The Queen's Diamond Jubilee - London (June 2012)

Like I said, the best camera is the one that's with you. I was quite serious when I said I will document (visually) my recent travels using just my iPhone instead of my DSLR. As promised, I carried just my iPhone in my jeans pocket during my recent visits to London & Paris. The results and overall experience turned out to be quite satisfying. Smartphone photography has its technically limitation but with enough practices, one can overcome them with different smartphone photography software as well as acquired skills. Let me share some of the images I took in London using my iPhone with post-processing applied using Snapseed, Instagram, Camera+ and TiltShiftGen.

Preloved Fashion Pop-up Sale! Get Ready! (21 April 2012)

What!? You forgot that I mentioned about my new venture into fashion? No worries, I am more than happy to remind everyone here. :) ... Shameless promotion? Sure! My Fashion Birdcage is one of my new ventures and it is a recently launched London and Hong Kong based online fashion business. We are committed to provide every new or up-and-coming designer around the world a platform to showcase their work to the world of buyers looking for products that are a bit different. To satisfy our fashion-conscious customers, we are always on the lookout for new interesting items to sell. We also stock a mix of brand new and pre-loved authentic fashion items by well established designers such as Prada, Bottega Veneta, Fendi, Gucci, Lanvin, Salvatore Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton and a lot more. This guarantees certain web traffic to our website which is extremely beneficial for up-and-coming designers. Living in London? in Hong Kong? Wonderful! Visit us at www.myfashionbirdcage.com and stayed informed by LIKE us facebook.com/myfashionbirdcage for updates or follow us on Twitter @myfashbirdcage !

Oh what else? Something exciting is coming up! We are going to be participating in the upcoming Preloved Fashion Hong Kong event on the 21 April 2012 (Saturday). As the name suggests, it is a pop-up fashion sale event featuring brand new, barely worn, and vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories. Check out the Facebook Page for a preview of the items to be on sale and mark your calendar & get ready for some shopping! Oh Hong Kong Fashion Geek will be there as well! 

Pied à Terre - Michelin 2** (London)

This post signifies a pleasant end of my week long stay here in London. We ended our trip with an exceptional meal at Pied à Terre, a Michelin 2** restaurant with Shane Osborne behind the kitchen. It was this meal that made me pondered a long while on the purpose and meaning of being starred by Michelin Guide. Is the star(s) for the restaurant? for the chef? or for diners? I have heard stories that some chefs strive to get an extra star by trying to achieve the so-called perfection in food and food presentation. In my opinion, what is perfect and great food presentation often translates to great food wastage. I have also heard stories that Michelin starred chefs overstressed themselves with the pressures in maintaining such starred standard years after years. The most notable and unfortunate example is Bernard Loiseau who killed himself due to the stress in maintaining the 3-star status its restaurant La Cute d'Or upheld for many years.

Gaucho (Piccadilly - London)

Specialized in Argentine Steak, Gaucho can be considered a well known popular joint among locals whenever they feel like quality steak at relatively reasonably price. Gaucho is a chained restaurant but definitely not those similar to Angus Steak House which is around every major intersections! I quite enjoyed the dimmed lit interior of Gaucho (Piccadilly - London) with hanging white lights and chairs + wallpaper  with black and white cow-skin patterns.

Leong’s Legends Continues (London)

Quite a number of foodies (both visitors and local London foodies) have visited this little joint within Chinatown London. I think it is unfair to compared this place with those I had in Shanghai or even Hong Kong because there are simply not that many to compare with in London that serve similar Chinese regional cuisines. So here at Leong’s Legends Continues (London), you can find plenty options of noodles, Xiao Long Bao (XLB) as well as other popular Taiwanese dishes. It is likely a shop opened by Taiwanese if you ask me. The decor is very nice! I mean wooden tables and chairs with a touch of ... class in a sense. Nothing overly fancy of course just that it really made me feel I was a warrior sitting in one of those huts back in the Tang Dynasty waiting for my meal before heading off to fight the bad guys. Alright, enough day dreaming ....

PAUL - Revisited (London)

What is(are) your favourite item(s) from PAUL? Throughout my stay in London (8 days), I visited PAUL countless times, almost every single time I passed by it. There was a certain attraction that lured me in for some reasons. Perhaps it was the scent or aroma of freshly baked bread / pasty that diverted my intended path. One thing I notice though (I can be wrong of course), many items I saw, or most of them to be exact, were sweets. They do have bread of many sorts but sweet pastries such as danishes and macarons were all I saw in many of the outlets around town.

Apsleys Restaurant (London)

Apsleys Restaurant at the Lanesborough Hotel is quite intimating to be honest. Located right across from Hyde Park corner, this hotel seems to be very exclusive from the outside, at least to me. Bentley and Lamborghini are the type of cars you would see outside the hotel on a daily basis. I was here for Afternoon Tea only so I wasn't sure how the Michelin 1-star status of this place really matters to my experience. I went to another Michelin starred resto in London and the experience made me wonder on the intention and the ultimate objective of being starred. Is the star(s) for the restaurant? the chef? or both? ... What does it mean to get one? Does it mean diners would enjoy the meal more for sure? I will discuss more on that on another post.

Jamie's Italian (London)

It maybe a chained establishment but it is one that I wanted to try for a long time. I am not a big fan of Jamie but I certainly agree that he has a special charm that made him who he is now. I am yet to verify the truth to the following but someone told me that Jamie’s Italian is a truly equal opportunity employer of which it encourages the management to hire handicapped individuals as well as those who wish to turn a new leaf after recent release from correctional institutions. If that is the case I truly admire his responsibilities to the community while aiming to deliver a great dining experiences at reasonable cost. On this very evening, we went to the Canary Wharf outlet for an early dinner.

Roast Restaurant (London)

This post should have been right after my Borough Market post but I was too excited about the picnic @ Greenwich post that I had it jump the queue! Anyhow, after my pre-lunch at Monmouth Coffee, we headed over to Roast Restaurant located right in the Borough Market. The decor / atmosphere was rather contemporary compared with the environment of the Borough Market. It was nice but a bit too fancy in a very humble marketplace in my opinion.

Picnic @ Greenwich Park

I am not trying to show off or anything for putting up pictures of my picnic at one of the Royal Parks of UK, the Greenwich Park on one sunny afternoon with cheese and wine; all I wanted is to show the importance of work life balance and how one can achieve it if really wanted to. I have to admit that it is quite difficult to do that in Hong Kong, to have a nice relaxing picnic for the following major reasons: (1) many (or most) parks in Hong Kong restrict visitors from stepping onto the grass, not to mention about sitting on them, (2) most parks in Hong Kong do not allow dogs and (3) Where are the parks anyhow? parks that are big enough to have picnic under the Sunday with fresh air and cushion like grass fields?? I continue to question the logic behind the points I mentioned regarding Hong Kong's Parks but no luck so far unfortunately.

Borough Market and Monmouth Coffee (London)

Just a word of caution, if you intend to visit a restaurants in the Borough Market in London (or other dine-in establishments around the city), please avoid going between 11am and noon because many simply tell you to come back sharp at noon when they reopen for lunch. That was exactly what happened to us! Well, I guess that was good time to walk around the Borough Market, for some coffee and for some snacks before breakfast / lunch!

Carluccio's (London)

With so many other choices, why did I pick Carluccio's? Well, very simple. We were hungry and it was close to where we stayed, that was the reason. If you pay attention when you walk around the city, you will find that Carluccio's is a rather large chain restaurant!!! My past experiences with chained restaurants in Hong Kong or other countries were not something worth noting but this one in London, I may return not necessarily for its so-called food quality but for its convenience. Don't get my wrong, both my visits (brunch and lunch on two separately occasions) were ... alright, unexciting and boring to be exact, but with its convenience, setting, atmosphere (which is more fitted for a casual yet rush meal), occasional visits may happen.

PAUL (London)

Sorry for the delay in updating new entries, I am currently in London and I am still experiencing a bit of jet lag for some odd reasons even after two days! So I will post a short post for now and will update more during this weekend. We stayed near Canary Wharf which is not exactly a tourist location but more of a financial district I suppose. Since I took a red-eyed flight out of Hong Kong to London, it was 6am London time when I arrived. I was hungry as always but I had to wait for my brother to come meet up with us. What can be the best solution? Find snacks!!! I spotted PAUL the bakery from far away while walking around. Instead of ordering a croissant or sandwich, the HUGE Chocolate Macaron got my undivided attention. It was huge and overly sweet to be honestly but I needed sugar, I needed food! .... MORE FOOD TO COME!!! (Did I already gain weight!?)