Shop for Little Cream Book at these Christmas Fairs!

Tis' the season to shop, shop, shop! Come visit Little Cream Book at these Christmas Fairs (Bring a copy of this post for a 10% DISCOUNT):

Tomorrow-Thursday, 28-30 November 2006, 10am - 7pm @ the lawns of IFC Mall , Central
3 December 2006 (Sunday), 11am - 5pm @ main lawn of Hong Kong Country Club, Deep Water Bay
5 December 2006 (Tuesday), 10am - 8pm @ ballroom of Conrad Hotel, Admiralty

Read about Little Cream Book in the 25 November issue of mpw (Ming Pao Weekly's lifestyle book), the November issue of Zip and the January 2007 UK edition of Harper's Bazaar!

L'Atelier du Robuchon (they're opening everywhere!) is opening on 3/F Landmark (T: +852 2166 9000) tomorrow night (Tuesday, 28 November). Wonder if it'll be as good as the one in NYC. BL's booked it for his b-day dinner on Wednesday. Since it's only 2nd day of operations, I don't expect it to be in top form yet. But, I'm still hoping to be pleasantly surprised!

ThreeSixty: Starting a health revolution in HK?

Over the weekend, I got some sad news about one of our ski instructors in Cortina. Apparently, M would not be able to join us for CNY skiing since she has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Perhaps BI, who has just completed a course of chemotherapy and is now undergoing radiation therapy and will be joining us in Cortina, can offer her some support. In any case, I wish M a very speedy recovery and return to the slopes!

So over the weekend, health was on my mind. As I was working out in the gym with PT, she mentioned having just checked out ThreeSixty, the new food store on the top two floors of Landmark. At first, I wasn't all that interested, thinking it was just another City'Super, Oliver's, Great or Gourment. But then, she mentioned it was like Whole Foods. Those who have read my post when I was in D.C. will know that I love Whole Foods. So of course, I jumped at the bait and immediately went to check it out after my workout.

ThreeSixty just opened last Tuesday and when I got there, it was bustling with people. In many ways, it does try to be Whole Foods, except ThreeSixty is still a whole lot smaller. And the fact that it's in Landmark makes it a lot less accessible to the masses (so I guess their health revolution is starting from the affluent. For the launch, though, they are partnering with three NGOs: Oxfam, WWF and Changing Young Lives Foundation, but I couldn't quite figure out what the partnership entails, i.e. whether part of proceeds are donated or whether it's free publicity for the organizations etc.)

Like Whole Foods, ThreeSixty has done a lot of work on their labelling. On fresh produce, country of origin and farming style (conventional or organic) as well as brief description of health benefits were marked on the label along with the price. Same with meats. There were lots of educational and informational pamphlets explaining the difference between conventional, organic or naturally-raised livestock. At the moment, though, I would say that the majority of the offerings are marked "conventional" (i.e. no different from what you might find at your local Park'N'Shop). But credit has to be given to ThreeSixty for clearly marking everything and for making consumers more aware of the differences of conventional vs. organic farming methods. It also uses labels to indicate which foods are suitable for certain diets (i.e. low-sodium, low-carb etc.) or when certain allergens are present (XTC's gelatos had milk marked on the allergen labels).

In the non-food area, I was happy to see products such as Seventh Generation toilet paper (free from chlorine bleaching) and non-toxic cleaning products. They also have the Wellness Centre that has a naturopath on hand to guide customers in their choices of health supplements and natural beauty products.

ThreeSixty probably has one of the nicest supermarket shopping environments in Hong Kong. Though, I imagine, they'll be wanting more space very soon. I took a couple of photos with my new HP iPAQ hw6965 (I am still waiting, with baited breath, for Apple's iPhone, but I just got fed up with Nokia's word completion on the cheap, basic Nokia I got in India that I just had to spring for a phone with a full keyboard and wifi) so please excuse the grainy quality of these pics:

25 Nov: Shop at Tod's to Benefit Mother's Choice

FY just forwarded an email invite to a Tod's special day of shopping in Hong Kong to benefit Mother's Choice. For tomorrow only (Saturday, 25 November from 10:30am to 7:30pm), "a special discount can be enjoyed and part of the sales will be donated to Mother's Choice". Participating stores are: Tod's Landmark in Central and Tod's Pacific Place in Admiralty only.

Connie's Private Kitchen: Worth the Wait

EC is a serious foodie. He knows all the nooks and crannies in Hong Kong where good food can be found. He found a great laksa place while wandering Tin Hau the other day. So leave it to him to manage to get a table at Connie's (6/F, 186 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai. T: +852 60548244). I first heard about Connie's a couple years ago from DH, must have been a couple years ago. He told me it was great food, but also told me it would be difficult to book with only one table of 12 per night. So I never bothered to try. So when EC invited me to dinner at Connie's, I jumped at the chance. He had actually booked for last night's Thanksgiving dinner there a year ago! But Connie says it doesn't take a year's wait. She decided not to let people book so far in advance. So currently, she is only taking reservations for the first few months of 2007.

Having dinner at Connie's is like having dinner at a friend's simple home in Wan Chai. The apartment is small. The round table, which seats 12 comfortably, took up the whole living area. One of the walls was covered with framed photographs of Connie and her guests. There was no shortage of celebrities, socialities or political figures. She loves recounting stories of some of her high-profile guests. Like how bodyguards had to stand outside in the un air-conditioned hallway, how paparazzi were hiding out in the stairwell, etc. But the real highlight of the evening was the food. All the dishes were great. The most memorable were: mushroom (bak ling gu) with shrimp served up in a garlic and roe (crab and shrimp) sauce; rice (she uses japanese rice to imitate sticky rice) with all sorts of tasty ingredients (chinese sausages, dried shrimp, dried scallop, etc.) wrapped in turnip cake; an amazing soup made from 3 chickens, 15 pork marrows (we all wondered how she can manage to secure all those marrows!), lots of ginger and papaya and hairy crab cooked in it for a short while. She also served up 5 apetizers. My favourite of those was the fried pork chop, which was amazingly tender (she doesn't use corn starch. Instead, she soaks the meat overnight with the skin of papaya, which acts as a tenderizer). Apparently, one young client requested her pork chops for a birthday party, so the mother had to order 50 pieces! The dessert was also perfect -- pieces of pomelo or strawberry with floss of coconut candy (she bought the machine from Taiwan; it's a bit like a cotton candy machine) and a mint leaf; very refreshing after the big meal!

Connie loves talking about her food, how she came up with the dishes, how she shops for the ingredients and prepares them. She'll tell you everything. After the dinner, she passed out her cards with the date written on the back. It's so guests can remember which date they came. When they re-book, Connie can then make sure not to repeat any previously tasted dishes. Her dishes are really quite distinctive and refreshingly different from anything you could find in a proper restaurant. That's because a restaurant that caters to more than 1 table a night, can't really afford to serve up the labour and ingredient-intensive dishes that she does. And Connie is adamant about not expanding beyond the size of her current space (which at its maximum can host 20 guests, but she does so reluctantly), because of her concern for the quality of what she can serve.

Connie is a self-taught chef. When we asked her what she used to do, she replied, "I'm just a regular housewife". She didn't like any of the food she ate in restaurants -- too much MSG and other artificial preservatives, unsanitary cooking environments, uninspiring dishes that were all too common. So about four years ago, she decided to start her own private kitchen and people have been begging for more of her food ever since.

I have friends who think that I don't like Chinese food, to which I can now respond, "but I like Connie's!"

Connie's -- 6/F, 186 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai. T: +852 60548244

Entrepreneuship: A coffee man & a cake lady

It must be a week for meeting entrepreneurs. I just got back from an inspiring luncheon talk by Pacific Coffee Company founder Thomas Neir. He told us about perservering through the years in order to build a coffee culture brand in Asia. A lot of the things he went through really resonated with me and my own experience of being an entrepreneur. He talked about starting a coffee company and trying to create a coffee culture in Hong Kong when people here equated that to a char chan teng, one of those local cafes that serve yin yang (coffee and tea mixed together) with nai jeung do (toast with condensed milk and peanut butter) or gong jai meen (instant noodles). He talked about how people (including staff) didn't understand why he wanted to focus on serving coffee. He also talked about how important a company's relationship with their landlord(s) is. In his case, alienating Swire over installing an internet connection in their Pacific Place shop proved to be a mistake. Landlords in Hong Kong have the power to make or break a business, especially a retail business.

Someone asked him if he thought entrepreneurship can be taught. He replied that while he thought the skills required to run a business can be taught, the motivation, inspiration and the willingness to take on risk are more personality-driven and may not be teachable. I tend to agree. I don't know how many times I've heard friends say to me that the one thing keeping them from chasing after their own entrepreneurial dreams is fear. "You're so brave," they would say. But I never felt I was being brave. What I felt and still feel is probably what an artist, writer, composer, architect feels. In a sense, entrepreneurship is about having a vision or desire and trying to communicate and fulfill it. For Thomas Neir, it was the vision of the coffee culture in Hong Kong that he experienced in the Italian coffee shops in San Francisco.

There were similar threads in my conversations with Elayna Berean, who only this year founded her custom cake (they're more than cakes really, they're more like sculptures!) business, Elayna Maria Cakes. Similarly, she spent time in San Francisco training as a pastry chef after getting her MBA from Wharton. I came across her company when I received the email announcing her talk at a Wharton-organized lunch (the PCC luncheon talk was also organized by the Wharton alumni association). I couldn't make her talk because I was in Tokyo, but I immediately told NL, who's busy organizing her own wedding, about it. So NL and I met with Elayna yesterday to discuss NL's monkey wedding cake over lunch at Cafe Costa. Cake talk completed, we turned to talk about what it's like to start a high-end, highly-customised service business in a culture that still doesn't quite value (or think it should pay for) service and creative expertise. Elayna is off to a great start; she's been designing showpiece cakes for fashion events including the upcoming Juicy Couture opening party (which was why she couldn't take on my very last-minute request for bowling ball cupcakes for a birthday bowling party).

Tom made a profitable exit, selling PCC to Chevalier after more than a decade and is now eyeing an environmental business. Elayna has plans to expand her offerings. If anything, entrepreneurship is certainly a constantly evolving work-in-progress.

Mandarin Grill

Went to Mandarin Grill for the first time last night since its refurbishment. I like the new look a lot more now, a lot less stuffy with the open kitchen and beige chairs. It must be strange for my grandfather though, to go through one institutional update after another. When I first came to Hong Kong (...dare I say it?) 13 years ago, I never shopped at Lane Crawford; it was my grandfather's store. He would walk into the Queen's Road Central store and the sales ladies would know him. Ever since the Lane Crawford IFC opened though, that's changed. Grandpa stopped shopping at Lane Crawford and I started. For Lane Crawford though, that may or may not be an entirely good thing. An insider commented that a lot of the loyal (i.e. those who spend often and spend the most) customers were turned away by Lane Crawford's image change to appeal to the younger shopper (i.e. myself). Compared to my grandfather, I would definitely be considered a lower value customer. But then again, if they managed to keep me interested, my future shopping flow probably exceeds Grandpa. Such is reality I suppose. Same with Mandarin Grill. My grandfather used to have regular luncheons there. But then, those in the luncheon group slowly faded. My grandfather tells me that one of the regulars is still a regular even though he has to use a walker and is accompanied by a helper. And when we left the restaurant, the staff encouraged Grandpa to come back with his friend. I wonder if he will, it must feel like a totally different restaurant to him now. But I hope he does. As for me, I liked the new look and feel. The food tried hard to stay true to its traditional grillroom roots while offering more contemporary accents. Afterall, curry ice cream (which, incidentally, was delicious in an interesting way) isn't what you'd expect for an accompaniment to a crème brûlé (in this case, mango flavoured). I had turbot in a saffron broth and beetroot with butter and almonds for a side. Both were of a standard one would expect. I had to taste my aunt's lobster risotto with white truffle, which was very tasty indeed! But with that combination of ingredients, it would be hard not to please.

While I have no complaints about Mandarin Grill's food, service or ambiance, it's still not really my kind of restaurant. While no longer stuffy, it's still feels like a business lunch and dinner kind of place. For thrills, I would think that Pierre fits the bill more (although I have yet to go). For comfort food, I much prefer Chinnery or the Hainan Chicken rice in the coffee shop.

SCMP Harper's Bazaar Style Awards 2006

Another email worthy of congratulations today. This one from BL at G.O.D. Douglas Young, who wrote Little Cream Book: Architecture for us, has just been nominated (along with Allan Zeman and filmmaker Wong Kar-wai) for the Stylemaker of the Year award! You can cast your vote online. My vote of course goes to DY! May he with the most style win (Note to the selection committee: why are all the nominees men??). Awards will be presented 19 January 2007.

Neat reads

Got an interesting email from JC at Hong Kong Design Center (which also reminded me that Business of Design Week conference is landing in here from 29 November to 1 December. Cool speakers include: Karim Rashid, Jimmy Choo, and Alan Yau among others). He forwarded a request for input from his friend AL in Spain who is working on a book called We Love Magazines for Colophon 2007, in international magazine symposium. For the book, they're compiling a list of "magazines that have sadly passed on but that we really miss -- from The Face to Nova". Oddly, I couldn't think of any. In particular, they need input on non-English magazine (funny, eat just came to mind, so I googled it and indeed it has folded!). Let me know if you can think of any and I'll forward them on to AL.

As I was going through AL's site, I came across another book for which he was both an editor and writer, le cool changed my life: a weird and wonderful guide to barcelona. I flipped through the online sample pages and loved it, so ordered my copy. I'm a bit of a magazine and travel guide junkie, I suppose. le cool also publishes weekly events listings for Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Amsterdam, London and Istanbul.

And since I'm on a design tangent today, congratulations to AW's company, Kitchen, for bagging a Hong Kong 4As Interactive & Direct Award! Kitchen and Mindshare's MOOV Online Campaign (client: PCCW-now.com.hk) was the Best Interactive Campaign 2006!

Tagged! & Tokyo wanderings through Meguro/Daikanyama

Just finished tagging all my previous posts. It's not a perfect system (for example, if you wanted to find all the posts on restaurants in Hong Kong, it's still probably easier to go through the results from google search function for the site), but basically there are two types of tags: destination (country, state/province, city.) or subject (such as hotels and restaurants that both take up 32% of my posts). The only subject tag that might require a bit of explanation is "services". Services encompasses everything from gyms, personal trainers, pilates instructors to spa & beauty services to telco, etc.

Here's the last bit from last weekend in Tokyo. While it rained on Saturday, it was absolutely beautiful on Sunday and Monday. I stayed with SM at her wonderful pad in Daikanyama. It was about a 15-20 minute walk to the Starbucks across from Shibuya station and only a 10-minute walk to Daikanyama station. On the way back from Shibuya Starbucks to the shopping around Daikanyama station, I decided to go for a detour along the streets behind Cerulean Hotel and got a little bit lost. But it was great, because I passed by lots of beautiful homes before finally following the Daikanyama loop bus to get back on track to my usual stop at Bonjour Records. This time, I found an awesome 24-hour food shop called Seijo Ishii. Great if you've run out of snacks and Champagne at 2am in the morning.

Here are some pictures of my walk. The Japanese are known for their politeness, so I just had to take a picture of this:

Elements of nice homes along the way:






Red leaves are coming!! As usual, global warming is just messing up the timing for red leaves and cherry blossoms.

From Chancery Lane, Hong Kong to Quito, Ecuador

The last time I strolled along Chancery Lane must have been on an Art Walk a few years back when I popped into 10 Chancery Lane, a gallery owned by Katie de Tilly, wife of an INSEAD alum. I've always liked the feel of this little lane, an oasis of quiet in the midst of busy Central in the area between Lan Kwai Fong and SoHo. I had reason to visit again when I found out that Kim Chung (owner of One Thirty One, one of my favourite restaurant retreats in Hong Kong that feels like you've escaped to a house on a European lake. 131 Tseng Tau Village, Sai Kung; T: +852 2791-2684) had just opened up a new gift/home accessories shop called just 2 girls (5 Chancery Lane, T: +852 2810 1488). KC had contacted me because they wanted to stock our books in their shop. It's a charming space and they sell a lot of really cute gifts for dogs and cats (KC even bakes dog biscuits!) as well as fashion and home accessories for their human owners. A great new addition for Christmas gift-shopping season! The best part is that they'll host a happy hour or aftyernoon tea party for you and your friends. It's a way for them to bring in more traffic to the otherwise quiet Chancery Lane and it's a fun way for you to spend some time with your friends drinking, chatting and shopping.

From this side of the world, our books are heading to another side of the world. The power of the internet to help small businesses expand globally never ceases to amaze me. While it's quite ordinary for us to sell our books to a shop in Hong Kong, it's quite exciting to get an order for our books from far-flung Quito! Actually, I guess it all started when we had requested permission from Quito Tourism Office to reproduce a picture of Quito's Church and Convent of San Francisco in our Little Cream Book: Architecture. When the book was published, we sent a complimentary copy to their office as a courtesy. A little over a month later, we got an email saying that the mayor's office wanted to place a bulk order of the book to give as gifts. Needless to say, I was quite excited. We sent off an invoice via paypal.com, the transfer was made and received and we're about to send off the shipment next Monday. The whole transaction was done in cyberspace and with so little fuss! I never even spoke with anyone in Quito; quite amazing really.

Casino Royale 2007

I am soooo bummed that Hong Kong is sooooo behind the times. While the rest of the civilised world gets to see Casino Royale this Friday, 17 November, those of us unfortunate souls stuck in Hong Kong have to wait until 22 December!!!

To make up for it, I want to organize a black tie, Casino Royale-inspired New Year's Eve party at Wynn Macau. Imagine this: Beautiful guests in black tie and ballgrowns helicopter over to Macau. On arrival, a fleet of Aston Martin DB9s await (need to work on this detail though). The procession of DB9s arrive Wynn, guests parade through the casino floor on up to adjoining party suites staffed and ready to serve a wonderful sit-down dinner with a freeflow of Krug and caviar. After dinner, the entertainment (from Shirley Bassey's "Diamonds are Forever" to Madonna's "Die Another Day") arrives. Guests party the night away with even more bottles of Krug, Macallan 25 and Cuban cigars until 2007. Masseurs will be available throughout the night in the suites' massage rooms for fatigued guests.

For the occasion, I even have the perfect pair of diamante-studded Shu Uemura eyelashes that I got in Tokyo this past weekend! SM, who is head of the cosmetic brand's international marketing, got my intrigued enough about the product to buy them after hearing all her Madonna stories (they custom-made a pair of lashes from mink and real diamonds for Madonna's Confessions on a Dancefloor tour).

Here's a bit of inspiration (trailers courtesy of Sony Pictures via google video):



I actually prefer this shorter trailer with the Judi Dench voiceover:

Tokyo: Massato Paris, Sushi Restaurant Hashida, Tadao Ando's Omotesando Hills, Asuka

Am posting with the new beta.blogger.com, so please let me know if there are any glitches. Will be updating old posts with labels (i.e. blogger's version of tags) in the next couple weeks.

Massato Paris -- One of the things I like doing in Tokyo is getting my haircut. It’s not expensive and they always do a good job. But if you’re not a Japanese speaker, make sure you go with someone who does or make sure the place you’re going to has an English-speaker on hand. Last year, I went to Kakimoto Arms with LS in Roppongi Hills. This year, MH did the booking, so I joined her at Massato Paris, across the street from Grand Hyatt (above the Versace shop). I like the nice, little touches, like the head and shoulder massage after the final hair rinse and the post-cut tea and candies platter.

Sushi Restaurant Hashida (3-8-11, Kachidoki, Chuoh-Ku, Tokyo 104-0054, Japan; T: +81 3 3533 0341) -- For lunch, SM had booked one of her favourite sushi places near Ginza. She warned us, though, their specialty is BIG sushi. The first time she went, she said the sushi chef looked really angry and barely spoke to her. Towards the end, he just handed her a photo album. Inside were pictures of the likes of Will Smith, Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz with the sushi chef in his little sushi restaurant. Lunch is a set menu. The only thing you get to choose is whether you want your explosive, finale sushi to be uni (sea urchin) or ikura (salmon roe). The rest did not disappoint. I rarely eat scallop, shrimp or clam sushi, but the ones served here were delicious and sweet. I ordered uni for my explosive sushi and boy was it explosive! I was served enough uni to make at least 5 pieces of normal-sized sushi. All that sushi for around Y3,000!

The sushi chef did not look so fierce this time around. He was working behind the counter with his son by his side. They made a great father-son team. After the meal, he showed us the famous photo album and even had a brief chat with us. "You have to thank the people who come for dinner," said Hashida-san Sr., because they are the ones subsidizing the low-cost lunch set.

Omotesando Hills -- After lunch, continuing with the starchitect-designed shopping mall theme, we visited Omotesando Hills, Tadao Ando's shopping mall for Minoru Mori. It is supposed to resemble a long street promenade inside the building. MH complained that she didn't like the fact that she had to stroll by all the shops just to get to a shop at the top. It's great for retailers and those who have to lease the space out to potential retailers don't have to deal with the problem of potentially dead spaces. I, personally liked the indoor boulevard feel. The mall is intimate in size, compared to present-day mega-malls (like last week's visit to Toyo Ito's Vivo City in Singapore) and I like that sort of intimacy. And there's a simple logic of having one path to follow. For a shopper, it's much more reassuring, less overwhelming. The formal simplicity actually creates a certain visual/spatial poetry or rhythm, which I like. In a way, it's soothing; true retail therapy.


Asuka -- For dinner, SI had booked kaiseki for us at a restaurant in Shimokitazawa within walking distance from his place, which is in Uemura, a quiet, idyllic neighborhood (SM called it the Greenwich Village of Tokyo). We stopped by SI's place for Champagne before walking to Asuka. SI had arranged for us to sit at the counter, because he thought it would be a more interesting experience. The chef here was a very cheery one. He had a sort of happy buddha kind of serenity to his face.


The food was amazing. We chose the menu with crab for a little under Y10,000 per person. I always think a restaurant is really good when they can get me to try and like things that I normally wouldn't touch. I am not a fan of tofu of the Chinese variety, but I think the Japanese are masters of tofu dishes. So when a broth with milk tofu suspended in it arrived, I thought I'd try it, even though I normally don't like tofu. I did not regret my decision. The milk tofu looked like a ball of mozzarella cheese. The consistency was different from regular tofu, it was kind of elastic. Buried inside was uni.


Even though we had sushi for lunch, the sashimi was still a treat:


But the really unforgettable dish was the crab, which came complete with what my SM translated as crab ovaries (the bright orange gook, which was actually quite tasty!), crab roe (the darker brown bits) and the crab meat. In terms of eating adventures though, last week's sperm of whale at Iggy's in Singapore still takes the cake.

Tokyo: Shibuya Granbell Hotel, good things come in red, Tera Teppanyaki

I love Tokyo; it's one of the few cities in the world where I always feel like a lost foreigner despite the number of times I've been here. Diane von Furstenberg was in town last week for the opening of her first boutique in Japan with her whole entourage. MH, who's in town for other work, was guiding/hanging out with them and apparently it was the first time in Japan for some in DvF's group (including her son) and they absolutely loved it (especially the Loveless shop in Aoyama). The thing is, for a gaijin, or foreigner (such as myself), Tokyo will always be fresh and new, no matter how many times you visit. There'll always be that sense of excitement of the new and different, that buzz of not quite knowing what you'll stumble upon, the thrill of a mystery you'll never quite solve.

I arrived into Narita around 1400 and surprisingly the immigration queue was very short and moved quickly. Managed to get my luggage, rent my 3G phone (it's great that these days I can keep my Hong Kong number), grab some Starbucks


(Japan's stores probably have some of the best Starbucks food around and they have these really cool, Starbucks mermaid stirrers that are also stoppers for the lid that I haven't seen anywhere else in the world!) and caught the 1513 Narita Express out to Shinjuku station. It's a great thing these days to be able to get on the internet and show taxi drivers the location maps for where you want to go, because even with the English address for Shibuya Granbell Hotel, he wasn't quite sure where it was.

In terms of location, Shibuya Granbell is really great, a few minutes' walk to Shibuya station, less than 10 minutes to Parco Part One. But the best part is that it's on a quiet street, off the main strip. Downstairs, there's a nice cafe/bar that's open late called Piece of Pie. I booked a Double Room for Single Use (Y16,800, including ++!!). This is one of the very, very few hotels that offers a cheaper rate for single use of a double room. The room is very comfortable with all my necessary amenities. It has free LAN internet access and the cable's in the desk drawer. The bathroom has a tub (which is such a rarity in so-called boutique hotelrooms these days) and I had ample space to maneouver around with my bags laid out. Very good value for money. They have a great penthouse duplex suite with its own rooftop jacuzzi.


Good things come in RED! I got 2 wonderful surprises, both red. MH dropped by my hotel and produced a gift for me. It was a namecard holder from Inden-Ya. I had seen her namecard holder with a wonderful cream-dotted pattern on what she tells me is deer skin (navy blue). I had fallen in love with it and kept harrassing her to tell me where she got it. Unfortunately, it was a gift to her from her father so she didn't really know exactly where to buy it. Between her meetings here this time around, she chanced upon a shop selling Inden-Ya's wares, and got me my very own namecard holder with tan flower-shaped dots on red deer skin (red is my lucky colour). I found their website via google, so hopefully I'll have time to drop by their store.

The next wonderful surprise was that the GAP store near Parco sells their Product (RED) line! I had actually called Singapore's first GAP store, which just opened in Vivo City, but they had no idea what I was talking about. So when I saw the line here, I kind of went crazy and bought a whole bunch of inspi(red), desi(red) and hamme(red) t-shirts to give as gifts.


After a spot of shopping, SM picked us up and took us out for teppanyaki. Tera is a discrete, little teppanyaki restaurant in Nishi-Azabu that probably seats around 10 people at the counter and then another 20-25 people around tables. If you didn't know of its existence, you'd probably overlook its non-descript entrance. Once inside, you walk downstairs and there's a teppanyaki counter and behind it several screened-off tables. We sat at the counter. The first dish that came was uni on top of a small portion of grilled rice on top of crispy, grilled seaweed. It was absolutely delicious, the uni being very fresh and sweet in taste. Next came a Japanese teppanyaki version of raclette -- vegetables with cheese. We also had beef fillet and sirloin, garlic fried rice (which came with a wonderful broth), and vanilla ice-cream topped with grilled strawberries, all were wonderful! I'm so glad that I now know another good teppanyaki place aside from Seryna's Mon Cher Ton Ton.


After dinner, we went to nearby birth for a drink. I had yuzu tea. There's supposed to be a fortune-telling lady that goes around the tables, but when we saw how depressed a couple of girls looked after their readings, we opted not to take our chances.

INSEAD Meeting In Asia: TNT & WFP Partnership

The theme for this year's INSEAD Meeting In Asia was Risk & Responsibility. When I saw the program had a session on Partnerships between Business and NGOs, and saw that one of the speakers was INSEAD alum and good friend Brett Rierson (he works at the UN World Food Programme), I became interested in attending. The rest of the programme, was pretty much business as usual -- much of the topics addressing risks as it pertains to the financial markets. The theme of the weekend and BR's session inspired me to sponsor copies of our Little Cream Book: Goodwill for the Councils Dinner, because I do believe that a lot of the risks that businesses face stem from social and political instability and that the corporate community can and should take responsibility for mitigating some of the risks through corporate & social responsibility programs.

As panel moderator, Luk van Wassenhove (Henry Ford Chaired Professor in Manufacturing, Professor of Operations Management at INSEAD) put it, "It's not about doing good; it's about doing what makes good business sense". While the bottomline benefits of a CSR program are not often immediately apparent, the business case that BR and Luke Disney, Global Director of Communications at TNT, presented made a strong case that doing good can be good for business. Their partnership has been a real success story. TNT's partnership with WFP is more than just about making a one-off cash donation. In fact, it is really an effort that started from the top and has gotten TNT employees of every level involved. The story on how it all started with CEO Peter Bakker reading an article with the appalling statistic that a child dies every few seconds from hunger is just one example of how great things can be inspired by simple things. Much of TNT's nearly EUR10 million annual support is helping WFP get food to where it's needed, especially in emergency situations such as when the tsunami hit. The key to the partnership's success, I believe, stems from the fact that TNT's management treats the partnership like a business unit; they expect the partnership to yield results and dividends for both parties rather than just seeing it as charity. The benefits for TNT can be measured in a boost in goodwill from the positive publicity, but more importantly, there is the boost in morale among TNT employees, leading to better employee retention, higher levels of job satisfaction and performance. On WFP's side, the TNT partnership has allowed them to feed on average 90 million people, 10% more than before. WFP has also benefited from TNT's knowledge transfer and investment in IT and training within their organization.

So now all this has got me thinking about what CSR programs companies in the travel industry such as airlines, hotels, tour operators, etc. can get involved in. Any ideas??

U.S.A.: It's Election Day!

PLEASE VOTE! It's our right, it's our privilege and our responsibility. We have a choice, now let's go choose!!

"Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters."
-- Abraham Lincoln

Singapore: homes and shops

I love Sunday brunches; it's the most laid-back, relaxing meal one can have in a week. Best enjoyed with a group of family or friends. Had booked Au Jardin, another one of Les Amis Group's restaurants. The setting is charming and idyllic, in a little, old house set amidst the Singapore Botanic Gardens. As we were shown to our table upstairs, who should be sitting at the table next to us? It was none other than Chubby Hubby and his S! "I see you're really enjoying all the best that Singapore has to offer!" greeted CH. Suffice it to say, Au Jardin is the most civilised place to spend 3 hours of any Sunday afternoon filling stomachs with great food and drink while catching up on all sorts of gossip (intrigues within the Thai Royal family, for example).

Stomachs filled, we headed over to check out DH's new pad at Robertson Blue along Robertson Quay, situated along the Singapore River front in between Zouk and Butter Factory and a 5-minute walk to great lifestyle shops and restaurants such as Sage (another CH fave, DH agrees that it's great food at great prices), La Maison du Whiskey, The Chocolate Factory, Canelé pastry and chocolate shop etc. This whole neighborhood is really going to take off in terms of it being a young, vibrant residential area, a bit like Yaletown. People walking their dogs or going for a morning jog along the riverfront before they pop into one of the posh cafes for breakfast. Wonder if we'll see any punters or rowers soon?

Robertson Blue is beautifully-designed. It has 36 units with the Penthouse units having their own rooftop jacuzzis. DH's is a ground floor unit and his patio steps right onto the pool/jacuzzi area. In Hong Kong, I've not come across a new, boutique development as well built and designed as this. But then, I was told who the developer is -- HPL (Hotel Properties Limited; i.e. owner of Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay, Four Seasons Sayan, Four Seasons Kuda Huraa, Metropolitan Bangkok, among other properties).



Chocolate Factory is nearby. I had heard lots about this shop. BK, owner of Chocolate Unlimited here in Hong Kong, had raved about the shop's freshly-made truffles (she was also the one who tipped me off on iggy's white truffle white truffles. the night i was at iggy's though, we had yuzu white truffles instead, of which AP asked for and managed to get 3 extra!). S confirmed this, but also mentioned that the French chocolatier has a bit of an attitude. If you want to be well-served, you had better be a fine-looking female without a wedding ring on her finger.

Canelé is at Robertson Walk. The pastries here are amazing. The chocolates are good as well and there isn't the high price and attitude of The Chocolate Factory. Check out the meringues!!

Another great shop along the way, next to The Chocolate Factory was La Maison du Whisky, which stocks around 700 whiskies. RB, who works for Diageo, was amazed that they stocked their own whiskys, which his company did not distribute in Asia! Next stop along this Champagne, chocolate and pastry-filled afternoon was a visit to RB's home on Blair Road, a newly-renovated shophouse. The place is awesome, especially the pool which has panels that can be placed over the pool for dinner parties. I happened to be flipping through the latest issue of ish magazine (7.4) that KC, the editor, had given me at our meeting and lo and behold, RB's home was featured!





Love the "Days of Being Wild" feel of this balcony!

Singapore: Justin Lee, Iggy's

Another action-packed day: breakfast at P.S. Cafe (my fave breakfast hangout in town), speaker sessions at INSEAD on Women in Management and Partnerships between Business and NGOs, checked out some of the Singapore Biennale exhibits at Tanglin Camp, met artist Justin Lee, dinner at Iggy's, then checked out Butter Factory and Hacienda.

Old army barracks were converted into exhibition spaces.


My favourite installation was Takashi Kuribayashi's "Sometimes I feel like I'm in an aquarium". Located in Block 73A. It occupied the ground floor and the lower floor. I walked into the ground floor and saw only an aquarium in the middle of the room. Two Japanese women were staring at it. Disappointed, I walked out and ventured downstairs. On entering, all I saw was a black, plastic, blow-up seal. Nearby was a sign politely asking visitors not to physically abuse the seal. I was ready to leave when I notived a ladder in the middle of the room. Funny, I hadn't recalled an opening in the ground floor. Where did the ladder lead? I walked over, looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling, so i climbed up the ladder and realized I had climbed up through the ceiling and into the aquarium! Too bad the two Japanese women weren't still there. It would have been funny to see their reaction to me popping up into the aquarium. When I descended, I noticed another ladder at the far end of the room. This one led up to a jungle environment.

Next art stop of the day was Asian Art Options' office where I met up with Audrey Phng and Justin Lee to see my first art acquisition! I met AP earlier this year in Singapore and we really hit it off. While browsing her site's list of artists, I came across Justin Lee and really took a liking to his whimsical, kitschy work appropriating and re-interpreting Asian motifs and icons. So when I found out that Justin had designed several of the rooms at New Majestic Hotel, I made sure to request his rooms for my stay. I loved the rooms so much that I ended up commissiong a piece from Justin. And here are the fruits of his labours, which I absolutely adore. Many thanks to AP for making my first art aquisition happen! We celebrated the event with a bottle of VCP Rose and a box of Springli Grand Cru truffles (fresh from Zurich) courtesy of EO and Triple Chocolate Brownie from The Brownie Factory (at Takashimaya) courtesy of Justin. I was trying very hard not to ruin my appetite for dinner at Iggy's, but the truffles and brownies were just too tempting...

There are a lot of Justin Lee motifs here: paper-cut, double happiness, lightbulbs, the powerful female figure (in this case, guanyin dressed up in a super-hero cape). There was one new element that I hadn't seen before, but it also happened to be the first thing that caught my eye -- a tiny, little sheep on the bottom right corner of the canvas. A lot of Justin's art work deals with themes about Asia's place in the world, it's struggle to embrace Western culture and brands of status while trying not to turn its back on its own past. He asks questions about the power of brands and consumerism, women's role in society (are they goddesses, Wonder Woman or prey (the antelope headdress) or both?), are we free-thinking and acting or or we slaves to our ambitions to keep up with the Joneses?

On the way to Iggy's, we popped into Ambush (not knowing that it was a shop), a couple shops down from AP's office and ran into another one of AP's artists: Miguel Chew shopping for a new shirt (he also designed rooms at New Majestic)!

We arrived iggy's late and found Chubby Hubby and his S as well as AP's D had been waiting for us for half an hour (I had mis-read the email. So, so sorry guys!!). It is always a treat to dine with Chubby Hubby and his S, because they are like walking food and wine encyclopedias, not to mention that they know the chefs and get extra good service. To say the least, our 10-course tasting menu was nothing short of fabulous. Highlights were: Onion gratin with 2g of Alba white truffle, Crispy roasted suckling pig with apple puree and tumeric oil, Cappellini with ssakura ebi and home-made scampi oil (AP actually asked for and got seconds!!) and a panna cotta (at least I think that's what it was) with candied tomatoes and basil ice cream (meant to be a reinterpretation of a caprese salad). But the food adventure of the night was one of the canapes. On the menu, it said: Pan-fried shirako with green curry foam. Shirako, a beautiful sounding name, is actually sperm of whale!!!

Singapore: Les Amis, Vivo City and INSEAD Meeting in Asia

Had a pretty amazing day today. It all started with an 8am pilates class with Ole at Sky Pilates, followed by a meeting with Page One's editorial team, white truffle lunch at Les Amis, a wander through Toyo Ito's amazingly whimsical urban beach in the sky on the rooftop of mega-shopping mall Vivo City and a very moving auditorium naming ceremony at INSEAD that kicked-off INSEAD's Meeting in Asia weekend of events.


White Truffle Lunch @ Les Amis (1 Scotts Road, #02-16 Shaw Centre; T: +65 6733 2225). Had quite an amazing lunch with EO. Asked the sommelier to recommend a Spanish wine and the bottle of 1997 Cims de Porrera from Priorat was excellent and went very well with the absolutely divine Spanish ham from Jabugo. EO ordered a sunny-side up egg with white truffles for starter, while I decided not to overkill on the white truffles and ordered the grilled toro with sunny side-up egg and oscietra caviar on blini. I saved my truffle quota for the chargrilled pork belly and chocolate fondant with white truffle ice cream. The ice cream was heaven! After lunch, I popped into That CD Shop next door. They have a house compilation label called High Society, pretty decent complilations ranging from Shanghai Divas to classical to lounge to soul etc.




Next stop was Vivo City. Had read about Toyo Ito's mega mall and the renderings looked interesting enough, but every Singaporean I mentioned Vivo City to was not all that enthusiastic about it. TW managed to muster some excitement over the cinema which has electronic reclining seats, but that was about it. Inside the mall, well...it did look like any other suburban-sprawl mall.


But once I got to the rooftop, I was able to experience Toyo Ito's blurring architecture, the melding of Vivo City with its Marine City/Sentosa surroundings. The rooftop garden has an urban beach (which mirrors the beaches of Sentosa on the opposite side) and outdoor amphitheatre.


Interesting how the cranes, which could be aesthetically a real eyesore, are made less so because they just kind of blend in with the palm trees.



The rooftop garden makes Vivo City a great public space, offering a great leisure venue for families.

The coolest thing...

...happened just now. I was going through today's mail and came across the brochure for this year's Asia Cultural Cooperation Forum (9-12 November 2006). They usually manage to bring in some pretty interesting speakers in the creative industries, even though the format of the whole conference is anything but creative. This year, they've got a 3-hour session on "Measuring Creativity, Happiness and Well-Being", but the session that caught my eye was "Experiencing Architecture", since I'm a bit of an archi-buff. I was going down the list of 10 speakers and stopped abruptly at "Mr Charupan Khak WIRIYAWIATT, Director, Naga Concepts, Thailand" (Naga Concepts, you might remember, is the company I mentioned in an entry back in August that will be working with Andre Balazs, Christian Liagre and John Pawson on a residential/resort project in Anguilla). So I immediately call BL; as we both go skiing with Khak (after one intense day of skiing, Khak spent the morning at breakfast moaning, "paaaiiinnn" every time he moved. BL and I have taken to imitating that each time we go skiing/snowboarding now.). BL had no idea that Khak, who's based in Phuket, would be in town next week. As I was browsing through the brochure to give him the details of the talk, I notice, "hey! your company's sponsoring this; you should know about this!".

Life's full of funny surprises. Unfortunately, I will miss the talk since I will be in Tokyo that day. Major bummer.