72 Hours in Paris

I've always dreamed of going to the airport, walking up to the ticket counter to say "Give me a ticket to anywhere, please!" Last week I did something not quite as adventurous but equally spontaneous!! After having lunch with Yvette and our friend Huitze, somehow the conversation ended up going from "I wish I could go with you to Paris" to "Omg we should totz follow you to Paris". As fate would have it, my mom was at the SIA ticketing office in Ion finalising our flights to Hokkaido (for which I'm leaving tonight), and she said okay to me going!! There and then we booked our flights, and it was a mad rush the rest of the day till we got to the airport.

It was mainly a shopping trip as Huitze was on a Birkin hunting mission, but I'm glad we got to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing, and some good food too, although I have learnt my lesson to never take suggestions for restaurants from the concierge. We were supposed to have a day trip to Versailles as well, but unfortunately we spent too much time (fruitlessly) in the Hermes store. LE SIGH. I'd rather not buy a Birkin if I have to spend all my vacation time waiting around the store hahah what kind of memories are those?! 

We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Astor, a cute little place nestled in a quiet lane just minutes away from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which is where the Hermes store is. We shared a junior suite-- haha slumber party in Paris!! Although not the biggest, this is apparently where it's easiest to get a bag (not that I had any luck, although Tze was lucky) as it is their flagship store! There's also all the big name brands such as Chanel, Dior, Lanvin (also flagship), Givenchy etc all are. the main Faubourg itself is also lined with embassies and the official residence of the President of France, plus the French office of Conde Nast and Vogue. Clearly politics mixes well with fashion, oui? No photos of the rest of the day because I left my camera in the hotel room. HAHA also dinner was at a shitty but pretty (rhymes!) art deco restaurant near our hotel recommended by our concierge. NEVER AGAIN.

We arrived super early, and after making a trip to the Hermes store we headed to Avenue Montaigne for MOAR SHOPPING and also lunch. This is Huitze's fave cafe called L'Avenue, but the food was not inspiring. Just tasty, and also clearly fashionable-- a place for people watching/being seen but not terribly gastronomic. This was later reaffirmed by the amazingly nice salespeople in the Chanel store just down the road from the cafe. Cindy was being helped by a sales person called Jean Phillipe, and he said it was "disgusting and overpriced", and he directed us to another restaurant near the Tour Eiffel called Les Cocottes. Unfortunately, I have no pictures because I was on the brink of starvation. The Chanel store closes at 7pm and we were there until 730pm!!! If you ever want to get really good service in Chanel, go straight to the Avenue Montaigne one for sure. 

This is just a picture of Cindy's damage in ONE afternoon. Well done Cindy, well done!!! Although as a disclaimer she bought some of it for her mother and on behalf of friends haha ;) 

After dinner we took a stroll to Parc Champ De Mars, with its amazing view of the Tour Eiffel!! 

And of course a lousy blurry photo of us in front of it. A nice korean man/boy helped us take photos, and he frowned upon my shaky, non-changeable-lens Fujifilm x100, and used his camera instead to help us shoot some pics... He took my email address and promised to send it to me but I haven't seen it in my inbox yet hahah now some random korean tourist has our pictures.... I ain't gonna lie it makes me a bit worried. 

The next day we went to what we call the love lock bridge! Unfortunately, it was a failed attempt as this was NOT the bridge we had intended to see. If you watched "Now You See Me",  you'd know that the closing scene was filmed on a pedestrian bridge with a view of the Eiffel Tour. Mark Ruffalo's character reveals the plot twist of the movie to Melanie Laurent's character, aka also his love interest, on this very bridge. This pedestrian bridge is called the Pont Des Arts, and it's famous for all the lovers going there to put a lock and throw the key into the river, symbolising everlasting love and other Hallmark emotions. 

Sadly, we didn't communicate well with each other and assumed we were all talking about the same bridge because here comes our plot twist: there is MORE THAN ONE LOVE LOCK BRIDGE. Gotcha! Huitze showed the first result on Google for "love lock bridge" to our cab driver, and instead he took us to Pont de l'Archevêché. LE SIGH. It's still a bridge with locks on it put there by lovers, but not the one we thought we'd see. This one has a beautiful backdrop of the Notre Dame from a different angle, but was also about 10 Euros further away in terms of cab fare as compared to Pont Des Arts. Film buffs will be happy to note that Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced on this very same bridge that I stood on in the classic movie "An American in Paris", and it also happens to be the narrowest road bridge in Paris (only a one way road folks!). #shitwikipediateachesyou

We also went to see the Jardin Des Tuileries after a tea break at Angelina (famous for hot chocolate and an ensuing sorethroat--no photos because we were once again starving and inhaled all our food), which I was very excited to see because of all the Paris Fashion Week Street Style shots I always see shot here. I was calm on the outside but my inner fangirl was all like, ANNA WINTOUR ANNA DELLA RUSSO TAYLOR TOMASI HILL ALL THESE COOL PEOPLE HAVE WALKED ON THE SAME GRAVEL I NOW WALK ON. Yep pretty much. 

Yvee's tattoo tells you to leap off a bridge. KIDDING. 

Dinner was at L'Entrecote, once again recommended by yet another sales assistant at Chanel (this time from the Rue Cambon store)! They only have steak on the menu, covered in a debatably delicious sauce. Yvette and Huitze didn't like it but Cindy and I lapped it up! We got there late around 10pm, which is normal dining hours for Parisians apparently as the restaurant was packed!! They sat us, and didn't even give us a menu. Two questions were thrown at us "What do you want to drink?" and "How would you like your beef cooked?" A few minutes later a simple walnut and mustard mesclun salad arrived, and after that the main attraction is plated and served! Huitze says the sauce tastes like curry hahahhaha but I actually think it's sorta like more liquid-y version of the mint chutney they usually serve with Chicken Tandoori. Weird at first but I liked it hehe :) also, the fries are amaaaazing. Crispy but if you like it soggy like me, drown them in the sauce! 

That's the serving station and one of the servers who looked like she could be a very strict nun in a catholic church. 

TEEHEE. Leaving you with a video of some serious Eiffel Tower Sparklies. Paris Je'Taime x

Eiffel Sparkles from JIAYI T. on Vimeo.

Salad for Lunch

I'm packing a salad to lunch tomorrow, but cos it's something I haphazardly threw together (and was too lazy to head to the supermarket near my haus) I'm not too excited about it. Instead I'm reminiscing of this totz yumz salad I made a few weeks (maybe months) back! Man it was yummy. I was super excited about making it because back then I'd been having this insane craving for salad. Who craves salads anyway? Must have been all my OL (office lady) friends in the CBD instagramming their salad lunches, but because my office only has the requisite mixed rice stalls and fish soup stalls, well, I had to make my own to bring to work. I was inspired by this recipe here from 101 cookbooks, a really cool blog with great healthy recipes and pretty photos, but so damned healthy I feel a bit sorry for the author. I wonder if she misses eating fried chicken and cheesy pasta... 

The point is that she talks about how her salad holds up through the day and that's exactly what I was looking for in making a salad to bring to work-- it needs to stay crisp and fresh, but yet have enough goodies in it to make me stay full. 

I used mostly organic produce for my salad, except the avocadoes, olives and mushrooms, all of which are harder to get them organic in Singapore. I used a mix of baby kale, romaine leaves, broccoli heads, sliced celery and carrots, plus organic chickpeas which were cute and tiny!

As for the salad dressing, this one's a keeper! My mom taught me how to make her amazing salad sauce years ago but that one is an olive-oil-balsamic-vinegar-secret-ingredient-mix that can sometimes be a little boring, seeing as how I've been having it for yeaaaaaars, and I've always had a thing for creamy salad dressing anyway. I guess I'll start alternating between them!

Miso Dressing:

1 large clove garlic, smashed in a pestle and mortar
1 tablespoon white miso (brown miso is fine too)
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or any other light vinegar
pinch of ground cumin
1/3 cup plain yoghurt

The original recipe called for heavy cream but it's salad! How can I put heavy cream into a salad?! If I had sour cream I would have substituted with it but I just added a little more yoghurt. Eugh so easy and delicious wehhh I wish I was having this for lunch tomorrow!! 

Tada isn't that a beauty. I also added in some penne, about a handful just cos I love my carbs. And of course some toasted pinenuts because they are delicious. Sliced in the avocado just after I tossed it so it wouldn't become avo-mash. 

Clearly I overestimated the size of my tupperware... 

Ok now I'll have to make this again soon. jtong cooks yall! 

Morsels

So rarely do I go for dinner at any restaurant that already has hype around it and yet come away satisfied. But alas Morsels it seems you are my new favourite diner, can't wait to bring more friends+family back to you, and that indeed is a true mark of an amazing restaurant. I first saw it while walking along the streets of Little India here in our sunny Singapore, scurrying along the five foot pathway to avoid the swelling heat. My parents run a boutique hotel right around the corner, and I decided to give the quaint little diner a few months to settle it's teething problems (which any new establishment is bound to have). Finally last week, I made dinner plans to meet my RGP gang as a late birthday get-together for our newly minted Doctor Sim at Morsels on Mayo Street.

First off let me just say how much of a BITCH parking is around there. Of course you could wing it and park illegally, but I would not like to add an additional $70 to my dinner bill kthx. I did a little bit of research on the internet: what to avoid and what are the must haves, and thankfully every single item we ordered was delicious.

First up, the Hokkaido Scallop Ceviche (not keh-viche but se-vi-che). I was a little underwhelmed by the flavour, but fair enough it was refreshing and a good appetizer to start with. I am sadly, very much allergic to tobiko so we had our version without it. I suspect it is much more delicious both in taste and texture when it does come with tobiko. The tortilla chips it came with were a little greasy, but it's home-fried, so I'll let that one pass. The fried brie cheese balls were really melt-in-your-mouth and I kept wishing I didn't drive because they would have been divine with beer hehe! The steamed clams in fig's broth? Absolutely ace. Steamed just right in a sweetish savoury broth that tasted like the ocean (in a good way) with wakame and kimchi. I need to bring my mom here so she can taste it and recreate it at home. Only gripe I have was that the sliced French bread that came with it to dip was not toasted and unfortunately felt a little bit stale. The two minutes it would have taken to toast the bread would have made this dish a 10/10. Trio of skewers, everyone's fave was the pork! But if you don't HAVE to have meat, you can easily skip this dish.

Under the mains page, we ordered the pulled pork pasta in a spicy pesto sauce served with sour cream. I love anything sour cream so this was really a favourite as well, the mild heat of the sauce balanced out with the coolness of the sour cream. The portion is small but the price matches it at $14, but it's the right amount for a tasting table. By the time the fish came out to our table we were too full to truly appreciate it, but when the squid ink risotto was set down, we dug right back into it. Easily the best dish of the night, creamy flavoursome risotto, with salted egg yoke sauce (tobiko on the side for my non-allergic friends), topped with the softest octopus you will ever taste. The only time I've had octopus this delicious I was in Cyprus 10 years ago. But this dish, truly the piece de resistance of Morsels. The charred, smoky flavour that really explodes in your mouth when you have the first bite of octopus will keep people going back for sure. I remember reading online and everyone was grumbling about the portions being abysmally small, but to me everything was just perfect. You'd want to eat as many things as possible, to have a whole range of flavours, and you can only do that if the portions are smaller. As for the price, our total bill for four girls came up to $200+, including one alcoholic beverage for one of our alcoholic friends (heheheh) which we all felt was incredibly reasonable for both the ingenuity and quality of the dishes. Stay exactly the way you are Morsels, don't change! 

Now for the more important part that is #allmyprettyfriends

Eugh in love with Sarah's eyebrows!! 

Teehee love this photo! Merelda was trying to help Ness straighten out her fringe to much resistance hehehe <3

 I still can't believe we've been friends for 14 years. What the hell where did our youth go!? 

Sydney Eats

Highlights of my Sydney trip besides the wedding when I bunked with my fave junior Cat (YAY THANKS CAT!), and ate all the food I had missed while I was away. Didn't manage to get much done, but it was such a good trip and all I did was eat. Not that many snaps because I was too lazy to take out my camera most times, but sigh Sydney you gave me a good time (and a huge belly). Always will be my second home. Enough yabberjabber, photos! 

At Chat Thai! FAVE yummm. Cat Y U NO SMILE

Another day, another smorgasbord of food. 

Best Sydney Brunches are baked eggs and pancakes. So good that they are a poem when put together. Baked Eggs and Pancakes.

I was not joking when I said all I did in Sydney was eat......