miami - #sobewff day one

here's my day one experience in miami for #sobewff..

i must say, miami is kinda nuts.  different than waikiki nuts.  drivers are ruthless, cab drivers are mean, people on the street are.. interesting, i rarely saw any asians!  haha.  plus, they tack on 16-18% gratuity automatically on your tab, regardless of how many people in your party!  

during the day, denise and i walked around, shopped and ate.

i HAD to stop by the kardashian sister's miami shop.  it wasn't as impressive as i hoped for, the store was empty.  they did have a security guard at the door and their service was nice.

at night, we went to #sobewff opening event beachside of the delano hotel.  

the size of the event is amazing.

the decor at #sobewff was spectacular!  i mean, the amount of people the event had was outrageous!

probably about 3,000 people?

art smith - he used to be oprah's personal chef, he was on top chef.. 

and he will be at our festival in september!

robert irvine and i throwing up the shaka for hawaii~

i know you must think it's weird, but we went out to eat after checking out the event.  :P  we went to michael's genuine food & drink - it was a casual place, with an open kitchen and patio seating.  the food was great and our server was so knowledgeable and entertaining!

deviled eggs - bomb.

hmmm those small oysters were so good! my fav.

denise & roy, it's always fun going out with them. <3

fried pig ears - the first time i had pig ears was in la at the lazy ox.  i haven't had it much since then and this one was so good.

fried hominy - you know, corn nuts!?  those white corn that's in those spicy mexican soups?  add some lime and pop it in your mouth.

desserts by james beard foundation pastry chef nominee, hedy goldsmith.

that beer float back there was amazing~

after i got back to the hotel, i didn't fall asleep till 5:30am!!  but all in all, day one was really fun!  i'm ready for more food!

miami trip

i'm in miami biaaaatch~  

gawd, first off, can i just say...  traveling to miami from hawaii SUCKS.  there's no direct flight, you're traveling to the other side of the united states of america, literally.  and it took a total traveling hours of ten to twelve hours (i lost count).  i left home at 10:45am wednesday.  i got to miami at 6:30am thursday.  i'm in miami for "business" - really.  it is a lot of eating and drinking, but lucky for me, that's my job!  roy is a participating chef for the south beach wine & food festival and i'm here to check out how things are done on a grander scale.  hoping to take some ideas back for our hawaii food & wine festival coming up in september.

this is the first sign i see as i walk out of my terminal to baggage claim - genius.

sunrise in miami.

this is TOTALLY the image i had of miami - palm trees dividing the freeway.

i'm staying at this fancy-pancy hotel.  loews will probably be one of the nicest hotel i'll ever stay in my life.

i got to the hotel waaaaay too early.  obvi, my room wasn't ready, so i tried to nap by the pool.

rough life.

this is my room at loews!  click the link --> aya's fancy room

(and if you're not one vine yet, you don't know what's up.)

that's all i'm going to share for now.  coming up will be my adventure around miami and the south beach wine & food festival (sobewff).

stay tuned.  xoxo.

bubble nails by aya - valentine's day

although i don't care for valentine's day, i must say, i'm pretty excited for this year's.  this is the first valentine's day that i am off in 10 years!!!! yup, TEN. i do feel that valentine's day is a silly, but hey, it's good for business so i'm all for it!

pa'a and i don't have anything planned for the actual day. we enjoyed a very nice dinner on friday night at japengo at the hyatt waikiki and we have dinner plans with friends from oc on wednesday so that's more than enough celebrating.

anyway, lets get to the important stuff!  nails!

here's my special valentine's day nails.  (got the idea from pinterest!)

sexy hot lovely nails

pink:  gelish - pink smoothie

red hearts:  gelish - hot rod red

glitter:  gelish - high voltage

iridescent holograms 

mid-january hawaii weather

**i was suppose to post this in mid-january when i first wrote it, but then i thought my shiitake rice was more interesting.  :P

am i so spoiled that i get to enjoy beautiful mid to high seventy-something degrees weather in mid-january??  although, it's been pretty cold at 5:30am...

should you be jealous that i'm wearing my hot pink bikini, soaking in vitamin-d and working on my tan?

hahaha, yah you should.

this was a sunset image i captured real quick as i was driving home from the gym.

it doesn't get better than this.

i'm lucky to live in paradise~

shiitake & chicken broth rice.

with my hopes to live more frugally this year, i'm trying to get the most for my bang.

by that, who doesn't love costco's rotisserie chicken?  it's $4.99, it's flavorful and a good size.  i usually eat half the chicken for dinner the day i buy it.  then i'm sick of it that it sits in the fridge for a day or two.  then i feel so bad throwing half the bird away so i thought to myself, "why not make chicken broth?!" 

but then, i make about four quarts of chicken broth and... uhhh.. what the hell am i going to do with this much broth??

my friend and chef suggested i make rice with it.  and to make it even more flavorful, add shiitake mushrooms.  it definitely reminded me of the rice my mom used to make, but her's consists of sake, mirin, etc. that i don't have on hand.  (i also did get a new zojirushi rice cooker, so it cooked the rice soooo well!)

can you smell that???

it came out so delicious, no salt, no additives, pure chicken broth, shiitake and rice.  full of flavor.  i could eat BOWLS of this!!!  now go try it and tell me how amazing it is!

bubble nails by aya - chevron blues

chevron stripes is totally the new thing/fad these days.  i tried to use tape to create straight and precise lines, but eh, that was taking too much time.  so i decided to hand-paint these thin lines.

chevron blues nails

blue:  gelish - ooba ooba blue

white:  gelish - sheek white

black stripes:  gelish - black shadow

gold glitter:  gelish - bronzed

gold holograms

bubble nails by aya - new year eve

i'm a couple weeks behind, but here's nye nails.  my nails had its own new year's eve party!

party like it's 2012 nails

black: gelish - black shadow

silver glitter: gelish - showstopping

silver small/big holograms

copper flakes

ready for more nails in 2013!