Afternoon Tea at Jin Patisserie

Yuzu is Reading One Fifth Avenue Candace Bushnell

A coworker and I lunched at Venice's Jin Patisserie last week. It took us just over ten minutes to drive there, and we scored street parking right in front of the eatery. There were two showers (one bridal, one baby) going on, so seating was very limited. We ended up sitting on two mismatched chairs with five little "stools" pushed together to comprise our table. Although we had no umbrella to shade us from the sun, we were fortunate to sit by some lovely bamboo which kept us sunburn-free.

We both ordered the Afternoon Tea ($19) as it was our first time eating there, and we wanted a decent sampling of what Jin has to offer. The meal comes with a pot of infused tea of your choice — I went with the Péché Mignon because I like sweet teas. It's a Chinese green tea flavored with peach, passion fruit, melon and wild strawberry. It tasted yummy and fruity, and I didn't even have to add sugar to sweeten it up. A short while after receiving our teapots, our meals came out.

The set we got that day came with two egg-salad finger sandwiches, mini mushroom & spinach quiche, tiny macaron, two bite-size cakes, two mini scones w/jam and clotted cream, slice of butter cake, mascarpone & peach parfait and a caramel clove chocolate. As you can see, the sweets outweighed the savories. Three savory pieces and eight sweets? As much as I like sweets in small doses, I wish there was a better balance.

Not surprisingly, neither of us finished our sweets, so we packed them up to take with us. Before heading back to the office, I had to pick up a box of the much-blogged-about macarons. I went with a pack of eight and asked for a variety with no repeats — there were 10 flavors available.

©2008 Yuzu Eats; Jin logo © Jin Patisserie

I later discovered that the woman packed two caramel macarons, both of which were cracked and oozing caramel filling inside the pretty box. And I have no idea which flavors I missed out on. I made it through the box of macarons in several sittings, with help of my three-year-old niece who loves gulping down pretty macarons like nobody's business. My favorites: vanilla, strawberry and pistachio. Lemon was good as well. Chocolate was okay. Caramel is a never-again. The verdict on Jin's macarons? Way better than Cake House's, and almost as good as Bouchon's.

I would definitely eat at Jin again and maybe try the Lunch Set next time. The savories offered with this particular Afternoon Tea were really tasty, but I'm a carnivore and would've liked something with chicken or fish. So in the future I'll order a sandwich with chicken, prosciutto, shrimp or salmon.

Jin Patisserie
1202 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 399-8801

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Autumnal Cookies

Yuzu is Reading Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

I have been out sick most of this week. Some virus has been making the rounds through my office, as several other coworkers have been calling in sick as well. I've been in my pajamas for the past couple of days. Watched a lot of daytime TV. Surprisingly didn't do any crafting or much reading (I'm too lazy and tired to make an effort with anything).

Last weekend, however, I baked some cookies to welcome the season of autumn. They're plain sugar cookies with a festive touch — green & brown sprinkles and orange candy pumpkins that sort'a look like hearts.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

We're still experiencing a bit of a heatwave in southern California. Temperatures are higher than normal. It was cloudy and rained for a split second last weekend, but it's back to hot, sunny days again. I wish it would quit being so hot!

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Felt Macaron Plushies

Yuzu is Watching Gavin & Stacey: Complete BBC Series 1 Mathew Horne, Joanna Page, Ruth Jones, James Corden

Motivated by my fascination with macarons, I had the need to make some of my own last month. Not edible ones, of course. Just macarons sewn by hand. :) I used sheets of acrylic felt, of which I have an abundance, to make the food plushies. Below are raspberry, original (almond) and chocolate flavors. Their sizes are true to life.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

It's officially autumn now, but the weather is much like that of midsummer. This week we're having temps of 80-100ºF (25-40ºC). As much as I love the longer days of summertime, I'm done with the heat. I want it to get cold already! I feel like baking pumpkin bread or something autumny like that.

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Macarons from Cake House

Yuzu is Listening To Spring Awakening 2006 Original Broadway Cast

©2008 Yuzu Eats

A couple of workmates and I went to lunch on Sawtelle Boulevard in West L.A., where there is an abundance of Japanese restaurants and stores carrying cute knickknacks. After spending an hour (or two) browsing the shops, we felt it was time for dessert. So we made our way to Beard Papa. But before crossing the street, I spied some colorful macarons in a bakery window. I rarely get to eat macarons because they're not widely available, and I have to drive far (or fly to New York) to eat some. So I was quite pleased that a Korean bakery named Cake House offered them in their shop. I bought four macarons at $1.50 each — chocolate, lemon, raspberry and green tea — and later enjoyed them with my little niece. Verdict? The chocolate was yummy, as was the green tea (you can really taste the matcha), but the raspberry and lemon ones were rather dry. Perhaps this is because the macarons are not baked on the premises, so who knows how fresh they are when they're sold?

Later that day, I realized there's a Cake House in Buena Park, so much closer to me than the one I visited off of Sawtelle. Apparently, I had been driving past this bakery in Orange County every day, never knowing it existed because it's nestled in a strip mall next to a Ralphs supermarket. One would never expect to find macarons near Ralphs, after all.

The day after I visited the L.A. location, I made a quick trip to the Buena Park Cake House after work and purchased every flavor macaron they had available — coffee, chocolate, raspberry, lemon, green tea and blueberry. I shared them with my mom and dad, who enjoyed them with a cup of hot green tea. The blueberry macaron (which my mom thought would've been taro-flavored) didn't taste much like blueberry. It was more like a plain macaron with blue food coloring. The other flavors tasted the same as they did before. I didn't try the coffee one, as I gave it to my dad, the coffee addict.

I much prefer the Orange County location to the L.A. one because, for one thing, it's much bigger. The shop has tables in the back that you can sit at and hang out with friends. The baked goods, with the exception of the cakes and fancy pastries, are available for customers to just grab and place them in plastic basket trays to bring up to the counter for checkout. I'm glad I got to try the various macarons Cake House has to offer, but they sure don't beat the yumminess that is Bouchon Bakery's macaron.

Cake House 11301 Olympic Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310) 914 0404

Cake House 5410 Beach Blvd. Buena Park, CA 90621 (714) 522-0101

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Green Tea Bag

Yuzu is Reading Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals Therese Laskey

Yawn...I am so sleepy from staying up past 1:00 a.m. every night watching the Summer Olympics. They are addicting! I'm going to miss the games when they're over. :(

I picked up the Softies book above when I went to Borders during my lunch break earlier in the week. I had been eyeing it for a long time, and after perusing it from cover to cover, I finally took it home with me. There are just so many cute projects in there! I started with something quick and simple — the green tea bag.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

This is the tiniest thing I've sewn on a sewing machine. Normally I screw things up so badly on the machine when trying to sew something small, that I resort to sewing it by hand. But this was a win! I'm now looking through my Aranzi Aronzo books to see if maybe I'll try something in those...or make another plushy from this book.

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Strawberry Hello Kitty

Yuzu is Reading The Seer of Shadows Avi

Strawberries are food. So a crocheted strawberry Hello Kitty is food-inspired craftiness. :D I made this amigurumi a couple of weeks ago. As with a lot of the plushies I make, my niece got her little hands on the kitty as soon as I finished it. This is the first Hello Kitty I've crocheted, and I'm amazed at how easy it was!

©2008 Yuzu Eats

Ever since I read The Mystery of the Third Lucretia, I've been on the lookout for new mystery/suspense books in the juvenile section of the library. I picked up the book noted above, and so far it's interesting enough to keep me reading. I'm also slowly working my way through the rest of the Narnia series (by listening to the audio books during my commute). A little less than three to go.

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Crocheted Cupcakes

Yuzu Just Finished Reading The Mystery of the Third Lucretia Susan Runholt

I crocheted a couple of cupcakes last week using this pattern. They're chocolate-strawberry and red velvet, and they're just slightly smaller than real-life cupcakes. The first cupcake has a vanilla flower on top, and the other has a chocolate flower. I used worsted-weight, 100% wool yarn and Swarovski crystals. They turned out kind'a cute, and I'll probably end up making more. They're really quick to make (save for the sewing parts).

©2008 Yuzu Eats

I just finished reading a young-adult mystery novel called The Mystery of the Third Lucretia, which I really enjoyed. It takes you through the streets of London, Paris and Amsterdam along with two teenage girls who uncover, well, a mystery. ;P If you like Dutch art, European travel, or books about friendship and mother/daughter relationships, this is a good read. I also liked reading about the food the girls eat while dining out in Europe.

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Un-Macarons for Bastille Day

Yuzu is Listening To The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Harry Gregson-Williams

In celebration of France's national holiday, I brought some wannabe French treats to work today. Almost everyone knows of France's famous little sweet, the macaron. Inspired by My Paper Crane's wannabe macarons, I baked my own version of the treat.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

They're sugar cookies sandwiched together with frosting. The brown ones are chocolate, the pink are raspberry, the green are pandan, the yellow are yuzu, and the violet and teal ones are almond-flavored (I ran out of other flavorings, although ube would've been cool for violet). With the exception of the chocolate "macarons", I used bottles of pure extracts to flavor the cookies and frosting. I cheated on the frosting and used the store-bought kind, but I changed the flavor up a bit to match the cookies I paired them with. The longest step in the process was mixing the food coloring to get each section of cookie dough (and frosting) the right color, but I'm really happy with how colorful and flavorful these turned out.

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Faux Chocolate Truffles

Yuzu is Watching Hairspray John Travolta, Michelle Pffeifer, Queen Latifah and Zac Efron

Sorry, not a real food post again. =P I made more crocheted food to share with you! These little truffles were inspired by Pukashell's adorable little bon bons. I wanted to crochet something super quick and easy, and this trio of truffles fits the bill.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

I bought 'puffy' paint (which I probably hadn't used since junior high school) at Michaels and used it to add the drizzle effect on the tops. The flavors are (clockwise from the top) raspberry white chocolate, lemon with milk chocolate, and chocolate strawberry. Yum!

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Strawberry Pudding...Sort Of

Yuzu is Reading Northanger Abbey Jane Austen

This is a food journal, and while this doesn't technically qualify as 'food', it's a likeness of food. :) So I thought I'd post it. I've made several food-related crafts over the years, and hopefully I'll keep making more.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

It was so hot out this past weekend, I spent most of my time indoors. To pass the time while watching television, I crocheted this strawberry pudding. It looks kind of like a miniature flan. My favorite part is the teensy strawberry on top of its head. :)

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