Raining Chaos

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  • London, September 2014

    Oh wow, London. This is going to be a massive post with a lot of pictures!

    I’ve been tempted to go to London for a while now, but New York is still the place I want to visit the most. I took advantage of the fact that I was going to be in Shanghai to travel through the Northern hemisphere, and managed to get a very beautiful stopover at Helsinki too – a place that’s a little bit of an in-joke with my friend from a radio play called Cabin Pressure, but also because I think Finland is a cool place – and the view from the plane is certainly pristine and amazing!

    I guess I start at Hyde Park – the first place we walked through as it was near where we stayed. I absolutely love the royal gardens here, and it’s a bonus when the birds aren’t afraid of people, so I could get fairly close them and take all the pretty photos.

     
    I had a few goals in London, the default is always to find coffee – and lucky for me I had a list created, but me being me, I have my own methods too, which simply involves walking around until I see something interesting, and two, following the conversational trail when visiting places. First stop is the cafe where my barista used to work – Workshop Marylebone. It’s small and pretty, and I can see where my barista got his idea for the wooden benchtop from.

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  • F(L)IGHT

    ptzs fl()ight lens flare makes a return

    AND LENS FLARE MAKES A RETURN CAUSE I AM AMAZING

  • China, August 2014

    I keep telling myself I’ll never go back to China, but family matters always come up and I inevitably revisit. I’d consider my expectations of the place to be so low that I really shouldn’t be disappointed, but alas, but I’ve actually increased the amount of spoiledness (I know that isn’t a word) from polite, Western society that I continue to be surprised.

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  • Commune Social

    The story of how I came across Commune Social isn’t super long, but is a story nonetheless – once upon a time, I was stalking a tumblr about Benedict Cumberbatch, when I saw a post that he was at the opening of a fancy new restaurant in London called City Social. I decided to book it as it boasted a view, and I figured my brother might like it since it overlooked the Shard, Gherkin, Walkie Talkie and Cheese Grater. Then, upon further inspection of their website, it turns out their chef, Jason Atherton, had restaurants in China, Hong Kong and Singapore too. And thus, I got the opportunity to visit Commune Social.

    The setup of the restaurant was quite Western, all courtyardy and open, and in a quick visit before actually going, we were advised that the food portions were very small – but luckily I had known that already, it being fancy and tapas style, so I was prepared. The downside was, I had never ordered tapas style food for more than four people, so it became awkward when we were dividing tiny portions into six! I should have doubled all the orders, and that would have been enough.

    Not only is this kind of food grossly more expensive in China, but I felt that there was a far lower level of service than in a Western country – perhaps it was just this visit though. I also admit to having no experience or knowledge about how to adequately staff a restaurant, but I’ve been to a fair few and every now again observe the waitstaff observing customers because it’s interesting to watch. I use the “magical refilling water test” as a benchmark of restaurant service, but here it felt like there just wasn’t enough attentiveness overall – plus the waiters looked a little stressed out, and I had no way of knowing if they had staff call in sick. That being said, I was excited that I frequently saw the dessert chef popping out to present her dishes.

    Beetroot, burrata, gingerbread

    I was pleased with the prettiness of the plating, but having had only burrata once before where it came whole, this one was already broken up for sharing and just as tasty. I really liked the gingerbread component here as well.

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  • Rockpool 1989

    Rockpool, a place I’ve wanted to visit since before Rockpool Bar and Grill, but never found the opportunity to until I decided to squeeze it into a two day Sydney visit.  Their new place on Bridge St is super pretty and I love waiters that are suited up and are wearing lapel pins too!

    It’s essentially a degustation plus up to three extra courses (2 savoury and 1 sweet) to finish up. Since everything on the menu looked tasty, I went for three courses. Having had no time (or computer) to blog for a good five or so weeks, there’s not too much commentary except that there was a lot of deliciousness!

    Prawn tempura with daikon, soy, shiso, prawn cream and dashi jelly

     Who doesn’t love fried stuff with a creamy sauce! This tasty morsel was a great way to start the night.
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  • Backlog >>> futurelog

    So it turns out that returning from epic adventures has resulted in a backlog, giving me plenty to do till the end of the year.

    I NEED TO BLOG AND DRAW AND READ AND WATCH THINGS

  • 6AM Caffeine Ravers

    Is what I would call a cafe if I went ahead with a brilliant idea that I thought up while in the back of a taxi in China, random english radio playing some weirdo dance music.

    It would open bright and shiny some time before 6am, trance blaring out from some massive speakers, and the barista would pull shots. Guess the correct region you’re drinking from, get a free one! You’d be buzzing from the get go, perfect for a Monday morning.

    Doof doof

  • Pre-travel creation

  • Sommeliers

  • Jam Packed July

    Is what I wanted to call the post, because it has a better ring to it than “Jam Packed June”.

    HOWEVER since I have posted this before July, I should make it clear that I am not a time traveller… yet. So all this did not happen in July!!!

    As always, food is first. But this wasn’t an exercise in cooking or eating, it’s part of what I like to call “intense palate training” as for the coffee I drink, I cannot identify flavours within them. So, after having collected a variety of sour citrus, I ended up doing a lemon and lime taste test – to see what I could figure out.

    Say hello to meyer lemon, lisbon lemon, tahitian lime, keffir lime, blood lime! I stopped buying normal lemons after tasting a meyer lemon, because I perceived the meyer lemons to be sweeter. And then I saw tasting notes for a coffee that said meyer lemon… so then I wondered if you really could taste the difference between different kinds of lemons.

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