Tres by Jose Andres (Afternoon Tea) (SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills) - Los Angeles (Mid-City West)

After my brother stopped by with my adorable little niece, I was off to meet my childhood friend for afternoon tea at Tres by Jose Andres at the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills.


Tres is to the right of the main entrance of the hotel and is separate from Andres' more well-known restaurant, The Bazaar. Upon seeing the bookcases in the outside entrance, I knew I would already be charmed.

This Little Tiger Wishes Everyone a Happy Year of the Cat!

Because my niece is just tooooo adorable.




My brother stopped by the first weekend of the Lunar New Year to visit and I just couldn't get enough of how cute she looks in her Chinese gown.

Minutiae

One of the first pictures I took when I got my new/used camera almost two years ago were these photos of vanilla ice cream with chocolate revels. I was playing around with my camera, trying to figure out how to work it, and searching for subject matter to photograph. I knew I would somehow work that analogous anecdote in somewhere on the blog and the when of the photograph doesn't matter so much to you as it does to me.


Except that the when of things has started to matter a lot more to me the longer I've been blogging. I guess because at the beginning, this blog was a more solitary endeavor and has now grown to encompass family and friends and so many more people than I expected. I ate this on this day with this person. I visited this restaurant on this day with this other person. I cooked this for the first time on this day and fed this person or just myself. A lot of vanilla. Occasional chocolate revels. And sometimes the dreaded icy chunks.

While my days have a whole lot more vanilla than anything else, I started toying with the idea of participating in Project 365, a photo a day for a year. Sure I take a lot of photos, but revisits to restaurants don't often make it on the blog. Non-food or just the minutiae of my life in general doesn't either. But isn't that life? A compilation of our minutiae? Small moments, occasional large moments, that add up and drift by year after year. I tried playing with this idea a bit when I did my month of mostly photos three years ago (Gah! How time passes by when you blog!), but that was more to give me a break from writing. I was intrigued following along Lan of Angry Asian Creations' Project 365. Perhaps because she's a blogging, and now real-life, friend. I enjoyed the glimpses into her day-to-day life, what doesn't make it onto her blog or Facebook updates. She fizzled out near the end. But then, via Lan, I found Jacqui of Happy Jack Eats' blog and her Project 365 too and enjoyed reading about her year.

I have no momentous year ahead of me. Well, not that I know of anyway. But it's my zodiac year, and well, if I'm gonna do Project 365, why not this year? The last time it was my year was pretty good. I really enjoyed my job, had my funnest vacation ever in Ibiza, Spain with Norwegian girl cousin, made lots of trips home and to New York and to Vegas, and right before the Year of the Cat ended, landed my dream job at the time, before I switched careers. So all in all, though this Cat year didn't start off well, I'm hoping overall it'll be as fondly remembered as the last time. OK, technically the Cat year doesn't start until February, but I'm used to the Julian calendar so I know it's a document of this year and technically gives me another month if I so want to include it.

Or perhaps I'll find out that my life really is more vanilla than anything else. I admit I'm pretty boring. If January is any indication, the highlights of my days are mostly food-related, or the people I see, or sometimes just what comes in the mail. Lots and lots of minutiae. It's as much an experiment for me as it is a chance for you to follow along, if you so care to anyway.