Tom Yum at Daisy Mint, January 17, 2010

Yesterday, Ally and I braved then rain and trekked to Pasadena to attend the ultra-swanky Pasadena Bead and Design Show ... While doing the preliminary sweep of the neighborhood (which means that Ally wasn't sure where the Hilton was and I was absolutely no help), we ran across a little cafe on Colorado... From the look of it and the name, we assumed it was some sort of cupcake emporium...

When we returned after the show, we thought we would buy pastries at our new find and then go on to Dona Rosa's on Arroyo Parkway for pozole... But upon entering the restaurant from the pouring rain, we discovered that Daisy Mint was actually a very chic Thai cafe...



The first thing I needed was hot tea, and fast... Ordered a flowering green tea, with the dried "blossom" of leaves that opens up in hot water... It was kind of dark but this is the best I could do with a photo...

Ally chatted up a couple of older Japanese ladies - mostly in Japanese... They recommended the pad thai... Of course, we had to have tom yum, the zingy lemongrass scented soup...



We ordered the shrimp version, which was heavy on the lemon zing, but good, with nice big prawns swimming in it... Ally had the catfish salad, a whole filet served with a subtle green apple slaw... I went for something warm, salmon in red curry... Or was it yellow?... In any case, it was very good...

As were the leftovers the next day at work, warmed up in my bowl by Flower Pottery... Mike Flower told me that his bowls were microwavable but I was too chicken to try it... But I didn't have anything else to heat up the fish in, so I went for it and it worked like a charm...



But back to Sunday and the bead show... The find du jour has to be these recycled glass pendants by Recycled Loot...



As we sauntered out of the bead show at its end, shooed away by weary vendors and bleary-eyed from too many booths with their harsh lights to make everything blingier, we spotted this booth... Genevieve Church, the artist, was very congenial and allowed us to shop while she finished packing up... So we did...

The shapes are made from recycled glass that she culls from broken objets d'art... Already made in wonderful color combinations, she takes the shards, heats them and rejoins them into a ring to make these delightful pendants... The colors just make me happy...

The other quarry included a ton of keshi pearls, those irregularly shaped gems that look like potato chips... Or rose petals... Here is my latest creation, a book-shaped locket with pearl "roses"...



Good food and creativity?... There's got to be a connection... This from last week's LA Times proves it...