Happy Friday!

Troy, Cath, Lar, Ali, Frances, photo by Dave Kell at Indecatur

Just a quick Friday post, loves! Cath and I did make it out to The Clermont Design Contest last night, but only briefly- I think the rain/monsoon might have scared most people away for the night. We dried off at the Bookhouse Pub afterwards with La Chouffe and peppery grits- yum!

You can read about the design winners on Dave's blog.

Hope you are all having a glorious start to your weekends!

LL

Top Flr Decor

The other night Lar and I decided to check out Top Flr in midtown. It's been open for a couple of years and we've been meaning to go ever since we read about it on Daily Candy Atlanta. It's a hipster's dream come true: Domino Magazine-worthy interior, a perfect blend of comfy and chic, and a simple à la carte, fusiony menu.

We sat upstairs that had this great wallpaper and black laquer floors:

On Lar: F21 tunic dress, necklace from Salon Red in Decatur, Jeffrey Campbell shoes.


On me: June Shin necklace, H&M dress, shoes from Eviva in Decatur.

Here's what the Top Flr looks like:


I spend way too much money eating out each week, but it's hard not to when there are so many great restaurants in Atlanta/Decatur. My boyfriend and I just discovered Ra Sushi on Peachtree and 11th (a sushi chain based in Arizona that serves surprising good sushi for it's overly-polished decor) and Ri-Ra Irish Pub on Crescent and 12th (also a chain, but has the best historically-preserved bar in town).

CL

On Being Sporty

Lar and I have never been the sporty types. When our mom asked as five-year olds if we wanted to do ballet or soccer, we told her we'd cry everyday if she forced us to play soccer instead of do ballet. So somehow, even at an early age, we've been biased against sports.

That being said, I've been trying to be more open-minded about sports and have gone to a few games recently. Plus, I like the whole social aspect of watching sports - hanging out with friends, eating junk food and drinking ice-cold cokes and beers.

About a month ago I went to a Braves game with some friends. Being more of a skirt and dress/ non-sporty type, it took me a couple of moments to figure out an appropriate game-watching outfit. A summer dress with sandals seemed too dressy, so I went with a denim skirt and tank. Lar took these photos of me when I got back from the game. I actually wore my red Toms Shoes to the game, not these impractical heels:


Hat from a local boutique in Decatur, skirt and tank from H&M.

I don't like wearing a lot of jewelry with casual outfits, so Lar let me borrow her trucker hat - I think it added a little bit of sportiness to an otherwise ho-hum outfit.



I know some of you non-fashion-obsessed out there can't understand planning out an outfit to wear to a baseball game, but I think that's half the fun. Who's with me?

CL

Shop Local: Evolve

Evolve Boutique in Emory Village (northeast Atlanta) is near and dear to my heart since it's the first boutique we ever featured on our blog. That was over a year and a half ago, so we figured it wouldn't seem redundant to do another post on such a great store.



Here are 3 reasons why we love Evolve:

1.) All the items in the store are by indie designers, local, earth-friendly, organic and/or re-purposed.
2.) Joyce, the owner (pictured above left), is the nicest person you'll ever meet.
3.) Joyce's dog (also pictured above left) is so sweet and greets every customer that walks in the door. Eat your heart out, Walmart.



We both left with some great purchases including an amazing ring Lauren picked up - we'll blog about that in an upcoming post.

CL

Our Inauguration Adventure

Watching President Obama's inauguration on the Mall in D.C. made waking up at 3:30 in the morning to catch the metro, standing out in the freezing cold for over seven hours, getting crushed in a crowd trying to exit the mall, walking for miles and developing plantar fasciitis in both feet completely worth it.



Even though we didn't have tickets and it seemed impossible at first to get on the Mall, we found our way in right around 12th St. We had a nice view of the Capitol in the distance and a JumboTron nearby. That's Obama in the first image below and Yo-Yo Ma in the second.


It was so exhilarating to be in a crowd of 1.5 million all celebrating and cheering for the same thing. I wish I could write more about the feeling of the crowd, but anything I'd write would sound ridiculously cheesy. So just believe me when I say that it was an amazing experience.

That being said, I don't think I've ever been so cold for so long as I was waiting for the swearing in. Three things made all the difference:
1.) Being with a great group of friends (Chris, Daren, Esther, Lauren and Matt).
2.) Having a delicious packed lunch that my mom made for everyone.
3.) Knowing that in a few hours Bush would no longer be President.


Thanks to all our readers for the well wishes, thank you Esther for the great photos and thanks to Daren for supplying the whiskey - it was a life saver!

- CL

A Visit to the Swan House

Although we've lived in Atlanta for a while, this was our first visit to the Swan House. It's a large historic house located on the grounds of the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead (a neighborhood of Atlanta).

The home's classical style makes it look older than its 80 years. Built in 1928 the house is considered relatively new even by American historical standards. However, Atlanta is quick to get rid of any building older than 30 years. So the Swan House is practically pre-historic considering its location.

Fortunately, the Atlanta History Center has been able to preserve the Swan House so that tourists, like myself, are able to explore the beautiful home formerly owned by the somewhat cultured and very wealthy Inman family.


Although the tour was over an hour long and it was a muddy walk to the home from the history center, Lauren and I felt it was only proper to wear heels to such a stately place. (Also, at a short 5'3", our vanity almost completely prevents us from wearing flats in public).

Outfit details: Lauren is wearing a H&M jacket, AA dress, H&M shoes and Ann Taylor purse. I'm wearing the same red Nordstrom coat from Saturday's post, Gap dress and H&M shoes.

I'm no expert in animal husbandry, but I believe the creature pictured below is a ram (which is a male sheep...I think). He was just standing around on the small farm located between the Swan House and Atlanta History Center. He was the only animal we saw on the grounds, which made me doubt the efficiency of the quarter acre farm. That being said, there is the requisite historic black smithy next door to the ram's house/shed/pen/barn/log cabbin(?).


Needless to say it was a very enjoyable - and educational - visit. I highly recommend a trip to the Swan House and its surroundings.

CL

1st Annual Unwrapped: Atlanta Web Party

Some of our loyal readers might have noticed the Unwrapped ATL Web Party thumbnail in the upper right-hand corner of our blog. Here's what it's all about:

Tessa, author of Drive a Faster Car, is hosting anti-holiday party at Vinyl this Friday and we're one of the media sponsors. The first ever AsianCajun sponsorship - woohoo! Hope all of you local bloggers can come join us!



The details:

The Last Big Event of 2008! (besides New Years Eve, of course)

We know what you're thinking. It's the day after Christmas and you are sick of the holidays. Unwrapped is your chance to let loose from the family and drink, mingle, network, dance with others in Atlanta you may have seen around the internet. Bloggers, designers, developers, and Facebook addicts alike are all invited.

Half of all proceeds are going to One Laptop Per Child to help create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

Friday, December 26

8pm - 2am

Vinyl @ CW Music Complex

1374 W Peachtree Street

Atlanta, GA 30309

See you there!

Getting into the (Victorian) Christmas Spirit

We spent most of our weekend in West End Atlanta at our favorite house museum, The Wren's Nest. Saturday we helped decorate the house for Christmas. Don't believe me? Well, here's proof. And here's what we were doing Sunday:



We spent a good bit of our time in the kitchen making sure there was a continuous supply of hot cider, hot chocolate and coffee for the visitors and, uh, taste testing the cake, cookies, mini cheese biscuits and chicken fingers.

Here we are in the kitchen (apologies for our overly-earnest poses - all that eating dulled our desire to pose fashionably). Lauren is pointing out the bust of Mr. Harris himself placed regally atop the fridge. Note: fridge and Christmas dish towels not original to the house. Come to think of it, the whole kitchen is not original to the house.

Outfit details: Lar is wearing a jacket and boots from Tarjay and Cheap Monday jeans. I'm wearing a H&M coat, J.Crew sweater, Blank jeans from Rockit and thrifted boots.

Up next on our to do list: decorate our own apartment for Christmas. Time to bring out our aluminum tree!

CL

Best of ATL Party

Although it might not be evident in the photo below (I look alarmed and Lauren looks confused), we had a lot of fun at Atlanta Magazine's Best of Atlanta reception last night. The best part was getting to hang out with so many other Decaturites outside of Decatur.



For our loyal readers, here's a image of Lar's new H&M fringe dress (mentioned in the previous post) that she wore last night. It's not really form fitting so she added a wide belt, which made it also look less costume-y. I think she looked fantastic!

Outfit details: I know her boots are from Tarjay, but I'll have to get back to you about the belt...

CL

Family Time

Lar and I flew up to D.C./Maryland for Thanksgiving and have been unable to check up on the blog as frequently as we usually do in Atlanta because 1) we've been spending some quality time with the family and 2) our parents' computer is slow and cranky (it was a struggle just to upload the images below).

So we'll be responding to everyone's comments later on this week, but until then, here are some things that we've been up to for the past few days:

Lar and my dad heading towards the Pentagon to check out the Sept. 11 Memorial. The memorial itself is very impressive, but the website is oddly very unofficial looking: Pentagon Memorial.


The National Building Museum is probably one of my all time favorite buildings in D.C. and the exhibits are always fantastic. It's also located a couple of blocks from Chinatown, D.C. where my dad was born and raised so it has a special place in my heart.


Lar trying on some sunglasses at Cafe Hon in Baltimore (or "Bawlmore" for you natives).


Our parents took us to The Walters Art Museum (also in Baltimore). It has a very impressive collection for being located in a non-international city and puts Atlanta's art museums to shame. Part of the museum is an 1850s mansion known as the Hackerman House. The rooms are so elegant it almost made me wish women could still wear giant hoop skirts - minus the tight corsets and the subjugation of women.


Lar is peering up at the stained glass sunlight at the top of the stairs of the Hackerman House.


So there you have it. Proof that we haven't been sitting on our bums all day eating Thanksgiving leftovers and being too lazy to even scroll around our favorite fashion blogs. I promise we'll be back in real AsianCajun fashion once we get back in town!

CL

Saturday Night at The Depot

We had a fantastic time at Saturday Night Sabotage hosted by Whynatte and Esperanza. Those guys know how to throw a party. The Black Dominoes were great and The Midnight Socialite captured it all here.

If we had planned better, Lauren and I would have taken some outfit shots beforehand to make this a genuine fashion post. Maybe next time!



Whynatte's Jesse and AsianCajuns' Catherine (me). Sorry ladies, he's already married to a lovely lady.


CL

Fall in Little 5

Just a quick outfit pic for the weekend. Lauren took this picture of me in Little Five Points. We were out shopping for last minute Halloween costume accessories - along with hundreds of other people. For you non-Atlantans, Little Five Points is Halloween Central filled with vintage, secondhand and alternative stores. I think the weekend before Halloween is the neighborhood's busiest shopping weekend. Did anyone else venture to L5P this weekend?

I took an awesome outfit pic of Lar, but right when I clicked the camera button the batteries died - curses! So I hope you can make do with only one half of the AsianCajuns for this post.


Jacket, cardi and scarf: H&M, cream shirt (you can't really see it): Pecan Pie Coutour, Jeans: Tarjay, Boots: Naturalizer.

Hope you're all having a lovely autumn-ish weekend!

CL

Runway Preview

Hello all! Apologies for the slight delay in blogging. We have two excuses for being AWOL. One, it's been an incredibly busy week for both of us (all this debate-watching, fashion show-ing has taken time away from blogging). And two, we've been trying to be more frugal - thanks to the economy going to pot - and frugality is time consuming (staying in to eat means taking time out to cook and clean, packing lunch means more time grocery shopping and preparing, not going to the dry cleaners means more time doing laundry. . . you get the idea).

Anywho, on to the fun stuff. As mentioned in a previous post, we were invited to be models in the Citysearch Fade into Fashion event Tuesday evening. Photos of our actual outfits from Meringue Boutique are on their way, but here are some teaser images:

These photos are deceiving because it looks like we're use to getting our makeup done for us. In fact I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I kept opening my eyes when I wasn't suppose to and I couldn't keep a consistent smile while the blush was being applied.


My hair was hairsprayed to death, but it still wouldn't hold, so I wore the hair clips up until the last minute. Lyle was a very patient makeup artist. I believe he is laughing at my face in photo below. . .hmmmm...


Even with getting our hair and make-up done and being able to wear fantastic clothes, the best part of the evening was seeing all the lovely peeps we've met through this blog. Tiffany Davis, editor of Atlanta's Daily Candy, was a fellow model and looked smashing in her outfit. I spotted June and Leila while teetering around on the runway. And we finally got to meet Jinah from Bonjour it's Jinah! (see image below).



More photos from the event to come!

CL

Weekend Highlight

Going through the photos from this weekend made me realize that Lauren and I have had a pretty fantastic couple of days. There were the fun political activities (see previous post), then we enjoyed the great music, great company and great margaritas at The Wren's Nest concert (see this post), and on Friday we got to meet Daniel and Eric, two of the guys behind the Esperanza clothing line at Kaleidoscope Boutique.



We've been fans of Esperanza for some time (evidence here, here and here). And after meeting its creators (they're some of the nicest guys in Atlanta), we're even bigger fans. Needless to say, we added two more shirts to our personal Esperanza collection:


Images courtesy of www.esperanza-atl.com.

And since we haven't done an outfit post in a while, here's a breakdown of what we wore on Friday:

On Lauren: tank and bandeau top from American Apparel, shorts are an old pair of jeans from somewhere and Zara boots.
On me: sunglasses from Urban, scarf from H&M and tee from Madewell.

I'm sure our new Esperanza shirts will be showing up in future outfit posts, so stay tuned!

CL

Politically Charged

Attending a house party for some debate watching Friday evening seems to have set the theme for this weekend. On Saturday we stopped by Wertz Contemporary in the Castleberry Hill district for the temporary Go Tell Mama! exhibit.


Go Tell Mama! is artist CRO's unique approach to campaigning for Obama. The traveling exhibit (Atlanta is CRO's last stop before returning to Chicago) features artwork inspired by the candidate. Check out Go Tell Mama! website for artwork, posters, shirts and a free download.

Pictured below l to r: Obama artists OBEY and CRO.

Image courtesy of www.gotellmama.org.

This morning I watched the latest Tina Fey/Sarah Palin SNL skit on Stephanie's blog. It's hilarious and scarily accurate.

I also had the chance to look through the October Vogue. Page 172 features a number of items from Runway to Change. Big name fashion designers like Marc Jacobs, Narciso Rodriguez and Alexander Wang have created t-shirts and accessories available on Obama's campaign website in exchange for contributions.

Personally, I'm not crazy about the designs. I think I might go for the old school look and just wear a button.


Images courtesy of style.com and barackobama.com.

1. A look from the Nicole Farhi runway.
2. Alexander Wang tank.
3. Albertus Swanepoel hat.
4. Rachel Roy Be the Change scarf.
5. Derek Lam tote bag.

CL

Weekend Delicacies

There's almost nothing better than eating your way through the weekend with friends.

Outdoor concert picnic: grapes, cheddar cheese, guacamole with tortilla chips and wine from Trader Joe's (nothing but the best!).

(Dress from Rockit in Decatur and boots from Newport News)


Cherry and grape flavored sno cones at the company picnic and Lauren's bf enjoying some champagne grapes.



A breakfast of pastries and coffee at Parish: almond and chocolate croissant, pistachio custard tart with strawberries and apricot/white chocolate scone.


Yummmm....

CL

Glamor Shots

After stopping by Dresscodes last Thursday (see previous post) we headed over to the Paste offices for the the launch of Regator.

If you have not checked out Regator.com, do so now. It's a fantastic website that lists and organizes thousands of the best blogs out there. (Fellow bloggers, if your blog isn't on the site, make sure to nominate it!)

Ryan of OhSnapKid.com took pictures of everyone standing next to Reg, the gator/team captain/mascot of Regator. As you can see, Lauren is looking fabulously glamorous. I, on the other hand, appear to be chewing the insides of my checks (I was trying to do an impression of Reg and started laughing when the photo was taken). Ah well, we can't all be photogenic like our twin sisters...

Glamor shots aside, the party was a lot of fun: excellent music, unlimited drinks and great company. We attended the party with friends and talented bloggers, Amelia and Lain, and finally got to meet face to face with the writers of the following blogs:

• Regator
• About Town
• Pop-o-Matic
• The Leila
• Drive A Faster Car
• In Decatur
  
• Oh Snap Kid

I believe a good time was had by all.

CL

Photos from Oh Snap Kid. See the rest of the Regator launch party photos here.

Evening at Dresscodes

Thursday night we stopped by Dresscodes for the store's gallery opening of Devin Borden's Survival of the Fittest. The place was packed with lovely looking people wearing skinny jeans, rompers, oxfords, and other fashion forward items.

We ran into our favorite indie jeweler, June Shin (her jewelry is sold at Dresscodes). Of course I couldn't help but snatch up one of her Ganesha rings. I've been wearing it everyday since.


CL

Day Trip to

This past month has been so busy that, not only have I not had much time to blog, but I've fallen far behind on posting images that I've taken from the beginning of the summer. Since this week is turning out to be as hectic as the previous three, it's a good opportunity for me to publish some old posts that I've been meaning to put on the blog for the past two months (including this post you're reading now).

Athens, GA is the quintessential college town and a perfect day trip from Atlanta. It has great, independently-owned shops and restaurants that are usually cheaper than their Atlanta equivalents and the city is home to an amazing music scene.



Agora (pictured above and below) is my absolute favorite shop. With over 50 different vintage dealers, I could spend a whole afternoon in there without getting bored. Hell would have frozen over the day I leave Agora empty-handed.



On my most recent trip to Agora I purchased a white 70s dress with black detailing, a cylindrical black and silver ring, and a pair of pink wayfarers for Lauren.



Every time I go to Athens I end up visiting with my boyfriend. He loves the coffee shops, but hates shopping (can't blame him). So, before the summer is up, I'm determined to take Lauren over to Athens for the day so we can do some serious shopping, coffee drinking, eating and music listening.

CL

Parish Atlanta

Parish (as in Louisianian county, not an ecclesiastical district) has become one of the most popular places to eat in Atlanta this summer. It's a restaurant/market that serves New Orleans inspired dishes and pastries. Being part Cajun, Lauren and I felt it was our duty to check out the place, so we dragged some friends with us one Sunday morning for the restaurant's deliciously rich brunch. The best part was the complimentary beignets - just like our mom makes them (from the Cafe du Monde beignet mixture).

Lauren has a huge sweet tooth. After a very filling brunch in the restaurant she promptly visited the market on the ground floor and order some more coffee and pastries.


The whole establishment reminds me of what an Anthropologie store would look like if it turned into a cafe: crumbling, exposed-brick walls, chic furniture, lots of greenery, quirky gifts, and antique signs.


I love how someone kissed the bum of the statue located in the middle of restaurant. And no organic market would be complete without its own reusable tote.


CL