Coffee Bean at Starbucks?

Since it was a public holiday yesterday, I was determined to use my time efficiently to get started on the piles and piles of school work. This was how my morning went:

1. 8:13 am: Wake up and go back to sleep.
2. 9:00 am: Wake up and stagger to the bathroom and wash face.
3. 9:11 am: Grab some cereal and milk.
4. 9:23 am: Eat breakfast and reply to wall posts on Facebook.
5. 9:37 am: Go back to sleep.
6. 10:13 am: Irene wakes me up and asks if we can go to Bel La Beans Coffee (uh oh, I’ve made my sister addicted to coffee!). Coldly refuse and continue sleeping.
7. 11:02 am: Wake up and stagger to the bathroom and wash face.
8. 11:10 am: Eat Chinese food for lunch.
9. 11:46 am: Brush my teeth and take a shower.
10. 12:06 pm: Work on English project.
11. 1:20 pm: Take a nap.
12. 2:30 pm: Dad wakes me up and asks if we can play Scrabble. Coldly refuse and continue sleeping.

At this point, I started feeling guilty about taking all this time for granted, so I decided to go to Starbucks with my dad since I haven’t been there for a long time and I needed to go someplace where I wouldn’t fall asleep. For the fifth time.

Around 4 o’clock, we each grabbed our backpacks full of work and a pair of sunglasses to walk to Starbucks. Unfortunately, all the seats were taken, but since Gangnam has a lot of cafes, we started walking to another nearby Starbucks. Apparently, the nearby Starbucks was replaced by Tully’s coffee. We decided to try it out and went into the place. For one thing, nobody was in there, and I could see why: it was hot in there, despite the heat outside. We immediately left and thought of going to Paris Baguette, but I spotted another Starbucks across the street and decided to go in there first. The sofa seats were all taken, so we went out again and went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Finally! Coffee Bean wasn’t crowded and had comfortable seats, so I ordered a vanilla latte in a mug and took out my Mac to get to work. Wait a sec – what’s this? Server not found? Dad, can you ask what their wireless internet server is? What? They don’t have wireless internet connection here?
For about a minute, my dad and I panicked because a wireless internet service was absolutely necessary to do my work for hours and hours. My dad suggested taking the coffee from Coffee Bean to Starbucks – it’d be a little mean, but if the Starbucks staff gave us “the look”, we could buy a slice of cake or something. Besides, there were so many people at Starbucks; they wouldn’t notice because we’d be hiding in the corner. 🙂 Phew. Problem solved.

WAIT. I ordered my vanilla latte in a mug! My heroic dad once again rushed up to the lady and asked her for a regular paper coffee cup. Phew. Problem really solved. Hiding our coffee cups from Coffee Bean, we carefully entered Starbucks and settled in a corner near the sofa seats, so we’d be able to grab it as soon as somebody stood up to leave. Perfect!

We managed to not get caught, and did eventually occupy a sofa seat. Yes, we were drinking Coffee Bean coffee at Starbucks – rebellious! 😀 I felt so bad when the staff greeted, “Thank you, come again!” as we left – my dad and I agreed not to do that again. Unless it was absolutely necessary. But hey, I have to admit: it was fun.

I hadn’t been able to spend much time with my dad because we were both busy – my dad recently came back from a business trip from Hong Kong, and I was kept busy with schoolwork this week. I’m so thankful I finally had some time to hang out with my dad. It was indeed a crazy, fun day!

↑ Haha I’m such a poser.
↓ Who do you think I got those genes from?

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Thanks Dad, you’re awesome!

Pancakes…yum!

I am always craving for something to eat. Please don’t ask why – my stomach just has a very strange feature that makes an endless amount of room for food.
Last week, Irene and I were both craving for pancakes, so we decided to make them. We first went through the tiresome work of digging every kitchen cabinet in search of a pancake mix and…ta da!

I promise to make your stomach grumble by the time you reach the end of this post. 🙂

Step #1. Preheat the pan under weak heat.

Step #2. Crack an egg into a fairly big bowl and stir it.

Step #3. Pour milk (150 mL) into the bowl and mix it.

Step #4. Pour in the pancake mix and mix it.

Step #5. Slightly coat the surface of the pan with oil using a kitchen towel.

Step #6. Add the mixture on the pan and flip it after about 1 minute.

Step #8. Enjoy!

Is your stomach grumbling yet? Treat yourself with some pancakes today!
Thanks Irene, for helping out!

Bel La Beans Coffee

I am currently writing this blog entry as I sip on a vanilla latte at Bel La Beans Coffee – I should be reading Things Fall Apart but I’ve been wanting to write a post about this for quite a while – an awesome coffee shop I recently found near my house. It is located right behind a bus stop – I randomly came across the coffee shop as I got off. I was lazy to walk all they way to the other side to Starbucks, so I boldly entered the cafe, praying to God that the coffee wouldn’t be any pricier than Starbucks’.

Surprisingly, the cafe latte was only 3800 won and they even gave me a stamp card. 🙂

Given that the brand is relatively new, the coffee was pretty good and the place itself was nice and cozy (although the music is sometimes a little loud).

What do you call these? These cool buzzers that glow and vibrate when your drink/food comes out play quite a role in keeping the peace here. The staff working here don’t have to yell 24/7 at the customers to come pick up their drink/food.

My mom and sister also seem to approve of this place – they especially liked the smoke ham sandwich here.

I’ve studied here to prepare for quizzes and tests, work on group projects – just about anything that requires concentration – and it has indeed been proved effective. 🙂

Oh! Check this out – they actually care to design the surface of the coffee with milk 🙂

I drank a little bit and ruined the herb-like plant design.

Sorry Starbucks, I still love you, but Bel La Beans is cozier, quieter, cheaper, and closer. Nevertheless, I’ll visit you every now and then.

Photo via Bravo My Life and Bel La Beans

Unleashing the Chef in Me

Yesterday, my friend Jung decided to come over to my house completely out of the blue. My dad went out to work out, my mom and sister went out to shop, and I wasn’t doing anything in particular so it was a perfect day to hang out.
I was thinking of going out to the mall or cafe, but Jung had something completely unexpected in mind: he wanted to bake cookies. Why not?
*Please note: Jung and I had no idea how to bake cookies; we totally depended on a website which seemed fairly reliable.

Ingredients
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs,beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• If desired, 1 cup chopped pecans, or chopped walnuts

We first went to the nearest store to get some chocolate drops and vanilla extract. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find either one, so we decided to use M&Ms and forget about the vanilla extract.
Another thing – little did we know about softened butter. I decided softened butter meant melted butter…and panicked with Jung after microwaving the stick of butter and it came out like this:

According to our research, softened butter is also called “creaming the butter”, usually done with a rolling pin. Nevertheless, we just decided to use the melted butter.

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl by hand.  Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt.  The dough will be very stiff.

This was basically what it  looked like when we poured all the ingredients in the bowl. I’m not sure if this was how it was supposed to look like, but I kind of lost my appetite at this point.

Now, the instructions clearly said to mix by hand, but Jung and I were chicken-hearted; we decided not to touch the substance in case of allergic reactions.

2. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.  You’ll need to use a sturdy wooden spoon for this and a bit of muscle.  You can add the pecans, or other nuts, at this time if desired.  Keep stirring and folding the chocolate chips and nuts into the dough until they are evenly dispersed.  (This makes sure you have enough chocolate in each cookie!!)

Until, that is, we got excited after throwing in the walnuts and M&Ms. (Please don’t ask why the dough is so yellow. We know it’s abnormal and don’t plan to find out how it got its color. Perhaps the butter was…never mind.)

3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.  The chocolate chip cookies need to be this far apart because the dough spreads during cooking.  No one wants to cut the cookies apart after baking.

Apparently, the cookies bloat when you put them in the oven. Our piles of dough were a little too big to begin with…and sadly, we ended up cutting the cookies apart after baking.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown.  You may even think that the chocolate chip cookies are underdone, but they will finish cooking through out of the oven.  If you leave them in too long, the cookies will be tough or crispy.  (My kids eat them anyway.  I always over cook at least one sheet because of the phone, a child wanting some attention or some other reason)

Sigh. We really should have taken it out after 10 minutes.

“Maybe 2 more minutes?”
“What about 5 more minutes?”
“Let’s just make it 7 more minutes.”
Sigh. Here we are, right in front of the oven watching a movie and enjoying M&Ms as our poor cookies were suntanning.

5. The centers will be soft.  Let cool completely then remove from cookie sheet.  I use a flat spatula to remove the cookies from the sheet.  It helps to get them off quickly.  If you try to remove the cookies while they are still warm, the chocolate chips are still very soft and this can cause a very big mess as well as messy looking cookies.

Sigh. No, the centers were not soft. They were as hard as rocks.

Sigh. No, the black stuff is not chocolate.

Obviously, the cooking wasn’t exactly successful, but we definitely had tons of fun and learned a number of valuable lessons. 🙂

Thank God for Starbucks

Anyone having trouble concentrating at home?
Try going to a nearby coffee shop! 🙂

For the past few months, I’ve been spending my time at Starbucks to finish up my homework, study for exams, and read. Although I have my own quiet room, I find it hard to focus because my house is a little too comfortable; when I’m at my desk, drowsiness overwhelms me. Although my room is pretty quiet and my family members hardly disturb me, it’s sometimes hard to focus in a place where you’re too familiar with, at least for me. These days, I just use my desk to read books.

A lot of people think that coffee shops are loud and even harder to focus at. The Starbucks that I go to is relatively small, so there aren’t many groups of people who loudly chat with friends. Instead, the cafe seems more like a library; there are people everywhere, mostly businessmen, who work on important-looking matters as they type away busily on their MacBooks. It provides an excellent environment for me to focus – no doubt.

I always get a tall size cafe latte – a cup costs 4, 100 won! It’s pretty expensive, but then again, I think it’s worth it. Actually, I sometimes even feel guilty; I buy a mere cup of coffee and stay there for at least five to six hours. Usually, I get there around six o’clock on school days and return home a little past eleven. Crazy, I know. The poor staff can’t even tell me to get up and go. They’re probably thinking, “Does that girl have a life?”

In fact, I go there so often that they’ve memorized what I’ll order. On Tuesday, a young woman who works there smiled when she saw me entering, as if she’d been expecting me. When I started, “I’d like a hot cafe latte…” she answered, “tall size in a mug, right?” She asked if I was a college student preparing for a test (seriously, do I look that old?). I laughed and said I’m just a high school student trying to finish homework. 😀

I’ve basically settled in Starbucks. The calm cafe music, the sweet coffee bean scent, a hot cup of cafe latte doing its job of keeping me awake, and no one disturbing me as I do my work – what more could I wish for?

photo via Jim Somerville
photo via the Starbucks website