good eats, good reads
☆ foodie
Okay, so I promised to write more food posts, and I am a woman of my word. XD The eating out hasn't been with as much frequency as before (a lot of my friends are currently being frugal with their budgets), but I *have* gone to a number of places in the past few weeks that are noteworthy.
First is what's pictured here to the left, which I picked up at the gelato shop Pitango. When ordering a small sized cup, you're allowed to pick two flavors. They have changing seasonal flavors in addition to some classics. Of course, I sampled a bunch before selecting this combination. I ended up going with strawberry and black tea. The black tea was something I'd never tried before, and I liked how the flavor of the tea really came through in the gelato. I loved the combination of it with the strawberry. It was like a strawberry cream tea in one bite, lol.
Unfortunately, I don't live near one of these gelato places, so I don't actually have occasion to try it often. I wonder if I should add "black tea ice cream" to my ice cream making repertoire? I actually haven't made a batch of ice cream that was so good I'd want to try it again. This is rather sad! But practice makes perfect, and I've really only made about 4~5 different flavors so am quite inexperienced.
Some of my other foodie highlights of late:
Korean Pork Belly Bites
House Made Kimchi, Kochujang
From a Happy Hour at TenPenh. You cannot go wrong with pork belly. Don't let that layer of fat alarm you - it's melty and delicious.
Maine Lobster Salad
with haricot verts, Jerusalem artichokes,
mango, truffle vinaigrette
From a recent dinner at Napoleon Bistro, this dish had a great combination of fabulous! Artichokes! Mango! Lobster! Truffle! Unfortunately, the artichoke wasn't fabulous, but the rest was lovely.
Duck Breast
baby chard, quince & ginger sauce
My *favorite* dish from a recent dinner at the newish Spanish tapas place Estadio. LOVED this. The duck was perfectly cooked, and the skin was crispy and wonderful. So much flavor! The bitterness of the baby chard provided a nice balance to the dish.
☆ project runway
WOW, folks. The last episode was a train wreck, but in a good way. I was so glad the scrappy team pulled it together! I don't generally like lace, and I wasn't about to make an exception either, but I was fairly pleased with what they came up with. Still, I think almost anyone would have won against that other "men's wear for women + camel" collection, which was just utterly hids and devoid of any fashion. Watching Gretchen trip all over herself on the judging was awkward and jaw-dropping. I'm so hoping to see Tim Gunn's video blog on this episode, because he was uncharacteristically snarky at the end!
☆ player of games
Finished reading Iain M. Banks's Player of Games, which was pretty brilliant. I loved the world he created, and the fascinating alien civilizations he describes. Loved the twist at the end, too! Would definitely recommend it for any lover of sci-fi.
☆ boooots
The impending arrival of autumn means that it's almost BOOT season. I spotted these amazing ankle boots on a shoe blog recently and I've been coveting them ever since. Unfortunately, they don't have my size at Zappos, but perhaps that's a good thing, since they're...well, $480. (^___^);;