Jie 🤍

Get ready to soak up some Soleil! An open invite to join me at my favourite dinner parties & gatherings powered by candles, sharing plates and clinking glasses, to dreamy travel destinations around the world. Soleil curates a collection of recommendations & tips to take the stress out of hosting and planning, inspiring you to romanticise the everyday, and create new core memories. Watch this space 🤍 #hosting #hostingguide #shopping #events #event #eventplanner #eventplanning #table #tablescape #interior #aesthetic #dinnerparty #dinnerpartyideas #londonguide

The Blog!! 📝 A space written by an overthinker, for all the thoughts that usually live in my notes app or get said out loud to my friends (often forced to listen against their will)… Consider it an open journal of everything I’ve learned (and am still learning) from the many talented people and spaces that have inspired me along the way ❣️ From hosting philosophies to plenty of unsolicited advice & thoughts, expect the inner monologue of an overthinker, spilt onto a page, written chaotically with questionable grammar (exactly how it would sound if we were a few glasses of wine 🍷 in and mid-yap).

The sun’s shining again!! And so it’s only fitting to step back into Soleil Studios☀️ Say hi at our new home: 🤍 After some time to realign & regroup, this feels like more than just a “comeback.” What started as an impulsive creative outlet became the clarity I needed to redefine where I’m going and how Soleil would fit into the picture. Reintroducing Soleil Studios!! We’re bridging your brand’s social strategy with real-life community, bringing your online world offline and making socials, social again 🦋. At Soleil, we’re rethinking how brands show up for their communities. Moving beyond one-off events, we are building belonging and designing experiences as ongoing invitations into your brand’s world. We can’t wait to create new moments people want to be part of, from the UK 🇬🇧 to KL 🇲🇾(coming very soon :))

First dinner party of the year to honour of my fully developed frontal lobe Being a valentines baby also means the colour palette for your birthday dinners will always consists of reds — for obvious reasons 🌹 The styling of the dinner party made the evening feel so really romantic and intimate, as we shared the love with our galentines❣️ I used flower sponges for these floral arrangements and must to admit, I was nervous at first, but soon realised that you just have to trust the process and not try too hard to make it perfect. A few favourite details were using more exotic flowers that really stood out and using hurricane glasses around the candles, which I thought really elevated their look as the light could reflect and spread more evenly off the glass. Our menu started with “not-so” lobster rolls (due to budget constraints 😌), followed by stracciatella + roasted tomatoes + mortadella on homemade crostini topped with whipped ricotta and persimmons. For the main course, I served my version of Chicken Inasal inspired by @donia.restaurant —a must visit restaurant—with a side of fine beans + crispy onions and portobello mushrooms topped with Parmesan. The birthday cake is always a big deal and for 3 consecutive years now @ekbakery has never disappointed us with the yummiest cake — we chose chocolate sesame here! The evening’s theme was a wine tasting where friends brought bottles wrapped in newspaper. Throughout the night, we served each wine while everyone guessed its origin, vintage year, flavor notes, price point—and scored them on scorecards I prepared. This also just gave us the justification we needed to drink a lot more wine🍷

A little preview styling and hosting my 25th birthday at-home wine bar: Its my quarter life crisis, let’s w(h)ine about it 🍷❣️

Leaned into doing more of what makes me happy in 2024 with @_soleilstudios ,and safe to say it was a year of learning & experimenting — topped off with eye bags and body aches 😌 But I wouldn’t have had it any other way 🫶🏻 Grateful for all the tables I’ve got to set, the dinner parties with my favourite people, cooking and bakings shared and all the new faces I’ve met along the way. Excited to do it all again and more! 🍾 May have a 9-6 but always happy to host ur silly little parties👉🏻👈🏻🥹

Jom Makan! (Let’s eat! 😋) I hosted another supper club a few weeks ago honouring authentic Malaysian food from home 🇲🇾 Nasi lemak is considered a Malaysian National dish. It’s a fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf, accompanied by sambal and various garnishes of your choice, including ikan bilis (fried anchovies), roasted peanuts, cucumber slices. On top, rendang and kari ayam are dishes often added to your quintessential nasi to make it more ✨deluxe✨. Both dishes — several dry herbs and spices, lemongrass, curry leaves, coconut milk amongst others but the beef rendang here is a dry curry, a little sweeter, tangier and spicy with a thicker and more textured consistency whilst the kari chicken was a spicy coconuty warm and comforting soup base filled with flavour! It was my first time cooking Nasi Lemak and was so proud of how it turned out and that I was able to share a bit of my home with new faces 🫶🏻 @enruiiii also baked the yummiest pandan basques cheesecake! The pandan flavours shone through and the gooey texture from the center was the perfect treat to end our meal 🍰

A smitten (candy) kitten last week, working on more opportunities for @_soleilstudios ! I had the pleasure to style an event hosted by @karen.akc , Chic & geek, which brought together likeminded girls across London to do what we do best - wine and yap 😌 One for the girls, the tablescape welcomed everyone to a playground of pearls and pinks, and the sweetest treats baked by the most talented @eatsbyellaa . A big thank you to @candykittens kitten for inviting us to their lovely space. I had the best time planning and setting up this event — definitely looking forwards to more styling collaboration opportunities to come!

A heartfelt thank you to all our wonderful guests for joining us at the debut of Koeé Café! Your support means the world to us. Although I was initially nervous about inviting strangers into our home, we had the pleasure of meeting incredible people from Malaysia, Kenya, Australia, India, USA, Vietnam, Lebanon, Ghana, Pakistan, Singapore, and Bangladesh. It’s heartening to see a growing appreciation for Malaysian cuisine 🤗🥳 We apologise for any shortcomings and appreciate your understanding. Special thanks to @_soleilstudios for the stunning tablescape ideas, and to my amazing husband and sons for their incredible support and assistance. We’re thrilled to announce that our intimate home-based supper club will be held twice a month. Stay tuned for the next date! 🌿✨ #koeecafe #supperclub #malaysiancuisine #malaysianfood #supportlocal #kuihmelayu #kuihmuih #homecafe #homecafé

Over the weekend, @grungeee opened her home to @koee.london , her first at home cafe. Serving up true Malaysian food which brought me back home, reminiscing all the hawker and mamak moments growing up .🇲🇾<3 I had the chance to work together with Nadia in curating and styling her delicious range of nyonya kuihs from her menu. Born and raised in Malaysia, I can 100% vouch for how authentic these kuihs were, with flavours so true to home and made with so much care; they were perfect balance of sweetness, super fluffy and soft consistency with real pandan taste which shines through! Equivalent to the british scones these variety of delicious kuihs are a must have during tea time, or whenever you crave a sweet treat 😋! They are often made with glutinous rice/rice flour, pandan and coconut milk. From Koeé, we have the Onde-Onde, Bangka ubi, Seri Muka, Kuih Lapis , Ketayap and Karipap— all my favourites 🫶🏻 To honour these beautiful kuihs, the tables were styled with batik cloths brought over from Malaysia, ratan and woven serving plates/ dishes. I played around with different heights and levels, and used flower frogs to hold individual flowers up for the first time! I loved using these as they elevated the simplicity of the styling whilst leaning towards pastel colours on the batik and fresh flowers from yet another 5am hike to the New Covent Garden Market to compliment the colourful and vibrant kuih muihs.🌺 Couldn’t recommend Nadia’s kuihs enough — especially in August with Malaysia Day and Hari Merdeka coming up, you know where to make your orders for your slice of home away from home! Had such a great experience working with Koeé on this little project and we’re looking forwards to more cafe pop ups soon! :)

Il dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) in Italy — consist of a lot of wine & carbs in the most beautiful place 💭 It was so lovely being away from the city for a few days to ‘slow down’ in Tuscany, with my best friends for our annual girls trip. With stunning landscapes surrounding the vineyards, a common theme across tables set here was a quiet elegance, muted colours and simplicity in decor which let the scenery speak for itself. On the flip side, one of my favourite visits was @poggiotorselli . The villa itself was grand, surrounded by vineyards and olive trees, offering breath-taking views of the Chianti Classico hills and the city of Florence. We had a guided wine tasting in a marbled drawing room overlooking the stunning Italian Garden which features a rare collection of over 130 citrus trees! 🍋We all enjoyed their white wine and rosé so much so that we were convinced check in our luggages to bring a few bottles back to London! 🍷 With a couple days spent in Firenze, we ate our weight in florentine steak, focaccia & mortadella sandwiches and affogato. A few favourite tables I spotted on the streets were styled with fun & bold, block colours and checkered tablecloths - a forever classic <33

Lunar New Year dinner in London :) A simple dinner with friends from home (KL📍) with my favourite dishes on the menu: claypot chicken rice with Chinese sausages and braised pork belly + man tou. Anyone who grew up with food cooked over gas stoves understand the lack of “wok hei” taste in Malaysian cooking here. I made this version really easily in a rice cooker which still turned out really delicious! But mum used to make the chicken rice in a clay pot, cooked over the open fire which achieves the best part of the dish — the burnt crispy rice around the edges 😋 The braised pork belly was really aromatic and tender; though it was super simple, it certainly sounds really impressive when you say you’ve braised it for xxx hours 🙂‍↕️🙈 #supperclub #dinnerparty #dinnerpartyideas #host #supperclubhost #londonsupperclub