frillish

Marlene's Tea & Cakes

• daily

Somehow, another year has passed with my manz so we planned our celebration in Oceanside!

We went to Marlene’s Tea & Cakes I thought a nice afternoon tea experience would be pleasant and really nice if we could sit outside.

My manz had never been to afternoon tea before, so it was his first time trying it There’s quite a few options in San Diego, but they’re harder to book, so I chose this one!

There was this huge chair with a super pretty flower wall! I love the look, but I can’t help but think about how much dust must be on it

For my outfit, I picked something springful

The Liz Lisa setup is new, but I’m so happy that it matches my closet so easily that I already feel like I can wear it a lot Basically, I’ve matched it with all my favourite/often-worn items here!

Unrelated, but I’ve been thinking of trying some circle lens that aren’t so huge. It’s just that the big sized ones haven’t been in trend for many years so basically all the styles I love have been discontinued over the years I’m just so used to this size though…

Marlene’s is in this cute little plaza that has super easy and free parking!

We accidentally went through the wrong entrance to the plaza, but the waitress spotted us and probably could recognize I was dressed up for tea She brought us over to our table & brought out the tea we selected when making the reservation!

Lady Londonberry Lightly and elegantly flavored with strawberry, lemon balm leaves, Calendula and Sunflower petals.

Earl Grey Supreme For the connoisseur who loves Bergamot and fine tea, this is a higher grade of tea, with the addition of Silver Tips.

Somehow, I didn’t take a photo of both teapots? But there was a floral one that was so cute and pretty, now I want a big floral teapot too

They served us a corn soup (not pictured but it was actually so delicious!!) and after a bit, got us our tower By this time, both of us were quite hungry as the drive down took a while so we were excited to eat haha

We started with the lowest layer, which had cucumber sandwiches, a pineapple & cheese pastry (a new combo for me!?) + chicken pastry for the manz, egg quiche, and… I think I had another egg sandwhich while the mans got a beef one!

Both of us agreed that the white chocolate raspberry scone was the best of all of them!! I’m salivating a bit thinking about it You can read on their yelp/google reviews that people LOVE their scones - moist and very flavourful, buttery, and perfect texture

Purple grapes like this texture kind of freak me out (the texture reminds me of flesh), so I gave them to my manz I didn’t try the creamy dip but apparently it was tasty with the scone!

Finally, on the top layer: chocolate mousse, strawberry macaron, tiramisu, custard cream boy. I was still enjoying everything a lot, but by this time the mans was very oversugared since he’s not really someone who eats that much sweets typically I really enjoyed the mousse & reminded me that I used to enjoy making it as a dessert!

It was so fun to try together It’s been quite a long time since I went to afternoon tea since it’s usually quite pricey and feels formal, but I’m happy that my manz indulged me in this girly enjoyment even if he knew he would probably get oversugared

Enjoying our time here as a start to our anniversary celebrations really made me think again about prettifying our daily food & getting back into making desserts, which I haven’t done since i have the equivalent of a brown thumb (like for plants) but for baking

Seeing all the cute plates reminded me of when I looooved thrifting cute teawares during and after college, but I stopped at some point since my family didn’t take care of them well so they would get scratched up or broken even with not too much use But, I’m inspired to think about even free/low-budget ways to put some cuteness into our food

Monday

• daily
• beauty
• reads

Hello, happy Monday

I went to the dentist today, which is one of my favourite activities I can’t explain it, but I always feel so nicely taken care of at the dentist’s, so I’m really happy whenever I go. I told them I love coming to my appointments and they were so happy

Recently, I bought a bunch of treats from Trader Joe’s

I got a bunch of the frozen kimbap (repacking them so they don’t get mixed up with my housemates’ purchases) and the seasonal lemon sheet cake I cut it up to freeze, but tried a slice and it’s SO sweet! Definitely a treat

With fresh produce, I’ve been making goji berry kale smoothies I really only eat goji berries around summertime since I always associate them with smoothies, so it’s really nice to have a sweet treat!

Our friends invited us to enjoy Honda-ya I haven’t had it in a long time, so it was fun to go! This was part of the bigger friend circle, so they wanted to share a super tall “beer tower”. It was my first time seeing one

The boys wanted more so they got a second tower, but then… they struggled to finish it

Tried their poke salad, and the cucumber appetizer Both were really delicious! I need to learn how to make the cucumber salad myself…

On Saturday, I wanted to try a cute date brekkie at BAUM Tea & Coffee since I saw they have cute souffle pancakes and tasty coffees! But OMG, I didn’t expect the prices to raise by around 50% compared with what was shown 2 months ago according to menu photos in reviews once I got there in person. So like, the custard bear rose a whole $5 in just a few months The drinks rose a bit too.

I guess it’s average price around here but it’s tough to order a $9 latte pre-tax.

I felt bad about it but the manz said he knew I’d like the custard bear pancake so I should order it anyway, so I figured we can enjoy it once and maybe not come back for a while lol

So we got the custard bear to share I also ordered their ube espresso latte, and the manz got a cafe latte. Their espresso is so strong! This was another day my manz said I was “tweaking”

The bear isn’t as jiggly as the cat pudding, but I loved seeing how soft the bear was! The taste was really eggy and airy as well - and not too sweet at all!

After the breakfast, we went to try to find some delicious hummus. The manz thought the mediterranean market would be good to try, so we went to visit & he got a super big bread

We ended up getting their fresh made hummus, but… it honestly just was okay. Also, it was pretty expensive! Just around the same cost per lb as my current favourite hummus, Little Sesame.

After this, we were thinking we should just try to make our own hummus.

For dinner, we went to Habuya Okinawan Dining

Yes… it was in the same day as our brekkie! I usually don’t like to go out twice in the same day, especially if it wasn’t a special occasion, but the manz was busy on Sunday so he suggested just enjoying them fully on the same day.

After I went last time with my dangie and my bro, I thought my manz would love this place so much, and he was absolutely charmed! We spent some time thinking about the various decor

We got the peanut tofu appetizer, which was small, but extremely delicious!

It’s similar to a sesame tofu dish we tried somewhere else before that I forgot lol… but I think it’s homemade tofu. I really enjoyed it

This time, I ordered the garlic miso salmon special dish that I saw last time and OMG it did not disappoint. I’ve never had a salmon dish that tasted like this… It definitely would’ve been nice to eat it with something like rice, but the taste was phenomenal

The arrangement was so pretty as well… I didn’t know where to dig in

Since Habuya is next to a grocery store, after enjoying dinner, I finally got to satisfy my ice cream craving that I’ve been having for weeks!

Recently, Holo has been super cute on her walks

With the leftover ube latte, I made a strawberry ube second serving of it the next day. The espresso was so strong it still overpowered the new additions I put in hehe

At Tokyo Central last time, I saw this cute seasonal variant of &honey’s pixie hair oil… which was SO cute I almost checked it out right away. Like, look at that cat top!

However, I decided to wait on the thought of it for a bit, and decided to order it from Yamibuy where it’s a little cheaper. I like this oil a lot more than the melty moist version - I think pixie is meant for fine/lightweight hair like mine, so it’s really nice

I think I can continue to use melty moist for when I blow dry my hair, and pixie for finishing

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls

Ben Farthing

Goodreads

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Genre: Horror

TW: Puppets (lol), gore, vore?

Summary Johnny chases the possibility of his beloved late Grandpa's puppeteering body being alive again, but he ends up heading deeper, and deeper, and deeper. How did this apartment get so big?

Opening Line The first night I slept in my missing grandpa's apartment, a puppet came out of the wall and stood over my bed.

I haven’t reviewed them yet, but I’ve also read this author’s previous books: I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House and I Found a Lost Hallway in a Dying Mall. Apparently, these are books kind of in a similar style but are standalone and don’t need to be read in any order! This one is probably my favourite of the ones I’ve read!

A bit House of Leaves-like at a point, this story is fairly strange and needs a bit of suspension to enjoy fully, but what fun tale doesn’t? In general, the story of this kind of reminded me of the many indie horror game playthroughs I like to watch in that its gore horror can be pretty upfront and then there are… unexpected moments.

A quick read so I blasted through it, but really, most of that was because I just wanted to keep knowing more and couldn’t put it down! I had a few laughing moments too as the writer has a clever way of putting together some phrases that make it entertaining to read

The author typically includes an afterword at the end which includes his reason for writing that story, which I really enjoy! I’ll try to review the other books some time as well, but I really like this series something horror-lite, like a ‘beach read’

Nowhere

Allison Gunn

Goodreads

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Genre: Horror

TW: Child loss, freaky children

Summary Tragedy-struck couple Finn and Rachel try working through their dissolving marriage and grief, surrounded by guilt over the loss of their son in an accident. However, as disturbing crimes and disappearances of children in their town start to pile up mysteriously similar to local folklore, they find they need to see how to repair what they can to survive.

Opening Line 'Uh, guess again, Charlie.' Rachel glanced at her two girls, the keys in the ignition swung two and fro. Her dark aviator sunglasses hid her disapproval. Nevertheless, she was sure Charlie knew exactly how Rachel felt about her going out to Roanoke with Gemma Thopmson while Alex, her brother, served as the sole chaperone for the outing.

To start this review, I’ll mention that I don’t typically like these themes: violence targetting children (even if by horror) and toxic marriages. I just don’t really like those tropes that much, but I thought I’d try reading this as it’s popular with a “small town horror” theme.

The premise of this book feeling rather “folklore-y” in a small town is always a fun read! I was surprised to see that this is the author’s debut novel as I thought overall it was a pretty sooth read - I couldn’t stop reading it, even though I kind of dreaded it.

To be honest, I really disliked all characters in this book and especially one of the protagonists particularly - and I’m not sure if we’re supposed to dislike this character. They made a lot of decisions that felt more annoying to read rather than a realistic portrayal. I rather like flawed character depictions, but this was more like… I couldn’t care about their issues because they were so unlikeable (LOL).

Overall, I think the story was fun if not quite bleak/disturbing and I kept wanting to know more, but the execution ended up a bit messy. I would read another book by this author, but this specific story was just okay to me!