Indulgence in Zoe

I dare to say Zoe should be one of the best cake shop in Hong Kong. Most of their cakes' tastes are just right...not too sweet and relatively light. They have 2 shops and both are locating in Hong Kong Island...Causeway Bay and Happy Valley. I always visit Happy Valley one as it is more easy to find parking over there...hehe. Maybe I will try Causeway Bay shop next time because I heard that it was a cafe and had more varieties of cake.

After a huge spending in the afternoon of Nov 17, a very small spending, comparatively speaking, followed. That was buying 5 cakes from Happy Valley's Zoe. Of course, those 5 cakes included Zoe, 1459, Blueberry cheese, Opera, and Mocca. I believe the first two are the best and also the signatures of Zoe. Although I had Zoe and 1459 for many times, but I still could not wait to indulge myself with those two cakes; therefore, I ate them inside the car and left the other three for late snack...LOL. Actually, there is a meaning of Zoe cake; that was the cake of Zoe's 18th birthday from her mother. It is quite interesting.

Zoe ($32) Hazelnut cream is on the top of a crisp base. Soft and smooth. Perfect!!!

1459 ($28) Make up of 1459 layers of pastry and custards. Puffy and crispy. Cool!!!

Blueberry cheese ($28) Rich in blueberries and the cheese cake is very very soft. Light cheese.

Opera ($28) Rich in chocolate and contain a little of wine and coffee favor. Rather strong in taste.

Mocca ($28) Texture feels like a mousse cake. Light mocca taste.

Phone/電話 #: 2892-1166

地址: 跑馬地山光道7A-3地下

Address: G/F., No. 7A-3, Shan Kwong Road, Happy Valley, Hong Kong

Phone/電話 #: 2234 7188

地址: 銅鑼灣希慎道新寧閣地下6號舖

Address: G/F., Shop No. 6 Sunning Plaza, 10 Hysan Avenue, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

How would you like your steak?

When you order the beef steak in a restaurant, the server would usually ask " How would you like your steak cooked?"

You could answer "I would like it (one of the followings), please."
rare 三成熟
medium-rare 五成熟
medium 七成熟
medium-well 八成熟
well-done 全熟

By the way, the above can also be used for the rack of lamb.

Being Overpraised Cafe Gabbana

This year's Valentine's Day, I turned on the radio to station 903 and listened to the programme named "五天精華遊". The hosts recommended a restaurant and somehow I didn't have a chance to visit it until last Saturday (17 Nov).

Cafe Gabbana is a casual-dining Italian restaurant. A small but cozy restaurant which is likely to house about 16 and 14 parties at the inside and the patio, respectively. It can be said a quiet place for relaxing the mind as its surroundings are usually the low density residential, closed school and shops; however, some noticeable noises emitted from the passing vehicles occasionally exist. Furthermore, metered parking is available in just few steps down the restaurant and pet is allowed at the patio.

That night, we've ordered the followings:-
Lobster bisque 龍蝦湯 ($48)
Smoked duck breast salad 煙鴨胸沙律 ($78)
Crispy fried boneless chicken wing 香草無骨雞翼 ($48)
Linguine with goose liver and wild mushroom 鵝肝雜菌扁意粉 ($88)

It may because I like eating strong lobster bisque, I thought the lobster bisque was a bit thin. For all other dishes, I would say they were not bad. Nevertheless, our server had made a negative impression on me. She seemed not to know the must-have behaviours of a waitress, e.g. when I requested a fork from her, she just walked away apathetically without saying a word or nodding. I observed her for a while and noticed that she didn't smile to other customers as well; she only gave smile to the customers' dogs. How ridiculous!!!

For the wrap-up, I would give 7 out of 10 to Cafe Gabbana. Without concerning the service, it could be a choice for having average food with the fair price.

Phone/電話 #: 2391-1088
地址 : 九龍塘 又一村海棠路21-31號地下5-6舖
Address: Shop 5-6, G/F, 21-31 Begonia Road, Yau Yat Chuen, Kowloon Tong

Call it a day

Call it a day
meaning : (idiom) stop doing something for the remainder of the day. 今天到此為止
example : I am totally exhausted. I think it's time to call it a day.

Just learnt walking's Belle

Isabelle is my beloved niece. She is cute, adorable and very precious to the families. This video was taken at the walkway outside Sutton Place Hotel on August 5, 2007 after finishing the brunch at the hotel. It was the period Isabelle learned how to walk faster. So she felt really exciting when she could run barely all the walkway long by herself without our holding. Hearing her laughter will definitely make you smile as well.

A Credit to Cova

A farewell dinner was organized on Nov 14, 2007 for a uncle and his family who came visiting HK from San Francisco. I thought I should buy a cake as our regard to them. I arrived at Cova around 7:00pm and decided to buy a cake of popular flavor. Their Mixed Fruits Cream Dome, a chiffon sponge cake topped with mixed fruits and a Cova's chocolate plate and filled with mixed fruit and whipped cream, was the one I looked for, but its topping became dry out a bit. Since I was already late for the dinner, I was obliged to ask the staff to wrap that for me and told her my comment to the topping. She was so nice that giving a suggestion of replacing the current topping with the fresh one. Besides, the original topping contained sliced mango, kiwi and strawberry, but they didn't have anymore kiwi left at that time. Therefore, she asked me if I would mind to have some blueberries instead of kiwi. Surely, I didn't mind because her service was excellent. I dare to bet that not every salesperson would provide such good services!

Cova is one of my favorite cake shop because their cakes are quite special and all of their shops are located inside the popular malls. However, the cake shop that possesses my appreciation the most is Zoe.

No Bitter, No Sweet

This morning something about my friend's love matter came up my mind. She announced her love life blissfully one week ago and I felt really glad for her from the bottom of my heart. It is a pity she told me yesterday that the happiness hadn't stay long. I just wanna tell her that no bitter no sweet. Life is no bed of roses. One shall try to learn from and feel the adversity so that when the favorable circumstance comes again, it will be even more splendid. I keep reminding myself of this theory since five years ago and this makes me treasure and enjoy more deeply my wonderful life.

沒有苦 那覺甜
沒有風 怎知暖

Native English Speaking Tutor

Few weeks ago, I was helping someone to look for a native English speaker as the private tutor; she wanted to improve intensively her English listening and speaking skills. As a responsible person like me and having taking account of the time and location flexibilities, tutor's quality and suitability, tuition fee, etc., I tried very hard to find her two native English speaking tutors for her selection.

These two tutors can provide one-to-one or small group tutoring. However, each session cannot less than two hours. They both charge HK$250/hr for one-to-one lesson and about HK$180/hr per student for two-person group lesson. Advance payment is not required and do have to pay at the end of each session. For the location, it is recommended to arrange the lesson in the coffee shop or the sitting area of the university or college. Please note that travel compensation may require sometimes.

Lastly, the following is my comments on the said tutors:-
Tutor A: willing to provide free evaluation session, no additional charge for the overtime session, better time alternative, not likely suitable for the learner of below intermediate level.
Tutor B: limited time alternative, teach patiently, a formal ESL tutor for all level.

Crab Crab Crab

[off topic] Last Saturday, I went out with few of my old buddies for celebrating Cheuk's birthday in advance. In fact, we haven't seen each other for about seven months. During this period, something unexpected has changed and it was really surprising me! That was the guys, who were very thin before and you had never thought they could fat, were getting much fatter. To make my statements more clearly, I reiterate that they are just getting fat but not fat at all.

Back to the topic, we had Chiu Chow cuisine dinner that night and order a cold crab. The crab was quite big and fresh. Besides, it had a lot of meat & paste. It was delicious indeed, but when we were going to pay the bill, we discovered that the price of the crab took the majority of the bill's total. That was a restaurant we usually went; the last time we ordered the similar size's crab was about half year ago and the price compared with this time was around 30% lesser. Now I really believe that both paces of HK's economic and inflation are growing very fast.

Just four days later, I had another crab dinner. Instead of cold crab, this time was hairy crab. Even thought I was allergic to eating too many crabs, I still ate two of them. I had already prepared a allergy pill for the need in that night. Fortunately, nothing happened to me. haw-haw.

I sniggered because hairy crabs were the seasonal food; otherwise, two scenarios will usually occur to me...choice making battle between hairy crabs and other kinds of crabs or increasing the demand for allergy pill. LOL

Handy Pizza of Chicago Pizza Factory

The first time I patronized Chicago Pizza Factory located at SOGO of Tsim Sha Tsui was on Nov 6, 2007 that was also the day of my mommy's return from Canada. Due to the idle time before going to the airport and the desire for filling the stomach, Jaco and I went to SOGO's food court and browsed around. I eventually decided to order a Curry Chicken & Potato Pizza (HK$35) at Chicago Pizza Factory and a Dark Chocolate Decadence drink at Godiva. They folded up the pizza and made it easy to hold and eat. Inside the soft wrapping it mainly mixed with mild curry sauce, chicken stripes, mozzarella, and potatoes. I liked its texture and taste; I wanted to have some more that day.

Two days later, I visited them again for buying the take-out lunch. This time I bought the above said pizza and a meal (HK$35), which included a Pepperoni and Bacon Pizza, Potato Cake, and Coke. However, the foods didn't taste as good as the first time; it might because I had not eaten the foods immediately but after 30 minutes. Therefore, it was a little bit dry and vanished the just-melted texture of the mozzarella.

Be the Customer of Godiva Again

Recalling one summer of long long time ago, I was still a student in Canada and had bought some chocolates and biscuits from Godiva as the souvenirs for parents and relatives living in HK. Sadly that all of their feedback were "really too sweet". Since then I was not their customer anymore until the Valentine's Day of last year I bought two pieces of chocolate dipped strawberry, which tasted good and brought me back confidence in some of their products.

Recently, I fall in love with Godiva's Chocolixir, an icy chocolate blended beverage. For my personal preference, I would not pick the drink having the flavor of mint or white chocolate; so I've only tried their Dark Chocolate Decadence, Milk Chocolate Decadence, and Dark Chocolate Raspberry. Among these three, I find that I love the dark chocolate the most and think that the taste of Milk Chocolate Decadence is not strong enough. However, my daddy likes the milk chocolate more. The drink not only is topped with rich whipped cream and chocolate sauce but also is filled with chocolate chip. Every sip of it is yum-yum!!! Believe it or not, it sells for HK$39 only and note that not every Godiva shop sell them. (Whisper: I think that it is more delicious and cheaper than Häagen-Dazs's smoothies.)

L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole

The first time I heard this song was on the next evening after my wedding day. That night my brother called me and told me that he left a bag in the hotel's ballroom during participating my wedding reception. As my hubby and I were still staying on at the same hotel, we went down to that ballroom and tested his luck. The situation was that a couple was holding a wedding reception and broadcasting their childhood slide show. That's why we knew this song and we both thought this song was good. However, we didn't know the song's name.

On the subsequent birthday of mine, we dined in at a speakeasy restaurant and it kept playing many romantic songs. Of course, L-O-V-E was one of them. Before we left the restaurant, my hubby decided to ask the waitress about the song's name. She said she didn't know it and invited my hubby to find it himself from their iPod nano. After our best try, we certainly could not find it and gave it up.

One day, I shopped around the Hallmark in Edmonton, Canada and a familiar song suddenly flowed into my ears. I walked toward that sample music stand and tried to found that CD. Unfortunately, they were sold out. I remembered the lyric and searched online immediately after I got home. The answer came to light. Without any delay, I called hubby and told him the name. After that, I shopped every different Hallmark when I saw it and came out with an empty hands. Finally I bought the song from iTunes.

Although it's a brief song, it's a meaningful and good song. In here, I dedicate this song to my beloved hubby Jaco. Thanks for doting me. I love you so much. XOXO

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you can adore

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you

Flight Pass between Hong Kong & Canada

It might be a good news for you if you are a traveller who travels frequently between Hong Kong and Canada. Air Canada is now promoting a flight pass that is a prepaid package of six one-way flight credits; it gives you access to flights between Hong Kong and Eastern (HK$22,890) or Western (HK$16,890) Canada. The prices should include taxes, and each flight credit is valid for a one-way trip including connecting flights. That means you can have three round-trip tickets to Eastern or Western Canada within one year's validity.

Tell you what...early this year, I bought a Air Canada's special price round-trip ticket to Edmonton, Alberta (Western Canada) and it costed me about HK$8,500. HK$8,500 x 3 = HK$25,500. If one can really fly to Western Canada three times a year, this flight pass can save her at least HK$8,610 (saving can even be more because the ticket's non special price can as high as $HK13,500). However, there are some disadvantages: 1) bookings must be done using the user name designated at time of original Pass purchase; 2) flight credits must be completed within twelve months; and 3) all six flight schedules shall be provided to make booking at the time of purchasing the Pass. For detail information, please visit Air Canada's website.