Wildair
Sometimes, I distinctly remember how I hear about a restaurant, and what possesses me to visit. Other times, I just forget! Wildair is one of those restaurants where I don't remember exactly how I came to know the name. It was probably via Instagram or something. However, I do know why this place got my interest. It was contemporary, experimental, fun looking, and more importantly, walk-in friendly. I like keeping a list of interesting restaurants that don't take reservations, or at a minimum, have the possibility of accommodating for walk ins, because I don't like having strict plans when travelling, so I want to keep my food options open. The downside is that I have to decide within 30 minutes to an hour of the restaurants' opening time, whether or not I'm going to go there.
Wildair is actually the baby sister of Contra, which is owned by the same people and is a more formal, degustation, bookings essential restaurant. I have a strong preference to restaurants that have the same calibre food in a more casual setting, so Wildair was my must go to non-reservation place.
And random shots because I can! So as we walked in, I actually got asked if I'd put my name in the book. Huh? That book that I spotted earlier when I scouted the place, actually had a purpose? I thought this place didn't take reservations? Something about this was confusing! Maybe my research wasn't as thorough as I thought! However, they did have a table available, but we'd have to vacate at about 8PM or so. See, this is why you always need to take the table at opening times! That was plenty of time and really the norm for a restaurant like this, so it was fine.
The decor is also pretty cool It's a smaller place than I thought, and they have two particularly cool seating areas. The bar facing the kitchen, but more uniquely, on the very opposite side, a bench setup that faces a mirror. I'm not sure why you'd want to look at yourself when eating, but it makes for a great way to people watch the rest of the restaurant!
Look, another quirk! The tables actually had a shelf tucked away underneath where the cutlery was hidden! My friend and the waitstaff both mentioned (at separate times) that this felt almost school-like, how things were under the desk. That's so cute! And a nifty way to increase the available space without taking up actual floor area!
Oyster time! Always such a treat!
It was the clams that were really impressive though! Clams are so hard to get in Australia, and the last set I ate were $12 each from Cumulus Inc! How eye wateringly expensive! With conversion rates, tax, and tipping though, I can't actually be sure these were any cheaper, but hey, I was on holiday so it didn't count towards my budget! That being said, I really wanted to order another plate of these, but that would just be a bit too far for my sensibilities (famous last words, *coughEMPcough*)!
This is actually one of Wildair's more famous dishes. Radishes and butter. So simple, but I liked it! Mainly because I love radishes, and breakfast radishes also seem to be another rarity in Aus. These were not peppery so I could eat my fill! The seaweed butter was a bit of a challenge though, since it was still kind of hard so trying to scrape it off the plate with the radishes was a bit of a challenge!
A beautiful ugly thing. Maitake mushrooms! With straciatella, chicken skin, tomatillo. Now that's an amazing combination! Mushrooms and chicken go really well together, and I loved the straciatella being in there, but it was the tomatillos that really made the whole thing taste amazing - that touch of lightness and acidity were so good! This is totally something I would re-order!
The pork milanese is what my friend ordered. Again, like at Roberta's, I'm really not a fan of meat mains and other large dishes at the bottom of a menu (I even didn't consider the lobster! Gasp!). And, again, I was proven oh so wrong! I didn't know what a milanese actually was, so I imagined just a chunk of pork with vegetables and stuff.
Little did I know that what came out was the best pork schnitzel I've ever had! Wow, I really should start trying out meat mains again at this rate! This was a very thin piece of pork, very manageable and not at all heavy/filling, perfectly tender, and that batter. That fried crust was unimaginably perfect! There was no trace of excess grease, there was no crumbling or sogginess, it was light, uniform, and was almost like a skin in terms of how well, thinly and evenly it coated the pork while still maintaining its definition as a coating and not stuck onto the meat. Wow! Woaaah wow! My mind has just been blown! I am SO glad that I got to try this!!!
Okay, things got serious. I thought this was a great, cute, experimental restaurant. No one told me it was also consistently technically brilliant! What an incredible set of skills the chefs have! I say this because I ordered the passionfruit millefeuille thinking it'd be small and light, a perfect end to my night. My friend ordered the chocolate tart.
I had a little giggle because when they were served, the waitstaff had assumed that I'd ordered the chocolate dessert. Nope, I went for the "lighter" option! Or, the non-chocolate option. Whichever stereotype she'd used to try and guess who ordered what haha! I don't really mind, I just like wondering how waitstaff read their customers at restaurants because it's actually a skill that the best waitstaff have.
Okay, so I got this millefueille. My first reaction was, it looks like the potato and butter dessert I had at Franklin! Similar format, two thin crisps that sandwiched a luscious, generous chunk of cream. Yeah. That's the stuff of my dreams right there. I tasted the cream, and it was great! I never actually knew I loved the balance of tangy passionfruit/lemon against the richness of cream until I ate passionfruit truffles at Sue Lewis Chocolatier in Perth. I had an appreciation of the combo when I was loving Haigh's lemon white chocolate truffles, but Sue Lewis showed me the light, and now this dessert has proved the combo is godly.
Then, the icing on the proverbial cake. The pastry. A pastry that cuts perfectly vertically with a spoon. IT CUTS VERTICALLY CLEANLY. Wow!!! It didn't snap, it didn't flake, it just... it was a perfect pastry. I couldn't believe my eyes! This was way better than I thought I'd be, there was just so much enjoyment in the cutting and the eating!
The only downside was that I was getting really full because it was a larger dessert than I expected, but that's hardly a fault! I actually attribute that to too many carbs in the morning from two croissants and a bundt cake, because I'd had a slight tummy ache in the afternoon as a result. I don't really know what caused it, since I never get tummy aches, and it went away overnight. My friend also liked the passionfruit millefueille better, stating that the chocolate tart was a bit too heavy. I had an inkling that might be the case, which is why I avoid chocolate desserts, and having had a small taste, was pretty sure my suspicion was right. But, I didn't have enough to determine if the technical proficiency I'd seen extended to the chocolate tart, but I really don't have any doubts that their entire menu was curated to their strengths.
We finished our meal in plenty of time! Overall, I'm really glad I got to try this restaurant because their skills were way higher than I'd anticipated! I went in thinking "oh yeah I'm probably gonna experience some new flavour combos here" and walked out thinking "these chefs are insanely good at what they do and know exactly how to perfect their food!"
Yep. Go. Now. To. Wildair!
Hello again, Singapore
After my Cebu stint, the trip back involved an overnight stopover at Singapore. There were aspects of this place that I absolutely loved before so I made them my first priority!
Another season, anther fixture! Last time it was the giant rooster, this time, a giant boat! It turns out it's mid autumn festival or whatever the mooncakey festival thing is, which is pretty cool! Not only was the main street lit up with bright fixtures, but there was also heaps of incense being burned on all the streets.
First stop, claypot frog porridge! I loved this place last time and I didn't even know frog porridge was its specialty! This time I ordered the actual item, instead of the ginger claypot frog and adding porridge to it. The porridge tasted so good, but I felt the frog may have been a bit overcooked compared to last time. Still delicious and a great treat, but I think I prefer the ginger claypot with porridge separate - the sauce of the standalone frog seeps into the meat better. And I'd love to eat the chicken feet from here again!I'd also deliberately undereaten because I decided that I'd take my chances at Burnt Ends too. The porridge was enough that I could continue eating, but also if I didn't manage to get a table, I'd be satisfied and not hungry again till morning. So after a short trek through Chinatown, I came upon a closed Burnt Ends. Oh, they're not open Sundays... which meant no extra feed, but my wallet thanked me!!
Instead I snacked on this croissant taiyaki since last time I had the mochi version. Not bad, especially as this was freshly made!
A quick scout of Chinatown also meant to opportunity to say hello to these adorable foxes!
Alright, hotel time! As this was an overnight stay and I'm not allowed to splurge, I decided to test out a capsule hotel! I chose one that wasn't quite budget and seemed rather nice and had decent ventilation according to reviews. I ended up at Cube, which had some cool and hip interior design. Just don't expect much in the way of their continental breakfast; the hawker fare 2 minutes away is so much more worth it.
How cute! It came with a towel and water bottle, a main light and a reading light, three pull out compartments, of which the largest doubled as a table and had a mirror installed, as well as a towel rack at the end of the bed.There was a secure set of doors located below this capsule to store luggage.
I actually found this quite roomy! There were also charging ports and a powerpoint tucked away, which was really convenient. I think I like small spaces like this, I wish my bedroom was this size!
And how the capsule room looked. Here you were supposed to place your shoes in the lockers just outside this room, but I guess most people ignored that. You can see the massive air conditioner that did really well to keep the temperature regulated, but also, the capsules had pull-down blinds. This meant there was a draft into my capsule though, and moving cold air prevents me from sleeping well. I managed okay, and it was better than being stuck in a place with no air movement at all.The bathroom was located across the lobby though, I found that setup a bit odd since you'd have to walk in your pyjamas through a public area. There were more bathrooms on the other floor, but I didn't venture or explore the full setup.Also, I didn't anticipate that because these were just capsules sharing a room, with the only privacy being a blind, that there's no way to tell the time and you can hear everything. So.... how does one set an alarm if they need to be up at a specific time? No idea. But if I was ever on the clock, I wouldn't choose a capsule hotel. My flight wasn't till midday so I let my body clock do its magic. However... that didn't stop me waking up to the sound of someone else's alarm at 2am!
Morning came around, and luckily, having had the same morning schedule 7 days a week meant that I got up at around 7AM - 8AM. Perfect time as most hawker shops should start opening soon! And here are more foxes!
I circled the stalls at Chinatown Complex, wanting the 1950s cafe I went to last time. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't find it, until after my third lap I realised it was closed. Maybe it's closed on Mondays? That meant I had to find some other food to eat. I also did a round of Maxwell Centre, and in the end went back to Chinatown Complex and tried out the vegetarian shop.Time to do the point and choose thing! I ended up with noodles, tofu, soy "chicken" thing? And hopefully that white stuff was radish cake. I said no to extra soy sauce, and I think the lady thought I was weird for saying so! However it had enough saltiness as is, and was actually rather enjoyable! Man, the food here is so simple, so cheap and so good!
My final mission was also supposed to be impossible. When I had heard Kurasu Singapore opened, I thought I wouldn't have the chance to try it since I hadn't planned a Singapore visit. But hey, when opportunity presents itself... I had to get this cafe when it opened at 9AM, try all the coffees I needed to, and then get to the airport as fast as possible to check in for a 12PM flight. Okay well, it was made slightly easier because I already had my boarding pass and my luggage was automatically being transferred cross planes.This is such a nice space! It wasn't too difficult to find Odeon Towers, but my GPS wasn't playing nice this visit so it did take some fiddling and old school map orientation efforts to get to all my places this visit. In addition, Kurasu is located on level 2 of an open office, rather than an actual shopfront.Like all Japanese cafes, Kurasu has a lovely and clean aesthetic. Lots of Kalitas and nice glassware! Single O's Reservoir blend was great as an espresso, and the filter by Mount Coffee was quite nice too! Would have loved to spend twice the time here to really take everything in!
But alas, it was airport time, where I actually had another goal. Last time I visited I had some great beef tendon noodles with a really good flavoured sauce, but I couldn't find it again. Maybe it was a different terminal? So I settled for this other cantonese place and ordered similar, but this didn't quite taste as amazing, but was good feed before my flight.Man, Singpore is so cool! I really should come back and explore things like the art gallery and surrounds. Maybe even pay more attention to Suntec City and Raffles. Plus maybe even actually save up to enjoy Burnt Ends!!But different adventures are lined up for me in the upcoming year, hopefully!
Shanghai - November 2017
Finally, some time off to continue posting! I've not had a blog backlog this extensive before. Good thing instead of bashing away at my Surface Pro 3 keyboard, I'm going full speed with my Cherry Blue MX Ducky. Woohoo! Hopefully I remember everything that's supposed to go into this post.To start off with, this was a necessary trip that wasn't my decision, so it was a super short stay where I didn't plan too much for myself in case there wasn't any time to explore. That being said, yes, there were backup plans. Just in case I could roam free....
I landed in the afternoon and met up with family. Dinner was simple and in a restaurant located inside a shopping centre, and the food here was Yunnan style I believe, so there were a lot of spicy things on the menu. I mostly let my parents order, since I didn't really have a preference. The first picture is a dish called "beef in copper dipper". Sounds unassuming, but was actually comprised of offal! Most of it was stuff I already liked, like tripe and tendon, but what was really interesting is that there were intestines in this one too. And intestines are tasty! Except for the fatty bits because those tasted like really strong beefy flavoured mouth coating sticky fat things, which wasn't half as pleasant as consuming the lining. There were also some rose flavoured red bean pastry things, which were nice but a bit sweet, and a tad more artificial rose flavour than I prefer.And of course, bullfrog! Braised bullfrog with bolete mushrooms. I love eating frog, and I love mushrooms, so this was a tasty dish. There were some green chillis in here that I ate just because, and while they weren't that hot, they still burned me a little. Sometimes I hate having a low chilli tolerance, but that doesn't stop me from eating things I like!
Look, the sky is blue in Shanghai! Who would have thought :D
My brother and I were left to our own devices the next day, so my plan was to revisit some cafes that I enjoyed during my 2014 visit. This was Essence Cafe, but their "SCAA" sign was no longer plastered outside. And in those 3 years, I think my coffee palate has changed, because this time round, the coffees weren't as tasty as I remember them to be. Their range was still great, but they'd changed the way they served it - last time they served half hot, half cold, and this time the beverages came as hot only.The top coffee was a Costa Rican CoE (probably #1), chosen by the 2014 WBC champion, and it cost a lot, at 130RMB. It tasted pretty good, but I reckon it could have been brewed better.The second coffee was a ninetyplus Ethiopia Tchembe. I'm not sure this was brewed properly because it didn't taste good until it had significantly cooled down.
We had to find lunch somewhere, and we were in the expat area where there were heaps of pubs and western restaurants. We were deciding whether or not to go with Wolfgang Puck's eatery or not, and decided not to. Instead we hopped into this pizza place called Bottega to have some simple fare. The antipasto plate wasn't too bad, I mainly wanted it for the buratta. Plus, my brother has been good antipasto while living in Japan, so we absolutely had to order it.I wanted a simple pizza since they're a measure of how good a place is. The picture doesn't really show the scale, but those tomato slices were HUGE. As big as my palm, maybe bigger! How do you get tomatoes that big?! It wasn't really that tasty. There was a lot of flavour lacking in this pizza, which should have been absolutely delicious considering it was mozarella, tomato and bocconcini,
Ah, the tall towers of Shanghai. Having previously visited the Oriental Pearl, the World Financial Centre and the Jin Mao tower, it was time to scale the newest tower - the Shanghai Tower. It's really, really tall and it's deceptively normal looking in that first picture, however in the second, you can see that we're significantly higher up. It was okay, but I still like my open air observation decks better. And ones where there's further visibility. One of the greatest attractions while we were here, was the window cleaners. How cool, and so many people were taking pictures of them! Imagine being a window cleaner for tall buildings - that's quite a drop!
Again, since we were in the area, a revisit to Fuel inside the IFC was warranted. Wow, what a weird menu. They had all sorts of weird descriptions for their coffees and their piccolo wasn't actually a piccolo (that I know of). This was a "latte ristretto", and wasn't as tasty as I remember it to be. This was their classic roast, and it was too dark for me now! It was a 4oz velvety coffee, because apparently some of their drinks featured "less velvety" milk. I don't think I understand.
More random restaurant pictures. Food wasn't that interesting for the most part, though I did see a lot of mantis shrimps, so I had to order one, especially because one of my favourite roasters, Mecca, made a Mantis blend of coffee based off the mantis shrimp, but I never got to try it, so I figured I'd go for the real thing instead. Sadly, I don't think this was a particularly happy or fresh shrimp because there was hardly any meat inside. Maybe if I wish really hard, I'll get a mantis shrimp one day at a fine dining establishment!
Okay. In walking through one of the shopping centres, I found this. The Starbucks Reserve Bar. I'd passed on them while I was in Hong Kong since there were other cafes and interesting drinks to be had (including butterfly pea tea), but here, well, I had nothing better to do, so here goes nothing. I was totally prepared for the worst experience.
First of all, our barista, a pretty cool guy who could speak English so I talked about coffee with him. He explained which coffees were on offer, so I made my choices. I wanted them brewed via syphon, and anytime I choose that method, I generally just want to show off. lol. By that I mean that the syphon is particularly eye catching and is generally a conversation starter for other customers and the barista. However, you know that the barista means serious business when he recommends a chemex instead. Anything but the syphon!
How wasteful, no dine in cups :(. This was the Ethiopia Bitta, a lot I hadn't heard of before. I imagine that Starbucks has access to a completely different set of beans from what hipster specialty coffee establishments usually buy. The chemex was also HUGE at 1L, so it was shared with my family. The barista also gave us a sample of chilled filter too. The chilled filter was better. That says something, especially because I love hot filters. The chilled one had a sweetness to it that was nice. The hot one had a nice aroma, but the taste of it wasn't great at all. It was pretty bitter, and got more bitter as it cooled down! Oh dear. Whatever Starbucks has done to these beans, it's beyond saving. I could taste some of the flavour, but not a lot. I imagine the green beans would have been brilliant if treated well, but after being roasted, this wasn't nice at all. I tried to finish as much as I can, but it was as bad as the aeroplane coffee I had. Oh well! At least now I know!Starbucks will always be Starbucks.
An intermission of a dog and a cat! My mum took us to an area that I think I'd been to before, one which was old style and full of traditional sweets, street food and tourist trappy souvenirs. There were a lot of stray dogs here that weaved through the crowds, looking for food scraps that'd been dropped.
On our last night, we walked past another trendy are of Shanghai. My brother pointed out a newer cafe - Seesaw Coffee, which had been on his radar for a while. At first I didn't think much of it, but since we had time after yet another family dinner, we decided to check it out. And look at that. A brew bar, and their La Marzocco box was on display! How cool!
Lovely pictures of lovely coffee. Yeah, this was totally more my style. A lighter roast, their espresso and filter were both fantastic! Ethiopia Aricha was on espresso, and it was pretty good. It was light and fruity, just the way I like it. The filters were also interesting. Not only was there the Panama Auromar geisha, one of the coffees that Proud Mary had (and it was really nice), but there was also some coffee from Yunnan! While it's more well known as a tea producing region, they grow coffee as well apparently! There were take home bags which showcased three different processed - washed, black honey, and sundried, which was super cool. After tasting these - which were actually rather delicious and interesting. It was surprisingly pleasant so we all bought some to take back home!That concludes my China trip for this year. I think every time I visit, it's slightly more bearable, but still not a place that I want to go back to. At least the coffee scene has improved, and the next one on my list, should I ever need to return, is Greybox Coffee or something along those lines, which is another new specialty coffee shop.
Hong Kong - October 2017
Circumstances lead me to take a relatively unplanned holiday, and one for visiting relatives instead of exploring by myself. However, my brother managed to suggest that we stop by Hong Kong first, and that way, I could tick off another country that I've been too!I was quite looking forward to it since I heard about the efficiency of Hong Kong, and I figured it'd be easy to navigate and communicate since the people there could speak English.But first, plane wings!
My plane was quite empty so I could take all the window seat pictures I wanted. I'd also forgotten how nice daytime flights are.
Obligatory airplane food pictures! All the food on these flights had flavours about right; lately I've really noticed that plane food and hospital food have far too much salt. Nothing needs so much salt! These were all quite tasty. In fact, they hand out surveys to random people on the plane, except I got handed a Chinese one and they didn't appear to have an English one available, but I got picked again on my return flight and that's when I provided feedback on the food.
And touchdown!My brother and I were originally set to arrive at similar times, but for typhoon reasons, he was delayed quite significantly. So, I was left to my own devices. First off, coffee! Because Asian countries know how to enjoy coffee at night!
Look, people who make coffee, inside a box! It's such a cute setup! But while everything looked really great, I had an immediate culture shock here. I didn't realise that the staff here ignore you until you tell them what you want! I had walked up to the counter, ready to ask about their different coffees, when I realised the person at the counter, who was folding a whole bunch of boxes, was ignoring me until I asked for something. How awkward!
Well, their coffees were intriguing enough that I ordered both an espresso and a filter (the espresso picture didn't turn out so great). Look at all the coffees in test tubes!I had ordered a Kenyan on filter which tasted great, it was exactly how I liked it. The espresso was also really good, surprisingly so, as I think they didn't have single origins (a lot of cafes don't seem to serve single origin espressos). I was simply offered the choice of fruity or nutty/chocolatey. And I always (almost always) go fruity.
Some random artworks while exploring this little mall. WE LIKE THE MOON!!! This exhibit was definitely better at night than the daytime. There's also a cute little Japanese-Brazillian restaurant here that I thought about going to, but I figured it was very tourist trappy.
Instead, I finally got a rose ice cream! I'd been waiting a long time for this moment. I always thought this was gimmicky, especially if the quality of the ice cream wasn't good and the layering was done poorly. But I managed to pick well first go! This was an assortment of floral flavours - rose, hibiscus, and lavender. Also, they seemed to have some sort of Elizabeth Arden promotion going on, so they handed me a sample of things too!
But coffee and ice cream weren't going to fill me up for dinner though, so I spotted this busy little stand. A waffle iron!!! Yes, I would eventually have egg waffles from this place (and they were so cheap at 14HKD!) Plus I loved the sheer number of things I didn't recognise.
This caught me eye, which looked like radish, fish balls, tofu and something. I was guessing the something was fish maw. I never bothered to find out though, but I'm pretty sure I've eaten it before. And it was curry flavoured! Yay! Except that also meant it was a tad spicy, so I was sniffling while eating it on the side of the street. But it was cheap and tasty! Though again, not really all that filling.
So I finally hot my Hot Star fix. I've never bought anything from the ones in Australia, just because I never felt like Taiwanese fried chicken at the time (things like Gojima, Belle's Hot Chicken always get my attenti0n instead). Again, I couldn't figure out why people were pushing ahead and ordering, and it took me a while to realise that all I had to do was walk up and place an order. I think I'm far too polite to survive in a place like this!Anyway, I chose the two things I couldn't get in Aus - cartilage, and giblets (though they were labelled as kidneys, but I figure they're the same thing). Wow, they were so cheap, and so delicious! Now I know why everyone loves Hot Star. I guess I should give this a go when I want fried chicken in a pinch!
Oh yes. I wanted to visit some wet markets though it wasn't high on my priority list. Turns out I didn't have to try very hard because it was just around the corner! Man there were just guts and stuff everywhere, it was amazing! I was taking so many photos likes the tourist I am.I kind of wish that Australia had some of this stuff, but I think it'd violate just about every food safety rule out there!
Now it was time to tram into the city, where the hipster area is. The view while travelling was super interesting - it's amazing how hilly this place is, and that there are buildings just happily built there. How cool!
The Cupping Room! This was the place one of my baristas recommended. You can tell it's cool because they have a lego model of their own cafe. Funnily enough, Black Eagles don't impress me though. I'm more a La Marzocco/Synesso person, and sometimes Slayer. And man, they have an impressive selection of beans. And expensive.
A chausson aux pommes! I forgot that they don't necessarily know what an apple turnover is, so I double checked the name before ordering. I kind of wish there was cream in this, but it still tasted ok.
Because of the machine, and because they didn't offer single origins as espresso, I skipped the short black and went straight for milk and filter. I'm pretty sure it was here that I started freaking out about the volume of my flat white again though. I pretty much only like 6oz, and I think this might have been 8 (or it was somewhere in China, I can't remember). It was ok.The filter, however, was an expensive competition coffee, and also one that I recall Proud Mary having on offer. I chose this over the two higher priced coffees, because I liked the sound of the tasting notes better. And that mango! Yes, plenty of mango flavour in this. My brother chose an Ethiopian gesha, which wasn't as outstanding as this one, even though it was the "better" coffee.
More exploration, and more markets. Look at this happy pig head! Also, I didn't realise that Feather and Bone had shops outside Australia... that was pretty cool!
Sad papaya!
I needed some hydration, and found a health food place with cold pressed juice. There were so many different coconut options on offer! There was juice, juice with pulp, juice with pulp but blended, and then there was this. Silk mylk, which had a luscious (but almost too thick, but still ok) texture. Very interesting mouthfeel, but it didn't feel as hydrating as I think just the water + pulp would have been.
We passed Noc Coffee Roasters a few times, mainly because I was hoping to get some egg waffles from Oddies Foodies - but alas, they had run out of the only flavour that I was interested in trying! So I opted for more coffee instead. This place had a primising looking LM Strada, so I chose an espresso here. But ugh, it was too dark and not that nice.
Also, I managed to take a nice picture of my skirt!
And the filter - by guest roaster Onibus! This was the Rwanda Coko, which is a super delicious coffee. Here, the flavours still stood out, but no the best brew I've had. They were off slightly, but this was still drinkable, unlike their espresso.
Now we needed food to offset all that coffee. My brother couldn't decide between this place (Mak's Noodle) or the one across the street, in the end we decided that green was good. Oh, this is wonton noodle soup! Nice! I like the texture of the noodles and while the serving size was small, there was plenty of tendon, so I was happy! I actually think the brother was not as rich as a similar item I had at Singapore airport earlier in the year.
Then, still being hungry, and having stumbled across a soba shop that my brother wanted to visit in Tokyo (and it has a Michelin Star), we decided to pop in. Yep, I was hungry enough that I consumed all this too! Ajitama shio soba with truffle oil. Personally I don't think the truffle oil was needed, but definitely made it aromatic!
And then the night lights!! The light show was OK, but I liked Singapore's one better. And I managed to catch the ferry to the other side to return home!
It was only a very short trip, so our time was already up. A simple breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien since it was close and I spotted it on my first night here, and because I've been hoping to stumble across really good waffles ever since I left Adelaide. However, even though these were Belgian waffles, they simply didn't live up to what I enjoyed at Exchange.
And finally it was time to leave. Here is some airport food of roast duck and BBQ pork, with some delicious peanuts. My brother ordered the goose version of this, except I couldn't tell the difference in flavour and texture between our two dishes.Overall, I didn't actually enjoy Hong Kong as much as I thought I might. Singapore was more my style (except for the humidity), a bit more orderly and polite. Hong Kong felt like China if China was a westernised country, or something. I loved the street stalls and they've got some good stuff, but the culture just wasn't the same. Which makes me wonder, will I actually like New York once I finally visit? Only time will tell!Hopefully I get to post my Shanghai adventures too, but given how busy I am these days, I'm not so sure it will happen. Maybe in December!
Japan, April 2017
Time to post about my second visit to Japan. While I was still pretty clueless, my brother had been living in Tokyo for a while now, so I pretty much had a guided tour, which was pretty cool. What I didn't expect was for it to still be so cold the first couple of days! That was mainly because it was also rainy; the last few days were nice and warm.I had wanted to book a nice restaurant while I was here, but alas, the ones I wanted were all closed! It wasn't until afterwards that I realised that it was because the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best awards were on. Then I didn't mind so much that I missed out. Maybe next time!
Here's some ramen, because ramen is what you eat when you land in Japan. I always forget what this place is called, I think it's Tokyo Base. They use the same tonkotsu broth as Ippudo and it was delicious! I'd been so ramen deprived (deliberately so, because Perth) so this was fantastic. It's just how I like it!
My first coffee stop, a place called Light Up coffee, with a really pleasant light blue colour scheme and a cute shiba inu theme!!! And the coffee here was great! This was the Ethiopia Guji, and it was roasted lighter than Sydney stuff. It was so delicious! And of course I had to get the lights reflecting in my coffee cause it's the cool thing to do. It kind of looks like a face!
I saw a sign for taiyaki after leaving Light Up, so we had a look around. It was tasty, but I didn't feel it was anything too special.
More ramen, this time at a place called Ichiran, which is really popular and one of my brother's favourite ramen places. The broth was super rich, to the point where it was thicker than what I prefer. I also wish I had ordered extra firm noodles rather than just firm, as it had softened past my liking. I really like that there are so many different kinds of ramen out there!
Isn't this so cool? The only thing I hated about my trip was that I'd overcaffeinated far too early, so by the time I got to Japan, I was very limited with my coffee intake. Luckily, this cafe, called Uni Stand, had a nice selection of green teas, so I wanted to try them. I'd forgotten that Japanese green tea is very savoury, so I was really glad when they asked what kind of tea I usually like. I said I like sweeter teas, so they recommended their tea of the day instead of their single origin teas. I don't actually remember what it was, but I was glad they offered it, because it was really drinkable though still more savoury than what I like.My brother also immediately spotted the nixie tube clock, and when I tried to take a picture of it, I noticed that my camera was seeing the numbers differently! Some were flickering more than others whereas the eye could only see the ones that were fully lit, I thought that was pretty cool!
This tickled my hipster sense a little. A kale juice shop! It's kind of hilarious. I also don't know if it was open when I walked past, as I half expected this to be some kind of hipster magnet with queues of beards and topknots trailing out.
What's a visit to Tokyo without sushi. My brother liked this place, so in we went (after queuing for a while, of course!). I went a bit crazy and chose all the things that I wouldn't be able to obtain easily in Aus. So here are the raw baby sardines. I love that it's just a massive pile of dead creatures! I think the eyes are the cutest bit, though these had the extra appeal of being see through. It didn't taste that great though; for me this had a bit too much bitterness that wasn't smoothed out by any other flavour.
Next up, mounds of raw sakura ebi. More cute eyes of dead things!! These tasted better, though I gotta say, it is still a weird feeling to eat raw dead things whole.
A classic: giant cooked prawns.
Probably a snapper or variation thereof. I love looking at that red skin!
I love shellfish. When I saw all the shellfish available, I had to order some. They were also some of the more expensive items on the menu, but even then, my brother found the bill at the end to not be as high as he thought it'd be. And I'm so glad I got to try all these things! This was whelk. Too bad I'm posting this way later than I wanted, because I can't remember too much about how this tasted.
Akagai!! I love this because it's often presented as a curly thing. I've actually never seen the rest of it being served on sushi, so I have no idea how that tastes. I just know the curly and muscle are super tasty.
And the lovely geoduck! Yeah! Don't ever google this while someone else is looking cause it's so dodgy looking, but it tastes really good!
I've forgotten what this was, though knowing me, it's either sardine or mackerel.
Not quite the hotaru ika I was expecting, but still super adorable! Just look at that eye! Isn't it brilliant? And yes, eating this whole was a really weird experience for me, because I had to concentrate and not think about the fact I was consuming squid guts. It wasn't too bad, actually, I kind of liked it!
What's better than a super baby canele after dinner!
Even though cafes in Japan close late, they still close! After sushi we went to Verve, but they were closing, so we couldn't dine in. I wasn't too fussed. I took the Kenyan filter in a takeaway cup, and while it was quite take-away-y, it still tasted good. I loved the way they attached the information card with a tissue that doubled to soak up any leaks! Not that the coffee leaked. I still found it super cute, as if it was a scarf around my coffee.
Because I wasn't able to book a restaurant, my brother suggested that the budget be allocated to travelling outside of Tokyo instead. So a trip to Osaka it was!
First stop, Nara park for the deer. It was so cool seeing all the deer just chilling and unafraid of humans! My brother found that they were surprisingly not aggressive for food, probably because we were in holiday season so all the tourists had fattened up the deer already. So many uneaten biscuits were all over the ground!Also, taking a selfie with a deer is an incredibly difficult task. I couldn't manage to do it with my phone! But that's okay, because taking pictures of just the deer was enough! I love taking pictures of things.
Yes, that's not a deer. But look how adorable he is!
And the great deer exodus of 6pm, where they somehow just know to cross the road and to what was presumably their sleeping area.
The next day, Kyoto, where pigeons are real creatures that know how to perch on branches.
It's actually a really pretty view here.
Yeah gogo pigeons! Chase that food!
And one of the reasons we were here. % Arabica, and yes, their decor is as gorgeos as the pictures show. What I didn't realise was that it was an espresso based, takeaway only cafe. Of course, I was in the mood for dine in filter. Oh well, coffee is still coffee! There was a pretty long queue here, and the only inefficiency that I found really odd was that they used 1L milk cartons... for a predominantly milk coffee based customer base. That was really confusing, because I would figure that a juggler system with large volume milk bladders would have been more efficient!Apparently %Arabica's selling point is their latte art, which threw me off a bit, but I decided I may as well check it out. And yes, it's nice! But it's not why I drink coffee....As we were sipping away, my brother was rather bemused because passers by would often wonder aloud what the place was and why there was a queue.
What a cool picture. This is the bamboo forest, and I had a stroke of genius by realising I can do a panoramic shot upwards! It makes the bamboo look about as tall as it really is in real life.
Anyone up for tofu? My brother found this place on a previous visit, and it's easily recognisable because there's a little steam spout at the front. It made it a very inviting and homely kind of place. And it specialises in all things tofu. I love tofu, so I was definitely very interested in what this place had to offer.So many different textures here!!! My favourite was the teoke yuba, which is apparently soy milk skin. By name, it didn't sound particularly appetising, but once I had it, I realised it was pure genius - it was just like eating mozarella curds! Think of it like the outside of burrata. It was so delicious because the texture was spot on! Oh man, it was so good. This was a really satisfying lunch!
The warabi mochi. Oh wow. Yeah. This place knows how to make warabi mochi too. This was my first time having it, and even though I'd seen it before, I was always hesitant to try some in case the texture didn't match what I imagined in my head. But this, this impressed me so much! I imagine this is similar to how a water mochi cake is like. This was soft, and pretty much like... solid water. Sounds weird, but basically, it didn't have an obviously jelly like texture. It had a very melt in the mouth feeling, and "wet" but in the way that makes sense and is amazing.I like to think that I've eaten enough that I can sometimes recognise when something is incredibly good even though I've never had it before. Sometimes you can simply benchmark the first sample to be the best. This was such a thing, and it was confirmed when I sampled some warabi mochi later on somewhere else - it just wasn't as good, and was closer to the texture of jelly, which is not what I like from my warabi mochi. It has to feel like it's *just* bound together and simply "flows" apart in the mouth.
Next up, the Silver Temple. My brother had asked me the night before which of the two temples I wanted to visit, gold or silver, and after reading up the descriptions of both, I opted for silver. It was less glamorous, but boasted a better garden - one with many varieties of moss. Because lil' Gilg was on this trip with me, and he likes moss, I opted for Silver. It was a good choice, though the way the garden was designed meant that I couldn't have lil' Gilg taking a stroll through the greenery.
And of course, the famous Fushimi Inari shrine. Given that it was bustling with tourists, it was hard to get a shot of the orange pillar things without having people in it. Oh well! I love all the fox statues around, and the food offerings here were pretty hilarious. It's a wonderful and massive place and lovely to walk through!
With Kyoto done in a day, it was time to return to Osaka. So here is the obligatory shot of the most famous picture of Osaka!
And some late night coffee at Lilo Coffee Roasters. Here we met another Australian and had a great chat, though my brother and I aren't really stellar conversationalists. This Colombia Las Brisas was super tasty, though I noticed a lot of fines at the bottom of my cup. Luckily the fellow Australian offered to pass on my compliments, and managed to find out that they use a metal filter here for their pourovers, which explains how the fines got through.
Next day, more coffee! This time from Streamer Coffee Company. My brother said that this place was also famous for their latte art. What?! I was getting a little perplexed. How can you have a cafe that is famous for latte art? Isn't the quality of the coffee more important and a better indicator of the quality of the cafe? Maybe that's just my inner pretentious hipster though.It didn't get any better after I ordered the standard "Streamer Latte". They had nice La Marzoccos, but the normal advantages of showing off naked portafilters and having the extraction visible from across the counter meant that I saw the super dark, slow drips of espresso coming out. Um, where is my lovely smooth golden extraction that has a well defined stopping point? I was getting a little worried. That being said, I knew that the milk going in would probably smooth out some of the not so great bits of the espresso.Then came the shocker. A 12oz cup. Wow, that's a lot of milk. Why would you use that much milk? You only need 5.5 oz.... And sure, a complex pattern might justify the increased volume, but all I got was a swan, and even then I've had much better swans in smaller cups. My brother got a triple rosetta which was slightly nicer, but again, totally doable in a 5.5 oz cup. I was a little traumatised now, since my coffee was mediocre tasting with a mediocre latte art.
It didn't get much better when I decided that getting fluffy pancakes would be a novel experience. These were from a chain called Gram. They look super fluffy and light (though stacking them three high is not really a great idea since they fall rather quickly), but they were actually rather heavy. Maybe I shouldn't try these things from chains, but I hadn't done prior research (especially not for anything outside Tokyo; I didn't even have an Osaka/Kyoto coffee list because I never actually anticipated that I'd end up visiting) so this was as good as I was going to get on a whim.
Next up, Mel Coffee Roasters. They looked nice enough in the tiniest space, and advertised both light and dark roasts. I gotta say, light and dark roasts are really confusing. I know exactly what I want, but it's hard to gauge what a roaster means by dark and light unless you really know your coffee. I didn't think to check the colour of the beans to decide how I wanted my drink. All I know is that I preferred light roasts, and that they can display some amazing nuances of flavour when extracted properly, and that dark was the simpler of the two roasts for extracting as espresso. So I went for a light roast espresso. Guatemala was what they had (or recommended, I don't really remember). I would have probably chosen a Kenyan or Ethiopian since they're the ones that are the easiest to assess for flavour, but I don't mind trying to assess coffees from other regions.This was far to bright and lacked the body that I figure you can even extract from light roasts (think Seven Seeds, who roast far lighter than my liking but the flavours are technically still probably good). I definitely wanted more chocolate notes in this.
"Enlightened" by my morning cafe adventures, it was time to take in the street scenes. Like these lamps, which were really awesome looking and all had individual personalities, expressed by the different colours and styles.
I love seeing all the restaurants here with constructs of their food on display!
One of the specialties here is kushikatsu, basically, fried things on sticks. I'm so glad my brother took me here! Finally, Osaka redeemed itself! My brother and I ordered one of the sets, and the appetiser was this thing called a doteyaki, which had beef bits and konnyaku and was so flavoursome! I need to learn how to make this!
I actually took pictures of each individual stick before and after biting into them, but that would have been too spammy! While they don't look like much, they were really nicely fried with thin, not too oily batters and great quality ingredients inside. This was the Classic Soohonten with beef, prawn, scallops, lotus root, ginger, chicken meatball, whiting, rice cake, sausage.
And what do we find after lunch? What I believe to be some sort of psychological experiment to see what people do when they come across this poster.
Our visit to Osaka Castle Park resulted in many sakura pictures, but here are a couple of the animals that also enjoy this place.
After two jam packed days in Osaka, it was finally time to return to Tokyo. I really wanted a cool bento for the ride home, but it turns out all the ones with lots of raw seafood sell out really quickly. So the best I got was this crab meat, herring roe and salmon roe box. Turns out herring roe is actually really delicious!The specialty tea that Starbucks was offering however, was not as enjoyable as I wanted - the mango and mandarin tea frappe was far to sweet and artificial tasting!
I forgot exactly when I took this picture, especially because I'm too lazy to look up the metadata. But these were some tiny strawberries that tasted so sweet and amazing! I love the strawberries in Japan because the ones in Aus are always too sour! It was funny though, I ate them but couldn't find a bin to dispose of the green bits. It was then that my brother explained there were no "general rubbish" bins. That made it really awkward to eat things on the go. So I gave up and started eating all of the strawberry instead!
Yeah Shake Shack time! In the trendy suburb of Ebisu. I didn't know what to expect except that Shake Shack is very popular. There was a small line when we went, and they had a pretty interesting menu. Something about a grape shake?Anyway, I went for the classic burger, and decided the dessert of "e-bean-su" was also worth trying. We also got a side of normal and cheesy fries.I gotta say, that burger does not disappoint! I was very impressed by it! Not only was it cheap, it was also delicious! It reminded me a lot of Burger Project. In a blind taste test, I don't think I'd be able to pick out which was which... except that Burger Project's patty is better. I was seriously enjoying this!The E-bean-su concrete was also really tasty! Containing vanilla custard, red bean caramel sauce, marshmallow sauce, salted shortbread cookie, soy bean powder. Given my last taste of frozen custard was at Gojima and it was a hard block of frozen stuff, this was so much better, and felt like it was a really well made dessert. I didn't really enjoy the ice cream at Burger Project either. That being said, having a burger, chips and dessert is a bit much so I'd be happy with just the burger and chips. Or two burgers, or something.The chips didn't stand out as much as the burger so I don't remember exactly what they were like. All I know is that the cheesy fries were really heavy, so just the normal ones are a better choice.
And trying some woodberry coffee roasters. It was the second time (though apparently an earlier recount of this says I'd seen it multiple times?) I'd seen this roaster featured at a cafe, and my gut was telling me to visit, so in I went. They were actually really tasty and I enjoyed the Guatemalan as a filter!
And while walking around taking pictures of sakura, I also managed to find this dog in her majestic glory.
So when this sign is outside a shop... what do you think the inside features?
The ultimate mirror selfie stick... for whatever reason.
So after my disastrous coffee attempt at Streamer Coffee Company, and even my surprise about %Arabica being espresso and milk based, I wanted a tiny little milk coffee done properly. So here we were at Onibus, and I pointed to their piccolo glass and wanted a milk coffee rather than chance a massive latte if I just ordered from the menu. And so here it was! It still wasn't the same as getting a milk coffee from Aus though. This was a tad too light and the milk wasn't creamy or sweet enough for my liking. So I think I'll stick to filter coffees in Japan, cause they are really good at brewing that stuff.
Also, look what I found at Switch Coffee! My brother was pretty amazing and managed to end up back here from pure memory whereas I had no clue where I was. The coffee was OK, but the real excitement was seeing this scribble on the wall! I'm sure I saw this at the time Rene posted about it, but it must have been so long ago! So here's me taking a picture because then it's "proof" that I saw this for myself, right?
Dinner was a pretty long queue at a place that one of the baristas that I stalk, posted about a while back. It was a really interesting tonkatsu restaurant that only had two things on the menu: pork, and pork. The difference was the cut, with one being loin and one being fillet or something? Because my brother ordered for the both of us (I think it was just the "standard' order or something), I didn't have to agonise over anything and enjoyed watching all the staff in action.They had one person who kept track of everyone who came in, took orders and then called you when a seat was ready. Everyone else also had very specialised roles - one person to dip the pork in batter and fry it, another to simply cut the pork. And there were other people involved for all the sides - there must have been one person slaving away shredding a kazillion cabbages!I'm not sure exactly how juicy these fillets can get, but I was hoping for them to be slightly less cooked and more juicy than what I actually tasted. Or it could just be my imagination not matching what's possible in real life. Who knows, maybe one day I'll find out!
The next day, it was time to test out another burger joint. This time it was a place called The Great Burger, apparently one of the places that Ume burger/restaurant mentioned. It had a short line in the morning, and it was very American style. They had large plastic covered menus with just about every diner item you could think of. All I wanted was to try the burger, though one thing that caught my eye was the "hot pineapple juice", so I had to get that too. It turns out that really is hot pineapple juice, with a stick of cinnamon and some butter! It reminded me a lot of grilled pineapple, so I enjoyed it as a novelty drink.The burger, on the other hand... ugh. Like all burgers, it looked ok. But tastewise, it was awful. The beef patty had lots of chewy bits in it (and considering I like chewy bits and didn't like this, that's saying something) but was also flavourless. I don't understand. I've never had a flavourless beef patty before. Maybe McDonald's? But I haven't had a burger from there recently enough to actually confirm; and even then their condiments have flavour (even if its just cheap simple flavour like sweet tomato sauce and sour pickles). I could taste the salt and pepper around the patty, but not the patty itself. It was really, really disappointing.The chips were great though, so I ate all of that.If you need a burger, go Shake Shack.
Next up, Dominique Ansel, since it was on the list and we were in the area. Surprisingly, there wasn't a queue, so we could look at all the pastries on display and order at our leisure. I really loved the look of the bunny religeuse, so I definitely had to order that. It reminded me of the days when I studied French and we learned what a religeuse was.And of course, I had to get the cronut. Cause who doesn't order a cronut at Dominique Ansel! This time it was the violet lychee flavour. And my brother wasn't kidding when he said it was large and filling.I also got a tomato bread (which had to be eaten same day), which I ate the day after and it was so-so; not what I was expecting. It was bread with tomato filling rather than what I thought would be tomato flavoured bread.They had a large cute bun called "Mr. Roboto" which basically to me, looked like the face of a cyberman, so I had to get it. That was delicious even though I don't remember the filling! It had a really nice sugary crust, too.
And finally we ducked into one of the Blue Bottles, just cause. I was super seriously overcaffeinated, to the point where I couldn't actually finish my coffee here. But it was nice to have tasted some!!I still feel the smaller chains do coffee better. I guess I'm just a hole in the wall person than one who enjoys a large flashy joint.
And finally, white strawberries! That was quite a quest! Basically, I'd been wanting to eat a white strawberry on this visit, but at first, the ones I saw were too expensive for my liking so I didn't buy them, and then afterwards, I stopped seeing them/they were always sold out, so I was getting more and more prepared to fork out money for these.Luckily, on my second last night, I finally found some at a reasonable price! Though they weren't as white as I what I was hoping for. Are they worth it? They taste "white" in the same way that white peaches and nectarines compare to their yellow counterparts. It's the same kind of difference in flavour, if that makes sense. Basically, I still like the red ones better as I feel they pack stronger, bolder flavours.
And finally, I was left to my own devices on my last day in Japan, as my brother had work. He recommended an itinerary that took me through Ginza and headed towards Skytree, and I was actually impressed that I managed to get around, considering I took some detours, walked half of it, and then doubled back!Breakfast was at Tsukiji fish markets, where I got some tuna, uni and salmon roe on rice. It was the food I wanted for the shinkansen. Luckily it was a ticket dispensing machine, so I managed to obtain food without too much issue.
From there, I then trekked to Glitch, which was very high on my list because it's popped up on a few of my barista's lists. Oh man, they had a geisha, and it was an amazing one! Panama Esmerelda, can't go wrong. It was NICE after having so many full bodied Kenyans, this one was just so light and fruity and floral! Wow. Yay. I would have loved to try more coffee here and buy their tote bag too! But I wanted to make sure I didn't run out of money. So maybe next time!
I managed to end up in Akihabara halfway through the day, even though it wasn't the next step in my itinerary. Oh well! I spotted some magikarp taiyaki so I had to buy one!!! It was tastier than the taiyaki I had at the beginning of this trip.
I then remembered that I also had to visit the Tokyu Food Show, which was a massive food hall. They had so many delicious looking things!!!I bought a chirashi for breakfast the next morning since I had an early departure, but also spotted some pretty sakura jellies and desserts that I had to resist buying too many of.Then there was the wagashi!! I was hoping to get one of these in Kyoto, but didn't see any (though I didn't look particularly hard), and so I had to buy one here! It's softer than it looks and has sweet bean paste inside.
I was pretty much doing everything out of order now, but I wanted to make sure I got to About Life Coffee Brewers too. It's funny, from the pictures, I always imagined this being on the corner of a busy street, rather than facing a little side street! I enjoyed a tasty Ethiopian here, though I think they got my order mixed up or something and so apologised for the delay. There were some other coffee enthusiasts there and we had a chat about coffee in Australia, which was pretty fun.
I don't remember exactly how I ended up here again (same place as when I first visited Tokyo), all I know is that somewhere here I visited Asakusa to see the street full of kitchenware and plastic food supplies, which was pretty cool. Then I figure it was Skytree time, since I'd be able to catch the sunset.What I didn't know was how to get there... so I pretty much walked all the way! And even then I was confused as to how to enter into the actual Skytree ticket line so I had to do a few rounds before I finally got there.
That being said, I timed it pretty much perfectly since it would have been enough time for sunset. This was the shot looking up in the elevator :D
What a cool picture of the sun! It was hiding behind a light cloud hiding behind a dark cloud!I wasn't able to take very good pictures of the actual sunset though since there was far too much glass everywhere. I'd gotten so used to being on open air observation decks that I couldn't get a good shot through glass.I also couldn't be bothered waiting for the lights to go on for night time, so I left and headed towards Akihabara.
I pretty much spent the night oggling at pretty figurines because that's what Akihabara is amazing for. Saber on a bike didn't look as amazing as it did the first time I saw it, which was a good thing. I still wanted to spend stupid amounts of money on it and all the other figurines though!After shops began to close, I decided dinner was a good idea because I was starving. I hadn't actually eaten anything substantial since morning. My brother said there was a hokkaido ramen place, and I remembered walking past it, so I decided to take his recommendation. The problem was, I didn't remember exactly where I saw it, except that my brother's description of being near a kebab place made sense, but I couldn't even remember where the kebab place was!!! It was all good though, because I eventually did manage to find it (I couldn't find it on google probably because it wasn't listed as "hokkaido ramen").It was another ticket dispensing machine place, which was great, except I'd somehow forgotten how these things worked, possibly because this also had different sized buttons and I was totally missing the fact that the ramen options were the massive buttons - I thought they were simply pictures! It took me at least 5 minutes, asking the staff twice because I couldn't figure it out. Finally, I figured that the staff were pointing at the big buttons so I got my ticket for shio ramen and some gyoza.Oh man, this was delicious. I'm glad I came here! I found that Tokyo Base, Ichiran and this place were all good, but I don't have a preference for Ichiran's style of soup base. I didn't actually know that shio ramen could be this good until I tried it here! Definitely a place worth going back to.The gyoza were great, too. Not as good as the ones I remember my brother once making, but still super delicious!
And finally, passing the night in Shibuya. I spent ages agonising on whether I should go into the Starbucks or not, but I decided not to because there simply wasn't anything I wanted from there. Being on street level had its benefits though, because there was a photoshoot going on! That pretty red dress caught my eye so I joined in with all the other people who started taking photos.The couple were rushing out every time the lights turned green, and there'd be lots of shooting, then they'd have to run back as soon as the lights turned red again. This happened several times and was fun to watch, though very hard to capture a shot for - mainly because I wanted to showcase them in the crowd rather than isolation, so not getting heads in the way while keeping them in the spotlight and also showing the location was a challenge.It was a nice ending to my stay! I actually had such a blast exploring by myself that I kind of wish I had more days like that because I really started to take everything in rather than just follow my brother around blindly. Who knows, there might still be a next time!