster meat on a dish. Cuz I'm such a lobster whore.

Anw in short, no complaints about this place, except that maybe the lobster meat wasn't top grade, but the culinary skills put into every dish just outshines the quality of the materials. Antipasti is around 26 bucks and mains are around 30 to 50 bucks. Def a go for a special occasion. :)

My sista!

2009-09-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

I was reading my sister's blog and she was talking about my mum and the post just made me laugh out loud so bad, but with a bittersweet tugging at my heartstrings. My family is the best in the world, I think. I love them so much, I can't imagine being without them. And I feel bad for the rest of the world, cuz they dun have my family. Ha!

My sister is thinking of coming here end of the year! And we can go hawaii together. I really really really want her to come sooooo bad. I miss her so much, and now that I'm not going back end of the year, I really want her to come over cuz I can hug the crap out of her. I love you sis! It'll be so long showing you where I live and where I eat, where I work and stuff, and for you to meet my friends. Please please please please come! :)

My luv love Fendi

2009-09-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just got my dream Fendi B. bag! It was on sale and I just couldn't hold it anymore. Hehe. It's soooo pretty, although the patent leather is kinda hard to maintain. Ehhhhh.

Went to Catalina Island over the labor day weekend. It was nice, we stayed the night at Queen Mary, a historical ship that's docked at Long Beach, and we took the helicoptor into the island. It was really nice, my first time on the chopper. :)

The Queen Mary stay, not so great. The walls were paper thin, and so it turns out, the room next door was hosting a frigging room party. So we had to change rooms in the wee hours, and it was not fun.

Me.

Deron.

We had dinner at Sir Winston's. It was so confusing, paying for a 200 bucks meal and feeling really ripped off, especially when the yelp reviews were all good. The food was just mediocre, and my main dish tasted like airplane food.

The foie gras had a generous slab of foie gras and the taste wasn't bad, but it wasn't seared well, and the texture was kinda mooshy.

BUT the heli ride made up for it. It's different from taking planes, cuz you can feel the breeze in your hair, and you can see everything on land clearly. I really like it. :)

Our heli!

Me!

Deron!

The nice pacific ocean.

Reaching Catalina Island.

The island was really quaint and nice, but everything was friggin ex! This is the casino, and we walked all the way over there, and realize that it's not a real casino, and casino in italian means theater. -_-

The police wears shorts there, so adorable!

And we went on the submarine, and these are the fish we fed with the torpedo feeding system. Ha.

And the night ended with my fav... chicken rice! From Belachan in L.A (Redondo Beach). Not bad, not bad at all! :)

Dye job

2009-08-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

I dyed my hair using a 5 bucks hair dye. It was pretty good for a DIY. :D Although I think the camera pics doesn't look that different. Ha ha. I like it though, I think it's subtle, and because I did it kinda haphazardly, it looks like highlights. Heh.

Before!

After!

Went to Jenn's housewarming party a few weeks ago. It was pretty fun, except a fight broke out after I left. Guess there was just too much testosterone in the air that day. Heh. But the freshly shucked half seared oysters were awwwwesome. :D
Jenn with Chad, her B.G.FF and I.

Went to the Flaming Lips concert last weekend at the fairgrounds. First time I won money on a race, and my horse went from last to first in the last lap too. Woot! The concert was really really awesome. They were just very entertaining performers. Would go to another one in a heartbeat. :)
Went to Pamplemousse Grill with D-ron the day before to celebrate, and gawd, did I have the BEST grilled cheese sandwich of all time. Generous chunky portions of fresh lobster, wrapped up in perfectly grilled cheese toast with black truffles and cheese. The best thing ever. :)

Us super happy with our food. :)

And p.s: The mussels and fries and Whisk and ladle were awesome. :)

Oh, and p.s.s: I had fresh sea urchin the other day at Okan! The sea urchin was still moving with the spikes and everything! Super super fresh. Ahhhh, definitely going back for more. :)

2009-07-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

我好傻，倒头来。。。其实只是一场独角戏。好可笑。

2009-07-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

Singapore always invokes a lot of different feelings in me, leaving me feeling vulnerable and emotional. And I hate that. And what happens is that I end up buying too many shoes.

Bought three pairs of shoes, but nobody to share the joy with.

Shared a convo with the cutest blond little girl today, but nobody to talk about that to.

Feeling detached, but attached at the same time to Singapore, but nobody to listen to me about that...

I try to be more mature, more understanding, but I can never be as mature as you'd like me to be. Maybe I will be, when I'm older.

Sister day!

2009-07-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Went out with my sis today! It was loads of fun. :) We went to Liang Court for ramen, but it wasn't anything spectacular. The company was great tho! :D

The ramen. The soup wasn't too flavorful, in my opinion. Extra garlic chips for me!

We went to shop around, and got presents for my older sister whose birthday is coming up. I got a cutsy passport holder and something else too. Hehe. And two dresses, the same design in two colors (I ALWAYS do that!).

Went to Kbox to sing karaoke, because my princess sister wants to. It was a lot of fun. There's nothing like a good solid karaoke session to get your blood pumping. :)

Me and my sister singing and posing at the same time.

Went to eat some dumplings and noodles at Tian Jing Guan for dinner. This was probably the first time my sister seems to eat MORE than me!

I had:
1) Meat sauce noodles
2) Small portion of garlic stir fried spinach
3) Eggplant
4) A bowl of rice
5) Two xiao long bao

My sister had:
1) Meat sauce noodles
2) 6 Xiao long bao
3) 10 potstickers
4) Two silver thread rolls
5) And she wanted the salad prawn roll originally too, but I stopped her.

She was very stubborn, and finished everything. We left the restaurant feeling very full. Ha!

Went to this tea place on Seah Street the other day with David.

David, taking random pictures. He refused to give me the pics of me. -_-

The french rose tea I had. It was possibly the BEST rose tea I've ever had! Woot!

P.S: My dad cooked one of my favorite fish for me... tilapia! (my other fav is cod fish) Sooooo good. :D

Sometimes I wonder, if he regrets what he did. Maybe I was just being silly. I wish I could get over all the sadness and the rage sometimes...

2009-07-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

Been back in Singapore for a week. Deron just left this morning, so I finally have time to settle down and do my own thang.

I keep telling myself to blog but I find myself procrastinating. I don't really have much to say right now, except for the fact that I should remind myself to not let the negative and undeserving people get to me, and I should be happy for myself. The feeling of unhappiness seems so foreign... perhaps I've been happy for too long.

Too lazy to write about stuff, so Imma just post some pictures up.

Oh, I got a random haircut at Ming's salon the other day. I couldn't stand how much hair I have so I just went for a haircut. It was dirt cheap, only 25 bucks! And the guy who cut my hair was way younger than I am. But he did a great job. Prolly snipped off 60% of my hair, but I feel great!

Showing off the Versace shades Jeff got me. Thankkkkksss Jefffff.

Pre-haircut

Deron looking too big for the chair.

The girls reunite!

Post-haircut!

Leana and I at Overeasy.

At Gerald's bash at Velvet.

Ariane looking slightly drunk. Ha!

Everyone's telling me that I look way skinnier now. Woohoo! I guess the loss in weight showed, although I don't know how I lost it. Heh!

2009-06-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think it sucks that my profile is public, and open to my friends.

Everytime I write something, I have to think about whether I'll hurt anyone's feelings before I write it.

Which is actually kinda annoying because the reason why I started this blog was so that I could look back and know exactly how I felt.

:(

I'm upset cuz I lost my ring. Now my left hand feels like it's naked. I know it sounds really trivial but hey, I've had it for about 4 years now. :/

I'm grumpy. Had this itch in my throat for the last 5 days now, and have to suck it up while everyone around me is making merry and drinking their lungs out. And maybe I'm spoilt, but you know, when you're sick, you want more attention and care from people you care about, right? Not too unreasonable, is it?

It's 39 degrees here. I almost melted in the car today. Shops here close at 230. PM, not AM. Can you believe it? And I thought San Diego was bad enough...

2009-06-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's been busy busy busy.

Gonna leave for Arizona for a week for the FASEB conference, and then leaving for Singapore.

I still have to pack. Sigh.

And work just never ends.

My stomach doesn't feel good either. :(

Sigh.

I hate it when my tummy acts up, because it usually takes more than a week to recover.

All the good meals I'm going to miss out at the conference, which is BTW at a spa resort. Woohoo!

My boss keeps telling me to read when I'm in Singapore.

Boo.

Looking forward to Singapore tho.

At the stars - Better than Ezra

2009-06-16T15:22:00.001-07:00

I just found one of my favorite songs when I was in Michigan:

Maybe I should drop you at your door.
Or leave tonight and vanish up the shore.
Anywhere but here.

It's three o'clock we're driving in your car,
You're screaming out the window at the stars,
"Please don't drive me home!"

Blame us 'cause we are who we are.
Hate us 'cause you'll never get that far.
And who'd suppose you would go?
I've already learned enough to know.

Tell me all the places we could go.
And count the headlights passing on the road,
A long, long time ago.

Here we are.
Foreign to their world.
Straight and composed.
Your sermons I can do without
And I finally found
That everybody loves to love you
When you're far away.

Could it be we've done something wrong
We'd make it home to your place before dawn
"Please, don't drive me home."
"Please, don't take me home."

Life.

2009-05-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid" - John Wayne

I thought this quote was hilarious, when I first read it, and I couldn't agree with it more. But the more I ponder over it, the more I think stupid people have it easier.

I have so many friends, who are pretty, smart and successful, people I respect in life, who are frequently depressed. I've since came to the conclusion that the smarter you are, the more you're aware of the things you're missing out on, and the more depressed you will be. I guess smarter people feel a greater need to pursue EVERYTHING that they've ever dreamed about, and feel a greater sense of regret when time slips them by...

but I think they're forgetting something: You can't do everything in your life without letting some things go, so you really just have to seize the day (like that oh-so-famous saying "Carpe Diem").

And that's what I've been trying to do. Enjoy my life. Day by day. Let every moment pass me by, remembering the good times, letting the bad times stay in the past.

There are many things in my life that I should be grateful for. But for some reason, there is always something to make it seem not good enough. It could be a traffic citation, a failed experiment, a harsh word from a loved one. And I let myself forget the good things in my life. That I'm pursuing my dream education, that I have such a loving and supportive family, that I'm healthy, that I'm still (relatively) young, that I have the freedom to do whatever I want still! And more and more, I appreciate it. I listen to my friend who feels restricted because she lives now at home in Singapore, after so many years in the states. I listen to my friend who's separated from her bs bf across continents, who's insecure about the relationship. I listen to my friend, who simply just can't seem to find someone to love. I see people who just desperately hang onto a relationship, even though their partners are not that into them....

And I feel that I need to really well erm... seize the day! And if you're reading this blog, you really should be too.

On a slightly different note, I have decided that from today onwards, I shall adopt a new attitude towards my lab work. I've seen too many people make a common mistake, and I have been guilty of it in the past too. Ever get too many ideas you want to work on, and after the initial 5 min of enthusiasm, it sputters and chokes to a standstill? It's easy to do that in the lab. You get this amazing idea, and you try to research on it for a while, and then 10 more ideas come, and you forget the initial idea. I think it's really a waste of time, if you don't follow through. Hence, from this day onwards, whatever idea I get, I shall jot it down into my notebook, and make it a point to follow it through, unless it's no longer feasible at some point.

Also, I have decided that my ideal life, after I'm done with my phd and my bond, would be to either go to law school or just travel and live abroad for short periods of time (1-2 years). I'll always have Singapore as my home, and can go back and forth, but I just really want to be thrown into a completely new environment and learn from it, like how I was when I first came to the states. My first destination will be France, and I hope that I'll be able to travel with my loved one there... and I don't really care what I work as, or how much money I'll make. My ultimate goal is just to learn the french way of life, and learn French fluently. Anyone who's keen, I'll let you know the specific details say 8 years from now. :)

I just don't want to be restricted to one place, and to live my life like that for the rest of my life... now I understand why you travel so much Li'er. :)

2009-05-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

What have I been up to these days? Hmmm....

Well, I paid my speeding ticket today *damn you lady cop*... had to wait in line for a while, and the guy behind me was like " you'd think that they can't wait to get money from you". My ticket was 400 in full, and that doesn't even include traffic school. So I don't care what you say about the lady cop being nice, she's just a bloodsucking cunt like every other lady cop in this state.... except for this nice big lady cop at the La Jolla police station who corrected my violation about registration tabs...

She had a booming voice, and seriously I thought she was going to give me shit about the violation. But she was just the contrary. She didn't even bother to check my car, and just glanced over my documents, and gave me tips on how to facilitate the process. Plus she told me I have the prettiest almond-shaped eyes she's ever seen, and I'm really pretty, and should be a model. Hehehe. And when I told her she was too sweet, she said, "don't tell anybody, cuz I'm not like this most of the time!" Hee! Who says all lady cops are scumbags! :D

But anyways, I guess I learned a lesson or two about driving. :(

BTW, bought a new dress from Bebe! I wore it to Tower 23 with Jenn last week...

I just love the cutting! :)

I know people who read my blog prolly think Jenn is really ferocious cuz she NEVER smiles in any of the pictures, but hey, she's only a bitch to people who deserve it. Never to me. :D

Lost weight these 6 months I think, I think a total of 5-7 pounds. Wee! :)

Damn you caffeine.

2009-05-16T03:31:00.001-07:00

I hate caffeine. I really do. It has never done anything good for me other than keeping me up at night. Never should have drank that bottle of apple tea and that two cups of tea at Okan. It's frigging 330 am in the morning, and I can't sleep. AHHHHHHHHHHH.

Anyways, I'm going to talk about the saddest love story I've ever seen. It's an odd choice, but it really does resonate with me. Curious case of Benjamin Button. I know most people think the movie is way too long, and kinda boring, but I really liked it.

I used to think that distance was the worst thing that can stand between a couple, in times of vulnerability in my long distance relationships... but I was wrong. Distance is not, because it can be crossed, and eliminated with will and commitment. Time is. It was just so sad, because Benjamin and Daisy could only be together in that short window of time, and they just simply can't do anything about it. Daisy couldn't get younger, and Benjamin couldn't get older, so they can only helplessly watch their age differences become greater and greater......At the end of the day (or movie), I was just simply glad that we're all moving in the same direction of time. And that was comforting, in an odd way.

And that just reminds me of how I take things for granted sometimes. My mum always says "something worse could have happened" every time something bad happens to me. And she's right, of course, but it's always hard to appreciate it. Oh well.

Alrighty, going to try to sleep now...

April

2009-05-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a long day.

Been at work the whole day today, and there's still work to be done. Left at 10 finally, came back home in the mood to pick on my room. Vacuumed the floor, changed my sheets, did a load of laundry, uploaded my pictures on my computer, and here I am.

I've been so lazy, have shitloads of pictures to talk about, so here goes!

Went to Kensington Grill for brunch one day...

The cinnamon roll panini style was AWESOME. It was crisp, not too sweet, and just heavenly.

I had the eggs benedict with duck confit and cornmeal puree. It was pretty good, but not the best I've had. The duck was flavorful though.

Went to this place called Chin's *Yun's recommendation*. We had the steamed cod with dried radish, and it was pretty yummy. The sauce was not that flavorful though.

Went to a pirate party the weekend before last. Had to leave early cuz of the run, but here's a pic of me and Meredith! :)

One of the days I went to Okan, I actually remembered to take more pictures. Hehe. It's my new fav restaurant in San Diego! :D I go there way too much.

Asparagus with miso vinegar. Super duper good. The miso has a peanuty taste to it too, so it blended really well.

The daikon cooked with broth was really good too. The broth was sooooo good. One of my favorites. My ultimate fav is the fried eggplant in miso. I'll take a picture next time. The pork with potatoes was pretty good too.

The mackerel with miso was super yummy too, if you like mackerel. Nicely grilled, and the miso sauce was soo good.

The cheesecake was really good too, I think there was tofu in it, too bad they took it off. BUT anyone who's going there should definitely try the pudding with black sauce. SOOOO yummy. It's like fresh milk custard with the best burnt sugar sauce ever. :)

My first time celebrating Easter! I had fun... :)

Went to the Death Cab for Cabbie concert by courtesy of Renee! Thanks Renee for buying me tickets for my bday! :)

It was really good, but I think I like the opening band better... whooooops. Cold war kids! :)

I told Kristine to help me take pictures at happy hour where the lab is celebrating Deron's bday, and she took like 20 pictures.

The thing was, I think she was taking more pictures of me instead.

See.

We didn't even get a picture of the whole lab.... oh well.

Will blog about my trip to San Francisco soon! :) Time for beeedddd. :)

The run.

2009-04-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I'm still alive and kicking (actually not so much of the kicking since my legs feel like lead.).

So about the run.

I woke up early that day, around 550am, and had froot loops with milk for breakfast. Everyone was very cheery in the car, and I was kinda pumped out too. The baby was adorable, and kept gargling. Jason and I dropped the half-marathoners off at their earlier start point, and went on to find parking near the start point. Sidenote about Jason: Jason and Lisa have an adorable baby named Adeline. They're both runners, and hence decided to take the baby on one of their marathon runs. Therefore, Jason was going to do the 5k run with me, pushing the stroller with baby Adeline in it. For the whole 5k. I felt kinda naked, since they wun allow me to bring my bag or wallet or camera, and hence no pictures. I keep checking the website for my finish line pictures, but as expected, they are taking their own sweet time. Meanos.

Anyways, back to the run. Jason and I parked the car, and as soon as we got off the car and loaded Adeline on the baby pram, he took off, yelling "Let's jog to the front line to warm up!". And I started jogging to keep up with him. And daym, was he fast, even with the pram. -_- By the time we reached the start line (which was 1k away), I was half-dead. And the gun went off. And I started running again.

And I ran, up and down the slopes, And I walked. And I ran. And I kept looking back to make sure I wasn't the last one. Hehe. I finished in 35 min, which wasn't bad, considering that I used up most of my energy in that "warm-up" 1K. But yes, Jason beat me. by 5 min. :/ Oh well.

The run was as bad as I thought it would be. But it was an experience, and it wasn't all bad. Just the running. I felt great after that though, although the euphoria lasted for only an hour, and I spent half of that time trying to find Jason. But the nap and shower after that felt sooooo good though... :)

Which after my legs felt like lead for the next two days, and I can only wobble from side to side to get from point A to B. Maybe by the time Nov comes around, I'll be ready for the next 5 k. Maaaaaybe?

La Jolla marathon

2009-04-25T20:45:00.001-07:00

I've gone out of my mind and have signed up for the La Jolla 5K run. Eeeeps. The day before the run. I hope I don't hate myself in the morning at 5am tomorrow! Wish me luck.

2009-04-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Wow. It's been almost a month since my last entry. I've just been so busy with lab work. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Heh.

As the saying goes: When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. It has really been a couple of depressing months for me in lab, but I'm pushing on, just so that there's a hope of walking through all the grey clouds into the sunshine. And I think I'm getting there. Just maybe...

Life has been very stable, but very fulfilling for me. Nothing out of the ordinary, just simple pleasant living. The only blackmark was a speeding ticket last week, but oh well, someone's gotta pay the government for the retard cops they're hiring.

Vegas was really fun. Just party party party. I think imma stop hitting the clubs when I hit 30. I really want to remember the times in clubs where I feel attractive, and feel like I belong there. P.S: XS at the Encore hotel was super sweet, what with all the stripper poles all around the club. :)

Gonna head up to San Francisco in a couple of weeks to visit Wenqi. Jenn's gonna come too, so it'll be fun. I've been to SF a couple of times, but sadly not a memorable experience. Hopefully, it'll be better this time round.

I guess generally, I feel content in my life right now. I think contentment is very important. I've never actually realize it, but it's times like this that you thank all the awesome forces in the universe that might be influencing your life to make it well... amazing.

blah blah blah.

2009-03-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Random updates...

Heard that the tower at People's Association is going to be torn down for some fancy schmancy clubhouse. It kinda upsets me a little, since I've spent almost every Saturday of 10 years between the age of 10 to 20 there. Fond memories that I cherish and keep close to my heart. I made some of my lifelong friends there, together practising music. It was such a simple joy, being in the same room with all my friends, playing music in harmony. Now my most respected conductor has passed away, and the tower where we would pass by every Saturday from our practice room to the canteen will be gone as well. It's just kinda sad.

Went to Missouri for the weekend. It was very hectic, mainly because of the long flights and various delays. It was quite an eye-opener though, despite the fact that the food is incomparable to San Diego.

Went to White Castle though. Hey chi-town girls, remember the time I was wailing for White Castle at 3am, but we never got it? Ha! I got it finally! :P
I know the meat is mostly fat, and it's definitely not gourmet, but the bun was as soft as I remembered, and it's just sooooo good.

Went to have St Louis style pizza too at Imo's, which is pretty much like a flatbread, with Provel cheese which can only be found there. The cheese was drippy and melty, SUPER good. :) It's soooo good. :)

Got to rent the new Mustang! Woot! Although, I have to say, I'm glad I didn't get it, since that was one of my choices. Too cheaply made.

Me and Meghan at BARcelona at St. Louis. The food was pretty good, but after all the not-so-great food, my stomach was highly critical. Too bad. :/

Going to Vegas this weekend. Gonna meet the girls up there. It'll be nice to catch up, especially when we don't really see each other that much anymore...

My work's been kinda crazy, mainly because I feel like my projects aren't progressing forward, or as fast as I would like them to. Been thinking a lot more about my work lately, and stressing out about it. I guess I feel the urgency now, so I try to work harder, and spend my free time thinking about my work. I guess I've always had it easy, and in school, it was way easier. As long as you put in the effort, you get the grades. Getting good grades have never been hard for me, and I appreciate it only now, when effort doesn't equate to good results. I've came to the understanding now, that as long as I ponder more over my experiments, and think about it critically, I can grasp the right experiments and techniques, and that will lead to success.

Did my nails. Kinda like the nail art I did. So am showing it here. Hoho.

Been cooking a lot more too...

My attempt at recapitulating my dad's steamed cod fish. I did it! Yalta! Very happy with the taste and texture. And the right is eggplant in dark sauce with tofu.

Went to Kensington Grill at some point too... everything was forgettable... like

the salad...

the scallops (Whisk N Ladle has better ones)

BUT

the truffled macaroni n cheese was amazing. They used some kind of white cheese, and truffle oil. SOOOOO good. :) Best Mac N Cheese of ALL time.

Okay I'm tired. Laters!

Boys and girls.

2009-03-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

It's funny how we have stereotypes about boys and girls, and how true they actually might be in real life. Everytime we think about a group of guys congregating, we'd think that they revolve strictly around topics like girls, cars and work. In the case of girls, it'd be around guys, makeup and bags.

I never really gave those stereotypes much thought until recently.

When I posted my post about the two new bags I bought late last year, I get emails and comments from my good girl friends, telling me how awesome those bags are, what kind of bags they're going to get next etc.

When I told friends about my accident, guys and girls have decidedly different responses. Girls, being the empathy bunch, would ask about my health, about the insurance, and how traumatic it must have been. Not saying that guys are heartless. They do offer their own words of comfort... for the whole of 5 min's worth. Which after, they suddenly become your advisor for your next car purchase. What kind of model you should get, what color is best, what year etc etc. All of a sudden, they are more concerned than YOU are about getting exactly the right car for the right price.

Now that I've gotten my car, I get guy friends msging me on facebook, on msn and gchat telling me how nice the car is. Predominantly guys. And recently, I have suddenly became the topic of discussion within the animal room guys. I don't know them very well, but they manage my mice that I need for experiments. One guy came up to ask me if that was my car, and from that moment onwards, random acquaintances from the animal room would see me, and you can see their minds click in position, and they'd go: Nice car! Or stuff like that. It's almost like when they see me, they don't see me anymore. They just see my car. Chris, the guy who takes care of the lab mice from my lab, would ask me about my car every single time I walk into the mouse room. Not that it's annoying or anything, more like amusing.

SO that answers my question. Guys really do talk about cars MORE than I give them credit for. Waaaay more. I wonder why I took so long to realize this. Heh.

Okay I know this is really random, but it really does amuse me more than I give credit for. Went to Vegas last weekend on a whim, will blog about it after my next Vegas trip two weeks from now. Woohoo girls! Can't wait to partay with you darlings again! :)

给我一首歌的时间

2009-03-03T16:47:00.000-08:00

Heard this song... and it just brought me back to how it was... Jay's songs always do not make much sense to me, until something happens that you can relate to, and you're like "OH."

雨淋湿了天空
毁得很讲究
你说你不懂
为何在这时牵手
我晒干了沉默
悔得很冲动
就算这是做错
也只是怕错过

在一起叫梦
分开了叫痛
是不是说
没有做完的梦最痛
迷路的后果
我能承受
这最后的出口
在爱过了才有

Renee's bday (Return of Edwards 40 hands)

2009-03-01T23:26:00.001-08:00

Suddenly developed a craving for Korean food, so I asked Chang where his fav korean place is (he's Korean), and he pointed me to this family restaurant called Chon Ju Jip on Convoy St. It's suuuuper good.

The small dishes are awesome. Home-made kimchi.... yum!

We had the spicy rice cake. The whole restaurant menu was in Korean, so we just picked by picture. Haw haw. It was soooo good. The rice cake was tender, yet chewy, and the sauce was sweet and spicy. Love the ramen noodles!

The spicy pork bulgogi has to be the star of this restaurant. Instead of small peasy chunks of fatty pork that's served usually, this bulgogi comprises of generous large chunks of lean pork, in a yummy spicy sauce. A definite must-try.

Went to this place called Buga too, cuz apparently it has one of the better Korean foods.

The small dishes were good, but not amazing.

The lunch bento set I had was satisfying, but the beef bulgogi was a little tough....

I asked Ji Woong later on why he never lets in on his fav Korean restaurant (I bumped into him at Chon Ju Jip), and he just replied coolly "You never asked". -__-

Anyways...

Renee's bday party! It was Edwards 40 hands themed. Wee! For those who don't know, it's a drinking game where you duct-tape freezing cold 40 oz of beer to your hands, and nobody gets to be.. well.. functional until they finish their beers, after which they are allowed to liberate themselves. It's really bad cuz the beers always freeze our hands off, and also, we don't get to pee until we finish 80 oz of beer. -_-

Renee and her choc and peanut butter muffin bday cake!
The housemates sporting Guang-themed shirts, and gnarly knuckle tattoos.
Getting strapped onto the beer...
Yay! Eh hem.

We had temporary tattoos made of Guang's face and pictures, and stuck them on to everyone of us. Hehe. Guang was very amused.

Guang peeking out from my back.

Guang peeking out from my leg. Ha.

Cheers! :)

Deron looking drunk. Ha.

Renee and Jenn kissing! Why do girls always kiss each other when they're drunk.....

Renee and I kissing! See what I mean? :P

Us chugging down shots of Grey Goose after.

Nasty!

That's all folks. I had a good time. :)

2009-03-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

为什么要对你掉眼泪
你难道不明白为了爱
只有那有情人眼泪最珍贵
一颗颗眼泪都是爱都是爱

2009-02-26T13:41:00.000-08:00

I just read my sister's blog... and found out that Chios has given birth! :) Sent her a cute little jumper for her son last month, glad that it's a February baby (Feb babies tend to be extremely smart and talented. Hoho.)!

My sister passed her very important Japanese exam! I'm so proud of her. I remember that she was moping around because she was convinced that she failed it. Good job sis! Sometimes I wish I have the dedication and commitment to grasp a language fully. There's many excuses I make up to feel better, but at the end of the day, you know it just boils down to whether you want to do it, or not.

Like that movie "He's just not that into you". You could make up countless excuses why he's not returning your text, returning your email and stuff, why he's going out with someone else behind your back, but at the end of the day, it just comes to the simple fact: he's just not that into you. In which case, you should just drop it.

I was talking to my sister about this recently, about why there are so many girls out there who are in denial. I guess every girl grows up listening to fairy tales and whatnots, and it's tempting to think that you might just be the one for every guy you fall in love with. So you obsess over it, offer sex or every kind of favor, in the hope that he would just realize one day, that HE's in denial, and has been hopelessly in love with you all this while. Think again.

I think that guys and girls generally have different approaches to the dating game. Guys go after one, maybe a few girls at one go, and whichever hatches, goes. If it doesn't, they move on. Girls can't do that. I don't mean ALL girls, but generally girls who are insecure, and suffer from an obvious lack of confidence. They cling onto the one guy who make their heart melt, and hope for eternal love. Or they cling onto their already cheating partners, in the hope that they only did the cheating out of a moment of folly, and not because of the simple fact that the guys are just not that into them. Let it go! If he really loves you, he will not cheat on you. I don't care if he only goes on dates with them, or if he only makes out with them, or if he fucks around. If he cares, he would never do that. And for you to forgive that, you are truly pathetic.

FIND someone who will not do that to you! I know it's not easy, and you have blah blah blah history together, and you love him so much. But is it worth it? Is it worth you crying every night, or every moment your heart stops when you wonder if he's texting some other girl? Cuz you know what? He prolly IS texting that girl. You were born in the world alone, and before you met him, you were great, if not better.

The guy in the movie who was two-timing Scarlett Johanson makes my blood boil. I think he is the muse of this post. For those who've seen the movie, you'll understand where I'm coming from. I'm glad that he's alone in the end, with the voice-over going " and there are some guys who will never be that happily-ever-after". Yes, that is right. Because if someone is so spineless that he lies to both girls he apparently loves, then that is cowardly, and dishonest, and weak. And you do not need someone like that in your life.

Wow, I wrote a lot considering that I was just going to congratulate my sister. Heh. Oh well. I hope every one of my friends find their happily-ever-after. :)

Mi carro nuevo.

2009-02-19T10:54:00.001-08:00

Yay! I got my new car! :) I bought it from a private seller who does furnishing for homes of celebrities including Brad Pitt. :) It has everything I wanted, black exterior with black seats, GPS navigation and Harmon Kardon premium sound system. And it's a bigger engine than I wanted... presenting the SLK350! :) Now Jenn and I have matching cars... except my engine is a leetle bigger. Hoho.
The best thing is it's a hard-top convertible, so you press this button and the top folds in this way automatically. I hate soft-top convertibles, cuz it always leaks when it rains. No more leakage! :)

I love the navigation system! :)

Okay, my life is complete. Amen. :)

My birthday! And V-day! :)

2009-02-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. :) After last week which sucked so bad, I went on to have a really great week. I feel so loved by my friends and family, and I just feel like I really love my life right now. I live in my dream apt, drive my dream car (more about THAT in the next post), and I'm pursuing my dream education, and I'm surrounded by people who dote on me and make me feel really really loved. I'm just so grateful for my life. :)

So I had a birthday dinner last tuesday, at my fav restaurant at downtown La Jolla called WhiskNLadle. I go there sooo much that the bartender always slips me free drinks, and all the servers and manager knows me by name. I booked the private function room, and got 14 of my closest friends to come. I was a tad worried about the minimum of 500 bucks (excluding tax and gratuity), but the total bill came up to 950, so I guess I had nothing to worry about after all. I guess it makes sense since the cake they made was a frigging 140 dollars (and it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. :( ) Although a few peeps paid short (prolly because everyone was drinking), Deron was so nice to pay for the difference, and to this day, I still don't know how short we are, just that it wasn't a small amount. Ian the bartender stayed to work my party, even though he was down with a very nasty flu. And he gave us a couple of appetizers for free too! Thanks Ian! :)

The private function room, from the outside.
Tom and John!
Mike and Dev!

Jackie and Guang!
Me and Ms. BFF! :)

Brandy and Chanel!

Deron and I!
Yun and I!
Terrell and I!
Jason and Jeff and I! Thanks guys for coming all the way down from L.A!

I had my usual, the seared scallops with fennel risotto. It was pretty good. I'm not a big fan of fennel, but the scallops are amazing, as usual. :)

I got the roasted bone marrow with toast as well. Known as the poor man's caviar, it's melts in your mouth. Mmm mmm! (I forgot to take a pic of that...whoops)

I got the seared lamp chops with salsa verde for my main, but it was just okay, but I was really full at that point. Might have been biased.

Me looking thrilled with my cake. I asked the pastry chef to make a strawberry and blueberry cake with sweet cream, and pink and white flowers on top. And it looked really pretty.

My cake.

I felt that the cake was too firm, but it was good flavor. The cake layers were soaked in honey, and that was nice.

At the end of the night...

In all, it was a blast. :) All the peeps I invited turned up, the food was great, and it was just really nice. :)

Jenn gave me her fav bath and body works products.

Jason gave me a Swarovski bracelet and necklace, and Jeff gave me Versace shades.

I got the Weezer blue album that I wanted, from Deron, which was one of many presents. :)

I got this lucky shit charm from Renee, who thought it was really funny to give me shit for my birthday. :P And she bought tickets for us to go to the "Death Cab for a Cutie" concert in April. :)

On the actual birthday itself, I had lunch with Deron and Lisa and Jason, and they were so sweet to pay for the bill. And during happy hour at the lab, there was a cake waiting for me, and tulips and calla lillies from Danielle. I was sooooo touched. :)

The cake and flowers

Me looking very content.

The whole lab! :)
Then I was whisked away to dinner at Del Mar at the Pamplemousse Grill, where I had the best french food, ever! :) Apparently, they entertain clientele like Princes Charles and celebrities blah blah.

When I walked to the table, there was a Swarovski bag waiting for me at the table, and it turned out to be a really gorgeous amber pendant, to replace the Swarovski star I broke in my car. :)))))

We ordered four appetizers, and two entrees. By the time we were done, I had absolutely no room for dessert. I can't even imagine how much the bill was though...
I had the duo of foie gras, one seared over fresh pumpkin bread, and one of a pate, with homemade apple chutney. It was accompanied by a lightly breaded quail egg, with tomato chutney. The dish was AMAZING. The foie gras melts in your mouth, and the pate was a killer with the chutney. The quail egg just explodes when you bite into it. The best foie gras ever!
We had the pistachio-crusted abalone with lightly breaded lobster tails. It was a disappointment. I think abalones are still better prepared the oriental way, with oyster sauce and all that jazz.
The truffled white asparagus soup was awesome. The chef imports all his truffles straight from Italy and France, so they're really potent. The soup was superb, not too creamy.

The roasted tomato and fennel soup was a disappointment for me, but Deron loved it. I hate licorice, and although I applaud them for adding such a creative ingredient to the soup, I really didn't like it.
I had the chilean sea bass, in a basil pesto sauce, and seriously, it was the best sea bass I've ever had. The fish flesh literally crumples in your mouth, and contrasted wonderfully with the crispy crust. The basil pesto was very savory, and complemented the fish very very well.
The fish... soooooo good.

And they were so nice to bring us home made sugar cookies at the end. Hee. :)

I spent my V-day in L.A finding my car. Jason and Jeff were nice to put me up at their apartment, and it was a really nice day. :)

I got a dozen red roses from Deron in the morning, before I boarded the train to L.A.

Happy! :)

Spent the whole day visiting a few dealerships, and private sellers...

My V-day dinner was at this place called yuan bao chinese restaurant. It was pretty empty, since the rest of the world was prolly at some romantic restaurant celebrating...

I forgot to take pictures until the end of the meal, but...

the beef shank wrap is really good, and according to the two of them, very very authentic Taiwanese flavor.

The golden pumpkin shrimp pork dumplings were reeeaaallly good. The pumpkin was sweet, and it went well with the savory pork. :)

And when I got home to their apartment at the end of the night, they had a gorgeous bouquet waiting for me! :)))))) Thanks Jason for the lovely flowers. :)

Me looking very very happy with the flowers. :)

Apparently the bouquet was 200 USD. Geeez! The wrapping paper was paper with pressed rose petals imported from Italy, and the whole bouquet was adorned with pearls, real seashells, and fake butterflies...

And the calla lillies had real Swarovski crystals stuck in them. You guys know how I feel about crystals... Hee.

I gave each of them a single-stemmed red rose each too!

Jason with his.

Jeff the joker with his. :P

The next day, we had lunch.... taiwanese porridge!!! My fav!!! :DDDDD

The taiwanese porridge with sweet potato....

The spread of small dishes we got! :)

Jason was so funny, on the way to the train station, he wanted to take another pic with the flowers cuz apparently, he had "bad hair" in the ones we took the night before. :P So we took one before we got into his car after lunch.

And then the train ride back to San Diego.... :)

Anyways that's all folks! Imma update with pictures of my new car tomorrow! Wee! :) I'm very excited. ;)

2009-02-06T22:58:00.000-08:00

My mustang is gone.

I need to write this out before I forget how traumatic today was.

I was on my way to work on the highway.

It was raining, and the highway had a collection of water building up.

When the car hit the bottom of the highway road, the water level rose, and I started drifting to the next lane.

I swerved to get back on my lane, but the car started spinning.

The car didn't stop spinning until it circled 3-4 times, hitting the guard rail on the last time.

The hood flew off, and the airbags deployed.

The car rebounded from the rail and landed in the middle of the highway, horizontal to oncoming traffic.

All I felt was pain, and I looked out the window on my left, and all I saw was oncoming traffic coming right at me.

And I thought I was going to die.

But none of the cars hit me.

I stepped out of the car, to see concerned drivers sigh in relief.

My nose hurt, and I had a terrible headache, but I was fine.

But the car wasn't. The front was all smashed in, with the front window almost shattered. The hood was half a mile away, and the transmission was on the other side of the highway.

4 cars hit the rail after me, but luckily, no one was hurt badly.

My car was towed off the highway, and that was the last I saw of it...

I could have been dead. People kept saying how lucky I was. And they are right.

I could have been dead. I could have never lived to see my sisters again, or my mum or my dad. I could have never lived to take the flight back in summer to see my family waiting eagerly at the gate for me. I could have never be able to hug them again, or to tell them I love them very much.

I love you mum, I love you sis, and sis. And I love you dad.

I need to let go of the unhappiness, and try to be happy from now on. Otherwise, I'll be an ingrate.

Wenqi!

2009-02-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

Wenqi and I had a blast this past weekend. Well, except for this pyscho who was stalking us at the bookstore (and keeps muttering "Nice and sexy" under his stinky breath), and tried to follow my car home. Again, a truck driver! Geez. Luckily I drove really fast and swerved right into the condo complex, and he missed the right. By the time he could have made a U-turn, my gate would already be closed. I think Wenqi is a magnet for weird peeps. I think I've bumped into as many weird people this weekend as I did the whole of last year.

But anyways, we had fun at PBBG! I'm so happy she was here to visit.

Us cam-whoring in the bathroom.

Seriously, the whole weekend was an escapade of cam-whoring. We spent an afternoon by the pool, pretty much taking random pictures of us the whole time. I think the other two guys who were sunbathing prolly thought we were insane Japanese tourists or something. Ha.

So imma just put up some of the shots. Cuz I'm too lazy to write.
Thank you girl, for coming down to clown around with me. :)))) Vegas in March!

2009-01-27T10:58:00.001-08:00

Wee! Wenqi is coming down from San Francisco this weekend to keep me company! :) Thanks babe, we're going to have a blast I tell you. :) Nicole, please don't be jealous, we'll meet up in March in Vegas baby! :D

2009-01-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

If you're someone I dislike, please stop reading this blog. My life is none of your business, so you can just leave me alone.

Didn't feel too well the last two weeks, so I went to the clinic. According to my urine test, it turns out that I'm burning ketones! For those of you not familiar with medical terms, it pretty much means that I'm burning fats instead of carbohydrates, and that happens usually in times of starvation. I was beaming when I found out, but my doctor wasn't too thrilled. She pretty much shot me a very stern look, and told to eat more, and stop dieting. The thing was, I wasn't even trying to diet. I just kinda lost my appetite for food. Hard to imagine right? Well, it happened, but at least I'm not the kind who binge eats in times of depression. So at least, out of all this, I get to lose weight. Wee! Dropped another couple of pounds last week. This is even better than mono.

Okay, anyways, I went to Mille Fleurs for restaurant week. Mille Fleur is supposedly one of the best French restaurant, and I've always been waiting for an occasion to try it out. Wasn't too impressed by it, I have to say. You'll see.

Jenn and I excited about our meal.

Jenn taking pictures of me cuz we were so bored waiting for our food.

Yun and Deron looking pretty happy too!

Foie gras wasn't in the menu, so Jenn and I ordered it as a side. It was cooked in the classic way, seared with a balsamic vinagrette sauce over winter melon slices. It was divine in a melt-in-your-mouth sorta way. Although I was rather miffed that they charged me 26 bucks for that, when the full order of foie gras was 28 bucks. Would have gotten the full size if I had known. Grr.

The truffle and assorted mushroom risotto was pretty good. I hate risottos that are too creamy, and this was pretty light.

The crabmeat stuffed trout wasn't good at all. Not as bad as the halibut I had at Crabcatcher, but still bland. The crabmeat was sweet, and good, but the whole dish was just lacking in flavor overall.

The warm apple-brioche pudding was horrid. First of all, it wasn't warm, as promised. Secondly, the pudding was soggy, and tasteless. I can't even finish the whole dessert. The only saving grace was the home-made cinnamon ice cream, which was very delicate and delicious.

Went to WhiskNLadle a couple of times after I came back, mostly to discuss my birthday dinner. They're going to make me a strawberry shortcake birthday cake for 120 bucks, and I'm really debating whether it's worth it. I want to book the private function room. For a seating capacity of 12 peeps, we have to spend a minimum of 500 bucks without tax or gratuity. Hmm.

But anyways. A lot of delicious new dishes!

The seared scallops in a delicious sweet potato puree in a saffron aioli sauce. SOOOO GOOD! The sweet flavor of the sweet potato enhances the natural sweetness of the scallops, and the saffron played to the seafood flavor of the scallops very well. Excellent dish.

Apparently the most popular dish is the bone marrow served with toasted bread. And for all those of you who are going "ewwk" right now, it's not that bad! Known as the "poor man's caviar", it has a very fatty and fragrant taste to it that is seriously addictive. You dig out the marrow and spread it on the toast and voila, a feast fit for a king! :)

The lobster tortellini. Chock full of fresh sweet lobster chunks, and served in a lobster saffron broth, this dish is light and sinful at the same time.

The black truffle mushroom soup was kinda meh. Too creamy, can't taste the truffle.

The flatbread with roasted tomatoes, homemade pancetta and egg was excellent. The egg was perfectly runny on the crisp toast, and blended in perfectly with the meaty taste of the pancetta. Mmm!

The brown butter nepolean was really good. Served with a tart cherry sauce, with three layers of very flaky butter walnut crisps flanked by brown butter mousse, this was heavenly. The crisps were outstanding, and was absolutely sublime.

Alright, have to go back to writing my review paper. Sigh. My first publication. :)

2008-12-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081201/od_nm/us_singapore_kangaroo;_ylt=ApvlWXDT7roPVDp8PVJC9ZXtiBIF

Singaporeans JAILED for wearing kangaroo shirts? Man, the Singapore government is definitely not carving out a good name for itself. They might as well demolish that pathetic public speaking corner, and make it into something more constructive, like a food court, or multi-storey parking complex. -__-

2008-12-03T16:34:00.001-08:00

Going home in 9 days.... mmmmm... my chicken rice is beckoning... hoho. :D And my cute sister and my family. Weeeeee! :)

Foodsssssssss

2008-11-16T16:52:00.000-08:00

These days, I've drifted into one of those moods that I don't really want to talk about how I'm feeling, or anything personal in my life. Hence, I have decided to strictly stick to more....food blogs! Until my mood gets better. Heh. Went to a few really good restaurants, seems like it's a surefire way to perk my spirits up, so here goes!

1) Solare at Point Loma

The sister restaurant of Cafe Bella Italia, this is a way upscale counterpart of the other restaurant. Decorated lushly in warm amber teak, and glass wine vaults, the place is a delight to dine in.

Even the napkin holder was pretty.

The mixed mushroom soup with croutons was light, and delightful, but somehow lacking in taste. The texture of the chunky mushroom bits was very satisfying though.

The butternut squash soup with smoked pancetta was soooooo good. It was mixed with potato puree, hence eliminating the "gluey" texture that's almost always present in squash or pumpkin soup. It was sweet, and the smoked pancetta added a very smoky flavor to it. Tres good.

I had the beef tenderloin in a black truffle and coffee sauce, topped with pan-seared foie gras. The foie gras was overcooked, but the beef was cooked just right. The sauce was interesting, but I'd prefer it to be a tad sweeter than bitter. In all, a fair dish.

I had the hazelnut mousse layered with creme brulee and raspberry sauce. It was light, not overly sweet, but not memorable though.

2) Kensington Grill

This is the second time I've been to this place, and I cannot stop raving about their bruschetta board.

They have a mixture of combination spreads for the bruschetta, and you can pick 3 to form a board. After trying some of them, my ultimate fav is the homemade tomato jam, with baba ganoush and basil pesto. They're layered on top of each other on crispy toasted bread, and the combi of these flavors just blend together in such a perfect harmony. I had 11 slices out of the 15 last time I ordered this.

Had the champagne cocktail with strawberry essence and fresh mint leaves. It was like a mojito, but much lighter, and refreshing.

I had the seared maple duck breast with duck confit in a balsamic raspberry sauce. It was awesome. The duck was tender, juicy and not overcooked at all.

3) Bertrand at Mister A's

I had a sudden craving for foie gras the other day, and decided to go to the place with supposedly the best foie gras in town. It's 12 storeys up, with an excellent view and a strict dress code.

The view.

The menu.

The hudson valley foie gras duo came with a house made terrine with fig compote, and sauteed with gingerbread crust. Absolutely divine. The foie gras melted in my mouth, and I had to fight the urge to gobble it up in one mouthful. Soooo good, too bad it's 27 bucks a pop.

Had the lobster strudel which came with maine lobster and assorted mushrooms in filo dough, in a cognac lobster sauce. It was sooooo good. The pastry was chock full of tender meaty sweet lobster meat that was surprisingly not overcooked in the slightest. Very good flavor.

The duo of pan seared swordfish and scallops with black angel hair pasta came in a saffron sauce and braised fennel. Very disappointing. The scallops were tender, but lacking in flavor other than being salty. The swordfish was overcooked. The angel hair pasta was pretty meh too.

4) The Aubrey Rose at La Mesa

This is a hi-tea place that Jason has been raving about, so Jenn and I went with him to taste for the first time.

The decor of this place is unbelievable. Very quaint, and decked with high ornate hats and boas and xmas trees, with loads of victorian tea sets and christmas decorations. Very very cosy.

The hats that are available for you to wear while having the high tea. Some ladies were wearing it...

They even printed a welcome card for our table.

Teapot napkin holders. Cute. And they even have beaded cloths for the cups of chilled rose water so as to prevent dust from getting into the cup. So quaint.

We had the five course meal which was 30 bucks per pax. Came with a starter of carrot ginger soup with a baguette of chicken salad, aioli and alfalfa sprouts.

The tower of savory pastries and sweets

I forgot to take the pumpkin scone at the end... ha.

In all, it was more of an experience thing, than the taste thingie...

The tea is home made, and we got the aubrey rose tea, which had mango, guava, and rose essence in it. Very nice. And I like the heater for the teapot, very classy. :)

Alright, that concludes my post. I'm grateful that I have so many friends who are willing to go try these places with me... :)

Halloween!

2008-11-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'm too tired to write about Halloween. Suffice it to say, four events to go to over the weekend and I am weak and partied out. Going to let the pictures do the talking.

My sailoorrr costume! :D

Me and my wifey!

Renee doing what she does best: cleaning me up. Haw haw.

The girlies!

Deron looking very convincing as the joker.

Jenn the sheriff.

Suzanne the hobo! :D

And her fiance Odie as the male hobo. :)

Diane as the clapping monkey with home-made cymbals!

Someone used my cam to take this picture of my fishnet stockings.

Theresa as a...pleasant girl?

Renee's boy Dane as a French mime to match her French maid costume.

For some reason, this picture refuses to rotate, so here you go. John as a po-po, Vanessa as a body part mechanic.

Our trusted bartender at PBBG, Mike!