busy girl thoughts

Aureole-It’s listed as an American restaurant instead of French on citysearch. However, the menu, ambience, and service all point it to a French restaurant. I’d say Aureole is the best of all three. The atmosphere is the most relaxed, and the food is not traditional heavy French cuisine. It’s more creative, fresh, light, yet the intensity and complexity of the flavor is not lost. Citysearch editor’s got the essence of this restaurant:

…lent toothsome crunch by a cured pancetta wrap, or sashimi-cut fluke lounging on ruby-red grapefruit–that you realize you’re savoring every inherent flavor rather than cream or oil. Boccuzzi achieves opulence honestly, balancing lively flavors with clever, complementary preparations. Crispy skate in eggless bearnaise and prosciutto-crusted rabbit luxuriate on the palate, while leaving room for blissful, can’t-miss desserts.

Dessert is definitely the best part, and it’s what makes Aureole better than the other two in ny heart. You can see the dessert menu online, but allow me to describe what I got. I got a creme brulee tasting, which came with three flavors, classic, chocolate and corn (corn with blueberry topping). I’m no longer a big creme brulee fan (after I found out what it’s made of), but the classic creme brulee was the best I’ve tried. It’s so creamy but it’s not so full of fat that you can’t taste anything else. It tastes more creamy because the texture is amazingly consistent and fine, like there’s no air particle in between the cream particles. The corn creme brulee was really interesting too. I always enjoy things I’ve never heard of before. Thumbs up for the pastry chef’s creativity. My friend ordered ‘Six Sorbet & Frozen Custard’. The presentation was wonderful. The little cups that the sorbets were in were put on a triangle rack. So it’s three on the bottom, 2 in the middle and 1 on top. Now you get the idea. The taste was out of this world as well. Too bad i don’t remember all the flavor but I remember one of them was goat cheese.

Zagat rating: 27, 26, 26 (food, service, ambience)

Jean Georges- The food is similar to Aureole. It’s vert innovative as well. The menu is more extensive, but it’s a lot pricier and the atmosphere is more uptight than Aureole. Dessert is pretty good, although fades compare with Aureole’s.

Zagat rating: 27, 26, 26

Le Bernardin-Yeah it’s a very good restaurant. But the way I look at it, the food is as good as the above two (unless you prefer traditional French), it’s really really expensive, atmosphere is most formal (jacket required for gentlemen), and the dessert was average-ok, to be fair, it’s good, but it’s not something you’d jump up and down and tell all your friends about- so why pay the premium? My guy friends didn’t wear a jacket and had to wear the loaner ones. They were super large and it was hilarious when they stood up because one of them looked like a football player and the other one stole his dad’s jacket.

Zagat rating: 28, 27, 27

The first time I tried Starbuck’s green tea frappuccino I wasn’t impressed. It tasted like bland green tea flavored bubble gum. I forgot why I bought a second one since I disliked the first one so much, but the second one was more like it. The green tea flavor was strong, and it tasted almost like green tea ice cream. I was exhilirated to find my official summer drink.

At that point I was convinced the barista who made the first one didn’t make it according the formula.

And then I tried the third, fourth,.. so on. Now I know the true story. The second one was abnormal. All the others I had didn’t taste anything like green tea. I don’t know what impulses me to keep buying and getting disappointed. I mean, now i’m obsessed with finding the ‘right’ green tea frappuccino. Isn’t that crazy? I’ve turned Starbucks addiction into Lottery consumption. I pay a daily due hoping for hitting the jackpot.

I can’t wait to go back to Seattle to test it out. I still believe that Seattle Starbucks has the best standard. I still believe…

My eyelids are so oily it’s not even funny. I have yet to meet another person whose eyelids are worse than mine. As a matter of fact, here’s a common reaction I get: “Eyelids can be Oily?” To clarify how bad it is, it takes less than 20 minutes for eyeshadow powder to crease on me.

3 or 4 years ago I met my Savior. MAC Painter is really a creamshadow line. It’s not your everyday creamshadow though. It’s very matte and heavy. I call it ‘industrial strength’ eyeshadow base. I bought “Untitled” which is the lightest nude color. After applying it my Stila powder shadow lasts all day!

I was so happy I went back and bought 3 other colors, green purle and blue. But it turned out other vibrant colors were not meant to be used as eyeshadow base. I still like them though. The color is rich and easy to apply (only a finger is required).

Origin has an eyeshadow base too that I want to buy after I run out of “Untitled Paint”. Speaking of which, i bought it a few years ago and I still have 20% left. The best 15 bucks you can spend!! Origin’s base is beige-white, and they claim it’ll make the eyeshadow color more vibrant. I’m yet to find out how long it can last. Has anyone tried it?

*Compare Stila with Chanel, Dior, Benefit, M.A.C., Nars, Clinique, Estee Lauder and Laura Mercier.* My favorite is Stila (especially heather , this color compliments all skin color, and is constantly sold out), for the following reasons:

1. Reasonable price (it’s about median price in department store brands) I got a six-pan compact, which is $24, and each refill is $14. If you don’t want the compact, the individual shadow (comes with environmental friendly paper container) is $16, which is in line with Dior, Anna Sui and only $2 cheaper than Benefit and M.A.C.

2. Texture is consistent and color is easy to apply. Most of the eyeshadow powder is not of consistent particles, and that leaves heavy spots or streaks on the eyelids. Chanel and Nars are about as good in this area. Estee Lauder and Dior are decent. Laura Mercier is the worst among pricier brands. Clinique and Benefit are comparable with Laura Mercier in quality but slightly cheaper. Drugstore brands? Don’t even think about it.I’ve learned from Style Network that some makeups you can cheat with drugstore brands, such as lipstick and mascara. However, THE makeup that you can’t cheat on is Eyeshadow. The reason is that due to frequent shipping and poor handling, drugstore eyeshadows need to be packed more dense than department store brands. That’s why drugstore shadow powder is not as loose as department store ones, and therefore color doesn’t look natural and is clumpy.

3. The pigment is abundant so it doesn’t take much to apply, and as a result the eyeshadow lasts much longer. I bought another 8-color compact from Laura Mecier a year after I bought Stila, and it has less left than Stila even though I use Stila more frequently. That doesn’t surprise me because when I apply Laura Mercier, I always feel the urge to use my finger and just dig into the shadow. For some reason the color just doesn’t show! And to clarify, for those who know me, they can witness that I don’t apply heavy makeup. I like neutral look for work.

4.It doesn’t smudge and last all day. It’s especially important for me because my eyelids are very oily (that’s another post). Stila powder lasts all day long while other brands tend to wear off after half a day.

5. All Stila eyeshadows can be applied with both wet and dry brush. Wet brush makes the color richer and staying even longer.

6. Last but not least, the state-of-art brush. I ditched my other professional eyeshadow brushes I invested over the years in favor of the free brush! (Yes! It’s even better than MAC or Sephora brushes.) The brush has two ends, one is rounded brush and the other is the flat slanted brush for eyeliner. I recommend getting at least one dark eyeshadow in the pan for eyeliner purposes, and wet the eyelinter brush when applying.

(This is color, mambo, is especially good for Asians.  It’s a cross between light brown and lavendar, natural enough for work.  For a night out for happy hour? Just apply heavier or add one more layer after work.) 

My NY colleagues and I have probably tried all the deli places within 1 mile radius. Today I went to a French deli that I haven’t been before, Kitchen Provance , located on 45th between 6th & 7th. It serves hot entree bars and a salad bar, plus pastries.

The entree bar is probably the most gourmet I’ve tried in this neighborhood. For example today I got Polenta Pizzette, Zucchini cake, and Ricotta Roasted Vegetables Roulade, just to name a few.

What’s bugging me is the deli is not that busy compared with its neighbors, although the quality leaves the competitors in dust, and the french country decor is cute, clean and intimate. I noticed two things that might have affected it. The food section is way in the back of the deli, and the lighting is on the dim side, so it’s difficult for pedestrians to glimpse quickly what they’re serving. The unofficial standard for NY delis is to have entree bar in the center of the store.

The second is the credit card is acceptable, but it’s in the back of the kitchen and can only be handled by a grumpy looking mid-aged woman who appears to be the owner. After waiting for two minutes, the woman came out to hand over the receipt to the cashier, and she gave me a head to toe glance. Frankly, just for this reason, I don’t think I’m going back. But for those of you who use cash, I’d definitely recommend it.

Is Ewan McGregor hot or what? I liked him alright, but for some reason when I saw that he was in Guys and Dolls in London, I scratched my original itinerary and bought a last minute to see him. I think it’s the combination that Guys’n Dolls is on top of my favorite theater list, and Moulin Rouge is my favorite musical movie.

What I love about this musical is the lyrics of most of the songs, like “Mary the man today” (change him later…). My favorite one would be “Sit down you’re rocking the boat”. It sounds even better on stage than on CD.

I’ve been using various blog sites on and off, but I never found one I really liked. At least that’s the excuse I gave to myself not to continue blogging (which is a shame because I’ve been to so many exciting NY restaurants and done lots of travels).

Today thanks to Bunny’s Test Space blog, I found this current blog site. It has a lot more features than blogger.com since it’s WordPress powered. The only drawback is it doesn’t have a lot of technical help. The only support blogsome.com offers are links to other resource pages. I actually enjoy it because I love digging up answers myself, and probably most of you paperclip⁽¹⁾ haters out there agree with me. I spent time learning WordPress and CCS style, and i’m refreshing my memory on basic HTML language. It’s fun, and I know i’ll be wasting numerous days ahead of me to tweak my pages.

MSN My Space is very user-friendly. I almost would’ve gone for it if weren’t for the following reasons: 1. It doesn’t let you assign multiple categories to a posting, and it doesn’t support sub-categories. 2. It doesn’t support blog-rolling. 3. Too limited in custom settings.
MSN My Space is excellent for beginners or people who care less about customization.