Lioness in Japan

I enjoy hotel breakfast buffets spreads but some of the hotels we stayed in New York either didn’t include breakfast or they offered a less than appetizing affair (bread rolls, juice, and coffee – boooring).

So I made my own brekkie and this was also my jet lag snack if I woke up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs.

Organic oats soaked in almond milk (pre-packaged; I like the unsweetened Almond Dream one) or rice milk with berries and banana. If I have raisins, I’d chuck them in as well.

Eating healthily while travelling has been such a challenge for me and I already feel better if I could have just one “homey” meal a day.

As a side point, most hotels would bring up an empty bowl and cutlery graciously but one particular nice hotel we stayed in charged us USD6. It was quite mind-boggling because you would think the cheaper hotels would do that…

I had the opportunity to catch Singapore Day at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The promise of hawker food was the only lure for my friends and I (in the end, I missed out on the food because I had another event).

However, there was also a a special Mambo Jambo session that got everyone on their feet too. Leading the hand actions were Hossan Leong and Michelle Chong in her Barbarella incarnation. It was a total hoot dotted with cringey moments.

More interestingly, Singapore Day is a travelling festival that goes to Shanghai, Sydney, and Paris, too. The purpose of this event is to attract undergrads to consider going home after they finish uni overseas. There were quite a number of career booths helmed by EDB, the army, banks etc, offering entry-level positions upon graduation.

Apparently, this is a huge event that attracts Singaporean students from all over the US who converge in New York for this rare day of local treats. My friends who were there earlier heard that some folks even drove down from Toronto – not even in the same country, oh my!

It was a surprisingly fun day hangin’ out in sunny Prospect Park with a whole bunch of Singaporeans.

I eat really well in NYC because I have a couple of foodie friends who take me to the best places. I’m too lucky, honestly.

Today’s rave is Danji, a Korean tapas joint, near Broadway and we had a light meal there just before catching a play. If you need to be out of there in 45 min, you should inform the hostess, so she would get you fed and present the bill so you can be shipped off to your show on time. It was a new discovery for me about restaurants near the theatre district.

We had the buckwheat noodle whelk salad which was spicy and refreshing. I have never tried whelk before and though I’m not really a fan of chewy shell fish, this tasty rendition didn’t draw the icks from me at all and I really enjoyed the marinated whelk.

The other star dish we had was the Korean hot sauce flavoured yellow tail sashimi which was just divine.

We had other bits and bites like calamari which I didn’t shoot but was yummy too. We had to shimmy outta there in 45 minutes flat so speed ordering, girl talk, munching, and bill paying had to be done within that short time frame so I was a bit slack on photo-taking. I would love to come back here again. The atmosphere at Danji was cozy and chic – a great lil’ culinary corner on 52nd Street.

Hello my loves, I have been dwelling in the pit of jet lag where I am sleeping and awake at odd times. It’s been a while since I’ve had a solid eight hours checked into the sleep bank.

While I wallow in self pity, I comfort myself with these pictures of my short stay in NYC just two weeks ago (nine days was too short!). Has it been that long?

Madison Sqaure Park was just gorgeous with its pink blooms and lush greenery…

It was also my first time to experience the Union Sqare Farmers’ Market. I didn’t buy anything but it was just lovely to stroll through and poke around the produce.

And Times Square was brilliant. I never did stop to look at it in the daytime and always tried to take pictures at night.

This time we stayed at hotels around the Times Square area and above which was really touristy compared to our previous East Village sublet. I kind of liked it because it felt like we were in the thick of the action but it was extremely crowded sometimes and I would scoot off Eight Avenue onto Ninth Avenue just to get some breathing space.

I’m not really sure what I did in Boston when we breezed in on the Amtrak from New York the Monday before last.

I had a couple of Japanese lessons on Skype, changed hotels, ordered room service twice, and shopped at Copley Place. It was also too cold to walk around so I literally walked from my hotel through the arcades that connected Prudential and Copley Place which had Sephora and Neiman Marcus.

When people refer to my trip as a holiday, it really doesn’t feel like one and I don’t mean it in a bad way. I’m working less obviously but I’m still blogging at Beauty Box (plus day-to-day business related emails) and continuing my Japanese lessons, so it’s more like I’m living my life but in different cities, if that makes sense. Plus a bit if shopping thrown in, of course…

Hey loves, I’m flying to New York again as we speak. These past two weeks in Tokyo have been hectic but I’m glad for the change in pace.

This time I would be just spending 10 days there (with three days in Boston), then I’ll be going to Frankfurt and Hamburg, then Sydney, and finally Singapore. We may take a side trip to somewhere in between but it’s not confirmed.

Let me just say that packing everything I need in one carry-on luggage for a month away will hopefully reinforce the fact that one does not need very much to get by. And there are drugstores in every country we’re going to so I’m going to just chill. I hope. I like my stuff, as you can see from here.

If posting is a bit erratic, then you’ll know I’m not able to get to an Internet connection.

First off, sorry for not posting as usual. I’ve been so busy since I got back to Tokyo so I rudely stopped halfway in my tracks in my DC Diaries series. All I can say is that I blame good friends, great food, and the Hunger Games trilogy.

So this last post on my 24-hour DC trip wraps up what was probably the highlight of this foodie’s time there — Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert. If you are a Top Chef geek, you would know he appears frequently as a judge or guest judge and even as a contestant on Top Chef Masters. He’s also famous for cooking fish and that’s right up my alley…

The photos are really crap so this post is really dedicated to you Top Chef fans out there. I even made the kangaroo order fish over steak (he always chooses steak or lamb) because how could you not eat Eric Ripert’s fish?!?!?!?!

The tuna carpaccio was served in an interesting way — cut as a paper thin disc that covered a large round plate. I kept looking for cuts in the carpaccio but I couldn’t find any. It really looked seamless in its flat circle — amazing! It was very good and served at room temperature which didn’t affect the light freshness at all.

Since I strong-armed the kangaroo to eat fish, I let him choose his appetizer (honey, why not the mussels????) so he got the calamari which was good, but you know, anything deep-fried is tasty.

The star of the show was the pan-roasted striped sea bass with tabbouleh, roasted red pepper, and za’atar vinaigrette. The sea bass was so succulent and well-seasoned — just cooked to perfection and the tabbouleh was just so vibrant and citrusy that you felt you had a great meal without gorging on overly rich food.

The fish burger had rave reviews on Yelp so I chose that. I nearly died — the smokey grilled taste was all over the fish and bread. I think they might have grilled the thick tomato slice in it as well so it felt really homey but made by professionals.

With reasonable portions for our mains, we still had space for dessert so the kangaroo had the lime mousse and I got the profiterols. The fish dazzled me so much that I didn’t think the desserts were that interesting. It was great presentation and were delicious in their own right but nothing unusual in flavour combination. In fact, I tend to find desserts in the US too sweet for my taste…

So with full bellies we rolled back to our hotel and headed for the airport back to Tokyo early next morning…

I actually took quite a few photos considering it was just a two-hour stroll. I picked my faves to show you.

There were quite a few war memorials (Vietnam War, Korean War, WWII etc.) but this one really caught my eye as it was this pattern on a marble wall in the Korean War Memorial section where you could see your own reflection. Was quite cool…

And a glimpse of the White House. I zoomed as far as I could and there it was. There were so many policemen standing around or leaning against their cars with sunglasses on and zero smiles. We tried to venture into the massive carpark that leads to the White House and were stopped. I’m not sure if it was because it was late and the zone was closed or it’s generally closed off to the public. It still felt like we were a football field away from the White House.

The kangaroo has a particular style of photography that is very unique. He either likes my head in a corner with a great view of something spectacular (e.g. the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road, or Mount Fuji) or he would align my head with something sticking out of it.

With the Washington Monument, he couldn’t resist his favourite mise en scène.

He thought it was excellent photography.

So when it was his turn, I was happy to oblige.

I wasn’t too excited about Washington DC, or rather I felt very indifferent about it. I’d never been there so I had a hazy impression of it. The capital city didn’t seem very inspiring from a distance and we were just going to be there for less than 24 hours. I did look into White House tours, but unfortunately, they didn’t conduct them on Mondays and we were there on a Monday.

After checking into our hotel, we decided to stroll around the war memorials, snap a picture of the obelisk, and have a look at the White House. It was too late to get into the museums because it was 430pm when we got out of the hotel.

There were cherry blossoms in full bloom everywhere which made our two-hour stroll extra special.