I was looking for a nice place to stay somewhere equally far from Midtown and Brooklyn, and the Wagner popped up. In the not too distant past, the Wagner used to be The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park, and The Ritz-Carlton is one of my favorite hotel chains, so I did not hesitate to give the Wagner a try. Furthermore, the Wagner is much cheaper than the one remaining Ritz-Carlton in the city, with roomrates starting at around $150-$200 if you book well in advance.
Yesterday, I met with Danish friend Marianne for lunch at Bounty Beets, which is the new restaurant that took over where Gourmet by Kcal left off at Le Méridien Mina Seyahi.
While K-beauty is rocking all over the world, J-beauty has quietly been doing business as usual, providing efficient products to the demanding, hard-to-impress Japanese market. Whereas K-beauty is often seen as very trend-driven, with a strong appeal to younger people, J-beauty is more about high quality and discreet luxury that speak to women in their 30s and 40s.
This is a very old post from my old blog about a seafood restaurant we tried when Poul and I were on vacation in Patong (of all places!) in Phuket back in 2011. I know, it’s a bit random, blogging about a restaurant that I visited 8 years ago, but this is not just any restaurants, this was the only good restaurant we found in Patong. I looked it up on Google and it is still around, so if you are visiting Patong, maybe you can check if Chiang Rai Seafood Restaurant is still as nice as I claim it is in this blog post?
Many parts of Bangkok are still flooded, but down south they are busy preparing for another tourist season. Patong on Phuket is one of the biggest tourist magnets, which clearly shows on the restaurant menus, where pizza and hamburgers are found side by side with Som Tam and Tom Yum Kung.
Instagram is becoming more and more popular in Cambodia, and it shows at the Phnom Penh cafes, where photogenic food and beverages are competing for the attention from Phnom Penh teenagers with new smartphones and short attention spans.
Yesterday, I was invited to the launch of the new ladies’ night at the Italian restaurant Matto. We started with a round of Aperol, that came with pasta straws and a friendly advice not to eat the straw:) No need to either, as small plates soon started arriving at our table.
Café Belge is located inside The Ritz-Carlton DIFC, and on their Tuesday ladies’ nights, just being a woman entitles you to 5 drinks and 2 oysters, so this was an obvious place to meet with new friends J and N.
In my previous blog post I talk to Chantha from Angkor Bullet Jewellery about his life and what inspired him to start his social business, and in this blog post, we are visiting the workshop to see how the bullet casings are melted and transformed into jewelry.
Angkor Bullet Jewellery is a social enterprise founded by Chantha Thoenun. Chantha’s mother passed away when he was 4 years old and his father was killed by Khmer Rouge when he was 8, so Chantha went to live with his grandparents.
On my way back from Phnom Penh, I had two days in Bangkok, so I arranged to meet with Angela, who has just moved to Bangkok from Hong Kong. We started with sunset watching and happy hour drinks at Octave, which is the rooftop bar at Marriott. Among the hotel rooftop bars with a view worth watching, Octave is probably the least touristy, but it’s a popular place among the expat crowd, and when we arrived (30 minutes after the happy hour had begun), the upper floor was full.
In this post from my old blog I am bitching about very expensive late-night snacks in Beijing:)
Yesterday evening I went back to Wangfujing Street to experience the street at night and visit the Snack Street and Donghuamen night market, which are both down the small alleys west of the street and famous for very exotic snacks.
I had noticed the giant potatoes which were sitting around in a basket in Kanary’s kitchen, and I was wondering what they were used for. I found out the other day when The Grandma invited me for potatoes with palm syrup.
No, it is not a typo. The name of the vegetarian restaurant I want to tell you about is in fact Vegetarian Restaurant. I stumbled upon the restaurant as I was looking for a place to have lunch after my meeting with Alan and Mr. Pheap at A.N.D.
My friend B is from Korea, but she works as a cabin crew in Dubai, and most of her flights are long haul flights. I think we all know what jetlag, dry cabin air, and sleep deprivation can do to your skin, but B’s skin looks great. What is her secret? I was curious to know, so we met last week to talk about frequent flyer skincare routines, and the beauty products that make you look superfly in several time zones:
Naga World is a huge casino resort/entertainment complex near the river and Diamond Island in Phnom Penh. Compared to other 5-star accommodation in the city, Naga World is usually only around half the price, so when I was in Phnom Penh last time, I decided to give Naga a try. I had a lot of work to do, so when I checked in I told the receptionist that I needed a quiet room with good wifi, and that was what I got. My room was on the 13th floor and far from the escalator (which can be noisy) with a beautiful view of the city.
When I am in Japan, I can eat sushi for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and maybe have a bowl of ramen and some mochi for dessert, but I am quite certain that this is not what a typical Japanese diet looks like. So what do Japanese people eat? I asked my Japanese friend Rieko to tell me about what she would normally eat on a weekday:
I am back in Cambodia, but until the day for my flight, I was not sure whether it would be a good idea, considering the political situation in the country. The opposition leader Sam Rainsy had announced that he would return to Cambodia on November 9th, Cambodia’s Independence Day, and people were worried that it might be causing disturbances and even riots.
Dining in New York City can be hard on your wallet, but my friend Julia knows where to go for the best cheap eats in the city:
Generally, New York City is a great place for foodies, but Manhattan is expensive, especially the Midtown area, which I try to avoid at all costs. The outer boroughs are a lot more interesting, but if we start with Manhattan, the best neighborhoods for cheap and tasty food are Lower East Side, Chinatown and East Village. They are also the best neighborhoods for ethnic food.
October and November used to mean lots of Pumpkin Spice Latte for me, but this year, I have only had a few cups. I think my taste buds might have grown up, because these days, I find the usual Starbucks PSL much too sweet for my liking. Instead, I have started drinking matcha latte, and I am drinking gallons of that gorgeous green stuff.
If there were such a thing as a beauty contest for roots, you would probably find ginger at the very bottom, together with Jerusalem artichoke and celeriac. Furthermore, I’ve always thought that ginger tasted like soap, and I have a grim, grim childhood memory that includes diced ginger disguised as potatoes, so ginger and I had never really hit it off.