Do you Yelp?
Thursday night was February’s Yelp Elite event at Café Madam with Electric Strawberry Boat. It was a night filled with delicious grub, good music and delicious cocktails. I was a huge fan of the Hendrick’s punch. What’s better than gathering food lovers in a new & fresh Paris café to mingle?
The grub at Café Madam was to die for, and I’m anxious to go back there for breakfast or brunch sometime.
Thanks, Yelp.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to one of Le Foodist‘s Daring Pairing events. Le Foodist provides a variety of different events where people from or visiting Paris can experience culture through food. Whether it be for a dinner, a wine and cheese pairing, or a tea time history of sweets, you’ll be able to take a big bite into French culture.
This particular evening, on a cozy péniche right under the Notre Dame on Quai Montebello, we participated in Daring Pairings. It was chilly and snow was falling, and it was the perfect setting for a mysterious undertaking of pairing with two of France’s most prided things: wine and cheese. The creator of Le Foodist, Fred, immediately greeted us as we entered Bateau Daphné with our chilled rosy red cheeks. As soon as we walked into the boat, the covered bottles and empty wine glasses awaited us: this was going to be good.
A lovely sommelier, Stéphane Bonnerot, so full of energy and passion, introduced 4 wines to us, explaining to us how to properly taste them and notice each of their particularities: we shook the glasses to see the marks that would fall from the glass, we sniffed them to see what aromas we could guess, we observed the color of reds in front of a white piece of paper. All that good stuff.
Once we made all of the visual observations, we tasted the wine in a few different ways, seeing if we could decipher the dryness and sweetness. All of these traits made for a fun guessing game of where the wine came from in France. Stéphane tied in the history behind the wines and the differences that various regions and grapes provide. This helped us to guess the perfect cheese to pair with each of the four wines tasted.
By the end of the evening I had a wealth of new knowledge and I was anxious to impress my Frenchman of a boyfriend with my knew cheese and wine pairing skills. Not kidding. I now can bluntly state that I never would I ever serve a comté with a white wine! Bien sûr!
It was a night filled with laughter, mystery and passion. People of all ages and all nationalities came together around one fusion of a love: French wine and cheese. The whole night I kept thinking about how fun my mom would have at an event like this, while visiting Paris. What a wonderful and unique way to meet people.
And after a toast of bubbly in the winter chills under the lit up Notre Dame and the reflections of lights on the Seine (yes, Stéphane did indeed teach some people how to open a bottle of champagne with a sabor), we wandered back home in the snowy snowy Parisian night.
For more information on what Le Foodist has to offer as well as their calendar and prices for these diverse and magical events, you can check out their website and their Facebook page. The events happen several times per month but still fill up, so it’s advised it to reserve in advanced for your visit to Paris.
If you’re interested in their Once Upon A Table dinner experience, be sure to check out this lovely post on the HiP Paris Blog.
A special thanks to Fred and Stéphane for their vigor and energy.
{Photo by Lomography France}
A few days ago I popped by the Yelp Winter Food Festival at La Cartonnerie, and it was a hoot! So many passionate Parisian peeps that write the oh so lovely reviews that you can read on Yelp, passionate about sharing their bonnes trouvailles all in one place.
On the food side, there were the folks & goodies from Sugar Daze Cupcakes, The Kale Project, Chacun ses goûts, Tyrrells Crisps, Lomography, Demory, All you need is wine, and a few other fab hotspots…!
What a fabulous evening in such a fantastic venue.
Cupcake Camp II was on Sunday. I think I lost count of how many cupackes I consumed. It was certainly a lovely event to throw together to gather all cupcake lovers across the arrondissements of Paris (official Cupcake Lovers in Paris right here). The event definitely was a success, all proceeds were donated to Make A Wish Foundation France! You can read about the final notes right here. It was such a nice afternoon *cough un très beau temps*, and quite an amazing venue, Le Comptoir Générale, in the 10th. P.S. Marie behind Off We Bio won the prize “Best Fall Inspired” for her Apple, Nut & Maple Syrup Bio Cupcakes (see above) DELISH, and cheers for it being such a small small world.
Special thanks to Bryan, Nicolette and Cat for setting up this Sunday filled with delicious perfection!
You can check out more photos from Cupcake Camp on their Flickr. If you went, add yours!
And for side notes:
Have you seen these amazing photos by Andrew B. Myers? (via Design Work Life) I am totally obsessed with the Twister one. Talk about great colors.
I’m also drooling over these boots from Topshop.
Where are you shopping for your coats this season? I’ve seen some great ones at Urban Outfitters & Anthropologie.
Some fun facts about France right here by Lindsey (also the mastermind behind cookie cupcakes above via Lola’s Cookies).
The October summer only lasted through the weekend, now the gray skies are telling me that October is actually here.
Cheers to autumn! (…..and cupcakes)
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