11-Aug-2025
And here we are, a third of the way through August already...
Apart from our epic trip to Bau on the pink bus, this first segment of August has been mostly spent in some version of the indoor world.
Fortunately, the awful smoke pollution I was moaning about in the July review was stomped on (temporarily at least) by a couple of mega-deluges. Yay!
But the rain itself has kept us in sometimes as well. We had the wildest of storms yesterday... Really, perhaps the hardest, heaviest, and most horizontal rain we've ever seen here. Luckily it didn't last long, but long enough to come streaming in through a (closed) window...
Anyway, cafes and malls have been the order of the day, all the more so as our building is still not quiet for various reasons. The fourth floor repairs seem to have broken out again. And a new scourge has arisen: The attempts (multiple) to deal with the stump left by that late lamented tree. How many visits with an apparently not very efficient chainsaw does it take to defeat the stump of a tree that was allegedly done away with because it was "old"?
So, mostly what I have for you is cafe news:
Farewell brunch with a friend at Ember
The place on Padungan that does the nice mee pok
Tangy and delicious zao cai fen gan from Foochow Estay. This is the one with the preserved mustard greens, and the version from this place is now my favourite
Jing Si's new brew, which I'm hoping will indeed prove inspiring
This is Sit & Sip's hojicha with black sesame topping. Excellent
A new cafe has opened up next to the gelateria we tried the other week. This one is called Flos
The cakes are a little too pricey for regular consumption, but the aesthetic is lovely
And finally:
There's nothing more decadent than the occasional tuak nightcap...
Morning moon