The Luxury of NYE

Hello everyone!  It's the end of the year, and a whole new year is right around the corner.  I usually like to reflect back and remember everything that made this year special for me.  One of those things is actually a fashion trend that I absolutely love, and that's all the baroque and ornate fashion this season.  I think it was important to remind everyone the importance of luxury and to get past that phase of minimalism for a season (although I do love it from time to time ^_^).

What is luxury, and why is it important?  I think luxury is best defined in the immortal words of Coco Chanel:

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty.  It is not.  It is the opposite of vulgarity.

Need I explain the importance of not being vulgar?

ModCloth Gilding a Mystery Dress

Filgree Metal Black Venetian Mask on Ebay

I actually wore this outfit to a Halloween party this year, but I think it will still work perfectly well for a New Year's Eve party.  I was so inspired by the whole baroque trend this season that I bought this dress at ModCloth when I got hold of a coupon code.  This was my first ModCloth purchase, and I couldn't have been happier with it.  When I read the description of this dress on the ModCloth website, I remembered that I had an old venetian mask that I bought on Ebay a while back, and that's how this whole outfit came together.  Everyone asked me about my mask at the party, and I'm thinking about getting the gold one to add to my collection.

I hope all of you are enjoying your New Year's Eve festivities, and please look forward to the New Year!

NYE @ Love Culture

Happy Asian New Year's Eve!

My family and I went out for lunch today.  Well, it felt more like two to three lunches combined together.  We had a grand total of 11 dishes (and that's not including the soup)!  Usually on this day families come together and have a big meal.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any yummy pictures for you guys.

Anyways, I went shopping right after lunch, and I noticed that a new store opened.

 I remember this store when I went shopping last week, and they were still doing construction on it.  Since I didn't have my camera with me, I'm going to show you the pictures I took last week when it was still under construction.

I would say that the store is more like a Forever 21 in terms of the quality of clothes and styles.  I bought a pair of black sunglasses for around $6.  I would have bought more, but they only had their spring clothes out, and it's still freezing here, so I passed.  The clothes there are really cute though.  Check out their website here.

NYE @ The Stanhope Grille

Although this is a few weeks late, I basically spent New Year's Eve (NYE) at the Stanhope Grille located inside The Black Bay Hotel.  I actually ended up getting lost, and I had to call a friend to help me.  -_-;  I get lost a lot even if I have a smartphone GPS.  They had a fixed menu, which included free champagne especially for that night.  Here's what I had:

This dish wasn't included in the menu.  I think it was just something that they were trying out.  It's basically grapefruit, crabcake (which I love!), and guacamole on the bottom.  It was a weird combination, but it worked for me and my friends.

This was the lobster soup we had.  At first I thought the white things were noodles, but they actually turned out to be some kind of cream.  It stayed pretty consistent no matter how much I was spooning the soup into my mouth.  We liked this dish as well.

This was probably our least favorite dish.  It's basically tomatoes, eggplant (or was it mushroom?), and some kind of crunchy cracker (?) put together in layers. 

Scallops and (I think) a different type of guacamole from the previous dish.  It was a simple dish, but I like this dish as well. 

This is the main course, and we each picked a different dish.  The chicken was kinda plain and not really juicy.  I couldn't really finish this, since I was getting full from the previous dishes and all the bread we had in the beginning. My friend ordered the sea bass, and after trying a piece of it, I liked it the best.  I was half tempted to steal it from her. ^_^

I love desserts!  (Who doesn't right?)  My two other friends had strawberry sorbet, but I opted for the creme brulee.  It was so good!  It was also nice and warm -- a great end to a good meal (and also the cold weather outside).

We each paid for our own meal, and I paid around $111, which includes a glass of wine that I had.  It was pricey, but it was also a nice experience.