Let’s start with Azul, located in K11. I’ve been to almost all the restaurants in K11, leaving only this Azul and the neighboring Tomato Story, so I decided to give this one a try first. It serves Spanish cuisine with a relatively simple menu and not too many varieties, though it does change seasonally.
Pre-meal bread:
Prawns, with a slightly sour and spicy flavor that works well as an appetizer. The quality of the prawns is good, but the portion size is a bit small~~
Lamb chops. The taste is indeed quite good; the meat is tender and lacks any gamey odor. However, in terms of texture, it falls slightly short compared to Las Tapas.
Signature Seafood Paella. Generous with ingredients, including squid, scallops, prawns, mussels, bell peppers, and onions, all blended with the sweet and sour flavors of tomato and saffron. Authentic or not doesn’t matter; at least it’s a delicious paella, far superior to the undercooked one I had at Las Tapas…
Dessert was Rice Pudding, made with cherries and rice. It wasn’t overly sweet and tasted great. They didn’t forget to add cinnamon, either. Highly recommended.
Spend 400 yuan and receive a complimentary bottle of white wine. This bottle was a 2008 Wairau River Chardonnay from New Zealand. Surprisingly, it went down smoothly with notes of fruit and oak. Seems like the restaurant is quite generous after all.
As for the ambiance, this place isn’t very popular within K11, so it’s relatively quiet when there aren’t many people around.
Here are two more photos taken in the afternoon:
Harbin Road FVArt Coffee:
Xintiandi Paulaner:
By the way, let me also mention the MUJI aroma diffuser I bought to help with my recent insomnia. MUJI offers these diffusers in three sizes. They use ultrasonic technology to disperse essential oils into the air via water vapor. This is the medium size. The manual states it shouldn’t be used as a humidifier, probably because the mist output is relatively low and wouldn’t effectively humidify a room. The large size might work better, though MUJI also sells a separate small humidifier.
The light has three settings: bright, dim, and off. The diffuser can be set on a timer for 30/60/120/180 minutes, or it will automatically shut off when the water runs out. When it stops, the light turns off automatically as well, though I usually use it while sleeping with the light already turned off. I chose MUJI’s Sleep Well essential oil, a blend of bergamot, sweet orange, camphor, and cypress. You only need to add 2-3 drops per 100ml of water, so a small 10ml bottle should last nearly 100 uses. The scent is subtle, and being a pure plant-based essential oil, it has no irritating odors. Based on my experience over the past couple of days, the sleep-aid effect has been pretty good.
Photos in this post taken with SONY A5100 + 35mm f1.8, post-processed in Lightroom.
Support
