Lady Face Brewery Restaurant

Brewery restaurants seem to be popular everywhere now, even in the LA suburbs. The weather here should be one of the best in the world to have a pint of  chilled beer out doors, anyway. I don't see why it didn't get popular and focus on the variety and quality earlier than England, Germany or Belgium, because these places are much colder most of the time.

Ladyface brewery restaurant

Outdoor patio

A Cut

Taipei:

The entrance, walk down to the B1.

Not yet dinner time, so stopped at the café next to the lobby to have an apperitif.

A small garden area outside of the café.

Breakfasts in CA

When we are visiting CA, there are several nice places to have breakfast, well, for us, you'd say brunch, because we like to finish our Yoga, swimming sessions first, and it often takes two to three hours. Fortunately, you can have your breakfast almost any time you want. In Taipei, the latest you can find is about two O'clock in the afternoon.

Outdoor patio of Brent's.

Cheese blintz and fried potato cakes.

Best breakfast ever!

Breakfast is important, everyone knows that. For someone as gourmet as I am, this first meal signifies whether I'm going to be in a good mood or not the rest of the day.

Parisian breakfast is good when you are in a hurry or not too hungry. But don't take it wrong, it may sound simple, but definitely not easy to achieve your satisfaction. You need fresh baked baguette or pain au chocolat or chausson au pomme or brioche from a good boulangerie, some creamy yogurt with berries, melons, etc., and of course, une tasse de steamy black coffee, chocolate or tea. Then you are en forme, ready to go to metro and start your boulot.

And it's also good when you are not in a hurry, say, a nice lazy morning. You can also enjoy it in any of the cafés, in a grand boulevard, by the lake in the Bois de Vincent, or in the jardin of any museum, chatting with some waiters, reading your journal, or simply just watching people.

In Taiwan, breakfast is great. A lot of variety from different parts of China. Cantonese Ding Sum thing with tea, sesame galette with fried flour stick, baked sesame bun with meat or red bean inside, with a bowl of sweet or salty soy milk. The typical Taiwanese one is sweet potato porridge with pickles, vegetables and egg or meat dishes.

But the kind which impressed me the most is American breakfast, among them, my favourite is Dan's breakfast with my coffee, and at the same time enjoy the view of tropical hill just outside of our balcony.

My favorite fruit salad:

strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, cherry, banana, homemade yogurt and flax seed powder on top.

Served with multi-grain bread, avocado and my house blend coffee.

Mexican food

The very first time I tried Mexican food was also in Paris. Thinking back, I've experienced a lot of new things in this city. Movable feast, isn't it! There was one in the Latin Quarter, and another one near Bastille which I went to more often. We liked to dine there sometimes when Dan visited me from Spain. The place was nicely decorated with colourful Mexican style tiles, vases and stuff, with very high ceiling and lofted second floor, a quite good choice when you miss Mexican food while living in Europe, but it's not so good compared to the ones in southern California. There are a lot of Mexican immigrants in CA and it's much easier to obtain the right ingredients to make the dishes. I'm not sure if it's much more authentic because I've only been in Mexico once, stayed one afternoon to visit the Pyramid, and never got to try any local cuisine there, but one thing is for sure, Mexican food in CA is quite good!

For us Taiwanese, Mexican food and Couscous(millet, serve with chic peas, white raisins, Cinnamon powder, vegetable soup and assorted grilled meat, especially good with Moroccan spicy lamb sausages or lamb) are kind of not easy to get used to. Most of my relatives and friends from Taiwan didn't like it when they first tried it. One of the reasons is probably because they cook the same ingredients very differently. For example, the red beans, the Asian way like Japanese or Taiwanese make them sweet as desserts, and the Mexican way is slightly salty, serving with main course. Each time when my sister saw the red beans in a Mexican dish, she made a face. And Dan, although he lived in Asia for almost two decades, he still can't stand any dessert with red bean in it. You see, even for something like food, it seems so hard to drop your prejudice, no wonder there's so many wars going on. Actually, if we just open our mind and try someone else's "strange" stuff, we might find a whole wonderland in front of us!!!

Near Dan's mom's place, there are also two Mexican restaurants which we like the most. One is El Torito, it's like a big chain thing, they have lots of restaurants in every area. The food here is slightly saltier and greasier, but quite good and good value, especially the happy hour, you can have a nice dinner for two including Margaritas for just 10 or 12 dollars. Their blended Margarita is also our favourite, because other places, fancy or not, tend to make them too sweet which suits the usual local palates.

The other one is Cantina, known for healthier, finer food, but also a bit pricier. They have a pretty impressive Tequila list and a very nice outdoor patio. This is the best choice for a nice sunny day, you can have an early dinner with a chilled Margarita or a shot of fine Tequila, and enjoy the evening breeze and a nice sunset.

There's also one just opened a while ago in the nearby wine country Santa Ynez, not far from Solvang. Their food was not too impressive, but the Tequila flyer tasting is quite interesting, you can try from younger, lighter ones to finer, aged ones.

The patio of Cantina

"Deli"s

This is a traditional Chinese new year ceremony:

Birthday of Sky God(天公生)

Happy Chinese New Year!

Nate'n Al

There's a very nice outdoor area,

the original one is in Beverly Hills.

Happy New Year!

Been lazy for quite a long while.

First day of 2012, decided to write something since I am on line. Really miss the days we were "writing" with a real pen sometimes,  feel the surface of different kinds of paper, sniff the aroma and so on.....

Wendal's

Dan played here for quite a while when it first opened. Menu never changed much, but the food here is always pretty good, though simple.

Novotel Taoyuan(桃園)

A while ago, we were invited by a friend (who's the manager of this hotel) to his Franco-Chinese party, that was our first time here. It was a quite impressive soirée started with canapé, wines, Kir (White or sparkling wines mix with berry liquor), then followed with Chinese banquet cuisine with a hint of French taste such as fois gras, paired with mostly Burgundy reds and whites.

This time Dan had a gig here, so we tried the new "Bon pour la santé" menu in the same Chinese restaurant.

Entrance

Red and black theme.

New Australia black truffle menu.

They did a pretty good job on this summer's new dishes. Benoit was on vacation, but Kenny did very well as a sommelier!

Here are some dishes from the new Aussie black truffle menu, not very complicated but quite tasty!

Black truffle menu:

Kenny showed us the whole Aussie black truffle,

a quite different aroma than the French one or Alba white truffle.

He said it's even more pricey than the French one.