Fashion + Tea

It seems like being a tai tai (aka wealthy housewify) is back in trend again. It's undoubtedly discriminating working women for ferragamo to host a runway show during weekdays... even if you are a big ferragamo fan and spend x amount of dollar each season.. oops sorry, tai tai exclusive only, unless you take a day off from your busy worklife which pays for the shoes and handbags....

It was last tuesday afternoon that i went for the fashion show + tea at clipper lounge. It was quite a fun event if they didn't rush too much trying to squeeze two seatings in one afternoon.

We were served with the traditional tea set wth their signature scone and rose jam.

I didn't really pay attention to their clothing line in the past as most of my memories are wool cardigans with silk floral prints. They really surprised me on the upside with trendy pieces and feminine cuts which nicely shape the female bodies.... i wonder how many of their loyal customers will buy into their clothes as some of them are actually quite revealing.
I love this tight fitting white suit, it fits the model perfectly.. love the black and white pump with ankle strip unfortunately they run out of my size ALREADY! have i mistaken it is the worst recession since the great depression?!




After the show we were served wth unlimited supply of dessert with the signature ferragamo ribbon. I was so pleased with their creativity and attentiveness to details... chocolate lipsticks, chocolate cake with measuring tape, chocolate lips, pearl handbags...  what a collection of edible fashion items!



So happened I bumped into a distant unfriendly family friend who would turn up in every hotel buffet, high tea, fashion event, or anything assorted with taitaidom... one tangential thought on whether one will feel sufficient with this type of highly desirable housewife lifestyle.. I have never seen her being with her husband and everytime I bumped into her she was with other tai tai having high tea and I bet the topics of obama's stimulus package, global warming, financial crisis, notorious AIG bonus payout, more than half of the world population below poverty line would not be on the table, while they were most likely discussing about scandals and gossips and who gets the biggest rock while zipping that cup of royal tea. All of a sudden I felt the loneliness behind the fancy outfits and glamorous diamond jewelry... I wouldn't doubt that's the every girl's dream of becoming a tai tai with a stress-free life, but wouldn't it be boring to live a life without a goal, reading tabloids as the daily reading, and having high tea at hotels become a routine? It is a fantasy when you are dragging yourself to work a 8-8 job, but it would be clumsy and meaingless if you are living in a fantasy every day.

Gastronomical week

Before I felt sick again and had to eat congee for two days straight... I have the most gastronomical week with continuous dining with friends.

Mon - Cepage
Tues - unfortunately it's canteen

Wed - Pierrre 

Thurs - chez patrick 

Fri - Roka

Cepage is the talk of the town lately.. everybody praised for how good the place it...hum. i wonder if the rave if justified, the food was good but not great and I did see them cut corners here and there which i can understand from a $360 3 course lunch perspective.. but the setting is very businessy and you know they are here to make money instead of providing good food to hkers. ravioli with beef consumme
risotto with tiger prawns... where're the tiger prawns?!?! 
apple crumbles tart and creme brulee.

Another day at chez patrick - a great deal for lunch and food was pretty good except the sea bass rolade is a bit too salty. the chef also is super nice to check on the diners and of course we delievered our comments on the fish and were given complimentary dessert wine for tasting.. 

Cooking at pierre

This is my longest break from the blog..I haven't fallen off from the earth nor abandoned this blog for good.. just that work was overloaded and my tiredness has finally kicked in and tore my body apart.

I went on a gastronomic experience with g at pierre two weeks ago. It was supposed to be my bday surprise, of which I do think this is excessively extravagant. Not that many people can afford a hkd>3000 lunch （especially in this current economic environment, even jean georges is offering a $58 4 course dinner!!) nor they care to spend the precious weekend with a celebrity chef. At first I walked in with the guilt of overspending but I ended up having the most fun and enjoyed every second of it!

It was a bit misleading to promote it to be a cooking lesson with Pierre but was actually a cooking demonstration instead. The group involved a couple of japanese country club housewives, food loving couple, and pretentious local girl who is trying hard to climb up the social ladder..a pretty good crowd of professional eaters who had great chats after a few glasses of wine.

We met at 11pm and undoubtedly pierre as a frenchman was fashionably late for 30min, we were greeted by the restaurant manager Herve and Pierre himself and then guided to the kitchen where we were given the MO apron and a notepad for notes taking. On our way to the kitchen our adrenaline was pumped up as we saw a long dining table was beautifully set up with flowers and dining plates...that's how it looks like - the ladies who lunch w/ style and class.

It was a bit disappointing that we didn't get to chop chop chop, it was rather a cooking demonstration than a lesson with pierre gagnaire. anyway, that was fine iwth me that meant we got to have decent food rather than some crappy ones done by the amateurs. It was very interesting to see how pierre cooks, this is such a contrary to a chinese kitchen where people are screaming and swearing to each other and drown with sweats and heat. Everything was at ease and people were happy and chatting at his kitchen, and it was obvious that he was passionate about cooking even though this is his daily routine. Not to meantion the sous chef phillippe and patissier Nicholas were of great help in answering our loads of questions with limited english... and most importantly nicholas is super cute and shy!

Food was amazingly exquisite and the best I have ever had in HK so far. people always criticize the high end restaurants for overpricing and a big portion of the cost is restaurant setting and services. Yes it's true that services and rental are expensive..but it is also very time consuming and complicated to produce something miniscule and insignificant to normal people.

appetizers - in martini glass: champagne jelly and endive mousse with orange sorbet and black truffle; whatever mousse i don't know the name with orange compote.

entree - butter poached sea bass with broccoli and red cabbage puree and a touch of paprika; slow-cook lamb with sweet and sour butternut squash salad.

dessert - apple tart with vanilla cream; strawberry sorbet; coconut ice-cream with passionfruit puree; grapefruit puree

My favorite dish is the lamb dish.. Looks simple but you can't believe the amount of work that put into the lamb. Haha.. i am here to disclose the pierre secret on the web! first using lemon, garlic, orange juice, mint and curry (yes! curry! surprise!) to marinate the lamb overnight, then slowcook with celery, carrots, leeks, laurel, and thyme. For the sauce is the combination of cummin, alise, white pepper, white rice vinegar, sugar and mix with butternut squash to create the salad. The combination of flavors is phenomenal.. that's makes it difficult to describe as something tasty by words, because it would sound gross as sweet and sour and spicy sauce.

For the apple tart, I asked why they didn't put in cinnamon and brown sugar, pierre said it's too arrogant...he seems to despise the american style cooking which makes food rough and unrefined. Coconut ice-cream is a big surprise, i am not a big fan of coconut but this one blew me away.. it doesn't have the asean flavor but very light and fruity to my surprise.

The sommelier pierre served us 2007 sigalas santorini white wine, 2006 Condrieu Les Terrasses du Palat, and another 2004 red which i forgot the name. Love the condrieu.. dry and complex with a lot of spices.


We definitely had our blast at pierre, because as I returned to pierre the next week for a broker's lunch, the whole team was there I was being greeted by the sommelier and servers.. and of course we had our perks of additional amuse buche and free dessert wine...hohoho...=D

For my lunch at pierre the following week, I had foie gras with oyster as appetizer, scallop for entree and 9 conduit (apple sorbet and pistachio cream) for dessert. Love everything offered at pierre.. wouldn't i ask for too much to make myself a regular?...i probably need to make 10x more money in order to do so.

Bearish on everything

Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown
The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 2:05AM GMT 15 Feb 2009

If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung.

Austria's finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP.

"A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector," reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says bad debts will top 10pc and may reach 20pc. The Vienna press said Bank Austria and its Italian owner Unicredit face a "monetary Stalingrad" in the East.

Mr Pröll tried to drum up support for his rescue package from EU finance ministers in Brussels last week. The idea was scotched by Germany's Peer Steinbrück. Not our problem, he said. We'll see about that.

Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region's GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut.

Not even Russia can easily cover the $500bn dollar debts of its oligarchs while oil remains near $33 a barrel. The budget is based on Urals crude at $95. Russia has bled 36pc of its foreign reserves since August defending the rouble.

"This is the largest run on a currency in history," said Mr Jen.

In Poland, 60pc of mortgages are in Swiss francs. The zloty has just halved against the franc. Hungary, the Balkans, the Baltics, and Ukraine are all suffering variants of this story. As an act of collective folly – by lenders and borrowers – it matches America's sub-prime debacle. There is a crucial difference, however. European banks are on the hook for both. US banks are not.

Almost all East bloc debts are owed to West Europe, especially Austrian, Swedish, Greek, Italian, and Belgian banks. En plus, Europeans account for an astonishing 74pc of the entire $4.9 trillion portfolio of loans to emerging markets.

They are five times more exposed to this latest bust than American or Japanese banks, and they are 50pc more leveraged (IMF data).

Spain is up to its neck in Latin America, which has belatedly joined the slump (Mexico's car output fell 51pc in January, and Brazil lost 650,000 jobs in one month). Britain and Switzerland are up to their necks in Asia.

Whether it takes months, or just weeks, the world is going to discover that Europe's financial system is sunk, and that there is no EU Federal Reserve yet ready to act as a lender of last resort or to flood the markets with emergency stimulus.

Under a "Taylor Rule" analysis, the European Central Bank already needs to cut rates to zero and then purchase bonds and Pfandbriefe on a huge scale. It is constrained by geopolitics – a German-Dutch veto – and the Maastricht Treaty.

But I digress. It is East Europe that is blowing up right now. Erik Berglof, EBRD's chief economist, told me the region may need €400bn in help to cover loans and prop up the credit system.

Europe's governments are making matters worse. Some are pressuring their banks to pull back, undercutting subsidiaries in East Europe. Athens has ordered Greek banks to pull out of the Balkans.

The sums needed are beyond the limits of the IMF, which has already bailed out Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, Iceland, and Pakistan – and Turkey next – and is fast exhausting its own $200bn (€155bn) reserve. We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Its $16bn rescue of Ukraine has unravelled. The country – facing a 12pc contraction in GDP after the collapse of steel prices – is hurtling towards default, leaving Unicredit, Raffeisen and ING in the lurch. Pakistan wants another $7.6bn. Latvia's central bank governor has declared his economy "clinically dead" after it shrank 10.5pc in the fourth quarter. Protesters have smashed the treasury and stormed parliament.
"This is much worse than the East Asia crisis in the 1990s," said Lars Christensen, at Danske Bank.

"There are accidents waiting to happen across the region, but the EU institutions don't have any framework for dealing with this. The day they decide not to save one of these one countries will be the trigger for a massive crisis with contagion spreading into the EU."

Europe is already in deeper trouble than the ECB or EU leaders ever expected. Germany contracted at an annual rate of 8.4pc in the fourth quarter.

If Deutsche Bank is correct, the economy will have shrunk by nearly 9pc before the end of this year. This is the sort of level that stokes popular revolt.

The implications are obvious. Berlin is not going to rescue Ireland, Spain, Greece and Portugal as the collapse of their credit bubbles leads to rising defaults, or rescue Italy by accepting plans for EU "union bonds" should the debt markets take fright at the rocketing trajectory of Italy's public debt (hitting 112pc of GDP next year, just revised up from 101pc – big change), or rescue Austria from its Habsburg adventurism.
So we watch and wait as the lethal brush fires move closer.

If one spark jumps across the eurozone line, we will have global systemic crisis within days. Are the firemen ready?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/4623525/Failure-to-save-East-Europe-will-lead-to-worldwide-meltdown.html

Hot couple

Everybody loves mcdreamy because he is compassionate, smart, confident, has lots of hair, good looking... basically a dream guy for every single girl...

But I have to say he is so going downhill ever since owen hunt came on board...and the relationship b/w him and grey have been becoming so cliché and whinny. Comparatively, Hunt is pretty bad looking and bossy, but he is a much more interesting character, with a suffocating confidence and masculinity that's difficult to reject..

Applying to real life, do you prefer to be attracted to the look of a guy or to his personalities? Surrounding me there's a group of girls who constantly check out guys, at a dining table, on the street, travelling, clubbing, at work.. seems like they have a man radar implant that none will fall of their sight. There's another group who are basically blind, ignorant of guys walking by, only focus on the ones who are assessable. Maybe the Hunt type would not be the former group's cup of tea but definitely be screened out due to the look...then they would miss out the personalities that matter the most.

BB @ work

Look how much BB chu has grown. At age 2 he already is sharp and focus and knows how to decipher the stock market... what else can you hope for from a 2 year old.

Scandal

Thanks cchw for the delicious macaroons!!! These are absolutely heavenly..I always love pierre herme's creation of sweets, he can always turn sometime normal into something magnificent, and mixing combination of absurd ingredients into completely different flavor profiles. If I live in paris, I probably would go to the shop everyday until my taste buds turn obsolete. Sorry.. no sharing this time, I am finishing all of them myself and saving the truffle flavor as the last piece to rekindle my crush on him.

It was absolutely hilarious to learn about a rumor floating around in the market, and I am quite surprised that it even deem any value. There are BQ and TR in business relationship for the recent years, and a rumor has it that they were in talks of a M&A which has not been known to the market...later on the deal heated up and became apparent to some given the possibilities of synergies and the merger seemed strategically sound. Yet those who were familiar with the history of TR believed their merger will more likely to destroy value and started writing negative notes about TR, trying to shoot down the deal...two parties were aware that the merger has come out of the shadow and decided to bring it back to underground again.. nonetheless the merger continues while negative commentary persists. I must applaud the fantastic creativity involved with how they came up with the story with no basis at all...well the street loves juicy scandals and this one does score some points if you know the two parties well enough...

My big boss already told us that no matter how good your score is the bonus for 2009 is going to be "0". He knows better than anybody else that we are not going to slack on the back of this comment because this is the year that one should be working hard to keep the job. I am only going to report fair weather going forward, proud to announce that I rank #1 in performance since the start of the fiscal year. Although I wouldn't get compensated for the ranking this year.. it just feels good for being right.