Restaurant Review: Josiah Citrin’s Melisse

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Monki

citrin egg caviar

As a follow-up to our 8th wedding anniversary celebration, MK took us to the Holy Grail of romantic dining: French cuisine.

Once in a while, one encounters true excellence, perfection and professionalism.  This experience leaves one want to improve ourselves; to push ourselves in our daily personal and professional lives in hope to some day join in their ranks.  Josiah Citrin’s Melisse is one of those places.

We have been to some great restaurants.  But this place, Melisse, transported us to Paris.  Or rather, Melisse transformed our taste buds to pursue perfection.  The layer upon layer of tantalizing tastes exploded in our mouths. I sat there transfixed in my seat trying to decipher the various notes Mr. Citrin tried to teach us.  In his latest book aptly entitled, “In Pursuit of Excellence“, Mr Citrin gifted us pages upon pages of food pornography.

Here are some of the most memorable dishes for me:

Egg Caviar: the juxtaposition of the salty graininess from the caviar with the warm soft poached egg was simply… heavenly.

Wild Japanese Grunt Fish “Isaki”: soft as cloud uni, fermented apricots and toasted buckwheat.  I was never much of a uni person until tonight.

Truffle Risotto: big chunks of truffle shaved over freshly made creamy risotto at the table, enough said.

21 Day aged Liberty Duck: cooked to perfection in median rare; with black mission figs, forono beets, and black elderberry jus.  I’ve eaten ducks from Beijing to New York, this is the best duck I’ve ever had.

Wild Copper River King Salmon: paired with Dungeness crab, razor clams, and morel mushrooms.  I had to close my eyes to focus on one sense at a time.

Melisse tea: steeped in melisse,lemon grass, ginger.  The aroma and taste of this ambrosia was the perfect send-off gift.

anniversary

As we were leaving, I spotted our waitress.  She is a middle-aged woman: elegant, polite, knowledgeable, and effortlessly efficient.  She serviced six tables in our area, and the attention to the minutest detail she and her colleagues lavished on us was extraordinary.  I walked over to give her a hug.  I wanted to let her know how much her professionalism was appreciated.  I don’t know about you, but I have never EVER felt the need to hug a waitress in a restaurant.  But the perfection Melisse provided absolutely deserved one.

Now I don’t know where Monkey King is going to be able to take us for our tenth anniversary!

Posted in EATS | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Wedding Vows

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Monki

wedding

We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary last night!

Monkey King made a fabulously festive meal of seared tuna steak, risotto, and salad.  After our congratulatory toast, and just as we were about to dive in to our feast, Plumster declared, “you should get married again!”

But of course!

She walked over to the head of the table to be the wedding officiate.  She looked over at me to clue her in as to what to say.  “Say, ‘do you take this lady to be your wife?'”  I prompted her.

Plum: Do you take this lady to be your wife?

MK: Of course I do!

Plum looked over, and asked, “and what else?”  Oh, our six year-old hasn’t been to a wedding or seen a wedding yet.  “Say, ‘and do you take this man to be your husband?”

Plum decided to elaborate at this point: Do you take this HANDSOME man to be your husband?

Me: ha!  YES I do!

She beamed at me again for direction.  “Say, ‘I pronounce you husband and wife.  You may kiss the bride.'” I prompted.

And there we were, 8 years into our marriage, being married all over again by our six year-old Plumster.  No fanfare, no DJ, no wardrobe change to follow.  I looked at our delicious homemade dinner made by my  beloved husband who has become quite a gourmet chef, and felt just love, adoration and admiration.

What a fantastic idea to get married again.  Thanks for such a great idea Plum!

There was of course plenty of music and wine and glass clicking all around… just like in a real wedding!

Posted in COUPLE, HOME, KIDS | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fairy Expert

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Monki

fairy

While I prepare our Father’s Eve dinner, I overheard Plum inviting her dad to play with her.

Plum: Daddy, let’s play dress up!

Monkey King replied enthusiastically: Sure!  What should we dress up as?

Plum: Fairies!  Let’s dress up as fairies!  Let’s go get my wings!!

MK, whose enthusiasm had audibly waned a notch: Oh, how about we pretend we are fairies who DON’T have wings.  They have fairies who don’t have wings you know.

Without missing a beat, Plum replied patiently : ALL fairies have wings Daddy; otherwise you’d just be a very small person, not a fairy.

Posted in KIDS | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Weeknight Warriors

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Monki

warrior

The period between getting off from work to putting Plumster to bed is what I often think of as The Battle of Time.  There are certain activities that need to be checked off the list.  Some activities can be done in a parallel, multi-tasking manner (i.e. one parent cleans the kitchen while the other helps with the bath) while others are preferably done in a serial, sequential manner (i.e. the kid has to have dinner, then bath or vice versa, but these two acts preferably are not performed at the same time).

As a female physician practicing in a specialty dominated by her male counterpart who often have stay-at-home wives, I also happen to have a Ph.D. in cell biology and work in an academic hospital.  This week I have a talk to give, a treatment outcome study due and a lab meeting to participate and advise.  I spent my daytime hours in the hospital taking care of clinical duties such as seeing new patient consultations, working on their treatment plans, and taking care of patients suffering from acute side effects.  Scholarly duties such as  preparing for talks and writing papers would have to wait until night-time when I am off hospital duty.

The problem is, when I am off duty from the hospital, I am on duty as a Mom and a wife.

When I was immersed in studying for my board examinations, we utilized meal delivery service.  It was both a luxury and a necessity, to sidestep the one duty which can take hours of planning, prepping, cooking and cleaning.  These meal plans weren’t cheap.  After the study period was over, we settled back to making our own foods with occasional take outs.  By our calculation, we can just as easily pick up take outs or eat out as we live close to restaurants, and still come out cheaper than the meal delivery plan.  Our goal was to cook fresh homemade meals most of the time, and occasionally do take outs when we run out of groceries, ideas, energy, patience, and/or time.

More and more though, I am finding that evenings just go a lot smoother when we don’t have to cook.  Take tonight for instance, I picked up sushi for dinner while MK picked up Plum.  We dined at a leisure pace and were finished with dinner by 7pm.  I left little Plumster to practice piano for her upcoming recital and took our little puppy out for a walk in the park.  Of course there was a small kink there, as Plum reportedly protested about practicing while I was out, so by the time I came home, she still needed half an hour to finish up.  But all in all, I was able to get back to work at my desk by 9pm, which was excellent.

In a two career family, Monkey King and I more or less divide up our household duties in the times when I was not recovering from a major surgery.  These days, MK saintly pick up the slack that I am physically incapable of doing.  We have a couple of quick and easy recipe for weeknight meals.  Yakisoba, fusilli with homemade sauce, sea bass with ginger, soba noodle soup.  But even though the prep time takes about 30 minutes, on the nights when we do cook, instead of finishing dinner by 7pm, we usually don’t get to eat UNTIL 7pm.  And since everyone has a long day, dinner is enjoyed at a snail pace, which means that we finish our dinner pass Plum’s bath time of 8pm.  Then everything is a mad dash, rushing to get to bed in The Battle of Time.

I have the utmost respect for families who take the time to plan out their meals for the entire week, where the mothers or fathers would shop and clean and prep dinner ingredients on weekends, so that week night meals are a matter of throwing this or that in the oven or on the stove top.  The one thing I absolutely envy about Steve Jobs‘s life style is their personal chef, who worked for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse.  For that matter, I envy anyone with a personal chef.  Or anyone with more flexible work hours, where one can steal away to do the much-needed grocery shopping in the middle of the day, or take out the meat from the freezer to thaw in the afternoon.  Or people with grandparents living close by, where the said grandparents could help with meals or childcare!  Oh grandparents where are thou?

These days I strongly suggest to Plum to always try to live close to me when she grows up.  I fantasize for her about the meals I will make for her and her family when she is too busy to cook.  Until then, MK and I will be practicing and honing our skills to beat The Battle of Time.

HOW DOES YOUR FAMILY NAVIGATE THE BATTLE OF TIME?

Posted in CAREER, COUPLE, KIDS | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

BARCYCLE: the everything-wonderul-rolled-into-one machine

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Monki

barcycle

As summer approaches, I find myself heading towards the beach more often.  Yesterday afternoon as I was crossing the street, I heard music and laughter coming down the street.  Curious, I turned my head and saw this most amazing sight: a BARCYCLE!  What a fun and whimsical way to get around town!  Here the passengers pedal to power the vehicle, with the added benefit of being served ice cold beverages along the way.  The bar tender can play music from your play list and you get to burn some serious calories while having fun with your friends.  I can’t help but smile and wave at them.

Being a New York and Taipei expat, I still like bus rides where you can sit and enjoy reading a book.  But next time I am planning a party, I will definitely book this everything-wonderul-rolled-into-one machine.

Now that’s California green living.

Posted in TRAVEL | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

My CEO Mother

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Monki

diana-11b

Mom has always been actively involved in her career throughout my childhood. When I was little and people asked me what my mother did, I told them that her company made this music equipment that you can sing with.  It would later on be named karaoke.  But in the 70’s, no body knew what I was talking about because her company was still developing the circuit boards and parts for it.  I grew up spending much time with her personal assistants and my  grandmothers.  As I grew older, I opted to be dropped off at our local book store with some lunch money and I was good to go for an entire day, free to explore shelves upon shelves of books and the surrounding multi-cultural street food stands.

Once, my mother packed me lunch.  I still remember it was roasted bone-in chicken thigh with rice and sauteed garlic spinach.  In her inexperienced hands, she forgot to pack any utensil.  I was too touched by her gesture to find any flaw, so I picked up the chicken and ate that first.  I used the bone from the thigh — which is shaped like a shell really — as a spoon to eat the rest of my lunch.  I did not tell my mother about that slight neglect and focused on how much I enjoyed my lunch.  Because of the demand of her career as a CEO of a large audio equipment manufacture company and a co-CEO of a family-owned furniture manufacture company, she never did pack me lunch again after that.

Which was all the more astounding to me when I was pregnant with Plum, that Mom volunteered to come help during my “Sitting Month“.  Mom cooked me five delicious meals a day, each with its medicinal healing value.  She helped clean our increasingly neglected apartment; and took care of our newborn Plumster whenever I needed a nap, a walk, or a private dinner with just MK and me.  She demonstrated her never before seen domestic prowess that left me flabbergasted.  Later I found the books that she’s been studying in preparation for my Sitting Month.  In them, I found pages of pages of highlighted paragraphs; scribbled notes on the side; colorful side tags.

With the birth of my daughter, I found the Mother that I did not grow up with.  I found out that my globe-trotting, multi-linguistic mother who was always busy at business meetings dealing with clients, engineers and business partners, was actually really good at cooking and other household chores that I often saw her delegating to her personal assistants.  In her retirement, she has happily taken up hobbies that she otherwise was too busy to indulge in.  These days she has regular photography exhibits throughout the NY metropolitan area and teaches Chinese silk knotting in local community colleges and several museums.  I got to hang out with her for a week after my surgery a few weeks ago.  She taught me a couple of dishes, and I relished every moment we spent together.

I found the above picture of us in my old PC.  She was in her early thirties, already running a company of her own.  I see this strong, beautiful, independent woman who has shaped me in more ways than I knew.  These days, with the Anne Marie Slaughter team and the Sheryl Sandberg team voicing opinions about balancing career and family, it is suffice to say that women in demanding career paths are still negotiating and carving out creative ways to juggle our many hats.  My mother worked 80+ hours weeks.  She was prone to take me to short-noticed business meetings, and I adapted a fondness to work on art works or read quietly at a young age.  She also used helps, lots of them: most of her junior personal assistants had the additional tasks of making me dinner and watching me on weekday nights because of late work schedules.  Perhaps Mom used that as a measuring stick to test their patience and perseverance before graduating them to senior positions I would never know for sure.  Grandma ran the said family owned furniture manufacture business before handing it over to parents, then owned and ran a hotel after her “retirement”.  I was often dropped off at grandma’s hotel on weekends or school holidays, free to roam around the property.   Because of this kind of environment, I was fortunate to grow up surrounded by not just one, but many, strong, intelligent, career-driven women.  They have each inspired me and taught me in their own ways and I am forever grateful for having them in my life.

WHO WERE THE WOMEN THAT INSPIRE YOU GROWING UP?

Posted in CAREER, PARENTING | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Fragrances Along the Way

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Monki

rose

Post-op Week 6: I went back to working full time in the clinic.  Sorry I haven’t written for over a week.  What with a busy schedule, demanding patients and that gnawing post-op sensation in the lower abdomen and pelvic region, I was but a pulp of human remain capable of doing very little else by the time weekend finally rolled around.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to enroll myself in a meditation class starting last week as well, which helped tremendously throughout the week.  Since I couldn’t return to my martial arts training just yet, I decided to turn this period of relative immobility into an opportunity to deepen my practice by learning how to be more centered and present.

We started week one on being mindful of the breath.  Our homework included sitting and meditating for 5 minutes each day.

The challenge belies in finding that precious five minutes of peace and quiet around the house.  First day of homework was interrupted by Plumster who bounced into the living room with the announcement that she couldn’t fall asleep.  Second day, our very affectionate lick-y puppy decided to pay me a visit as well.  Third day, I wised up and waited until everyone is sound asleep before my practice.  The idea of mindful meditation is not to clear our mind.  The idea is to gently guide our mind and rest our attention on something we do naturally: breathing.  As  we breathe, thoughts and feelings would come and go, and we are to practice letting go.  Letting go of emotions, of judgements, of criticism.  We are to learn to accept our internal distractions and to empower ourselves with mastering the art of starting over.

That sounded all fine and doable, but in practice, I had a very difficult time letting go.  My mind would wander into series of commentaries of my days events, into my to-do list for the house, to-do list for patients, to-do list for the weekend, etc etc.  In fact, when our group emailed to remind me to meditate that night, I replied, “oh thanks!  I’ll put that down on my to-do list for the night.”  Urgh!  So in reality, what I actually did to rest my attention on my breathing was this: I counted.  I counted in my head each and every one of my breath for five minutes: “in one, out one; in two, out two; in three, out three” and so on and so forth.  It did get kind of cumbersome when the numbers got bigger: “in two hundred and ninety eight, out two hundred and ninety eight…”  I emailed my teacher about my practice and asked if counting our breaths, humm… counts as meditation.  She assured me that counting the breath is a technique that some people use, and her understanding of it is that you can count your breaths up to 10 and then begin again.  Phew, counting was definitely a lot easier after that :)

During our walk over the weekend, I noticed the abundance of flowers that spring has brought us.  This time, instead of running right past by them (or worse, avoiding them so that the flowers don’t slow my pace) with my iPod blasting into my ears like I used to do pre-operatively, I literally stopped our walk and smelled the roses.  “In one, out one” I inhaled the fragrance of this glorious spring.  Monkey King turned around facing me and smiled.  That moment, that beautiful, peaceful moment with my husband standing there looking at me, I could surely learn to be more mindful of.

Posted in COUPLE, HEALTH | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

EATS: Japanese sea bass with ginger

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Monki

sea bass with ginger

I’ve always have trouble making whole fish.  This problem is especially evident when Lunar New Year rolls around, where hopeful Asians prepare various delicacies as an invitation for fortunes to come.  I like eating whole fish because they have less mercury accumulation.  Now that Mom is here this week to help take care of my delicate post-op system (unfortunately I had some complications and was forced to return home for yet another week), I seized this opportunity to observe her culinary prowess.  Her Silkie chicken herbal broth tastes richer and deeper.  Her fish somehow turns out tender and well… whole.  Here’s how she makes it:

Eats: Japanese sea bass with ginger, scallion and Thai chili  pepper

Makes 2 serving

 Ingredients:

photo 1

  •  1 Japanese sea bass
  •  2  scallion, finely sliced
  •  2-3 garlic, sliced
  •  6-7 slices of ginger, finely sliced
  •  4 chilli pepper, finely sliced
  •  Kosher salt
  •  1-2 Tsp of olive oil, enough to cover pan
  • 1 Tsp of low sodium soy sauce

 

Steps

photo 3

  • Score the sea bass as shown in picture
  • Heat olive oil in pan in medium heat.  Use a larger pan if you have it so that you can fit the entire fish.  We didn’t.
  •  Sprinkle Kosher salt in oil to create a layer of salt so that the fish skin doesn’t stick to the bottom.  Don’t worry, you won’t taste it because most of the salt stays in the oil and not on the fish! 
  •  Place fish in the pan.  Flip to the other side ONLY when you can move the fish easily with the spatula.  The key is to not move it too much.
  •  To ensure done-ness, sprinkle a little bit of water in the pan, turn off the heat and place cover on the pan for 1 minute.  This will steam the inside of the fish and keep it tender.
  •  Transfer fish to plate
  •  Stir fry ginger, garlic, chili pepper, soy sauce.  Add scallion last
  •  Arrange the fragrant ginger mixture atop fish

Voila!  It takes less than 20 minutes to prep and makes for great nutritious lunch.  Hope you find this recipe useful.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

Posted in EATS, HEALTH, HOME | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Plumster Turned Six!

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Monki

party banner

We celebrated our Plumster’s birthday!  Because I still tire easily and am not entirely mobile, we kept the celebration intimate with eight of Plum’s good friends.  We had yummy tea party treats and a six-clue treasure hunt.  The kids had a terrific time solving clues on their own and when they eventually found their box of treasures, the squeal and sheer delight made all the hard work of planning totally worth it :)

Here are some great finds for her tea party/treasure hunt that I would recommend:

Party Decoration: since I can’t be that physically active just yet, we kept the decoration simple. We have this Martha Stewart birthday banner that we recycle for our birthday celebrations and it works every time, instantly lifting the party spirit.  Here are  fairy napkins,  cups,  and plates that were the perfect size for a tea party.

napkincupplates

Tea Party Treats:  cupcake stand to hold a dozen mini coconut cup cakes.  These stands can easily accommodate a dozen and a half regular sized cupcakes.  It can be wiped clean and taken apart easily after the party for storage.  The fairy sitting atop wears a sheer tutu, making this cupcake stand uniquely magical!

cupcake

Daisy cookie cutter to make flower cookie treats to go with these popular tea party lollipops!  We also had lots of fresh fruits such as strawberries, grapes and cute little juicy tangerines on a white serving platter alongside elegant tea sandwiches.

daisy cutter

lollipops

Treasure Hunt: I have never done anything like it before, either as a participant or as a creator.  The idea of a treasure hunt appealed to me because I wanted the kids to be outdoors with something fun and creative to do.  Here came the hardest part: rhyming those six clues and deciding the order of things were not as easy as I thought!  I had Word and Excel files, then drawings of our backyard with points of contact to make sure the two teams can zigzag across the yard at different time frames in their hunt to ensure smooth traffic.  I even had blank clues tied up all over the yard to camouflage the real clues.  Heh.

Since the kids had to work so hard running all over the back yard, solving clues for their treasure, I decided to splurge a bit and get them some niceties.  What treasure hunt is complete without some jewels?  We have flower bracelets, rings and watches for all our little hunters and their siblings :)

Treasure Hunt Treats: flower bracelets, candy watches and rings for Harry Potter fans!

flower bracelets watch   HP Rings

Speaking of Harry Potter, Plumster’s been chewing through the Harry Potter series since last September and got through reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince during Spring Break.  Thank goodness she knows how to read by herself, otherwise my throat would be so scratchy from reading all those pages…

Gift ideas for a HP addict: Firebolt broomstick for a light game of quidditch, and Hermione’s time turner necklace.

time turnerFirebolt

The kids flipped over seeing the Firebolt –though they called it the “Nimbus 2000” since that’s the latest and fastest broomstick in the HP book, but really, who can tell the difference!– broomstick wrapped up in brown paper alongside the treasure box.  Plum’s eyes totally lit up when she saw the time turner and displayed an unusual level of carefulness when handling her toy.  The necklace has an hour glass that is break-resistant (we know, because Plum’s already dropped it by accident a couple of times) and comes with its own jewelry box.  Both the broomstick and the time turner necklace are pretty sturdy and have stood up to the test of Plumster abuse so far.  Some other items worth checking out if you are having a HP theme party: sorting hat, the Hogwarts school banner,  and Marauder’s Map.

We had a great time playing treasure hunt at the party.  What are some fun games that you like to play at a birthday party?

Posted in KIDS | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dads

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Monki

place beyong pines

Just saw “The Place Beyond the Pines” starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes on our date night.  It has been reviewed as a crime drama about how the sins of a father affect his son.  On a more fundamental level, I see it as a movie about the bond between father and child.  Neither Gosling and Coopers’ characters were that involved in their son’s upbringing, either by choice or not.  We see how fate unfolds their destiny in front of our eyes, with both sons desperate to make connections with their fathers in their own way.

There is a lot of attention devoted to motherhood and Moms.  It is only mid April, and already I see lots of Mother’s day memorabilia in the stores.  But what about Dads?  They simply aren’t getting enough credit for all that they try to do for the family these days.  I caught a tender moment with Monkey King holding Plum’s backpack while she climbed around on the playground structure.  MK is the type of man would rather carry me holding my own purse than carrying just my purse.  Watching him nonchalantly threw her pink Hello Kitty back pack over his shoulder just totally warms my heart.

When Plum was six months old and ready to go to daycare, Ama and Agong returned to their homes after helping us out big time with childcare and house chores.  Monkey King picked up a lot of the background work around the house when Plumster went for her marathon nursing sessions with Mommy.  I gave Plum that direct physical reassurance that babies can intuitively identify with, but MK was out there getting food and hydration ready, tidying up the house, helping me do my job. Sure, Dads are not multi-taskers like Mommies who can take care of a booboo while getting laundry and dinner ready; nor are they so detailed oriented to remember which friend to include for a play date, but MK is there to carry her pink back pack filled to the brim with library books; to provide his strong arms for transportation, for support, for them to be used as playground structure so that Plum can climb, swing, etc as she sees fit.   See, very multi-functional arms if you ask me.  During my ongoing postop recovery period, he is the rock of our daily life.

I remember my own upbringing.  In high school, Dad would wake up at 5 in the morning to make me my favorite Taiwanese seafood noodle soup for breakfast before driving me to the subway station so that I was ready to tackle the long grueling hours in one of the three original specialized New York elite high schools EVERY WEEKDAY.  In college, he would drive the three and a half hours to attend my modern dance recitals only to drive back on the same night.  When we bought our first house, he came to help us paint the entire house including the cabinets and doors, and once it’s all dried, helped us move.

On our way home from the movie, I thought about how Dads are often the unsung heroes of our children’s home lives.  They are often depicted as comic relieves in mainstream media.  “The Place Beyond The Pines” delves into a territory that is a little less traveled and well thought out.  Overall, I would recommend “The Place Beyond The  Pines”.  It’s highly entertaining and a little unexpected.  And if the movie makes you want to go home and hug your dad, all the better :)

Posted in HOME, KIDS, PARENTING | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment