My 30th

I really had a great birthday week. I need to pen this down before I forget how I feel. It started off with a dinner treat from my dear sister at Restaurant Ember, then followed by a red and blue formal birthday dinner at Infuzi with all my closest friends. I was so touched because we have reached the age of not buying stuff for each other, but my friends still bothered to get me stuff. I got flowers and a thoughtful jewelry organizer from the beautifuls (Luyi, Ariane and Gerry) group, and flowers and a pair of agnes b earrings from the astar group. Deron had Infuzi make the best strawberry shortcake birthday cake I have ever had. There was some sort of light cappuccino cream in it with fresh strawberries that really made the cake great. I was really super happy. :) Greg and I went for dinner at Ssikkek and drinks at Alley bar where we got drunk on cocktails on Friday, and Saturday was the reunion dinner with my family where they surprised me with a cake. :) I got extra ang pows from my uncles, aunts and grandma for my birthday! I just feel really loved. And David and Rena came over on the eve of my birthday where we drank and counted down to my birthday with cards. And at the stroke of midnight, Deron surprised me with a birthday video which he spent a lot of time making. He got all my close friends from the states to make a video for me, and compiled them together. I couldn't stop crying when I was watching it, and I just am rarely this touched. We spent my birthday, just the two of us, doing stuff that I like. Had lou hei at Putien, went to watch Hansel and Gretel, and had this fabulous dinner at Ristorante Valentino at the old turf club. Amazing food. And the day after, we went to Aoki for a tasting menu..... 

 My dear sis and I at restaurant ember. The food is really good......

 Our color coded dinner!

 Deron's super yummy cake.

 My fav restaurant Infuzi!

 The lovely bouquet from the girls.

 Lunch at Pu tien on my bday!

 Deron showing off his cufflinks.

 My favorite lou hei (5 days of constipation and counting from too much of it over the last week...)

Deron's lovely earrings for me despite me banning him from presents this year.

 Camwhore shot before the dinner.

 I love the setting of the table!

 Smoked salmon with avocado as an amuse bouche.

 Mushroom and quail risotto with quail

 Luyi's very kind words on the bouquet.

 My parents' surprise cake for me.

 Ristorante Valentino. Super pretty place. The first restaurant to use salmon tablecloths so tastefully.

 AMAZING burrata cheese. Even the tomatoes were sweet. Love!

 Fried anchovies. True to the roman taste but not impressive.

 Squid ink fettucine with crab meat in a creamy tomato sauce. The flavor is good but too rich for me. The crab meat is very sweet though, if that's your thing.

The gnocchi in gorganzola sauce was outstanding. The sauce was very tasty, with a mild blue cheese kick and the home made gnocchi was soft pillowy with a nice flour taste. Yum!

Hanoi!

First trip of 2013, off to Hanoi for some decent pho after the unsatisfying variants in Singapore. Hanoi didn't turn out to be quite what I expected. For some reason, I expected a peaceful city with beautiful lakes, friendly people and well, dirty pavements, and bustling areas of awesome shops.

But it didn't turn out that way. Not that I didn't have a smashin' time, cuz I did, but there were some characteristics of the city that didn't really agree with me.

First of all, the constant honking. I rarely see any traffic lights, and at every junction, cars and bikes were honking at each other incessantly. Even if it's a one way road, you see bikes trying to go against the traffic, which, obviously leads to more honking. Even from our hotel room on the 5th floor, we could hear the non-stop honking every minute.

And barely anyone could speak English. The only people who could are the hotel staff, and it was really hard trying to buy anything because 1) prices were not displayed 2) they quote a way higher price when they realise you are a tourist, and you can't really haggle because well, you can't make them understand!

The air was really polluted. Even after wandering on the streets just for a couple of hours, we felt like we have walked through hundreds of construction sites and are just covered in a layer of grime.

The local food places (not street stalls, but real restaurants) have questionable hygiene. My weekend was supplemented by a lot of charcoal pills.

And I have to say I wasn't really impressed by the local food. Pho wasn't as good as I thought it would be (more about that later), and I only really liked one or two vietnamese dishes, and one french restaurant I went to.

But, the upside is that everything is really cheap. Cab rides are about 1-2 dollars, beers are about a dollar even in the mini bar in the hotel. And our hotel (Meracus) had really good service. We had fresh roses in the room, souvenir cakes courtesy of the hotel, daily weather forcasts, even a personal postcard on the day of departure. And it was only about 80 bucks per night.

The hotel lobby.

 First pho we tried at this Kiev place near the hotel. The soup was superb, but the noodles were too soft for my liking and the beef is tough and in small pieces. Not very good beef as well but oh well, it was like less than 2 bucks.

 Pho at Quan An Ngon. Not too bad, I guess I just am not very into the pho in Vietnam because the soup tastes too good to be true (too much MSG) but Deron insist that it's not.

 Some famous cathedral. Pretty!

 Green Tangerine. Mmm!

 Duck carpaccio. Tasty.

 Parmesan profiteroles. I liked that the cheese was ice cold.

 This looks disgusting but tastes awesome. Marinated pigeon in cocoa coffee sauce. The meat was cooked perfectly (medium rare) and I love the gamey flavor!

 Foie gras tiramisu. Pretty good.

 Beef tartare at La badiane. Was not impressed with this restaurant.

 Pho 42. Not too bad. All the pho tastes the same at this point.

 We walked into this shop which was next to Pho Gia Trugyen (supposedly the best pho but they were closed :( ) and this was the most popular dish so we did the touristy thing of pointing and ordering.

 I think this is way better tasting than the pho. Yum! Loved the sauce, and the spinach.

 Vietnamese pancake. Super yums.                                           Weasel coffee. Best coffee ever!

Quan An Ngon.

  Me at dinner at green tangerine.

 The opera house.

I liked Quan An Ngon for its vietnamese pancake, Green Tangerine for their pigeon and duck breast carpaccio and excellent wine.

And I got the opportunity of drunkedly paying a very happy cab driver ten times the amount because I wasn't used to the currency, and also the chance to yell at another one who tried to fleece us. Hur hur.

October trip (Napa, Sacramento, San Diego)

Nothing really spectacular happened during this last trip back to Cali, but I thought I should at least write something down to remember it by.

We went up to Sacramento to attend Guy and Angie's wedding. It was really nice to hang out with the fam and explore the area a little bit. Got pretty jetlagged this time, I blame it on the lack of alcohol the first few days, which was quickly corrected when we got to Napa Valley.

Tried a few renowned restaurants in the area. Benu in downtown SF, which was recently awarded 2 michelin stars 1.5 years into operation. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I didn't like the strong asian influence in the food, it didn't really blow me away. It was good, but not as good as I would like it to be. As an asian, I'm more critical about asian food, would have been super if I was white, I think.

Been yelping a lot about all the restaurants I tried during the trip, so if you are interested in the reviews, go check it out on

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=Ruh7DvkWtO_oXqyrCYbXig

Redd in Napa was surprisingly good for a 1 star michelin restaurant, the most memorable dish being the tuna tartare with avocado and crispy puffs (for more details, pls click on link above). It was way better than Wakuriya in San Mateo, which was also 1 star.

San Diego was awesome as usual. When I was driving past my old condo where I used to stay, on a bright sunny day, I even teared up because I wished I could just drive to my garage, go back to my home, plop myself on the comfy couch, and watch my Tivo-ed TV. Boo.

Halloween in San Francisco with Renee was really fun too! It was really fun catching up with her, and Lier who just happened to be there, and dressing up was fun. Even though the agenda was very packed, sloshball, two parties in a row, barhopping and restaurant trips, it was really fun. And I got to see Renee pissed drunk again! Yay! :)

I always wish I have more time to hang out with Deron's parents when we were there, and well, I always wish I have more time. Period.

Can't wait for next month when Jenn comes to visit!

The battle of two italian restaurants on Duxton Hill......

Lately, I've been on an Italian food craving spree. I alternate mostly between Italian and Japanese, and once it hits me, I HAVE to go to several Italian restaurants consecutively! It's in my blood, I can't stop it. 

It has come to my attention that there are a few Italian restaurants around Duxton Hill, kindly recommended by Lifang and her friend Alvin. So I decided to try them out. 

I'm going to review two restaurants: Etna and Pasta Brava because they are within the same price range,a nd I find them to be comparable on the general scale. Also, they have similar scores on hungrygowhere.com...... 

Although....

I was much more blown away by Etna. 

I know reviewers out there like to talk about the decor, the service of the crew and the whole experience. For me, it's really just about the food. 

We chose the favorite appetizer at Etna, burrata cheese with cherry tomatoes and arugula.

 I wish I had taken a picture of the cheese when I cut into it. The cheese literally oozes out in liquid form. It was a moment of pure bliss. The burrata is airflown in from Sicily every three days. And you can so taste the freshness. It's literally like drinking fresh squeezed milk, yet light at the same time. The tomatoes were sweet and delightful (a hard find in Singapore), and the arugula was soooo fresh ( another hard find!)

 I had a craving for gnocchi and chose the pumpkin gnocchi in four cheese sauce. The gnocchi was home-made, and the manager had to go to the kitchen to make sure they still have it. And I am perhaps the world's most critical judge of gnocchi. I generally hate gnocchi that are not home-made, because it has this peculiar chewy texture, and does not soak up the sauce one bit. I hate the texture, it's like eating frozen dumplings. It's been a long time since I've had decent gnocchi (the last time, it was in Tuscany), so imagine my surprise when I bit into the first mouthful of gnocchi and experienced......heaven. Pure heaven, when the gnocchi melts in my mouth, with a subtle flour and potato taste (and a hint of pumpkin), followed by the divine richness of the cheese sauce. Little pillows of love, I call them. I cannot express how impressed I am with the gnocchi.

Deron had the crab linguine in a lobster cream sauce. It was really tasty too, not too heavy, but it wasn't as impressive as the gnocchi. Seems like the normal kind of standard you would expect from a good Italian restaurant, so for crab lovers, this should hit the spot.

Pistachio tiramisu. The pistachio really adds a depth of flavor to the tiramisu, strongly recommended.

This meal really brought me back to Italy, I felt. Finally, the reviews on hungrygowhere did not disappoint! :D

Next up, is Pasta Brava.

We had the foie gras in the porcini sauce and burrata cheese to start. The foie gras was cooked properly, and the sauce was tasty, so in all, a good dish. I don't really give high points, because foie gras is so fatty that it's really hard to make it taste bad (other than overcooking it).

As you can tell, the burrata cheese was served with two slices of tomato and some vegetables. I find the dish terribly underwhelming. The burrata cheese was slightly sour, with no flavor at all, and the vegetables and tomato slices were very blah.

Next up, I had one of the fresh pasta dishes. It was a minced beef ravioli in a gorgonzola sauce. This was pretty delicious, the sauce was very well balanced, but I have to say that the portion was really not very filling. Also, the filling wasn't cooked completely, which is fine for me cuz I like my meat bloody, but this could be a concern for others. I know I eat a lot for a human being, so maybe this would be a good choice for those who don't eat very much.

In general, I have to say that Etna was a much more authentic meal, and perhaps slightly cheaper than Pasta Brava. Strongly recommended! :)