Nowadays, you can easily get recipes off the internet but I enjoy having to visualize it on paper and flip the pages manually. Trying random recipes online is like a cat in a sack, you don’t actually know what you will end up with. In most cases, I would twist the recipe to meet my taste and what is available in my fridge

Buying a new cook book to me means having a new commitment. That’s is why it takes weeks until I decide to get one - doing a bit of research before purchasing one. Why is that? I guess I am often sceptical about the recipes. Therefore, I am lured to books that are best sellers and having tonnes of good recommendation. 

One of my recent purchase was the “Moro The Cookbook”. 

After getting recommendations from a lot Italians that I know here in Halle, I finally went to try the pizza in Stella. Rumor says that this is the best Italian restaurant around!

At first, my colleagues and I wanted to eat there for dinner. Foolishly we didn't make a reservation and it was full! Second time I went with 2 of my friends and this time we got reserved some seats. That evening, we shared a portion of bruschetta and I ordered gnocchi with Prosciutto e Funghi (cream sauce, cooked ham, and grana padano cheese). The bruschetta had cut tomatoes, basil and garlic with olive oil - fresh, juicy and crispy. The gnocchi was super creamy and tasty; to me it was a bit salty because of all the cheese but this will not be a problem for cheese lovers. Portion was big and I was super stuffed and satisfied.

Once in a while, I get tired of cooking at home. Usually, I would go out to eat and pamper myself with good food.

It was not my first time but rather my 5th time back in this restaurant. Real asian food, not Germanized.

Restaurant Zhang is a Chinese restaurant located in Leipzig. I knew this place from a Chinese and Korean friend. They really recommended it to me. They mentioned that almost all Chinese people around go there to eat because it tasted more or less like the food they would eat in the mainland. They served quite a range of dishes from dimsum to pork ears, darms and chicken legs.

The other day, I accidentally bumped onto my standing saxophone. *Crash! Due to that, I had quite a bent on the edge of the bell and the keys/tones were messed up. Thinking swiftly, I contacted the German Yamaha office where I could find a place to fix it and whether the warranty covers the damage. Firstly, although my sax is less than 2 years old, the warranty does not cover the damage due to the owner's fault. Secondly, the Yamaha office does not have a service center for brass instruments. They mentioned that I had to go a local sax repair shop within the area I live. I contacted my sax teacher who was still on his trip to the states for a jazz concert and asked if he could recommended me one. He replied and suggested Marx Saxophon Manufaktur, located in Leipzig.