August 2016 – missruslee

Avocado coffee float by Macehat in Medan.

August 29, 2016August 31, 2016 missruslee7 Comments

No offence to the creator of guacamole, but when it comes to creating an excellent culinary out of avocado, Indonesians win hands down.

Whenever I went out to eat at an Indonesian restaurant as a child, there was a default drink that I, and many other people who shared the same happy childhood as I did, always ordered: avocado juice (or jus alpukat in Indonesian).

Avocado juice sounds healthy and odd to those who have never tried it before, but it is seriously anything but. A juice may be a misnomer – it is after all more of a smoothie made out of the fruit mixed with milk and sugar. And no jus alpukat in Indonesia is ever complete without a generous dollop of chocolate condensed milk.

I know, avocado + chocolate, who would ever think that the equation = heavenly?

I don’t know when I stopped drinking jus alpukat, but I suspect it was around the time when I started not being able to fit into most of my clothes. So enjoying the drink was only reserved for special occasions in a bid to stop myself from expanding too quickly.

A visit to Medan, my parents’ hometown, after more than fifteen years certainly qualifies as a special occasion. This was why I was looking forward to visiting Macehat, a coffee joint at Jalan Karo no. 20, that was famous for its coffee based drinks as well as avocado coffee float – the Indonesian jus alpukat with a scoop of chocolate ice cream, a big spoon of Milo powder and a single espresso shot, a modern twist to the classic jus alpukat that Indonesians love so much.

One thing that you have to know about me: I hate coffee. It makes me dizzy and sleepy. People have served me different types of coffee drinks, but all they got from me was a disgusted look after one sip.

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One evening in New York City.

August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

To the untrained, exploring New York City at night generally entails walking along the famous Streets and Avenues to spot famous landmarks and then ending up at Times Square, stopping on your track and being dazzled by the blinding billboards.

In short, you get swarmed by tourists from all directions.

Luckily, I had my friend @mrkim85 to show me around NYC, and I got to see the city at night through a different perspective. He had the most brilliant plan for the evening: after a round of drinks at a bar in Manhattan, he would take me to dinner at an excellent restaurant in Brooklyn and we could walk back to Manhattan crossing one of the bridges and cycle 30 streets up on one of those Citibikes.

Nothing too touristy and it involved cycling and great food- there was nothing not to love about the plan.

The drinks in Manhattan was great – we went to a trendy rooftop bar on the 6th floor of The Pod 39 Hotel, sandwiched in between the skyscrapers. By the time we got there, it was already busy, full of well-dressed New Yorkers who had just finished their work. I felt embarrassingly out of place with my bright orange top and equally bright pink backpack plus my brown shoes that were close to falling apart.

Photo from Serla — Just to give you an idea.

My dinner at Brooklyn was excellent (I need to look up the exact name of the restaurant). I ordered a pork dish, and the meat was juicy and cooked to perfection (this is how talented I am if I were to become a food blogger. I did not even take a picture of the food). All I can say is this – I came out of the restaurant extremely happy.

Then there was the walk across the East River to get back to Manhattan. My friend suggested that we walked through Williamsburg Bridge, which was the less famous sister of the Brooklyn Bridge. It connects the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn with the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Again, less famous means fewer (or no) tourists at all, so it was perfect.

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How Vegas grew on me.

August 16, 2016August 16, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

I hated Vegas the moment I got there. After all, we drove all the way from the beautiful Lake Tahoe and Yosemite and was spoilt by all the glory that nature had to offer. In essence, it was a somewhat downhill view from ice capped mountains to an endless desert that was Nevada.

vegas6 — This road sign was probably the most interesting thing we saw on the way there.

vegas1 — Although I did find the thrill in entering a new state and hearing Google Map lady say “Welcome to Nevada” in her robotic British accent. I have my phone language set to English U.K.

And at the part where it was not a desert, a large area of the city was covered with big, shiny and absolutely tacky buildings: fake Statue of Liberty, fake Eiffel Tower, fake sky and fake everything you could think of.

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The streets and flowers of North Berkeley.

August 11, 2016August 16, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

During my last week in Berkeley, one of my favourite things to do was to wander aimlessly through the streets of North Berkeley.

Although the city is famous for the UC Berkeley campus and hipster street of Telegraph Avenue, my first impression of Berkeley would always be this.

Not to mention how fiery it turned one magical sunset in March.

So it was only appropriate that I said goodbye to the city by taking my time to admire everything about the neighbourhood.

I admit though, that there isn’t much to write about the day. I roamed around for hours, just lost in my thoughts, mostly wondering how did time fly so fast. And taking pictures of flowers. A great part of admiring North Berkeley is the flowers, along with the Victorian houses that come with them.

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