*1236 - mendocino roadtrip

We've driven up the coast North-ward a couple of times and the Pacific Ocean never fails to amaze.  Final destination: Mendocino, but any of our stop points could have been destinations.  We frolicked upon beach after beach, walked out treacherously to cliff after cliff.  

We're roadtrippin'!

View from Highway 1.

Possibly the largest, most awe-inspiring waves I've seen.  That's saying a lot for a tropical girl who's been to many a beautiful beach.

 

 

 

 

We stayed in Mendocino, in a little B&B.  There was a cosy little upscale-ish restaurant, Cafe Beaujolais, just down the road that we walked over to.  For some reason, they brought us to a separate part of the restaurant which was practically empty, just us and a few other couples.  It was romantic and cute, service was personal and attentive, and the food was quite good--we had the duck and the sturgeon.

 

The next day, we stepped out of our B&B and walked toward the coast and discovered this:

 

 

What in the world are these weird tubular seaweed things?  They were so strange and sat around the beach in gross giant wormy piles. 

 

 

 

D can never resist a flat skipping stone.

 

(Look at the tubes behind us again!)

 

Whenever you drive along Highway 1, there are always parts of the road where you can just veer off to the side and walk out to a vista point of your choice.  Walk along this little path and reach the end and realise that the path drops off to a frighteningly sharp cliff.  Straight down to the water and rocks down below.  See that section of the path that D is contemplating?  It's a foot wide with a sheer drop on either side.  Eeee.  Wobbly knees.  But so gorgeous.

 

 

 

Spot the D:

 

And we're in Northern California.  Which means wineries galore!  Being all posh and snotty about wine is not always our favorite activity but Toulouse winery was just lovely.  Had a relaxing tasting in a sunny spot on their newly opened patio that looked out to rolling mountains.

 

:) What a lovely getaway.  And it's a resolution of ours to go on even more while we're here on this coast.

*1235 - waffles

A spur of the moment buy: a waffle machine.

This means ... homemade "fried" (actually baked) chicken and waffles!

And a whole host of other fun waffle flavors.  Most recently: rosemary cornmeal waffles, because I happen to have an abundance of fresh rosemary that I'm struggling to use up.

They're about equally as effortful as making pancakes and take about the same amount of time unless you have a griddle upon which to make gazillions of pancakes at the same time.  They also come from pretty much the same recipe so pancakes and waffles are essentially different incarnations of the same thing.  Just a matter of whether you feel like having something fluffy or something crisp.

*1234 - vertical garden

In a bid to beautify the corridor outside our new place, I invested in a hanging garden of great alien-like succulents.  Succulents are all the rage now in San Francisco; take a walk around our neighborhood and you will see hundreds of different species of succulents sprouting all over the place.  Very, very hip garden feature.

And thankfully, very idiot-proof (or so we hope)!  Water only when the soil dries out i.e. once a week or every two weeks-ish.  And if they so happen to catch a glimpse of the sun, they flower!  Delightful.

This is a glamour shot of the succulents--they are more sparse than that and we are patiently waiting for them to grow and fill out and become gloriously lush.

First time actual gardening experience (I'm not counting tending to Mum's ferns or growing tau-gey as a child)!

*1233 - parsleyed fish gratin

Recipe from Nigella Lawson.  It makes a beautiful gratin with buried parcels of fish and shrimp and a delicate green parsley taste, even if you don't like parsley.  In fact, I first made this dish years ago when I wasn't quite a fan of parsley due to its extremely perfumeyness, and this was the dish that made me appreciate it more.


My problem is that whenever I try to follow a recipe, I make substitutions because I can't believe the amount of calories I'm intentionally adding to an otherwise innocuous or already calorie-laden dish.  And add to the fact that when I'm cooking (vs. baking), I never actually measure anything out precisely and adjust unhealthiness down almost subconsciously.  And given this is a Nigella Lawson recipe, you can only imagine how decadent it is.  I usually skimp on the finishing touch--the brushing of seemingly way too much garlic oil--but tried it out this once and what a delightful difference it made to the crispness of the top layer!

*1232 - MacRitchie treetop walk

Hiked up to the MacRitchie treetop suspension bridge with the parents and D.  Monkeys galore running about our ankles, practically!  Had loads of National Geographic moments with monkeys right by me peering into the camera.

After quite a hike (I mean, imagine HIKING in SINGAPORE; Dad had to wring out his t-shirt after), the reward of the suspension bridge was all too short-lived!  It was pretty though and unsurprisingly clean and orderly and well-kept, some good old nature within a bustling city, an invigorating, healthy activity to help punctuate the constant eating that we did while in Singapore.

   

*1231 - lands end

Whenever anyone visits San Francisco, there are just some places a tourist must strike off the list.  The Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Ferry Building, Lombard Street, Alcatraz, Union Square, cable cars, ...

And if you have time, Coit Tower, Twin Peaks, Castro, Golden Gate Park's gardens, oldest/largest Chinatown in the US, ... etc. etc. etc.

But why did noone ever mention Lands End to us??  

Now that is really a gem.  A beautiful trail with intense views and peppered with little bits of history: ruins of baths, shipwrecks, old rail tracks.  Quaint little trails that branched off the main path, some with rudimentarily cut out steps winding into a secret-garden-esque landscape, some leading to treacherous-looking spurs overlooking the bay, some leading to quiet little beaches.  Windswept and misty and lush and fairytale-like. 

Even if you're not a hiker, this is worth a visit, no question about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*1230 - laptops!

The mark of a good boyfriend: after sweatily, crampily pulling a tipsy and screeching EV up the treacherous slopes of Potrero Hill, arriving home and realizing both our laptops were still sitting in the restaurant we just came from, and turning right around without a word or complaint to retrieve them. THANKYOOO.

*1229 - interview

EV (Hypothetical interview question): So, tell me more about your strengths.
D: My perfect vision and immune system.

*1228 - cartoon kitty

Poka with cartoon eyes:

*1227 - local eats

Singapore = the proudest city when it comes to local food.  Seriously.

A few things that touched D's tongue for the first time.  It was one amazing and huge meal after another.  At no one moment were we ever actually hungry; just existed in different levels of fullness.

Tiger Beer from Singapore--the imported variety is a little different.


My favorite veggie: garlicky baby kailan.


Chilli crab and all the fun stuff that comes with it everytime we have it, like fried mantou and har cheong kai.


Simple but delicious hawker food with Iris on a rainy day which foiled our other plans--hence, off to the hawker centre slipping and sliding in heels.  White carrot cake, oyster omelet, satay, rojak, chwee kueh.


We had loads of kopi while we were there.  Coffee with condensed milk; so brilliant.


Frog leg porridge.  Mmmm.


If frogs were more readily available and didn't look so blinkingly creepy when alive, I would pretty cheerfully replace chicken in my diet with frog.


Crab bee hoon--my first time too!  Slurp.


More hawker food including black carrot cake and ice kachang.


Ramen--not bad but still nothing comes close to NYC's Ippudo (not even the Singapore Ippudo unfortunately).


:)


Ya kun kaya toast with soft boiled eggs :) Look at that butter mm.

Indian food with the fam, D nods eagerly to a waterfall of curry on his rice and suffers the consequences later.  Spicy stuff.




You have to eat with your hands when eating Indian food in Little India.  'Twas fun.  The real skill lies in eating curry and only have the tippy tips of your fingers getting messy.


Here we are squatting on our patio watching D eat durian.  I personally enjoy it but really hate the durian burps that last for the rest of the day :S


Prata!  Quintessential.


Which goes well with bandung.


When was the last time I had the pleasure of trying 200 new foods all in a row??  Not sure what new taste would surprise me at this point, which is a fairly disappointing realization ...