Taken place back on April 29th. Yeah, I’m that behind. This is Day 1 of my vacation that dates from April 29th – May 10th (May 11 was my flight back to NYC.)
Flying from JFK to Hong Kong International was a long and sort of exciting. It’s my first solo international flight that lasted for nearly 16 hours and I haven’t been to Hong Kong ever since I was 6 years old!
Waiting to fly out of NYC
My aunt Amy picked my slightly-jet lagged self up from Hong Kong International Airport. Thankfully, the last time we actually seen each other was two years ago, so we can still recognize each other. We hugged each other and talked about my plane ride. The awful thing on my end is my horrible Cantonese. Understand almost everything said to me but my brain can’t come up with a complex sentence.
We walked over to what looked like a train platform, shielded in glass, and we took the Airport Express train to Hong Kong. As confusing as it might sound, the airport is 24 miles away from the city.
Whizzing faster than the speed of sound (my ears popped several times during the train ride) through Tsing Yi and Kowloon’s station under 30 minutes, we hailed a cab to my aunt’s apartment.
[Continuing on from the evening portion with Patrick. If you haven't read the first part, please do so (click here). I know I'm doing this at a painfully slow pace but uh, stuff is happening in life that's slowing me down from updating. Sorry.]
If any of you ever meet Patrick in person, he tells you two things. No. Make it three: (1) he’s vegetarian but loooves cheese, (2) he needs to eat a lot (like a minimum of 4,000 calories) before he withers away (lucky him), and (3) he loves tea. I covered fact number one at Hearth, fact number two is supplemented with my food gifts to him (Mitzy’s macarons from Tafu, Bouchon Bakery’s peanut butter cup, and Momofuku Milk Bar’s cookies) and whatever he ate earlier in the day, and now I’m taking care of number 3. Since that evening was really cold and ridiculously windy, we seek refuge to the nearest tea house from Hearth the my mind can come up with – Cha’an.
Interior and Tea Maps
Going up a flight of narrow stairs from the entrance, it felt like we were transported to a different place. It’s zen-like yet casual and lots of conversations carried around in this small tea house. You can tell it’s very tea-focused when you flip through the pages of the menu. Especially with the worn pages of the world map indicating what region the tea comes from. Continue reading “Tea at Cha’an” »
I made plans with Giulia several weeks ago to have lunch during Restaurant Week. I’m itching to try out new restaurants rather than my safe and dependable restaurants during this time of the year (e.g. Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park), so I proposed Matsugen. I heard generally good to very good reviews around the web so I thought this place wouldn’t let me down.
[Note: I'm splitting one night of fooding into two parts. You'll find out where it is on the next post or if you've already checked out my Flickr photostream a while ago, you know it regardless.]
Last Monday I’ve planned to celebrate Helen’s birthday early. It’s warm enough and hell, it’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone besides my co-workers and family. I don’t have issues with either parties but it’s nice to see friends whom you love, no? Also the fact that I’ve planned to have brunch with Robyn the weekend of Helen’s actual birthday, so I’d rather commemorate her 24 years of existence on this planet early, rather than late, with the things she loves: desserts, ramen, and booze.
I’m slowly getting back into the groove of writing my belated posts to you since I’m currently “researching” my article. In other words, eating stuff, taking photos, etc. So, here’s food outing that occurred two weeks ago.
Helen and I were chatting online during the morning at work, scheming what we want to eat for lunch. A while back I mentioned about a ramen place that opened in the East Village and I wanted to check it out. Since Helen loves noodles, she jumped at the chance and agreed to eat with me at Ippudo!
Yay! I’m done with the LSATs…just oh, a little under 7 hours ago (approximately 2:30 PM, NY time it was over). I have to say, whoever took that test has my sympathies since that was the worst testing experience I ever had in my life. Seven hours stuck in the same building (the Metropolitan Pavillion in Chelsea for me); the same stark white, frigid (temperature-wise) room with over 100 people taking a freakin’ test for the aspiration of becoming a lawyer. Jesus, I hope I did well before I’ll have to shoot myself (mentally), pay another $123, and do it again in December 1st. I really don’t want to do it again and go through that torture. Despite the fact I still haven’t filled out my law school applications yet…UUGH! The paperwork never ends.
Well, I survived the past week fairly well despite being sick for a little more than half of that week (that I mentioned to you on the last post) and managed to lose weight unintentionally. I guess stress does that to me… So, back to what this blog’s mainly about: FOOD. I’m going to talk about what I’ve visited and eaten back two weeks ago starting on September 16th. Jeez, that was eons ago! Continue reading “I’m Back! Also A Recap of Two Weeks Ago (Part 1)” »
On Wednesday, I was craving for a burger for lunch. I don’t know why exactly but I just want some juicy ground beef sandwiched in a good, soft hamburger bun. Since it’s almost 12, I know it’s going to be crowded to try Burger Joint since it’s not a huge space to start with. (I know this since I visited the space but didn’t try anything.) What I ended up deciding is to try Burger Heaven. You might be wondering why the heck would I try a small chain burger at all. Well, two of my male friends, Ariel and Dave told me that their burgers are awesome. Actually, to quote Ariel he said, “The burgers are heavenly.”
The past Monday, my friend Dave wanted to celebrate his birthday early since he’s going down south to Florida during the actual time, so being a good friend I ate lunch with him at Asiate. Everything is so…pretty and elegant. The views of Central Park and midtown Manhattan is pretty awesome as well.
The past Sunday, I went out to the city with one of my best friends, Seungmi for dinner. But we agreed to meet up in the late afternoon for the sake of an odd flavor combination for a chocolate bar: chocolateandbacon. Intriguing? It was to us. So we head down to SoHo to the Chicago-based, trendy chocolate shop, Vosges Haut Chocolat.
I want to apologize for not writing in a looong time. I’ve been stressed with work at the office I’m working at and my Internet connection was down for the past two and a half days. Both are long stories that I would like to spare you from reading.
Okee…moving on. Last Friday, I went to Takashimaya, a Japanese owned, gorgeous, luxurious boutique store on Fifth Avenue (and yes, I know their site is in Japanese). I go there just because of their tea shop in their basement, not the other stuff.
Anyhow, since it’s past 3 PM they were serving tea. After being seated in the small, earth-toned café, I perused their tea menu. The usual suspects for tea are there: pastries, tea sandwiches and cookies, along with their well known teas. I ended up ordering their “East-West Afternoon Tea” ($18) and I asked the waitress for a recommendation of what tea would go along with this set (the tea is included). Since I told her I wasn’t feeling for green tea (I’ve been drinking it for ages at home), she recommended me the Takashimaya Rose black tea, and that’s what I’ve ordered.
Waiting to fly out of NYC
