tourist for a day.

lazy monday post. these are a couple of pictures from a beautiful day back in january. i decided to play tourist for a day and finally visited the empire state building for the first time since my wee teen years. it was so nice to see the city from a different perspective for once since it's so easy to get lost in the daily hustle and bustle of the city at ground level.

it was eerily quiet up there.. ugh, this week is definitely dragging. i'm already looking forward to friday and spending a nice weekend back home in jersey with my puppehhh.

no jackets required.

saturday brought on unseasonably warm weather, enough so that i could amble around a city without a jacket. i happened to also finally receive my brand spankin' new celine leopard print loafers that i absolutely looooooveeee that day. i thought i'd take them out for a spin, and seeing as i'll probably never appear on the sartorialist, i thought i'd have my own little - completely gratuitous - photoshoot with them on the high line. however, my favorite accessory that day ended up being my warm jacques torres cookie (i haven't given up my cookie blog yet!) that later found it's way into my favorite carry-all of all, my stomach. stomach's are convenient like that, aren't they?

i didn't realize how awkward posing for the sake out of your outfit could be, but then again, i hate taking pictures of myself in general. i look at fashion blogs on a daily basis, and it always seems so easy! it definitely didn't help that the high line served as a playground for serious and amateur photographers alike that day, all sporting crazy expensive cameras (both film and digital) with their equally crazy expensive lenses. i even spotted one of those 1920s vintage camera in action (aka someone standing guard while his picture developed). i definitely felt a little camera/lens envy, and it didn't help that some of them were carrying said cameras while toting their crazy expensive birkin bags. anywayyyy, picture time!

trying my best not to put on my customary bitchy face.

celine leopard-print loafers / jacques torres cookie [ignore the chocolate stains..it was gooey]

i haven't seen a full-length shot of myself in a while. ah, winter chubs! i definitely need to lay off the cookies before spring arrives.. but doesn't the camera add 10 pounds? so by my calculations, i need to gain 5 pounds? right? right.

however, today turned out to be even warmer, so i ventured out the central park (withajacketbuti'msureicould'vedonewithoutitifiworeasweater). apparently, i wasn't the only brilliant one with this idea as central park was packed. i tried to find a somewhat empty spot so that i could take photos in peace, but obviously, i failed. there was not a nook that a tourist did not fill. what a fail.. but not bigger than my complete fail with my new film camera. i unwittingly adjusted my exposure settings to -1.0 (i.e. all my photos are trying to compensate for light that was not lacking at all on this cloudless, sunny sunday).. wompwompppppp. i'm not excited to develop my film at all, but i'm still extremely curious to see how they turned out. anyway, i did manage to find one of my favorite spots in central park, the shakespeare garden, somewhat secluded. love that it's relatively unknown as i definitely needed some privacy to constantly adjust and readjust all the settings on my film camera, but here are two shots from the digital camera, which i definitely neglected a bit today..



shakespeare garden / en route to levain!


picked up a WARM oatmeal raisin levain cookie afterward. best cookie ever. no pictures obviously because i don't think there's fast enough shutter speed to capture the cookie before it's annihilated.

lush.

the title of this entry refers to both my inability to hold alcohol (well, i am asian!) as well as the interior decor of mary queen of scots, a scottish-themed bar located in the LES. i went there for a 3-course scotch and wine pairing on yesterday, and much to my surprise, each course was paired with a complementary glass of scotch AND wine.. plus a complimentary 10 year old scotch to start. i downed my first glass of scotch like i would a shot of tequila (ah, remnants of my college days..), and the night quickly spiraled downward thereafter. i kid, i have learned a few things since college, one of them being that i should/need to pace myself - slight slip with the first glass of scotch though. for the most part, i enjoyed the subsequent six glasses of scotch and wine at a more leisurely pace, but that could probably be more attributed to my recently developed affinity for photographing glasses of whiskey (scotch especially, bourbon glasses always seem too difficult for me). i just love the their rich caramel color and the glasses they are served in, and it doesn't hurt that i always find myself sipping a glass in swanky settings. too bad i often find myself in some rather embarrassing angles attempting to capture all of these elements. the table-level shot  that i love so much required me to sink really low into my seat.. to the point where my shoulders almost touched the bottom of the seat. i only managed to get that picture because i was pretty tipsy and didn't give a fuck. good drinks, good food, good night. too bad every wednesday couldn't be the same.

10 year old arran malt to start the night..

the arran malt (pomerol cask) / foie gras with cranberry chutney

i wish i got more shots of the interior, but i was sequestered in the corner as any lush should be. oh well, friday tomorrow!

prague revisited.

i've been feeling a bit wanderlust-y lately and went through my pictures from when i studied abroad in prague back in the fall of 2008. i was only armed with a humble nikon d40 that no idea how to use. thinking back, i don't think i changed a single setting on that camera once. luckily,  europe is good-looking enough to make-up for my complete inability to use a dslr. (a fact that is still sadly true now.) i didn't take nearly enough photos as i should've, but there were still a few winners in the bunch. with some reprocessing in photoshop now, i think they're semi-blog-worthy. this one remains one of my all-time favorite shots:

band on the charles bridge.

such an incredibly beautiful city. i wish i had the chance to photograph it now.

i had a more ambitious post planned, but that's all for today as i am slightly drunk from a scotch and wine-filled dinner, so more to come later.

i should rename and dedicate my blog to rocco.

seriously, he's one studly french bulldog who loves the camera. he is looking straight into the camera in 90% of the pictures i take of him. i think he knows how good-looking he is..

woes of a failed food stylist.

love food. can't style it for shit. my failed attempts at styling my breakfast this past weekend still sting.. a lot [see below]. blueberries proved to be especially finicky and munching on them now only serve as little blue reminders of my dream-crushing experience. the odd stares from other diners and my ridiculously awkward positioning were all for naught! i either looked like an anorexic pushing around her food and/or binge eater continuously going up for more plates... or someone whose never been taken out to a restaurant. at least my poorly styled food still tasted good and was enough to console me in the end.

self-styled.

fancy-pants continental breakfast at wall & water

see all those dishes in the top photo? that's the result of many failed plated attempts. at first, i just put whatever i wanted to eat on my plate, but that's not always picturesque as my cravings are pretty indiscriminate.. especially i'm put in front of tables full of breakfast goodies. my first plate was filled with smoked salmon, cocktail shrimp, blueberry muffin, croissant, and some orange slices. my second plate [center] was a little more cohesive but not too picturesque either. my impatient nature did not do me any favors in completing my vision. i was hungry! some five plates later, i gave up and began working on cleaning up my set (by that i mean eating all the food).

vs.

not self-styled.

farm egg at blue hill stone barns.

notice the difference in plating? i was beat by an egg!! an egg.. a very, very delicious egg. i also have photos of soup that look better than my blueberries.
but alas, even the pros are off sometimes. oh michael laiskonis, it looks like poop!

dessert course at le bernardin.

the best thing about food is that is doesn't have to look good to taste good. regardless, i suppose i shall leave it up to the professionals for now.

PS. can you tell i got lazy with this post? all my pictures don't match (hence, they're small.)

scenes from the weekend.

weekend checklist - 4.5/12 [1,2,4,11,12]. not bad? .5 for number 12 since i only finished listening to "the king of limbs", but i didn't get around to listening to much else. not sure what i think about the new album yet, but it's radiohead.. so, by virtue of that fact, it can't be bad. overall, pretty successful weekend since i managed to cross something off other than number 1 and ventured out of manhattan (i mean getting out of the apartment is a pretttty big deal for me, way bigger deal since i finally set up a seamless web account). biggest/only accomplishment? managing to get all the way to long island city for a truly delicious, memorable brunch at m. wells. not sure if a place like this could exist in the manhattan and retain its old school diner charm..

L to R: reservation notepad, diner countertop, brown sugar cubes, bench outdoors

roaming around LIC while waiting for a table

ok, no pictures of food because i was starving after waiting nearly an hour and a half for a table. just FYI, the brunch of gods includes: unlimited coffee for $1.50, fresh OJ, seafood cobbler (biscuits, bechamel, gruyere, and seafood), bone marrow and escargot, bleu cheese salad, beef tongue, steak tartare (raw filet mignon AND raw egg yolk - it was amazing), and a graceland cupcake just to end on a sweet note. then visited the 5 pointz graffiti wall and the MoMA PS1, which included some poignant photography/installation exhibits - although i spent half my time the museum digesting food rather than attempting to interpret the exhibits. obviously digesting a really heavy meal sucks the life out of you, so i pretty much thought my day was over after that. however, i made it all the way back to manhattan, perked up with a cappuccino at knave, picked up the cutest glitter flats at j.crew, trekked back down - allll the way down - to financial district and then made it out AGAIN to dinner in midtown. i know, crazy (italics necessary). convivio never disappoints me for a good meal, so i couldn't resist - but it was under heavy consideration. now that i think about it, my new glitter ballet flats (and a hermes tie-donning dinner date?) was probably the only reason i made it out the door.

cuuuuute, riiiiight? who wouldn't go out if you had a pair of those in your closet?!

so that was saturday. pretty productive i must say.

the rest of the weekend pretty much went downhill in terms of productivity from there and consisted of a lot, a lot of this:

sunday morning at kaffe 1668

maybe next weekend?

one last shameless picture of the cutest puppy ever. i attempted to take him on his first walk on sunday, but i just ended up holding him while i walked around the block because he was too scared, but it's okay because he's a diva just like his momma. :)

<3

too cute to not post.

this is rocco, and he is rockstar.. and he knows it.

weeeeee - kend.

weekends always rekindle my will to live. whether or not i do something with said will to live is an entirely different story. hopefully this president's day weekend will be different. while everyone and their mother seems to be venturing out of this lovely city of ours, i'm going to spend this weekend exploring it. possible plans for this weekend? endless. concrete plans thus far? one. go to the vet - not sure if this one counts since it's kind of mandatory. my notoriously flaky nature does not deal well with "plans" - i prefer to make plans in my head and then decide to share said plans with someone ten minutes before my private, mentally scheduled event is supposed to occur. thus, i at least appear spontaneous.. in my own special way. obviously making plans this way doesn't always work out, so i've decided to make a game plan for this weekend. a public to-do list should hopefully help me.

TO DO LIST:
1. go to vet - yes, i'm going to include this, just in case i don't complete anything else on this list, i'll have something to cross off
2. go to RBC to pick up some ethiopian worka beans and test out my new moka pot
3. attempt to broil bone marrow accompanied by a shallot parsley salad
4. now i'm getting a little more ambitious: go to queens for brunch at m. wells / visit the museum of the moving image / see the 5 pointz walls
5. take free ikea water taxi to red hook, and FINALLY visit baked for their sweet & salty brownie then brunch at fort defiance?
6. visit the cloisters
7. bronx zoo??
8. go the gym????????????
9. get a haircut. this sounds easy, but this has been on my to-do list for three months.
10. finally see UCB's assssscat 3000 show.
11. this list is starting to overwhelm me. i also just remembered i have a lunch reservation at gotham bar & grill on monday, so i'm definitely not going to cross much off this list except for 1 & 11. or maybe just 1.. opentable reservations make life easy like that.
12. finish listening to the new radiohead album & find some new music. ok, i really just added this to ensure that i can cross something else off this list.

the cookie blog that wasn't.

banana peel hot chocolate [city bakery] / assorted boylan sodas

i initially wanted to start a cookie blog to document my one true love, cookies! then have the blog picked up by saveur/gourmet/food&wine magazine and roll in the $$$ because we all know that bloggers are moneymakers. i made some serious headway into trying the best cookies in the city, but who would remember to whip out their phone to snap a quick pic? the cookie is gone, and my hands are usually buttered and chocolatey at that point. ordinarily, i would've restarted my cookie odyssey, but abnormally snowy weather set in and a subway fare hike got it the way. whoever said love conquers all obviously didn't have to deal with nyc slush and expensive, unreliable nyc transit. so i guess my inaugural blog post shall be dedicated to my undying love of all things sweet. if there's one thing that anyone knows about me, it's that i eat an unconscionable amount of baked goods. cookies, muffins, cupcakes, croissants, brownies, etc. are always fair game for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner, all day, every day. this is especially helpful when i'm eating on a budget (like now). there is no better value for your money per calorie.. except maybe for bagels. it's truly unfortunate that my baking abilities are not on par with my consumption abilities. i can't even imagine the amount of money i could save baking cookies en masse..

it definitely felt like an awkward first date writing (and rewriting) my first entry, so i'm just gonna get this over this and keep it short and sweet.