SF. Japanese Pasta at Usagi!

Hi guys! here's my last post on food i ate this summer in San Francisco! =D

So I had really great fusion jap pasta for lunch at Usagi! 

Usagi

505 2nd Ave
San Mateo, CA 94401

The decor was jappy, simple, and cosy!

I ordered omelette rice, which came with a rich, tasty gravy, and the rice was piping hot! and very tasty!

Next was mentaiko cod roe creamy pasta! The pasta was coverd by a generous serving of mentaiko, so the flavour was rich, full, yet the cream was smooth but not heavy, making a great dish. and i love my pasta al dente too, so this was perfect!

Next was sea urchin risotto. The ume was quite large, and this dish was an appetiser though i could've just eaten this and been full! HAHA decorated with seaweed and fried lotus root slices! The risotto was not mushy, but rather, thick in texture, though also not heavy. and very flavourful as it had ume in it too. San Fran's seafood never ceases to amaze me with it's freshness and sweetness. Apparently Ume now is super sweet, sweeter than normal because it's summer. lucky me! 

usually not a big fan of ume, but this was definitely yummy! so i made an exception!

next was mentaiko omelette. At first when the dish arrived I was like aww oops, too much egg after the Omu rice? but NO WAY, this omelette, when eaten, the mentaiko just came oozing out. I love the gritty texture of the mentaiko and the flavor it has, complimented well with the smooth omelette!

Thus concludes the San Fran food trip =) what a great lunch! lunch is supposed to be a light meal but i ate so much!! definitely yummy =)

Singing at the 'Face The Music' concert!!

Hello! a long overdue post.. i'm a little WOLS! So I played a short gig on the Friday of the first week of school!!! Singing at the NUS Exxonmobil Campus Concert for the 'Face The Music' one-day festival =)

and they said there was free beer. so I pictured this:

i watch too many movies lol. no funnels or kegs or barrels, but lots of cans. so, still pretty good. 

cold beer is always good. =)

Anyway, got to the University Cultural Centre (UCC) theatre in a huff because my soundcheck was at 2pm (which was supposed to be rescheduled but no one reads emails) which I didn't turn up for cus 

IM A BADASS ROCKSTAR!!!

I had a lecture. so they said it was okay, come at 4..

so I get there at 4pm, in my head is "run run run, faster than my bullet" by Foster the people HAHA and I do my soundcheck, which I was kind of nervous for. I WAS NERVOUS FOR AN EMPTY ROOM AND 6 SOUND AND LIGHTS PEOPLE. great. HAHA oh well. maybe it's an excited feeling that my brain translates as 'nervous'. adrenaline maybe? but anyway. im excited =)

I popped out for awhile to say hi to friends and get a free beer HAHA but i didn't drink it in the end because i didnt want to burp midway in my song into the mic. that would not be pleasant. BRAAA-AAAP Homer simpson style...

then i sit and wait for a couple of hours and BAM! show time! played super happy songs this time, i figured cus it's a FRIDAAYYYYY!!! whee!!

Anyhoos, played a couple of covers, "Call me maybe" and "Prima Donna", and a couple of my own songs. I even spotted a girl I didn't know bopping her head to my songs so that was MONDO COOL!

 take-a-picture-ure-ure-ure!!! *prances around. By far, most fun concert (in my head). and freaking cool lights though I couldn't see them from where I was standing, but the pictures looked kinda cool

and an extremely major factor in my performance, Kenneth Qua!!!! who played guitar for me (he's got amazing playing style) and is super fun to jam with. He definitely made me feel reassured, and his guitarring meant I could concentrate better on singing, and not have to multitask. I like playing the guitar but it gets confusing, and he did it waaaay better than me too. His tone and rhythm were easy for me to sync with, and it was super fun having him there with me. AWESOMEEES! I'm glad to have shared an awesome experience with an awesome fellow musician! and honored to have him there =)

Here are some pictures, courtesy of IamLocalised:

and here are some iphone pictures, cus we all know how much i love taking pictures! 

(see what i did there *haha) esp with friends! Thank you soooo much for coming down, be it from the engin faculty in NUS, or the engin faculty allll the way from NTU!!! and everywhere else. Thank you to everybody who came to watch too! I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did!

 Dinner with my awesome friends!!

 AND THANK YOU FOR THA SUNFLOWERS!

They just brightened my night even more! thank you thank you everyone for taking time out of your busy schedules to come spend time with me! I super appreciated it =)

Thank you also to Kevin Mathews who is always there to support me, I wouldn't have gotten here without your guidance and constant belief in me!! and thanks also to Music and Movement for inviting me to perform! I had a blast performing, and making new friends with the fellow performers!!

Definitely a day to remember. =D TEEHEE!

Why must every forest be cleared for urbanity?

city life woes.

Angst got the better of me today, i realise that development is crucial, especially for the wannabe country i live it that wants to be the best at everything. kids tutored before kindergarten, people being 'kiasu', business hub, medical hub, bio-research hub, hub hub hub top top global.. it's fantastic, don't get me wrong. (im angsty, thus am likely to let my emotions get the better of me)

WHY MUST ALL THE PLOTS OF GRASS AND TREES AND FORESTS BE CLEARED TO BUILD tiny APARTMENTS!

yeah, sure, put a swimming pool and pretend it's a real lake. okay. sarcasm filled. but yes, it's not very nice to wake up one day realising every open space of grass, and even visually, the sky, everything is going have something built there.  Shortage of housing? pungol seems very much spacious. you don't see the roads along orchard just blocked off to build condos.

Just last week, the pavements along the road around my estate were replaced with 'new pavement'. dug up, and replaced with fresh cement. why? grills surround the drains. WHY? if you are dumb enough to walk OFF a 1metre wide path into a drain, firstly, you are not really going to get THAT hurt falling half a metre. secondly. you probably deserve it. dilemma. what if you dropped something in? like you were playing badminton in the residential estate and something dropped in? or a frisbee? "no. cannot cross grill. grill is uncrossable."

anyway. yes, just because there was a little grass, that made everything look so much nicer, it was replaced. must everything look modern for modernity to survive?  and im in a residential estate. don't nice gardens show how valuable a home is? In America, if you do not have a nice garden infront of your house, it's an indication that the locality is not that good. so to paved it all up, no greens. just doesn't say very much.

So yes, the area around simpang, the small 40 capacity carpark, has a sort of development going on. across the main road, lots of condos. nice big plots of land.empty space.fresh air. gone. and now, the forests, about 10 hectare acres has just been sold. for 280 million. of course. money is everything. but a forest? home to quite alot of species. thing is, they don't get captured and shifted. the construction just gradually chases them away. then you get problems of the number of sparrows dwindling, and lots of monkeys running around. not cute, adorable monkeys. not always. sometimes you get the rare fierce one, attacking children sometimes. oh, did your dog go missing? to build small shoebox apartments, we are fed to believe are the in-thing. if you think about it (if you even have space to think) you are living in a shoebox. a small box. who wants to live in a shoe box? think about it. your smelly sneakers after a run. but i guess, with lack of land, some space, is still space. 

no more fresh air, no more cool breeze. the smoke and dust from the main road will just have to drift in.  housing values, probably be less than if there were the rare, beautiful forest. but still alot because space is so scarce. who knows, houses will probably be en-bloc-ed one day. and since petitions don't work now, despite the hundreds of signatures for the forest, ultimately your home wil be evicted, kind of like Disney's 'Up' and the old grandpa. life goes on. power is money. goodbye forest!

blasphemy. the price of the land was in the news. as if it's important. bull.

it's all about the money

sobs*

the future:

there is a condominium being build now behind where i stay, and an even larger one (a few football fields in size) 3 minutes walking distance away. The mega mansion near my house just got converted into 4 smaller houses. People in condos are going to be able to tower over my house. meaning. less wind. less fresh air because that grass patch is gone too.  privacy gone too. and everywhere is going to be very crowded. did I mention that I get stuck in my residential area when there is construction because of lorries, etc, blocking the way? not to mention there's a temple so people park EVERYWHERE. and also around my neighbourhood to get to the mrt station. it's going to be like HONG KONG and the masses of people!! and constant banging and construction noises. everyday. all the time. 

im lucky i stay where i do, and definitely grateful. but here's my whiney entry. just because it's gona get a whole lot more cramped up. and i'm extremely claustrophobic.

pooey.

Marketa Inglova concert

Marketa Inglova's concert was really intense! just went for it, and shes got such an amazingly textured voice, never ever wavering, and hitting all the high notes in a sweet falsetto that sounded so pure. and the echoes seemed to linger on forever! 

For those of you who don't know who she is, she's a singer from Czech Republic, singer songwriter. i'd describe her style as mellow, a little melancholic, touching, soft, and meaningful. She sings about remembering loved ones who are apart and far away, journey and battles of good against evil, and like every other singer songwriter, she sings about love <3 one of her songs titled "only love is real". nice. very nice. she played the piano for most of it, but moved to play a drum the guitar. SO TALENTED! and her music was so sensitive and yet full, quiet in the Esplanade's recital studio, but every note could be heard clearly, echoes and resonating hums filling the room. 

she's also the lead actress in an Irish indie music-movie called "once" about two musicians who meet, and sort of fall in love, but cant be together.just because. and they create a superb album, become famous. (in reality, the movie makes em both really famous too) but the chemistry is interesting, sort of time-capsule-like because you are with someone you know you won't be with forever. HEART BREAKING and really tender =)

she was sweet, funny, and super chill, donned in pastel colors and a flowing skirt. I have terrible pictures, and was sick. yes, i went to a concert with no voice. haha! Thanks to Kevin, who invited me to go with him THANKEW THANKEW!! he's really the best =)

So the girl on the left was a singer and percussionist from Iran, and had a drum with her that had really deep tones and some hanging strings that sounded like a shaker. very dynamic instrument. her singing also sounded very "iranian", interesting scales and very exotic. easy to get lost in her voice. reminded me of enya!

SF. Hog And Rocks

3431 19th St
(between San Carlos St & Mission St) 
San Francisco, CA 94110

Neighborhood: Mission

A fantastic dinner to end my San Fran trip. I made some fantastic new friends too! awesome people =)

So here's HOGS AND ROCKS, a restaurant specialising in hams and oysters, but honestly. every dish there was so special, i was left drooling for more! And their ambience was really cosy too =)

White dessert wine to accompany the meal! This wine was sweet, light, and didn't have the alcoholic sharpness,  I have never tasted any wine so smooth, not even the ice wines I've tried can compare! It was not dry either! went great with the food, and the tanginess helped to revitalise my palate occasionally, especially since some of the dishes were very heavy!

So first came the hams, prosciutto ham, danielle and serrano ham. Bottom is a salty harder ham with cheese that was creamy, and the middle ham had some dried tomatoes which blended nicely with the dry saltyness, and at the top, a softer lighter flavor. the hams were extremely tasty, a fantastic appetiser, eaten with the pita bread =)

Duck heart and purple cauliflower. salty, chewy, and the green sauce was basil puree and had some light oils in it which glazed the dish well.

APHRODIZZY OYSTERS! there were 6 different kinds, with lemon and a red wine and vinaigrette dressing to accompany it that was light, fragrant, yet not overpowering like Tabasco, complementing the freshness and sweetness and creaminess of the oysters =) 

They all tasted slightly different, yet all yummy, so I cant comment much because they were all fantastic!

BONE MARROW WITH GREMOLATA AND TOAST:
Next was bone marrow. The marrow was piping hot, and fatty. the decadence of the fragrant oils was cut through by the tangy dressing on top, called gremolata, which is a mixture of lemon zest, garlic, parsley and olive oil, coming together in an absolutely amazing dish. SLURPSSS! scooped out and eaten with a toasted bread that was fresh, light, slightly buttered and crispy!

 BURRATA CHEESE WITH FRESH BASIL LEAVES, TOMATOES, and CROUTONS!!
The tomatoes were very fresh, and apparently, taste unique because they are 'mixed with fruits' somehow! anyway, they were very sweet, juicy, and didn't really taste like tomatoes. more like a mix between the texture of a tomato with the juicy sweetness of a fruit! =) the burrata was soft, creamy and cold, creating a refreshing dish!

CIDER STEAMED MUSSELS WITH OCTOPUS CHORIZO.

Chorizo is a spanish sausage, so yeap, what looked like taco filling was actually bits of octopus, explaining the chewy, fresh texture of the lumpy sauce that went with the black mussels. The seafood in San Francisco is super fresh! must be from the bay =) and the toasted thick bread slices were covered in a yellow creamy sauce that tasted like tapatio, creamy yet spicy like hot sauce =) balancing uniquely with the octopus.

&

DEVILLED EGGS WITH COUNTRY HAM AND FRIED OYSTERS! and some dill. 

 devilled eggs are hard boiled eggs that have their yolks taken out, mixed with mayonnaise and herbs, and squeezed back! it had such a creamy yolk mixture, slightly pepperish, and topped with a fried oyster, fried ham that was crispy and salty, and some dill! thick creamy goodness. yums!

and lastly, LAMB MEATBALLS WITH A STEAMED WILD RICE PILAF, TOPPED WITH A PEPPERY LEMON YOGHURT SAUCE!!

even the peas were yummy and i usually hate peas. i pick em out of my food. here i was picking them out to eat them!! creamy deliciousness with lamb meatballs that were succulent, and didn't have that bad game taste that lamb usually has. the cream blended in with the pilaf, contrasting against the juiciness of the meat, to create a gastronomic explosion of hearty greek-ish food =) definite yums!

i loved this meal. definitely a meal to remember =) great company made it even more awesome! with the night ending with a great plum wine, that wasn't sharp at all, but had a strong plum taste.