Back to the usual

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Today was a pretty busy day for me, both work-wise and cheating-wise.  My friendly neighborhood prime broker hosted an investor conference for us, and I spent the day playing the role of a broken record, telling different groups of prospective clients throughout the day why my boss is Da Man.  I think it got to the point where even the boss was tired of hearing me sing his praises…

But it wasn't all bad today.  There was plenty of good food around, and boy, do our prime brokers eat well!  We spent our lunch hour in their staff cafeteria, and I saw people going for seconds (and thirds) of baked Alaskan king crab legs, deep-fried mantis prawns and other delicacies.  They even managed to bring in a small team of elves from that world-famous export from my hometown - Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) - who made xiaolongbao (小籠包) to order right in front of us!  That was pretty impressive, coz I don't think Din Tai Fung makes house calls for just anybody…

Unfortunately I'm still trying to stick to my diet, so I only cheated a little by having 1 basket of xiaolongbao - which had 4 dumplings (and 4 portions of fat against my meal allowance of 1).  These may not have been the best or the prettiest dumplings I've ever had from them, but I was plenty satisfied.

The rest of my lunch consisted of food that stayed within the boundaries of my diet - udon (うどん), corn, celery, cucumber and green peppers.  Boring stuff, but I needed to save some quota for dinner…

After the last meeting was done, we were shipped back from the Dark Side for dinner at Cipriani.  It's been a couple of years since my last visit, and I was kinda missing the food.  As it turns out, our set menu included some of my favorite dishes at this place!  Hoooray!

Sea scallops with prosciutto and frisee salad - OK… so not the healthiest of options given that the scallops were wrapped with prosciutto…  Execution was OK, as the scallops were still tender but not quiet mi-cuit.

Baked tagliolini with ham - this is my go-to dish at Cipriani, and I haven't had it for a few years.  I was sooooo happy to see this!  It's been a while since I last had something baked with cheese and cream… Gobble gobble gobble…

Grilled tiger prawns alla Veneziana - a pretty healthy dish that put me above my protein quota, but got me my veg.

Classic vanilla meringue cake - O-M-G… Have I been missing this!  Like the baked tagliolini, I never fail to order this whenever I'm here.   I've bought so many of these whole cakes to takeaway, and also managed to introduce it to people like Tigger and ILoveLubutin along the way.  INHALED.

Well, that was a pretty good way to wrap up the day, and I even got to spend some time hobnobbing with prospective clients.  Must thank my friendly neighborhood prime brokers for treating me so well...