Our Taiwan Trip: Food

Since we are heading into the March break, I thought I'd focus my posts this week on food and travel. I actually wrote this post months ago right after our trip around Christmas, but decided to hold off for a while. After all that holiday wine and dine, who wants to think or read about more food right?

Before we went to Taiwan, we were advised by friends who have been there to pack light and only bring three essentials: passport, cash, and extra stomach. One really can't say they've been to Taiwan without trying all their small eats. Taiwanese lives by the philosophy of eating often and eating well. Sure, there's the internationally accepted three-meals-a-day format of dining, but why be so limited when you can make like the Taiwanese and do some gourmet snacking at any time of the day, all day, every day?

Weird and wicked food and snacks from Taiwan that you should try.

Clockwise from top left: 

• Stinky Tofu: is the world's best love-it-or-hate-it snack. Cubes of bean curd are deep-fried and draped with sweet and spicy sauce. We couldn't hold our nose and eat so we took a pass on them.
• Tian Bu La: I somehow suspect the name came from Japanese "Tempura" but nobody from Taiwan that we talked to could verify that. These are fish and pork balls that have been deep-fried then dunked in a broth to boil.
• Beef Noodle: there must be 20 different ways of making a bowl of beef noodle in Taiwan.
• Ice Cream and Fruits in a Waffle Cone.
• Sesame Ice Cream Pouf.
• Mango Shaved Ice.
• Sesame Sticky Rice Balls in Sweet Red Bean Soup.
• Oyster Omelete.
• Three-Cup Chicken: is cooked in a cup of rice wine, a cup of oil and a cup of soy sauce. There has been a century long conversy as to what the "three cups" really are. The flavour is further enhanced by adding some fresh basil, chilies and garlic.

I am sure there are still hundreds of other snacks that we didn't get around to trying. Other than the three travel essentials mentioned at the beginning of this post, I would also add: and a workout plan afterwards!

Brass Chandeliers

The debate on which chandelier to switch to continues for my dining room. I really love the warmth and old-world charm brass lights add to a room, but I am also trying not to make the same buying-something-looks-great-on-its-own-but-doesn't-work-in-my-room mistakes again.

Here are a few antique brass chandeliers that I really like and would seriously consider for my dining room.

Visual Comfort Thomas O'Brien Large Ziyi Chandelier in Hand-Rubbed Antique Brass with Natural Paper Shades: this is my favourite out of all the brass options.

It looks awesome in the picture, but I am concerned with the wall sconces and the buffet lamps in the same room in a different polished nickel finish, this brass chandelier may be out of place. Thoughts?

Arteriors 89295 - Antique Brass Chandelier

 

The ever-popular Bryant Chandelier by Thomas O'Brien.  

 

Love love this charming dining room with the Bryant Chandelier by Ashley Goforth Design.

Love the form of this Six J-Arm Brass Chandelier by Cape Cod Lanterns, but not so much the shades. I guess they'd be easy to swap out.

 

All the above make this classic chrome and crystal chandelier look so cold and plain. However, back to not making the same mistake again, it's a very safe choice and it might just be what my dining room needs.

To give you an idea I've done a mock-up in Photoshop using this chandelier. My dining room is square, good-sized at 17'x17'. The only whole wall I have is this window wall; all the other threes are cut short by three entryways from the living room, the foyer and the kitchen, very awkward layout. My dining table is long and humongous, so to have another rectangular chandelier like Jonathan Adler's Meurice (which I really really love) might throw the room off balance. A round chandelier might be the way to go.

So what do you all think of my dining room chandelier choices? Which one do you think would work the best for my space? Brass or chrome/crystal? Rectangluar or round? SOS!

French Quarter

An industry conference took me to New Orleans last week. I knew I would only have time for one tourist spot so I took the only direct flight out on Sunday, and headed straight to the French Quarter shortly after I landed at 3pm. 

I had a cab drop me off on Royal Street, which is one of the oldest streets in the city, and is most well known for the antique shops, art galleries, and stately hotels. 

Under the influence of a perfect marriage of the French elegance and the Spanish passion, the elaborate use of ironwork permeates throughout the architecture within the French Quarter of New Orleans. 

The fire-resistant stucco exterior came into fashion after the 1788 Great New Orleans Fire. 

Street performers and jazz bands are dime a dozen around street corners. I still haven't figured out what this giant banjo-alike musical instrument is called.

  
A very "Picasso" art gallery called Kako Gallery on Royal Street. 

Art galleries closer to Bourbon Street are more avant-garde and quirky. 

Another reason why a design blogger would prefer Royal Street to Bourbon Street are all the vintage and antique furnishing shops like Fisher Gambino Lighting. I wanted to take this chandelier home. 

The Flambeaux French Quarter style gas lanterns are among the most recognizable symbols of New Orleans. 

If I had a couple of hours to kill, I would want to chillax in an alley cafe like this sipping a cup of French Roast. 

Walking south to the end of St. Peter will take you to the Jackson Square. 

Via

In the center of the park stands an equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States, and army general during the Battle of New Orleans.

The park overlooks the grand St. Louis Cathedral. 

I ended my short trip to French Quarter with a dinner at Gumbo Shop. 

Since I was alone, I was seated at a tiny table tucked in a corner by a fireplace. I ordered their famous Seafood Okra Gumbo and Jambalaya, very authentic Creole cuisine.  

The large wall murals throughout the restaurant depict the plantation era life in New Orleans. All in all Gumbo is a pretty decent family restaurant. 

I am sure you can easily spend a day or even days inside French Quarter, but if you are like me and only have a couple of hours to spare, I would highly recommend you start your walking tour from the Royal Street. Make sure you pack extra greenbacks as cabbies will make every effort to get you to pay in cash. If you manage to use your credit card, read closely before you make your selection - in Canada I always pick the middle option or 15% because our options are 10%, 15% and 20%; whereas in New Orleans for some taxi companies it starts at 15%, then 25% then 40%! 

Design Regrets

I know I can't be the only home owner/design blogger/decor enthusiast out there that has design regrets. These design regrets are not quite mistakes: they are still stylish but just don't work with your styles any more; they may look great on their own but fail to work in a room by the time you put all the elements together. They make you wonder had you chose something else, the room might have looked better and you might have felt more content. These design regrets are often expensive, hence they make you feel "stuck" - you are unlikely going to recover your cost if you choose to sell them so you often choose to live with them for as long as you can to squeeze some mileage out of them.

So here's my list of design regrets, so far.

1. Basement hallway chest: Notice something funny in this picture? I wanted a white lacquered dresser, simple, clean-lined and inexpensive to go with the Regency Faux Bamboo Chairs I scored. By the time we finished the basement renovation, I already ran out of steam so I didn't want to do any hack or DIY. Ikea's Hemnes Dresser seemed to fit the bill at the time, but the height of this dresser totally threw this basement hallway off balance. Not only is it too tall for the chairs, it also leaves very little room for the faux bamboo mirror. The pairing looks so awkward and uncomfortable. I have since been looking for a shorter dresser and preferably campaign style dresser before re-purposing this Hemnes dresser somewhere else.

2. Dining chairs in my dining room: Don't get me wrong, I still love them. They are made of solid mahogany and look so elegant paired with the rectangular double pedestal table, especially if you look at them from this angle.

But, the criss-cross back looks so busy! I know they provide great support to the chairs but I've seen other oval back chairs without them. I can't believe at the time I was actually attracted to this feature! The matchy-match stain also makes the dining set like a big box store purchase (they are anything but).

What I've really wanted is this - the Restoration Hardware Vintage French Square Back Chair in a different stain. I've seen similar pairing from Style At Home, which confirmed it would work for my dining table. I've since been kicking myself for jumping onto such a major purchase which I am now stuck with.

3. Dining chairs in our kitchen dining room: What's with me and dining chairs? These dining chairs from InVu Drapery are so comfortable but I hated the upholstery from day one. In addition, they are a bit on the big side and too formal for a kitchen dining area. I am thinking something more light and airy like bentwood chairs might work better.

4. Our kitchen cabinetry: this ought to be my biggest design regret. The dark maple cabinetry comes with the house and they are brand new. I designed the rest of the kitchen around it including paint, countertop and backsplash. For the past two years I find myself really wanting a white kitchen. The paint job shouldn't cost much, but my head is already spinning just by thinking of all the hassle associated with dissembling all the 36 cabinet doors and kickplates and putting them back on later on.

So do you have any design regrets? Also check out Janice's post on the same topic from Life Begins at 30.

Buying Quality Over Price

I need to warn you that the picture I am going to show you is not pretty, and may cause eye sore and shock. I don't even believe it myself when I dug this up from my hard drive. But no, it's very real - this was once my living room.

I am a bargain hunter and I am not shamed of being one. I've always been on the hunt for designer pieces at a thrift store price tag. But along the way of developing my home decor buying skills, I've made tons of mistakes, and added them up may actually cost more than a quality designer piece to start with.

All the pieces you see in the above picture: the print canvas over the mantel from HomeSense, the oval fabric ottoman from Home Depot, the cream drapery from Fabricland, the lousy DIY pillows on the couches, etc., they are all gone. Altogether, they might only add up to the cost of one Eames walnut stool, but the efforts behind hauling them into the house, the headaches associated with putting them on CList, and the time wasted and risks of having strangers in and out of my house buying them ended up costing me a lot more.

The lesson learnt is never to rush to fill up a room with cheap and disposal pieces like I did. Instead, you should take your time learning what you want from a room and envision what you want it to look like. Don't be afraid to rip out a page from a magazine and start to design a lookalike; leverage design boards like Pinterest to help you visualize what a room would end up like with all the elements you pick out. At the end you might still manage to score quality pieces at afford prices, but you are for sure going to enjoy them more and longer.

Three years later this is what my living room looks like, and I am still happy with all the choices I've later made.

So do you have any buying price over quality experience? Do share.