In the moment

Over the weekend, I went to Copenhagen. Primary reason for the trip was to go worship at the temple of Noma, a two-Michelin-starred modern Danish/Scandinavian restaurant.

And what an experience it was! I'm not a food blogger by any means, but this dinner was an experience beyond food.



We got there at 630pm, worked our way through the food and wine and eventually finished eating around 1230. The food was exquisite. The flavours were clean and showcased the ingredients (all sourced in Scandinavia) beautifully, whilst every dish delivered some element of surprise/excitement. We then got a kitchen tour by the wonderful Pontus (sommelier and part-owner of Noma) - "dez eese the Pacojet room..." and some how got convinced by Pontus to stay for a nightcap. One glass of whiskey and one story about "textbook-style crawls on wide-screen" by one very drunk sommelier later, the rest of the chefs had finished cleaning up and joined us for drinks. Before we knew it, it was 430 and one very tired waiter decided to throw us out. 10 hours!

I wrote the following email to thank the Noma team for the amazing experience I had:

"Dear Noma team,

I had a really amazing time on Saturday night, thank you so much for letting me share in the Noma experience. Many top restaurants strive for perfection and lose their soul in the process, but Noma manages to deliver a sublime experience (atmosphere, food, wine, service, everything!) while speaking from the heart. (Not to mention a surreal experience when Pontus starts telling you about his "textbook crawl on wide-screen"!) The ten hours we spent there were for me, one of those rare experiences in life where you're completely in the moment, forgetting where you came from and where you will go next. Thank you so much and I hope to see you all again.

S xx"

Noma for me was much more than just a meal. It was about the streamlined yet warm decor, the welcoming and friendly service, the food as mentioned before, the wonderful bio-dynamic wines, the company and of course, getting to hang out with the chefs. It was an experience in which I lost myself; I was totally in the moment. Every bite, every sip, every laugh...

Anyway, I have learnt if i-bankers think they have it tough, chefs work far longer hours doing far more demanding (physically) demanding, get yelled at more and get paid far less too. But they still do it, for the love of the job. Of course there are also days when they hate their jobs, but it takes passion to do their job they do. I am in awe of them for this level of commitment and jealous of them for having found their passion. But they have inspired me - there are jobs out there which are fulfilling, I just need to find the one that's right for me.

Man, I really want to go back to Noma now...

p.s. speaking of being in the moment, here's a great article about living in the moment

April 27th

What a difference a year makes. This time last year, I just arrived in NY, fresh from a month-long break and full of hope and promise about life in NY. This time this year, no month-long break but here I am, back in London, full of hope and promise about life in London.

Not going into details about why I decided to move back, but I think overall London offers a more sustainable pace long-term. And please, I offer no guarantees on where I will be this time next year.

So to follow up on a couple of things...

1) Eligible men in London - Hmmm, this one hasn't quite worked out. Eligible Bachelor 1 turns out to be a commitment-phobe possibly also with a fear of letting people get close. Eligible Bachelor 2 has taken a leave of absence and will only be back in London in August. And Eligible Bachelor 3, we are probably better off as friends. So if you know of any other eligible men in London, I scrub up well, am able to make fairly interesting/funny conversation and can tell my martinis from my whiskeys. Do let me know!

2) I now have a flatmate in London. He's French, Jewish and most definitely a ladies' man. At the time of writing, he was last seen getting ready to go "hunting" and that was about 48 hours ago. He will definitely be an entertaining flatmate...

3) In the past year away, I actually grew closer to a couple of my friends in London than when I was actually in London. Talk about absence makes the heart grow fonder. Anyway, now that I am back, I have managed to catch up with most of my friends. Some of them have moved on, getting married or settling into very long-term relationships. And whilst they remain interesting people and good friends, they're ermm...kinda...less fun to hang out with. So I am on the look-out for new friends in London too. If you know of any interesting and fun singles in London, do let me know!

4) Boy have I missed the English capacity to take the piss! Being back here made me appreciate the English self-deprecating sense of humour more than ever.

5) The restaurant scene around Bayswater has improved like 300-fold! And that is significant given that they already had Gold Mine* when I left for NY. There is now a great little Italian takeaway joint, Arancina, which has fresh pastas and pizzas. There is Bodean's, a great American-styled ribs joint. There's Cafe Anglais, Rowley Leigh's latest venture after Kensington Place. And there is Hereford Road, which has been touted as the St John of the West. Hardly surprising given the chef (Tom Pemberton) used to work there and the menu is strikingly similar. But I have a lot more confidence in the place as it occupies a great space in a very good location; I think it will mature into a very fine restaurant which I will be proud to call 'my local'.

And last one for today, in a NY-LON comparison, London flats seem to be poorly heated or poorly built for heat conduction. I'm freezing!

* In my opinion, the best Chinese restaurant in London.

February 1st

Last night, I had drinks with some friends who have been in NY for a while and are contemplating their next moves. I also had dinner with a friend who lives in Boston but works in NY for the week. I am not sure if it was because of my earlier conversation at drinks or what, but I just realized that all the comments I subesequently made at dinner about NY and America were pretty negative. How did it get that way?

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I had one of my best nights in NY last Sun. I had a bunch of people over for dinner, as I do every so often. What made it different on Sunday was I somehow assembled a group with the right chemistry. The night ended at 1am with 4 of us (out of 7) still at the table, after seven bottles of wine and an evening of great conversation, with many references to "Judith". (There's a looooong story behind that)

Perhaps the food was a sign of how the night would unfold. The food was, if you don't mind me boasting, beautiful! I definitely outdid myself this time. Loosely based around a Mediterranean theme, the dinner menu consisted of tapenade, parsley salad, white bean puree, roasted carrots and the piece de resistance, slow-roasted harissa-marinated lamb shoulder. (Boy I wish I had taken a picture of the lamb when it was served.) We finished with an incredibly light olive oil and Muscat cake served with Muscat Love.

Or perhaps I should have known when W burst into the room, overhearing a conversation fragment about Moscow, and went "I have a great Moscow story". W's personality dominated the evening. It was inevitable considering that he was the oldest at the table, lived in NY the longest and was not a banker/corporate type. The quieter personalities fell away quietly in W's wake, leaving W, K (W's gf), A (next oldest person at table) and myself at the table, or in W's words, "the interesting people".

It was one of my best nights in NY because not only had I managed to achieve some kind of culinary success, but I had also managed to bring together a bunch of strangers to share in a great evening. I definitely cannot say that my time in NY has been all that bad. I have managed to pursue my interests to a greater extent - practicing my culinary skills much more often, even going as far as to take a class at the French Culinary Institute. And even though I have been here only nine months, I have met such a wide range of people, some more interesting than others, many friendly but flaky. I have learned to cope on my own, away from friends who have tried-and-tested and thrust amongst strangers.

Labor Day Weekend

Habits. You don't realise how much of a routine you have until you break it. I was in London over Labor Day weekend and stayed with a friend in Bayswater where I'd spent the most time in London.

I got my usual Fresco juice almost everyday I was in town. "Number 18, no honey but with with apple." I totally swear by this carrot-apple-lemon-ginger combo, especially on a Saturday morning when you've been out late the night before.

My kind host was the friend with whom I had breakfast with every Saturday morning (of course only after we got our juice from Fresco) when I lived in Bayswater. Him in a hungover state most of the time, with confessions of misbehaviour from hard Friday night drinking. Me sometimes feeling rough around the edges. Sometimes we would read the weekend papers together too, almost like an old married couple. We revived our time-honoured tradition again this weekend.

And while we're on Bayswater habits, I also made it to Gold Mine for the sam sek cheng sui tan (steamed century egg, salted duck's egg and normal egg). This is one of the dishes which is on my death-row foods list. (This and Fresco's aubergine in tomato sauce). Let's not forget dimsum at Royal China, twice! It is difficult to believe but Chinese food in London is simply unbeatable.

I also made it to Borough Market which was an important part of my new Saturday routine for my last three months in London. I was late though and only managed to get some Monmouth Coffee, of which I was been dreaming about for the longest time. Trust me, you have not tasted better coffee than Monmouth.

The market was closing up so I sat on the curb opposite Monmouth to drink my coffee and soak in the atmosphere. I ended up having a totally random conversation with some hippie about having and not having it. I knew at that point, I had it and how blessed I was to have it.

Sunday July 8th

I went for drinks with a colleague during the week. Said colleague is known as the office gossip. Over drinks, he offered me quite a few juicy morsels of gossip - xx partner had an affair with his black assistant while his wife was pregnant, xx associate had an affair with the pretty blonde assistant ... But what caught my attention most was that a former assistant slept with a couple of the analysts and apparently was so horny that she begged one of them to have sex with her in front of her hotel room door in miami because she'd lost her room key.

I know this girl in question and she's a nice fun girl. And I could totally imagine her doing that. But then knowing her sexual preferences/habits does lead one to form certain mental images, whether or not you like it. And whilst her preferences/habits don't make a difference to our friendship it's going to be at the back of my mind the next time I see her. Dear Reader, does knowing your friends' sexual preferences/habits change the way you think about them?

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My latest craze is madeleines. According to Wikipedia, these are "very small cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in special pans with shell-shaped depressions. Their flavour is similar to, but somewhat lighter than, pound cake, with a pronounced butter-and-lemon taste." I made a batch of batter on Wed, left it in the fridge for the flavours to develop. And here comes the best part, with the batter in the fridge, it was so easy to put a tray of madeleines into the oven, 7 minutes later, these little yummy cakes were ready. Crispy on the outside, soft buttery deliciousness on the inside. Yum!!

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I just read the text above. Seems so incongruous to be writing about sex and food in the same post. Ha.

Carrot Proust

Tuesday June 12th

In my attempt to do a little food blogging, since it's all the rage now, I am posting a picture of my dinner last night.



I had cold tofu with Japanese chuka dressing topped with chopped cilantro (on the left) and a really yummy salad of fresh garden peas (hand-shelled!), asparagus, broccoli rabe topped with toasted sesame seeds and Old Amsterdam cheese shavings (on the right). In this picture you will also see my huge-ass 42" plasma screen which is the reason why I am reluctant to leave my apartment to go out and make friends.