I’ve been pretty lucky so far, living close to Amandine on Wilshire Blvd, where I get my weekly fix of French pastries. There’s also a Belgian chocolatier on Wilshire, which is also meant to have good croissants. Le Pain Quotidient in Santa Monica was one of my first stops for a post-beach breakfast when I […]

Young coconut decapitated.

The West LA Farmers’ Market is a relatively new market, held every Sunday morning. I love the atmosphere: everyone’s friendly and there’s always some music playing, whether it’s taped music for folk to dance to or some live jazz (which is just the thing for Sunday morning).

I love chrysanthemum tea, but I don’t like the kind that comes in sachets. My main gripe with them is that they’re usually too sugary. So when I saw bags of flowers in a Chinese herb shop in Monterey Park, I just could not resist. To make this cup of tea, I packed the inner […]

A lor mai bao from NBC Seafood in Monterey Park, LA, a speciality of the restaurant. Lor mai (eight-treasure glutinous rice) is usually wrapped in leaves and steamed. This version has it wrapped in dumpling skin, which changes the eating experience from attempts at picking up lumps of sticky rice and rushing it to the […]

Cherry tomatoes and stringy pasta are my favourite quick dinner standby. While cooking up whatever dried pasta you have in, heat up a small amount of olive oil in a pan, add the toms, brown them, allowing some of them to burst, and mix in the pasta. Enjoy this highly unhealthy meal with a glass […]

I love chrysanthemum tea, but I don’t like the kind that comes in sachets. My main gripe with them is that they’re usually too sugary. So when I saw bags of flowers in a Chinese herb shop in Monterey Park, I just could not resist. To make this cup of tea, I packed the inner […]