Watsons Bay Wedding

We've just returned from a quick visit back to Australia, spending our time between our old homes of Sydney and Adelaide. I hadn't been back for nearly 4 years and it was SO GOOD to return.  

One of the main reasons for our trip was to celebrate the wedding of our wonderful friends. The gorgeous bride L, and I first met when we shared offices in the law firm we worked at right after finishing uni, and continued to remain kindred spirits through cross-country moves on both our parts. Nearly a decade later, my heart was overflowing with love as I saw her walk down the aisle to meet her beloved under the fig tree by the picturesque Watsons Bay. Just before hail pelted down on us. 

Immanuel French Kitchen

After a couple of Fridays being out of town, S and I are exploring the city the best way we know how - through our bellies. Last Friday for our usual date night, we had to make a trip to Ikea (yet again). A quick google search for what to eat in the area pointed us in the direction of a french 'bistro', set uniquely in a hawker centre. 

Pardon the poor quality pictures, I couldn't head home after work before dinner so all I had was a phone camera which produces photos that can only take so much editing...

Pineapples and Night Markets

For a city that has as many restaurants as inhabitants, there is a dearth of good Malaysian eateries which don't require something like an hours journey on two trains and a bus. So the moment we realised a new Malaysian restaurant had opened (in Williamsburg no less), S and I grabbed a few friends to check it out. 

Let's just say our prayers been answered bountifully with Pasar Malam:

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The restaurant is named for the night markets where an array of snacks are sold, though paradoxically roti (and most other dishes on the menu) are not really found in night markets. But we're not here to nitpick name choices. The glory of going in a large group means being able to order more than one roti - each one of them cooked to flaky perfection. 

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We also had the curry laksa, the assam laksa and the Michael Jackson: the most non-PC Malaysian name for a classic drink of soybean grass jelly combo (ya know, cos it's black AND white).

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The belle of the ball was most definitely nasi lemak - a coconut rice dish commonly eaten at breakfast. The main accoutrement - the sambal (red anchovy sauce) tasted just like it did back home, I couldn't believe my taste buds. 

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Here's what I wore (inspiration - Natalie Joos): 

Zara Pineapple top (sim here and here), Whistles leather slit skirt (identical on sale), Celine vintage bag, Catbird lovecat ring (14K version), Nike Liquid  Gold (another metallic option)

Here's to a great week ahead!

Pink in Williamsburg

On Sunday, S and I met old friends, who recently moved from Australia/Hong Kong to New York City after having won the Green Card Lottery. Back in the day, I used to religiously apply for this every year to no avail. These kids (and a few other people I know) got through on their first attempt - some people have just the luck! Well nothing brings us great joy than to see our NYC family growing. Friends and family ex-USA: if you didn't guess already, that was a PSA to apply this year and come on over!

Stressed but Well Dressed

Happy Memorial Day Sunday!

For the first time in weeks, S and I have no plans this weekend besides eating our way around town. 

For our usual Friday night date, we went to French Louie, the new sister restaurant to one of my favourite places in the city, Buttermilk Channel. I didn't mind what we ate but it was difficult to not compare it to its far superior sibling. 

Switching out Autumn/Winter wardrobes for Spring/Summer meant a few old favourites are feeling new again. Unfortunately, they were terribly poor choices in light of the skies opening up just as we arrived in Brooklyn. Our little umbrella didn't stand a chance against the torrential downpour. Well dressed but stressed, more like. 

Crop To It

I haven't been impressed with NYC restaurant offerings of late which means apart from date night, I haven't been dining out as frequently.  Narcissa is changing that.  

I had dinner there a few weeks ago with my dear friend Kara. The meal was fantastic that the first thing I did when I got home was make a reservation to take S for date night. 

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The vegetable-forward menu was much welcome, but not surprising considering Narcissa's older sister is Dovetail, which serves one of the best vegetarian tasting menus in the city. 

I ordered the beets and duck both visits. The rotisserie beets, pictured above, has already been written about. I now hope that the duck (seen in the foreground here) receives similar accolades. I foresee many more meals at Narcissa. If I go back often enough, I might even be tempted to order other things off the menu. 

More Issues Than Vogue

I succumbed to the cronut craze on Saturday. 

Each month Dominique Ansel switches up the flavour and the lure of August's coconut was unbearable. Yeah there was a wait but an easy one (albeit a couple of hours long) - I sat down the entire time, poured over September issues and talked to my fellow cronut fanatics I was in line with. Next thing I knew, it was time to shake hands with Mr. Ansel himself waiting at the door and get myself the two cronuts each person was allowed to buy.

Was it worth it? ABSOFKINLUTELY. 

Would I do it again? Depends on the flavour I suppose (rose! rose!). Though I am probably getting S to wait in line then - he slept in on Saturday and only got out of bed as I walked in the door with the goods. Nomination for amazing "wife" award perhaps?

Anyway, the rest of the day was as fun as the morning. - visiting a friend with a patio garden for lots of outdoor drinking and many rounds of Cards Against Humanity (BEST. GAME. EVER); an evening birthday party at a beautiful Soho penthouse rooftop; and catching the latest Bollywood blockbuster at a midnight cinema screening.  

More Issues Than Vogue t-shirt, that infamous Zara skort, Forever 21 diamante necklace, Zara sandals 

Sugar high, prosecco high, laughter high, happy high = my perfect Saturday. Hope yours was as fabulous too!

Coalface Outfits

Taking photographs for this blog is no easy feat. So my attempts at dressing up appropriately for work is not often documented apart from a few pictures here and there on Instagram. I thought it would benefit me, and hopefully entertain you if I re-posted here what I have been wearing to the office of late: 

Ippudo and Maxi Skirts

If you follow me on Instagram,  you would have found out that I spent date night Friday with two other men I like so much - Justin Timberlake and Jay Z. And boy was it the best thing that has happened this summer yet. It was INCREDIBLE and MARVELOUS and AWESOME and every other superlative you can think of. If they are touring your city, PLEASE GO. If it wasn't so financially irresponsible of me to attend the same concert twice, I would go again in a heartbeat.

We had a slightly quieter Saturday, coming down from the high from the night before. Too lazy to cook, S and I went to the new Ippudo in Midtown for dinner. We've only ever been to the the one in Tokyo previously and we've always been too hungry to bear the wait whenever we've been in the vicinity of the original New York Ippudo location in the East Village. 

I liked it while S thought it wasn't worth $15/bowl. You be the judge:

Pork buns that put Momofuku ones to shame.

Karaka-men - tasty but all you could taste was the heat from the chili. Not what I was quite in the mood for.

Shiromaru Hakata Classic - if you can only order one thing, this is it. 

Green tea ice cream with mochi, red beans, and almond and coconut milk - I am not usually a fan of matcha ice cream but the milk was the perfect softener slash sweetener. We gobbled this one up good.

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The maxi skirt below was a late-summer buy last year. As a fan of instant gratification, it was painful to have to wait an entire year to finally wear it out:

Hair of the Dog

It was a wonderful Friday night. The kind like the ones had many moons ago. With old friends so kindred, they are considered family. Where you dance the night away, shutting down one club after another. And finally getting home just shy of sunrise. Yup, that kind of night. 

Which meant Saturday morning was just a teensy bit rough - but nothing a bit of grease couldn't take care of. So a few hours sleep later, the party reconvened at Cafe Habana:

Michelada with extra spice

Mexican corn cut to share

Who ordered the freaking salad?

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At least I tried to look more put together than I actually felt:

Anniversary Date Night

[Note: this post was originally published in April 2013. A glitch with blogger has resulted in this article unintentionally posting in July] 


Thank you so much for the lovely wishes on our anniversary!

We splurged on an intimate dinner at Ichimura at Brushstroke. It was an amazing experience - which Pete Wells, the current NYT food critic, describes more eloquently that I would ever be able to in his review here. 

It's funny that it was only a few months back that we shunned any thought of having an entire meal of near-raw fish. It all changed on our trip to Japan last November when we dined at Daiwa Sushi in Tsukiji Market (home of the famous tuna auctions). The chefs at that countertop restaurant spoke limited English, while we spoke limited Japanese. Not wanting to come across rude, we ate everything placed in front of us - initially with apprehension, but later on with gusto. Everything was so tasty and very fresh - rightfully so since they were quite likely swimming in the ocean not long ago - but interestingly and most importantly, smelled nothing like the sea (the underlying source of my initial apprehension against seafood of the non-fried/curried variety) 

On A Wing

Everything that happened in Boston this week has been so surreal - a feeling much amplified by long meetings at work where I had zero access to the news or social media for hours. I know plenty of runners who pour their heart and soul into a race, and I have friends who bleed Boston pride - when the enormity of the situation finally hit, there was no way to stop the tears from flowing. A week later and I suppose it is back to normal for most of us. The city will recover, runners will lace up again and but I hope most importantly, we will always remember Patten Oswalt's words, that the good will forever outnumber the evil. There is no greater message of hope than that.

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When I finally peeled my eyes away from the news sometime mid-week, I discovered a place that served the best spaghetti-with-tomato-sauce I have ever had. I don't eat uptown often enough even though I will go anywhere for food. So I had a dinner date with a girlfriend on Wednesday at Amali located a hop, skip and a jump away from Bloomingdales on the Upper East Side. While every single dish we had was worth re-ordering (the broccoli and eggplant appetisers = insane), it was the pasta that blew me away - I couldn't wait to finish one mouthful of the spaghetti before wanting to shovel another in. 

The dish uses San Marzano tomatoes which are given the Amali-treatment by being cured overnight with salt and sugar, then steeped in olive oil, herbs, lemon and orange zest. As the NYT aptly puts it: "the flavors multiple. It is sauce as liquer". Yup, I got drunk on spaghetti. Well worth maxing out my MFP count for the week day. 

Amali's dining room (via)

On Friday, after being glued to the news on the Boston manhunt, S and I went for a late meal at Comodo - a place I've been waiting to visit since seeing my friend, Felicia's photos here. The kale and quinoa salad you see on Felicia's blog was fantastic - alas not much else. With so many other options in the city, I am hesitant to make return visits to a restaurant for a dish I can replicate at home! One redeeming quality though - the staff disco-ed the lights and turned the volume up on "Celebration" whenever they brought out a lit birthday dessert for any birthday babies in the house. 

We weren't keen on ending date night on a mediocre note, so walked around the corner to Pegu Club. A cocktail lounge I hadn't been to since it first opened, it had a nice mix of being busy but not too crowded. Solid gin cocktails there were the perfect pick-me-uppers we sorely needed.

My date night outfit involved a jaunt through old favourites:

Blue on Blue at Bouley

S and I forewent date night last night. The poor boy was at home sick on the one day he has off that I don't each year. Such bad luck. Since he is much better today, we kept our lunch reservations at a place that has been on my NYC restaurant bucket list for ages: Bouley.

Like other Michelin-starred restaurants in town, Bouley serves a great lunch option for a fraction of what it would cost for dinner. Though Bouley stands out from the rest by extending the special lunch offering beyond the weekday to Saturdays - something I wasn't aware of till recently either!

It was a five-course tasting, which meant that between us two, we had over 15 different dishes including the various amuse bouches, palette-cleansers and petit fours. As expected, we were extremely full by the end of it. Great deal for $55+ without a doubt - especially since a lot of what we ate also appears on the more expensive dinner menu! Next time though, I'd ask to be seated in the much prettier upstairs dining room as opposed to the dimly lit downstairs section (perhaps they assumed we wanted a more romantic experience?) 

Black and Yellow

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! It's snowing in NYC and while I love love love snow, the lingering cold is driving this Summer baby nuts!

I had a shocking week at work - which is another reason why I was excited for Friday-Date-Night. This week we went to the West Village - first stop, a tried and true favourite for cocktails: Employees Only. It's one of those well-known speakeasies - an oxymoron I know - which naturally also meant it is terribly popular. The only way to guarantee entry is to get there earlier in the evening. 

My go-to drink is the Fraise Sauvage - Plymouth Gin shaken with Wild Strawberries & Tahitian Vanilla, topped off with Zardetto Prosecco di Conegliano Brut. How yummy does that sound? It's a great drink to start of the evening, especially pre-dinner.

We then walked around the corner to L'Artusi. This place is up there among my favourite restaurants in the city - so nice I was there twice in the past few weeks! The pastas and small plates are the stars of the menu - I admit I haven't ventured towards the far right of the menu. I mean who has space for any of the main courses after a pasta dish anyway? We didn't, especially when we were saving space for the desserts below:

Pineapple Sundae - scoops of flavor-intense housemade coconut gelato and pineapple sorbet sink into a base of almond cake drenched with pineapple caramel sauce. Whipped cream and sweet toasted coconut crown the sundae

Bittersweet Chocolate Budino - this silky, not-too-rich pudding is made with Grand Valrhona 70% bittersweet chocolate. It's top with vanilla whipped cream and a crisp chocolate-honey tuile. Both photos and (who can top that) descriptions via

You bet we we were so full that we had to be rolled out of the restaurant...

Anyway,  while I decided to put away the white frocks of previous weeks and go for a summery shade, the very cold night still had me dressed in double-layered tights, gloves and boots:

Zara dress (LOVE the shoulder pads!), Anthropologie beaded handbag (on sale and free shipping >$100) and necklace, Plush fleece tights beneath an awesome pair of card suits tights from a random shop in Shibuya, Tokyo, Prada boots

We are staying in tonight (go see on Instagram the dinner S put together!) so have a pint of Guinness for me and more importantly, stay safe this St. Patrick's Day!

p.s. - there is still time to enter the giveaway!

White and Pollock

I am writing this post in a rather zombie-like state having just had my arse kicked at Soul Cycle a few hours ago. While it took me the entire class to work out the jargon (tap what?), I thoroughly enjoyed it - as much as one can enjoy working out I guess. 

It is more than likely I burned off all the calories from last night's date night - which took us to Cobble Hill in Brooklyn. We had to wait for our table at La Vara, so we popped into Clover Club for an aperitif. Except that I lost all sense of what an aperitif should be and went for the hard stuff right up - the Gin Blossom. As one can expect, having a spirit-forward drink on an empty stomach meant I was VERY HAPPY by the time our table was ready. 

Alcohol-related lack of objectivity aside, dinner at La Vara was great! (side note: I am a huge fan of it's sister restaurant, Txikito which serves Basque tapas which are a personal favourite since my travels to the region last Autumn). We practically inhaled the honeyed crispy eggplant with cheese and the  Spanish migas (both pictured below); as well as a heap of off-the-menu specials that due to said "aperitif" earlier,  what they were precisely I can not for the life of me remember!   

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This week, I wore a Zara dress I've had for a couple of years and paired it with my only purchase from the Prabal Gurung x Target release recently:

Zara dress (sim), Brook&Lyn necklace, Spanx tight-end reversible tights

Prabal Gurung x Target Nolita pumps

I usually don't buy plastic shoes but these were SO FUN and remind me a lot of the now-unavailable Christian Louboutin Pollock pumps (seen on Irina here). I was pleasantly surprised that they don't butcher my feet that much so I highly recommend if they work for you. 


Otherwise, have a lovely rest of the weekend! I ticked off #2 off the March Social Calendar before Soul Cycle so I look forward to continuing to veg my Sunday away!  

Ann Hamilton at the Park Avenue Armory

Earlier today, S and I visited the Ann Hamilton exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory. Titled "the event of a thread", the exhibit mainly comprised of a large diaphanous white curtain in the middle of the very impressive, expansive space.

The white fabric rises and falls continously, seemingly due to a draught in the enclosed space but in fact through a convoluted yet intricate system of pulleys and ropes powered by a few dozen swings that visitors sit and play on. Talk about bringing out the kid in us!

While Ms. Hamilton's motivation behind the installation is rather high brow (read here), I love participatory art and couldn't get enough of the swings especially whilst trying to work out which part of the curtain I was manipulating as I swung back and forth. 

From my instagram

We weren't in the practice of hogging swings so we jumped off and lay down beneath the white curtain. Looking up, this is what I saw:

  

This was one heck of a spot for quiet contemplation and considering the time of year, some decent resolution-making. It was mesmerising the way the fabric glided and floated - this alone was worth the admission.

Zara polka dot flared dress (sim and sim), Plush fleece tights, Wolverine x Samantha Pleet boots (here, here and here), Sportsgirl Australia belt (sim), J Crew sequin jacket (last worn here)

On for the rest of the week, I urge anyone in the area to take a peek (go early, get advance tickets). If you decide to go in the evening, there is a mini concert concluding with pigeons being released into the space (what the..?). But if you are unable to visit, here's a short video of the installation:

Christmas in New York City

Merry merry merry Christmas everyone!

As a non-Christian household and our immediate families thousands of miles away, we've established a few New York City traditions of our own to usher in this festive day.

We start with the night before Christmas, which is the only time of year that Gramercy Park is open to the public, and even then, only for a single hour. Like last year, we braved the frigid cold to carol in the Park, only this year we hung back from the crowds; to sing, cuddle and reminisce on "our" bench instead. The memories we have of this Park are so precious that I won't deny how rough it felt knowing we wouldn't be able to enter this space again for another year.

Food solves most troubles so we crossed the street to Maialino and ate and drank ourselves very happy.

DVF Zarita in Navy, Nine West Jeneil pumps in Red Suede (my weak ankles LOVE the solid heel on this shoe)

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Christmas Day for us means a visit to the holiday windows and displays around town. Here are some of my favourites.

Barneys x Disney. I thought the video was pretty cute but wished the rest of the windows were similarly decked out

Bergdorf Goodman - while not as elaborate as last years, the 1920s-themed windows are the best of the lot. This particular display was my favourite. Seriously, white peacocks?!

Tiffany's - if I had a Christmas tree, this is how I want the bottom of it to look like 

Gingerbread Lincoln at the Le Parker Meridien gingerbread extravaganza

Hilarious gingerbread depiction of the dangling crane 

I usually don't take photos of trees but I liked how the Le Parker Meridien one took a leaf (ha!) out of the AMNH tree

Uniqlo +J 3-way coat, Anthropologie Jeweler's Choice Cardigan, Zara drop waist dress (sim), Chanel vintage flap

More new shoes: Wolverine x Samantha Pleet boots (here, here and here)

One in a row of giant nutcrackers outside UBS in midtown

We finally ended up at the Rockefeller Tree. There were SO. MANY. PEOPLE, we hightailed it out of there as soon as this picture was taken

And then we made like Jews and had chinese. 

Hope your day was as festive as mine!