Cream Pan

May is almost over and I am nearing the end of my first year in MBA school. Where has all the time gone?!

Still over the weekend KL and I decided to check out a very famous Japanese bakery in Orange County. Very famous, because if you check out the bakery, Cream Pan, on Yelp, there's nothing but endless raves about their baked goods, especially their strawberry croissants. Needless to say, I had to experience the food for myself - what could be so spectacular about strawberry croissants?

The place is really nondescript, with no indication of the culinary treasures inside :P Coincidentally it's tucked away in the plaza next to Honda-ya. When I was there, I got the legendary strawberry croissants, an azuki (red-bean) cream pan ("pan", パ ン is Japanese for bread), a peach danish and a pork-katsu sandwich box.

Peach danish:

Pork-katsu sandwich, a little pricey at $6 but chock full of ingredients!

And the baked goods, the strawberry croissants and azuki cream-pan. Because of all the hype over the strawberry croissants, KL and I decided that we could not share and we each had to get one.

Close-ups- first, the heavenly azuki pan!

...and the delicious strawberry croissant:

Verdict? Strawberry croissants - GOOD! The crust's flaky and the cream sweet but not overly so, balanced nicely by the tangy sweetness of the strawberries. But the one that I enjoyed most of all is the azuki cream pan. In fact, KL did too, so much so that we ended up fighting each other to eat it. The sweet red bean paste complimented the fluffy light whipped cream perfectly, all encased in a crispy pastry shell. Definitely try out these two items if you ever stop by Cream Pan.

My outfit for the day, harem pants are perfect for pigging out:

Wearing American Apparel cardigan, complexgeometries top, H&M harem pants, Ann Demeulemeester lace-up sandals, Balenciaga clutch.

I have to say though, if you want to try out the food at Cream Pan, BE THERE EARLY.
These pictures were taken during our second trip there, the first time we went to Cream Pan was in the afternoon and their shelves were swept clean. Seriously, now I understand why!

In the upcoming weeks I will be holed up in a study room somewhere finishing up on group projects and mugging for exams, so expect slooooow updates :/

That ramen place again

Food, glorious food....

It's an ongoing challenge for me and KL to eat through the entire menu at Honda-ya. It's probably not possible, but that doesn't mean that KL and I aren't going to have fun doing it. Which was just what we did once again on a random cold night in SoCal. And speaking of cold nights...why do I have this feeling that we are just going to skip right past the mild spring weather and head straight into warm summer weather in a couple of weeks?

Me grinning after a good meal...a food coma does that to me :)

Wearing Rick Owens Lilies leather jacket, Complexgeometries dress, F21 tights, H&M leopard scarf, Surface to Air wedges and Balenciaga clutch.

Cafe Blanc

I love love love sweets.

Cakes are probably the most wonderful type of food because not only are they yummy, but they look so beautiful as well. My favourite dessert place in Orange County has got to be Cafe Blanc at Newport Beach. KL calls the plaza it's located in a double trap because Cafe Blanc is right next to a bridal gown shop and I like to go there sometimes to drool at the gowns whenever we stop by. ;)

I believe the shop's run by a Japanese chef and his rendition of French desserts are so delicate, not too sweet and just perfect! Since Easter was just round the corner, Cafe Blanc offered a cute Easter bunny cake which was almost too cute to eat! It was really yummy though with a crisp white chocolate shell with a creamy lilac berry mousse. I almost felt bad destroying the cute bunny cake..but it was too delicious to be missed! The strawberry shortcake on the other hand was light and refreshing, amazingly its cream layer was light and fluffy...perfect fruity desserts on a sunny day! The raspberry gelato that came with the cake was sweet, but not overly so and even had chunks of raspberries inside..see, I am getting my daily servings of fruit!

My camera wasn't with me when we dropped by that day, but I am sure that KL and I will be back again and I intend to take a picture of Cafe Blanc's cake counter...each and every yummy cake that they make looks so perfect and beautiful!

What I wore:

Rick Owens gray leather jacket, H&M leopard scarf, Heimstone silk tank, American Apparel tank, Drop crotch pants from Etsy, Rick Owens mummy wedges, Balenciaga bouton d'or work.

Slowly but surely, I am easing leopard stripes into my outfit and my Rick Owens mummy wedges are the most comfy pair of wedges that I own. Someday I vow to own the ankle boots version as well!

Out for Dim Sum

Over the weekend KL and I decided to head out for some dim sum at the much hyped Capital Seafood in Irvine. It was great to sit down and have a nice lunch with KL, something that we haven't been doing since I was crazy busy with school and him with work. The service at Capital was great; unfortunately I can't say the same about the food. I was expecting to get my socks knocked off given all the great reviews online, but the food was just....okay :/

And looking at the food pictures, I think one of the first things I want to get when I start working again is a D-SLR. I love my point-and-click Lumix, but I think SLR pictures seem so much "warmer".

It was a gray and overcast day, unusual weather for this time of the year in California, but it was a great chance for me to break out my oversized Ozetta warmer and relish the last remnants of the chilly winter weather.

Wearing oversized leopard jumper from ShopNastyGal, Ozetta warmer, black Balenciaga clutch, Forever21 leggings and Ann Demeulemeester shoes

Food fun and pictures galore! Vegas Dec 2009

My finals were over 2 weeks ago and I should be updating this blog obessively. But something happened that I'm not ready to blog about...before I received the news, KL and I managed to go on our annual get-away to Vegas. We always tell ourselves to go somewhere that we have never gone before and were debating between visiting friends in Seattle or Dallas..but somehow in the end we always end up in Vegas at the end of the year! We are definitely creatures of habit, I guess!

Unfortunately the drive to Vegas this time wasn't as magical as last year's. I swear, a layer of snow over anything just makes any place a gazillion times more beautiful..though I could be biased as I haven't seen snow that much in my life :) Before the Big Sur fire, KL and I used to drive up Highway 1 frequently - I love the ocean and the views along Highway 1 is easily one of the most breath-taking, but sometimes the desert just provides a desolate beauty that's all its own...

The view from outside my hotel room, Vegas is really a city made for the night.

Coincidentally, the latest development on the Strip, CityCenter was slated to open on the very first night that we arrived. Yes, there's a lot of noise about how CityCenter will be the savior of the Strip, despite its involvement with Dubai World and lackluster condo sales. But it's something totally new, so my husband and I had to check it out.

Strolling along the overhead bridge that near CityCenter, the cold weather was a good time to bring out my favourite Ann D multi-lace boots again.

Wearing Aoyama Itchome dress, Zara coat, Falke leggings, Ann Demeulemeester boats and Miu Miu Coffer.

An interior view of Crystals, the retail center of CityCenter.

Most of the shops are not fully open yet, but there's a Lanvin store that's slated to open in 2010 - I'm really excited about that, even though I don't see myself spending money there any time soon ;)

Me fooling around with the signage outside the Lanvin store..hey it featured an Alber Elbaz illustration! Hmm..I am such a fashion nerd :p

Wearing Rick Owens leather jacket, F21 grey sweater, Ann D skirt and boots, Miu Miu Coffer.

The next day, KL and I ate at the Vegas outpost of Pink's, which is a hot-dog institution in L.A! It was our brunch so we decided to go for the works! At the bottom is the Mushroom Swiss Cheese dog, the name itself is pretty much indicative of what's inside. At the top was...hmm, the Mojave Desert dog? I'm not too sure about the name, but there comes a point where a hot dog stops being a hot dog and becomes a personal challenge...this hot dog was definitely that! A giant spicy Polish dog with jalapenos, salsa, guacamole, melted Swiss Cheese....hmmm the calories are definitely worth it!

KL and I also tried a new restaurant at Atria, the casino-hotel at CityCenter. There were so many choices but we only had one night, so we ended up going with Sage. Sage is a restaurant owned by Shawn McClain and markets its cuisine as "contemporary American". I'm never one to care about how my food is categorized, as long as it's great I'm happy! In this case I can honestly declare myself one happy customer! KL and I had a great time at Sage, our server was great and the meal started off well with an amuse-bouche from the chef. Unfortunately though it was really pretty, KL and I wolfed it down immediately, so no pictures! But I do remember tasting artichoke and foam :p

We got to choose from two types of bread, a bacon baguette and sour-dough baguette which we could dip into Australian sea-salt and house-whipped butter.

KL and I wanted to try as much of the menu as we reasonably could but there was no tasting menu...so we ordered 2 appetizers and one entree to share.

Appetizer 1...Escargot and Pork Belly Agnolotti.

The green foam that you see is actually parsley, blended with red wine sauce. I tried the escargot and agnolotti but not the pork belly. KL absolutely loved the mouth melting texture of the pork belly, I loved how the agnolotti complemented the escargot and the sauce and everything was tied nicely together with a taste of citrus..I suspect lemon?

Appetizer 2..Pacific Yellowtail Crudo.

This was my absolute favourite of the night! I loved it so much that if I had to choose one dish to eat for the rest of my life, this would be it! The dish contained hamachi slices which were so fine and light that it made for really great sashimi, with pine nuts, mushrooms and truffles that grounded the dish with its earthy flavor. The dish contained a yuzu sauce which worked surprisingly well with the nuts and mushrooms..I think this dish really brought the best of the earth and the sea together.

Entree..Roasted Day Boat Scallops.

I love scallops and I liked this dish. However after tasting the inventiveness of the 2 appetizers, I really wish the dish was wittier. The scallops acquitted themselves competently as a dish, though I felt that the red wine sauce might have been a little strong for the scallops, but it's a good dish nonetheless. However the red wine sauce did work beautifully with the oxtail, which was braised to perfection.

After that it was time for the sweet stuff. Sage offered a selection of pastries and dessert wines, but we decided to try the pastries instead. KL and I ordered 2 desserts to share...though I highly suspect that in the end, I ate most of them ;)

Warm sugared beignets with jasmine tea cider.

I have to say I am not a cinnamon fan, but this was good. The pairing of the jasmine tea cider with the beignet was clever as it balanced out the overt sweetness of the beignets. I loved the bitter sourness of the jasmine tea cider, the delicate scent of jasmine was really comforting.

Malted Valrhona Milk Chocolate Dome.

Dessert is truly not dessert with something chocolate :) The butterscotch foam and nuts went well with the chocolate dome and it provided a sweet ending to my meal, but overall I wished the desserts were able to delight me as much as the entrees. To end the meal, KL and I were given orange chocolate syrup, compliments of the chef. It really felt like we were drinking hot chocolate, with the aroma of orange coming in later as an after-taste. It was a great ending to a fun meal.

And to all, a very Merry Christmas and a



Take Care! :)

The Singapore Report - Food pictures galore and my very first giveaway

Hello everyone!

I have been absent from my blog for quite sometime but I am so deliriously happy to be back in Singapore. It's damn good to be home! I had forgotten about the heat and how densely packed this little island can be, but nothing beats eating Mum's cooking after being away from home for nearly 2 years as well as being in the company of my family again! The highlight has got to be meeting my baby nephew Tristan for the first time, I am constantly amazed by how cute and smart he is, he has everyone in the family eating out of his hands.

To share some of the joy, I am pleased to announce this blog's very first giveaway together with Chickdowntown.com. Some of you might have read about this website before from other previous blog giveaways and Chickdowntown is known for stocking trendy items such as the coveted scarves from Sir Alistair Rai and BB Dakota Clothing. I will pick one reader's comment on this post as the winner and this person stands to get the BB Dakota Battalion jacket in black:

Credit

I love the gold braided details and marching-band vibe of this jacket! It can be worn over pants or dresses and would be a fun signature piece to have for Fall. I am sorry to announce that this giveaway is only limited to readers in the US however :( Check out Chickdowntown's Twitter page as well as their Facebook page to be kept up to date on their latest finds and promotions!
This contest is open till Saturday, 1st August 2009, midnight PST and all US-based comments up to this deadline will be considered.

Now to offer everyone a peek into a day of my life when I am in Singapore, these are photos from when I was out for lunch together with my sister. We choose to hang out at Orchard Road, which is a well-known shopping belt in Singapore. Lunch was at Sakae Sushi, which is a successful Singaporean conveyor-belt sushi franchise store that has taken off in Asia.

We picked the branch at Wheelock Place which is located at the start of Orchard Road. To me, Wheelock Place unofficially marks the start of Orchard Road and we fueled up for the day as we attempted to tackle the shops and malls ahead of us:

Potato croquette and agedashi tofu - deep fried and so unhealthy but I love it! I tell myself that anything tofu can't be thaaaaaat bad!

Octopus sushi - this was my first time trying it..apparently my sister is a fan. I am very partial to seafood and I enjoyed this one immensely. It really tastes better than it looks! ;)

Salmon sashimi and soft-shell crab handroll - perennial favourites, give me wasabi and I am a happy camper. And why can't all crab shells be soft? One thing I hate about eating crab is having to crack open its shell, so the soft shell crab suits my lazy self just fine!

Chawanmushi - a steamed egg dish flavored with toppings like mushroom and fish cake. It's comfort food, done Japanese style, to me.

After lunch, it was off to do a bit of shopping!

This picture shows the start of Orchard Road itself. The building in the picture on the right is ION Orchard, which just opened last week. I haven't been there to check out the place yet, but I guess it will host the usual mix of designer boutiques and mid-range brands that Orchard Road malls is known for, despite its hype :S

Stopped by Topshop and M)phosis, which is a chain of clothing stores in Singapore.

For those who are visiting Singapore, I urge you to check M)phosis out, it stocks interesting, asymmetrical drapey pieces in a limited colour palette consisting of black, white, pink, grey and yellow. The prices are reasonable and I always pick up a few pieces whenever I visit. Not this time though, as I am on a student's budget ;) Topshop didn't yield anything interesting for me too, I'm not sure if that's due to my mentality of a self-imposed shopping ban or just that there aren't anything interesting in the stores lately.

But we did stumble across a food festival when we were at Ngee Ann City (a shopping mall in Orchard Road).

This mall frequently holds events in its atrium and I guess we were lucky that it was a food festival that day! (Translation: lots of yummy sampling and delightful sights and smells to be had!)

Cute Japanese candy in all their colourful packaging:

The selection was mind-boggling especially since I had to make-do with the limited selection in US!

Hong Kong street food!

Food on a stick is just great for walking around and eating..some of the food sold included pig intestines, cow's stomach, pig's skin and the usual fried chicken, fishballs and cuttlefish balls. The pastry counter on the right had me salivating, I have such a soft spot for Cantonese pastries.. it was a visual feast!

A dorayaki machine in action:

Dorayaki is a type of Japanese pancake with a sweet red bean filling in the middle. I love to eat it with a cup of strong green tea, because the taste of tea balances the sweetness of the red bean paste. But I didn't get any that day because of.....

ICE CREAM!

Straight from Singapore's very own ice-cream factory, Udders. There are a host of weird and wonderful flavours at the stall. Wonderful because they have decadent toe-curling liqueur flavors like orange-choc bitters, amaretto black and lychee martini! Weird (to some) because they also carry local flavors such as durians (Mao Shan Wang and D24) and cempedak which I found to be the highlights of their ice-cream selection. Personally, I loved loved loved the Mao Shan Wang（貓山王）flavour, so much so that my sis and I purchased a tub home after sampling what Udders had to offer:

Mao Shan Wang is considered an extremely high-quality durian cultivar in South East Asia. I realize that durians can be a controversial fruit to some. Some people love it, while some people just hate it with a passion. Me? I belong in the first group! Hey, I grew up in Singapore and I can never understand Singaporeans who do not love durians. That's like a Frenchman who doesn't love cheese!

Check out the creamy, luscious scoops of yellow goodness:

Last spoonful, good to the very last aromatic mouthful:

The taste is hard to pin down in words, but it's wonderfully complex with layers of sweetness, creaminess combined with the milkiness of ice-cream. For any adventurous foodie who happens to be in Singapore, this ice-cream is a must-try. Heck, for those who truly dare, go for the actual fruit itself!

P.S. I will be replying to all my emails and comments shortly! Sorry for the delay, but I guess you can say that I was in a food coma! ;)

Vegas baby!

I gave official notice to my manager last Friday. Now going back to school has never felt more real! Some of you out there might be aware that I had decided to pursue a full-time MBA program at the start of this year. It was really time to go, from the moment that I received offers from the schools that I had applied to, it has been a struggle trying to motivate myself to put in the hours and the effort that I used to. The reason for the change in my attitude is finally out in the open and I guess I can "slack" easy ;)

For my birthday on June 11th, KL and I decided to re-visit a very familiar city. We went back to Vegas!
We got a room at the Signature hotel at the MGM Grand, which is a really great place to be! I had great difficulty leaving my room every day and I still cry when I think of the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom - I miss it so much!

What I wore for the car ride from Orange County to Vegas. As you can see, comfort is of utmost importance:

F21 tee, Elizabeth and James pants, Dries Van Noten sandals

A shot of the view at night from our room:

One of my favorite stops in Vegas (besides Barneys at the Palazzo ;)), is the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanic Gardens. As the name implies, it's a magnificent display of landscaped gardens, meant to invoke the essence of each season. Besides changing the displays with each seasons, I think Bellagio also comes up with new displays for special occasions like Independence Day and Christmas. When KL and I were there, it was the Summer display.

The flower ferris wheel that dominated the display:

Ladybug! One of the very few insects that I am not squeamish about:

I love how rosebuds were used to recreate the snails' shell. It took me some time before I coaxed the right expression out from the snail ;)

Lovebirds!

They were so cute and couldn't stop grooming each other. Some of them were already asleep when KL and I were there (it was 11pm plus after all!) as the lights were switched off.

And of course what would a blog post be without food? In place of a cake this year, KL told me that I could pick whatever sweets I wanted from Payard!
Macarons from Payard - the chocolate and strawberry ones were heavenly! I can't remember what flavours the other colours were, I think I need to go back there for a second tasting!

More sweets from my sweet:

On the left is a little slice of berry heaven named Joie, complimented with a dark chocolate-hazelnut creation named the Louvre. I have a hard time deciding which one is better, so I'm gonna cop out and say I love them all!

On the day of my birthday itself, KL took me out for dinner at the Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill. I have always said that I wanted to try out this restaurant whenever we were in Vegas (yes, even though I know it's so much nearer to drive to the one in L.A.), so my wish was finally got granted ;)

Our appetizers:

Left: sweet corn crab fritters, right: chilled tomato gazpacho

I ordered the sweet corn crab fritters with a zesty aioli while KL got the chilled tomato gazpacho with a dollop of crème fraîche and croutons. Halfway through, I had to give up my fritters to KL...veggies are his Kryptonite and he can only stomach so many mouthfuls of "veggie stew"! My apologies for the photos everyone, it wasn't a candle-lit dinner, but somehow the pictures turned out darker than expected!

For the main course, I ordered grilled tuna with a red onion salad, while KL had beef filet, with herb creamed corn, pesto and balsamic.

Dessert! Apricot melba with toast almonds, vanilla ice and raspberries! No fighting here, we each got a share.

Then it was off to catch the Criss Angel's show, Believe.

It seems that the reviews for this show weren't too good but I have to say it's really bad at all! Just don't expect a usual Cirque du Soleil show, this show is really more of a "Best of Mindfreak" performance with surreal imaginary thrown in to link up each illusion. Personally I felt that the "links" were really the weakest part of the show, some of the performances felt a tad too contrived at time, but in all fairness I did enjoy the dancing bunnies. That's all I should say I guess, without giving too much of the show away.

Lastly, I shall sign off this post with pictures of my birthday outfit, worn with Dries sandals during the day and my trusty Ann Demeulemeester lace-up boots at night!

Lanvin dress, various necklaces from F21 and Made Her think, Dries Van Noten sandals (left), Ann Demeulemeester lace up boots (right)