a tea ceremony, 1 mth old bday and everything in between

the countdown for a beloved cousin's wedding has officially started today with her tea ceremony
lauren and ku flew in for the rehearsal so as with our guests, it was expected that i would haf to be awake as early as my weekdays... i really dont function while the sun is up...
lauren has grown so much since last year... i wish time cld stop and she stays tiny and cute always
started the day with a trip to Papa P's to show ku this place for coffee :)
then it was a total mad rush to get ready and i cldnt make it down to get my hair done so salon le Pris was all time cld afford
ivan and i made it down to shang at 140 which was 10 mins later then promised. i knw my bad but my outfit of choice was totally based on what was available as everything is still in the boxes! argh

my awesome shoes that totally slowed me down hahaha

i was tittering all over sg in these gorgeous Margielas 4 inches high

but some pictures of my beautiful family:

we've long decided that the TAN genes are very strong coz we all look alike...

as this is only tea ceremony, not all were told to be there, but since lauren had to be with mom and ivan was dragged by me coz i had to be there to help, we were the only cousins there. the real wedding will be next wk.

i wish weddings were just occasions for celebrations without the family politics included. its so sad that things like this haf to ruin such a joyous gathering.

my dream wedding will have all my closest aunties and uncles, all my cousins and all my good friends all in one place together. if anything, i think weddings are meant to be just a once in a lifetime chance to have a gathering of all the pple you love in one place. the only problem with me is that everyone is all over the world. i will be needing to book pple a whole year in advance and chartering planes for them to come haha

then i spent all afternoon taking care of lauren as ku had to take care of the wedding details. we played at ce michelle's then it was off to taka to find a present for julian - g's 1 mth old nephew

sarah and i compromised on a rocking horse (with lauren as the swaying vote as she is a kid afterall) that goes "neigh" and "clip clop" i think but i knw it comes with a cool saddle and the mouth moves when the noises are made.... when ahia and elena opened it up we realised that we cld haf totally kept tt present for 1 year old birthday coz it was for a 3 year old? hahahaha oh well

this was taken as sarah and i rushed off for the bday party... i love it!

this was the first time ever sarah and i wld see julian and he's sooo hairy! which is good... tons of hair on the head for a mth old baby

the picture was missing ghia and it sucks that he's working coz i miss having him arnd to say the most retarded things... can u see the head of the baby?
i cant believe ahia's a dad already! it seems like only a few days ago that i rushed home frm LA only to land, drop my luggage at home, run to the hair salon to get my hair done, then off to the hotel for the wedding! i still remember having to order coffee to keep awake but they charged me for it and coz i had only landed i cldnt pay for it so i think KS had to pay for me hahaha

dug this photo up frm my external hahaha with er no wrng person in it  :D

as always when the 3 crazy aunties get together... its gossip time and pure madness. sarah and i had only planned on staying for a little while but the next thing we knw... we were the last few to leave!

need to wake up early again.......................... sigh haha

L'atelier

L'atelier (pronounced as la-tel-yea) by Joel Robuchon.

quick facts:
L'atelier is French for a workshop for an artist.
it has attained 2 Michelin stars for this branch in HK

JS and i were trying to decide between Le Jardin or L'atelier but we decided that we wanted to try the ala carte with more choices so off to L'atelier we went...

upon arrival, the place was packed and JS was brilliant to request for the center counter seats to be able to see into their open kitchen

kitchen wise, i wasnt too impressed by the design... it all seems so similar now and right in front of us was...

it was kinda useless and redundant turf of plastic grass with flowers and quails' egg

but on to the food.....

an amuse-bouch of cream with bacon and bacon foam and more bacon wrapping something really yummy

our bread basket was an interesting mix of hits and misses... but i have to say i particularly like the mini crossiant in the middle :)

instead of ordering with their set menus, JS and i decided to order smaller dishes and share

first off were...

half a dozen of fresh oysters frm somewhere in the world served on grey salt in between really salty seaweed

this has got to be the first time ever ive eaten oysters this good... i now understand y pple are willing to pay so much for really good oysters coz they arent fishy at all and huge and they taste literally like the ocean

this was a mouthwatering order of Le Jambon - iberian bellota ham served with toasted bread and tomatoes

of course the ham was good, but what caught my attention was the chopped tomatoes... they were chopped so finely yet still maintained their shape and crunchiness... i wondered how they were able to cut it so uniformly and with that size, not come out mushed

Le Caviar Oscietre - the surprise of the oscietre caviar

it was served really impressively... at the bottom was crabs' meat with a thin layer of lobster jelly and topped with of course caviar

L'oursin - Sea Urchin in lobster jelly, topped with califlower cream

this was a brilliantly clean dish.... the uni was sooo fresh and surprisingly the lobster jelly did not over power the uni

La Langostine - Crispy Langostine papillote with basil

this was ordered frm the recommendation of the server coz i didnt know what langostine was haha and it turned out wonderful... it looks like wontons but tasted great... googling langostine = a type of lobster and papillote = french for being wrapped in a parchment. the skin was nice a thin and crispy thou the basil sauce was kinda too soft, that the taste of lobster overpowered it... not that im complaining really

Le Foie Gras - warm goose foie gras with season's fruit

this was JS' order.... he was very happy with the size of the foie gras that was placed before him... and even thou i picked at it... i still dont understand how he managed to eat most of it

Le Risotto
Sea urchine risotto with spiky artichokes

this was actually a dissappointing end to the dinner... its good, just not great. it was really very uni-fied haha the sauce was made frm uni... topped with more uni and gold flakes

thankfully.... there was dessert

Le Chocolate Sensation - creamy "Guanaja" chocolate, coco sorbet on chocolate cream

OMG this was AMAZING... ever since my chocolate craze, i havent really been able to eat too much chocolate but this was soooo good. i cant help but rave abt this. the presentation was absolutely gorgeous too

La Rose - Rose golden sphere with rose cream,"Dita" jelly and rasberry sorbet

i thot this was brilliantly done... thou JS found it a little too sweet afterawhile. the sphere in the middle was a very very thin layer of rose flavoured candy i think, containing lychee foam and rasberry fruit

we actually had a very hard time choosing our desserts coz every thing looked awesome... since we were seated by the counter, JS and i were peeking at other pple's dessert when it was being served... their souffle looked absolutely amazing too. i wish i cld make it as well as they do - that shall be my next next conquest i think hahaha and the guy next to me ordered their surprised chocolate ball with caramel icecream. it got served looking like a huge chocolate lollipop and the server then poured warm caramal on the top melting the top of the thin chocolate sphere exposing the caramel icecream inside

other things worthy of raving was their never ending wine selection! hahaha we were given a book of 294 pages of pure wines to choose frm. too bad their sommelier was not arnd and the server wasnt helpful at all but we ended up choosing a 2003 Chateau Pichon-Longueville - a deep not so dry bordeaux

this was truely a wonderful experience and im desperately looking forward to them opening theirs here in sg

ps i just found out today that one of my most favourite restaurant in LA is opening here!!! im ssssoooooo terribly excited. i just hope they will keep their standards otherwise i'll be very dissappointed... now only to make friends with the concierge/head server

a nice saturday with my girlies

its been awhile since sat was spent without much stress.....
woke up to talk to my contractor, then it was off to a very late brunch/lunch with the girlies.... for the first time sarah forgot to bring her camera so no pictures to remember this day by oh well

we left for ps dempsey at 330 only to find out that they wld stop serving lunch at 4 so we rushed there and since our main goal was their truffle fries we had to order those first.  s tried their key lime pie and its yummy! when my oven works... tt shall be one of my receipes to get rite! i've had their breakfast club before and previously it was good but for some really odd reason, yesterday's didnt turn out quite as good... it was rather dissappointing. raph was nice as always and surprised us with glasses of champpie to enjoy

then it was off to town in search for my brides maid shoes and g's father's day gift....

in a bid to not drink this weekend, or at least not go crazy, i went over to my cousin's just down the st to hang out there.... hahaha its always good fun with them and we ended up watching alice in wonderland and it was great having a ginger cousin-in-law to tease :) ce michelle and i stayed up all the way to 3 just gossiping abt our family and stuff

sat was a good day :)

my respite into hk

thks to a great friend, i managed to escape over the weekend to one of my favourite places ever.... unfortunately since i am now working, i only managed to spend 2.5 days there and had to squeeze all my friends in during that time... catching up with all their lives, gossip etc and of course eat and shop. i think my week long diet just basically went down the drain the minute i landed

considering i actually hadnt planned on eating dinner, my dearest driver had brought along her mom's awesome laksa so obviously i had to have that before the flight took off... and being the ever greedy me, upon landing, i had my fav fried rice from Tsui Wah and Lamb kebab frm Eberneezer's. these food was my one stop place for supper the whole time i was in HK and still cant seem to find the equivalent in sg... which come to think of it might actually be a good thing coz then i just might blow up like a piggy balloon i am

Sat started out with a major shopping spree at a new shopping find in TC and OMG the 1 shop there just basically zeroed me out...... hahaha i call it my shoes heaven

 this is a new bridge according to JS.... he literally had to drag me out of the mall complaining he was starving and since where we had planned for lunch was quite a distance, he wanted to leave after the first shop but he was nice enuf to let me run into 2-3 more shops before heading off

where else to start off my trip really with my most favourite wonton noodles hole-in-the-wall?
i had totally forgotten that they were called ping pong wontons but sarah didnt! :)
*urgh* looking at these pics just make me want to go back there again :(

since time was precious... i had to plan my shopping spree arnd the places i wanted to eat at. after a very satisfying lunch of great wonton noodles with yummy wontons and springy noodles... it was off to habourcity and all the IT shops heh... as always my first stop was Y's. fell in love with another of their wonderfully cut pants but was told not to get it :( then to another fav jap brand store that i suddenly cant seem to remember hahaha but anyway all were at harbourcity. then it was off in search for the IT stores!!! heh damage here wasnt very pleasent either :D i feel in love with the display of IT and wish it could be done at my home

feeling rather tired, we went back to TC to rest before the best dinner in awhile! JS treated me to my restaurant of choice.... L'atelier (pronounced as la-tel-yea) by Joel Robuchon. but this will be saved for a later post coz it really deserves one

JS made a comment that i hadnt realise i've been doing.... every trip up to HK, i seem to plan a meal to try one of their world famous restaurants.... this trip was L'ateliar, previously was spoon and somewhere else i cant remember now hahaha
then if was off to drinks at the peninsular with karen and christine :) this was the bell that had to be pressed to enter pretty cool haha

it was great catching up with the girls... on their lives etc. found out karen might be heading this way soon but it looks like i just might miss her :(

sunday was spent at home coz i had some work done... i was really contemplating visiting the asian counterpart of my favourite store in LA or heading to mong kok to look for shoes but decided against it coz i really had to finish up my work. in between i caught a movie about coco chanel and her affair with igor stravinsky... i never realised they were involved and truthfully when i first saw the title, i didnt even think it was stravinsky the famous composer! the movie was alrite... ive always been in awe of how composers were able to compose pieces for a whole orchestra thru their imagination.... finally i headed out for dinner with darren and steph!

i really miss them.... even now

darren took me to a yakitori place then we tried to go to this bar called sugar at the east hotel only to find out it was closed already haha so JS came to get us and we ended going to a HK street dessert restaurant :D haha another cannot miss

and i have to say this is the first time i have seen both steph's and darren's homes... and omg.... darren lives in this really big estate, in the middle of nowhere! well not really... but i still get so surprised at the way pple live in HK hahaha.. he's going to haf his own penthouse soon and the next time i visit i can go stay with him thou considering his location.... i dont knw if i want to coz it'll just be cabbing everywhere. i wonder how many cars have gotten into accidents going up... esp since most of them would be driving really nice cars

i took these for gina and sarah :)

monday was really short coz of course i had to come back to reality :(

since i had sooooo much shopping, i had to resort to hand carrying the orders of century eggs and eggtarts... in total i carried on board 6 boxes of half dozen yong kei century eggs and 4 boxes of 8 egg tarts. i was really crossing my fingers and hoping they wld not check me on sg side or else it'll definately be confiscated and i'll be pissed heh

lunch was of course at yong kei and steph came to join us! i was sooo happy.... we definately over ordered as usual... my fav fried rice, steamed egg whites with crab, a veggie dish, ohhhhh my first time ever trying steamed pomelo skin with roe and it was yummy and not to forget the awesome goose

after all of that... i was rushed to the airport only to nearly miss the flight that everyone wanted me to miss including myself hahhaa... i was the last person to board! such a close call...

i really do miss hk and all my friends there.... sigh maybe i'll just fly up again soon heh i really do need to thank JS for taking such great care of me... hk is really never the same without him arnd

the spoilts of my great trip

Sex and the City 2

you know how most girls have their girlfriends etc etc... numerous movies have always emphasised it. these are ones that i can think off of my head: Sisterhood of the Travelling pants, Bride wars, gossip girl, lipstick jungle and last but the one that really started it all i think is sex and the city

just got back from watching SATC 2 with sarah and gina and of course i had to watch it with them rite? what could be more fitting? hahaha i watched the first SATC with delia in LA and it was great. i really miss her and reminice at how so much have changed for us. but that's of course a story for another day :s sarah on the other hand watched SATC with her then bf  daniel hahaha and she was just commenting abt it as the movie started and as always gina wld haf the perfect thing to say.... the boys will change but as long as the 3 of us are together we'll get thru things. and true enuf it was actually a part of a line in the movie too! haha

the first part really made me miss my darling johan... wishing he was with me. but soon enuf we'll be off with our adventure in july and i cannot wait for that to happen!

the movie was longer than expect especially for a chick flick and i really haf to admire the boys for being able to sit thru it coz other than the fashion... there was really nothing much else. and with any SATC association.. the clothes were gorgeous! over the top but really really pretty. if i could even haf half the closet i would be in heaven :D

and these are my darlings i can never do without... they've all seen me thru so much and i really lean on them for support. i really thank God for giving me something that at least works in my life