Reminiscing about 2005 - the year in food...

I'm a pig. Or a foodie. It all depends on your perspective, but anyone who knows me knows that I love food. In 2005, I got to travel to a lot of cool places and try different foods, and here are some highlights (and lowlights):

Best room service: Buffalo mozzarella & heirloom tomato salad with aged balsamic vinegar, fresh pappardelle with seasonal veggies, green tea & red bean cake for dessert -- that can only be the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong.

Best street vendor / food stall: Tied - Estea cafe serving bubble tea at the Night Market in Vancouver, and the Mongolian shish-kabobs (I like chicken hearts the best) from this one particular vendor on the Wangfujing Food Street in Beijing.

Best fast food: My favourite fast food place of all-time is still the Japanese curry delivery place in Beijing (long story--you had to be there), but this year, I'd say that my Japanese "diner" aka Dojima-Ann has done a swell job of providing fast katsu bento boxes that are super yummy. I also love Yong He (famous for their soy bean milk & Chinese doughnuts) in Beijing. Where else can you feed 5 people for $7 and still have them all be satisfied and full? (That's me and my buddy Ashley at Yong He on the left.)

Best 24-hour eatery: Tied - Cafeteria in Chelsea in NYC, and GL Cafe (serving Hong Kong favourites) in the China World Trade Tower 1 in Beijing. GL even has free wireless ;-)

Best pancakes: The Restaurant (another 24-hour one) at the Standard Hotel in LA (the West Hollywood one, not the one downtown)

Best smoothie: Tied - the ones I made (I got a blender this year) and the ones from Fushi Juice Bar in Harvey Nichols in London (although the latter ones cost 5 pounds a pop, so I may have to rethink those)

Best new packaged beverage: It's gotta be the Coke Zero. I'm a fan. Enough said.

Best pool-side drink: The aformentioned lemongrass iced teas at the Chedi in Phuket. See the travel post below for more details. I could drink buckets of this stuff.

Best cocktail: Mango Mojito's at Asia de Cuba at the Mondrian Hotel in LA. They are soooo yummy!

Best Chinese food: Mom's cooking - duh. Actually, these days, I could probably give her a run for her money ;-)

Best Japanese food: Kamei Royale in Vancouver. I have yet to find a place in North America that tops the quality and freshness of this place. Uni (sea urchin) served live straight out of the shell -- it doesn't get better than that.

Best Fusion: Tied - oh don't make me choose - Buddakan in Philadelphia (opening soon in NYC!) and Slanted Door in San Francisco both have my heart. They're my favourite restaurants in the country, period. Just don't tell the owners that I classify their food as fusion. :-D

Best Poo-poo (stuffy?) multi-hour/course meal: Michael Mina at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Sure the guy is obsessed with multiple numbers (who needs to serve lamb four ways on one plate anyway?), but he had me at the mini rootbeer float on my dessert platter.

Best dessert: I could choose one, but that would be silly. You can have them ALL at the dessert buffet at the Tiffin Lounge in the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. Don't forget to check out the freshly made tofu dessert (served straight from the wooden bucket where it's made), and the incredibly-sweet sliced mangos.

Best high tea: That would have to be the Peninsula Hong Kong, my dear. The Peninsula Bangkok comes a close second...especially when you take into account that they serve the same afternoon high tea at about 1/4 of the price of the version in Hong Kong.

Best "first time" meal: Kittichai at 60 Thompson in NYC. We loved the Kobe beef carpaccio and the sea bass. Thank you!

Nicest turndown treat: Forget the cheap chocolates on your pillow. We got dessert "sushi" at the Peninsula in Bangkok. (see pic on the the right) Sweetened coconut sticky rice topped with thinly sliced fruit, and served with chocolate "soy sauce" for dipping. Sweet!

Most difficult minibar to locate: The East Hotel in Hamburg. It was under the sink console facing the wall. Yes, it was as weird as it sounds.

Weirdest item sold by a street vendor: "Refrigerated water" for half a rupee (which is about a penny) in Delhi. It comes in a glass (cleaniness not guaranteed) out of sketchy carts on the street.

Longest wait for a table: 1.5 hours at Tao in New York City. That was with reservations. For a 10pm seating. And yet we still go back. What a bunch of masochists.

Reminiscing about 2005 - the year in travel...

There are only 3 more days left to 2005. Just like every other predictable soul out there, I, too, am starting to get nostalgic about the year that is, and soon, was. I figured each day I could focus on something else, and today, it's travel.

2005 was the year of the 40+ flights. Here are some of the quick memories...

Cities visited (in no particular order): San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong, Knoxville, Bangkok, Lake Tahoe, Monterey, Las Vegas, Beijing, Shanghai, London, Paris, Hamburg, Phuket, Delhi, and of course, Vancouver

Airports / Planes / Flying
Weirdest city to connect through: Tied -- Bangkok (we were there four times in 6 days) and Charlotte, NC (where a random United pilot hit on me at the Jamba Juice)

Scariest airport: Delhi - hands down, no competition

Best overnight kit: Cathay Pacific (SFO-HKG) with Dermalogica products, the standard toiletries PLUS a lint remover

Best airplane meal (economy): Lunch (PEK-HKG) on Dragonair -- Chicken chow mein, Haagen Daz chocolate ice cream

Best airplane meal (business): Dinner (HKG-SFO) on Cathay Pacific -- Ahi tuna tartare, Sea bass with Chinese mushrooms, warm rhubarb tart with Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream, double espresso con panne

Weirdest dish to find in an airplane meal: Seafood congee (BKK-PKT) on Thai Airways

Worst airplane meal: the "Mini Meal" box (SFO-JFK) on United -- prepackaged salami, crackers, and Pepperidge Farms Mint Milano cookies, and I had to pay $5 for it.

Hotels
Best hotel sheets: Grand Hyatt Hong Kong -- they had Frette :-)

Best hotel bed: Peninsula Palace Beijing -- so good that I called them up and got the bed for myself!

Best drink: Lemongrass iced teas at the Chedi Phuket (shown on the left), except when the ants got into the sweetener jug

Best man-made view: Tied - view of Time Square from my room on the 51st floor, W Hotel New York - Times Square and view of the Chao Phraya River from our suite on the 26th floor, Peninsula Bangkok

Craziest question asked by a hotel staff: "Are you two on your honeymoon?" (referring to me and Regina) - Chedi Phuket

You'll also find more funny stories about some of my trips at Regina & Viv's Excellent Adventures.

Life's a peach...too bad I like mangos

Yup, I've got a blog on blogspot. It's been many moons since I closed my Xanga account (I talked too much about work on it, I decided), and even more moons since I actually had my website up and running. (Yes, it's still there but nothing's on it.) Anyway, for now, this will have to do. I know, the templated blog is cheesy and using Blogger is a lazy way out of setting up a feed so that it shows up on my own site, but I'm busy, damn it!

It took me forever to think of a name for the blog; mostly because all the URLs that I wanted were already taken. Then I decided that my aim sn will have to do for now, at least until I set up my own site. I keep saying that. But you all know that I'll never get to it. Oh well. Read on. I'll try to rant less and be more interesting. I promise.

Life's a peach -- lilpeachyviv.blogspot.com. I like the sound of that. :-)