Lovely London

A quick trip under the channel last night, and I'm in London for the weekend! Lovely lovely London. It's a city that is filled to the brim with amazing friends and good food - so I thought I'd give you a little preview of the eating that is to come...will report back with the verdict!

The things I'm most looking forward to this weekend:
- Ottolenghi. Bakery deliciousness in Notting Hill. They also do amazing salads and take-away food like you've never really seen before.
- Borough Market. A massive market with delicious samples of cheeses, brownies, amazing sandwiches...oh man, the chorizo sandwiches are incredible...I can't wait!
- Neil's Yard cheeses...stilton anyone?
- Sitting in a pub and enjoying a glass of cider (yes, I will have cider and not beer - but it's more about the atmosphere than anything else...)

Now time to head off and enjoy!
A bientôt!

Cheese & charcuterie

A very significant addition to my diet in France has been the (at least) weekly occurrence of a meal consisting of cheese and charcuterie, most definitely accompanied by a glass of wine.

There really isn't a bad time for it - brunch, lunch, early dinner, late dinner, afternoon snack, aperitif, late night snack...it's the most versatile of meals, and it always hits the spot!

Last week I went to one of my absolutely favorite spots, Le Garde Robe - un petit bar à vin dans le deuxième arrondissent - which I discovered by chance about a year ago in march when I came to Paris for a quick visit. It likely gets credit for my subsequent move to this city, because I fell so in love with it, I have about 5 pages of notes on the logistics for setting something like this up in Vancouver/ Toronto, and have been back probably around 5-6 times since.

Ok - but back to the cheese and charcuterie. Here are my tips at putting together a good parisian cheese / charcuterie plate at home (picture on the right is a homemade one):

1. Use a board of some kind - slate or wood if possible (plates are apparently out of fashion)

2. Get at least 4 cheeses. Vary strengths, textures and milk types. I also like to vary colors (orange mimolette, white chèvre, yellow compté)

3. At least 2 different types of charcuterie - I've been on a bit of a 'saucisson sec' kick, sliced, and then a shaved jambon cru (like a prosciutto or a Parma ham). We did have some delicious smoked/cured filet mignon on our last plate at lgr - and it was delicious, but I'm not sure where to get that for home!

4. Serve with freshly baked baguettes , sliced into thick slices, and a knife or two for cutting. We sometimes also add cornichons, or dried cranberries or olives to accompany.

Of course, to be enjoyed with a glass of vin rouge - I'm loving the wines from Languedoc Roussillon at the moment - big, bold and juicy. Mmm delicious!

On a cold and windy night in Paris...

...there's nothing better to do than head to a tiny little adorable restaurant tucked away in the 10th.

Last weekend we had one of the coldest weekends in Paris. It got down to -10 Celsius. I only even realized how cold it was when I was at the market in the morning, and I took my hands out of my mittens to pay for some brocolli...and by the time I put them back in my mittens, my fingers were frozen. Amazingly, the outdoor markets were still busy (admittedly with crazy people like me who stubbornly refused to believe that it could get that cold here). It even snowed! Here's the photo to prove it - snow coming down outside my apartment:


Ok, so all of that to say that after a quick walk from the metro to get to this restaurant, we were ready for some warmth and deliciousness. Le Galopin is a super small, funky restaurant. It does a phenomenal prix fixe with a menu that changes daily, all prepared for you by the two chefs in the tiny kitchen that has a big open window out onto the about 10 tables in the restaurant. So you can litterally see the chefs preparing your food as you sit and chat and enjoy the cozy atmoshpere and excellent wine.

The lamb

I love not having to chose what I'm going to eat; and the two amuses-bouches (a little potato-shrimp soup that tasted like a champagne-based clam chowder, and a little zuchini/squash salad), entrée (cod sashimi), two mains (a super-tender fish, and a lamb and brussel sprouts combination), and two deserts (yes! two! a banana  ice cream and chocolate cookie-crumble, and a marinated pear, walnut and sorbet combo) really hit the spot.

Dessert #1! Pears and walnuts.
I had to have a bite before I took the photo...

Beautifully presented, perfectly cooked, we spent a good amount of time trying to guess at all of the different flavour combinations in each dish. Accompanied with a delicious bottle of bordeaux - all I can say is that I will absolutely be back!

Les salades niçoises

I have a new addiction. Luckily, this time it's not to crazy expensive (although delicious) chocolate, or to grey's anatomy (although I have discovered how to download this season on itunes...yay) - but actually to the iconic French salad: la salade niçoise.

Why iconic? It's available at just about every brasserie or bistro - and although it does vary in quality (sometimes it's pretty basic), it always involves the same deliciously filling and non-salad like ingredients that make it the perfect full meal (when accompanied with fresh baguette):
- potatoes
- green beans
- tuna (the best niçoise are with fresh tuna, all of the ones I've had and/or made in France are with canned tuna)
- hard boiled eggs
- tomatoes
- chives / parsley / cilantro
- super simple vinaigrette

I had a delicious one for lunch today at an adorable bistro near Place Vendome (le Castiglione - upstairs...it was packed and for good reason), which clearly prompted this post as i'm still thinking about how yummy it was, and Linds and I made one on friday night at home (picture below) where we discovered the secret to the best niçoise: Add some champagne to the dressing instead of white wine vinegar...exquisite!

Re-bonjour!

Hello blog.

I apologize. It's been quite a while since I've filled you up with some new stories. 

I have no good excuse. It's not that I haven't been anywhere worthy of reviewing...in fact, it's quite the opposite! I have been spending a lot of time getting used to my new city (I still get excited when I say this: Paris), exploring the wine bars and restaurants, sampling baguettes, cheeses, croissants, chocolates...

The only proper reason that I can give for not writing is that at first I think I actually found it tough to tell whether something was "awesome" because it was cool and different and Parisian, or because it was truly "WOW - Awesome!" because of the food, atmosphere, people or service.

Two specific events may mark the moment where I realized I could make the separation...After a day of perfect wine tasting in the Loire Valley, I managed to criticize a meal of delicious crab consomee and Coquilles St. Jacques (scallops) in Tours for not having enough 'atmosphere', and today I just enjoyed a delicious chocolate eclair from one of the best pâtisseries in Paris, and thought 'meh - it's ok, but I wouldn't rush back...not chocolatey enough'. I'm clearly ready to write again. 

So here it goes! To give you a taste of the past few months of fun, I'm going to start with my 'food and wine highlights', experienced in Paris and on other travels, including Avignon, the Loire Valley, Christlum (Austria), Dusseldorf, Megeve, London, Montreal and Calgary...it's been a very fun few months!  

1. A visit to 'Domaine Les Rochers' in Chinon, Vallee de la Loire, to taste their delicious Chinons in their Cave, built in the 15th century. Purchased my first case of wine!


2.  L'Office, possibly my new favourite restaurant for all of the right reasons: the chef is awesome, the atmosphere is fun and chill, it's full of french people...oh, and the food is truly exceptional.

A view of L'Office

3. Chocolate tasting volume 2 with my family over Christmas. We pitted the Parisian greats: Jacques Genin, Jean Paul Hevin, Fouquet and Michel Cluziel against Calgary favourites Bernard Callebaut, and new rogue 'Papa Chocolat'. It may have been a bit ridiculous to have 7 boxes of chocolates going at once over Christmas...but we survived. The winners? Jacques Genin, JPH and Bernard Callebaut.

4. A wine tasting night at an adorable wine bar, Avitus, in Avignon. Most people don't go to the Rhone Valley and taste 7 great Bordeaux wines - but by chance we found this wine bar and they were tasting bordeaux that night, and so we jumped in and enjoyed a 1989 Chateau Haut Briant, and a brilliant sancerre with a few Sommeliers and wine students. It was accompanied by fresh goat cheese and ham (from the village where the wine bar owner lived) - amazing.

Perusing the wines at Avitus

5. A fun Sunday night that started at L'Avant Comptoir (a fantastic wine and tapas bar serving incredible biodynamic wines), where we met some excellet chefs (from L'Office), and ended with L'As du Falafel on Rue des Rosiers - a Parisian Falafel institution.

6. Lunch with the other students from my french class at Creperie des Canottes - a group of Brazilian, Colombian, American, Irish, Korean, Taiwanese and Canadian students enjoying crepes de froment that could have been imported directly from Brittany and muddling our way through conversation in French...followed by a break in the sunshine in the Jardins de Luxembourg before heading back to class.

Class break in JdL

7. Apres Ski prosecco at the 'umbrella bar' (it's not actually called that, but it looks like one), in Christlum. Serenaded by the fun German band singing songs that seemed eerily similar to Oktoberfest (Schwim, Schwim, Schwim...)

8. Glu-wine, schnapps and Raclette at the christmas market in Dusseldorf. This was my first true Raclette, with the cheese melted directly off of the wheel of cheese, dripping onto the just-toasted bread. It was enjoyed standing up in a tiny little hut next to the skating rink, sheltered from the chilly winds. Both the cheese and schnapps helped warm our tummies.

9. Munching on warm-out-of-the-oven fresh baked baguette from an amazing bakery (Ble Sucre) in a neighborhood park in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, close to the Marche d'Aligre, complemented with some glorious sunshine, a 'cafe noisette' and some salted, handmade butter, purchased from the market. (a cafe noisette is an espresso with a tiny bit of milk - my new coffee of choice).

10. Wine tasting with friends in Montreal - we sampled 2 of my favourite South Africa wines, a Vergelegen and a Chocolate Block that I had been saving for a few years, and enjoyed on New Years Eve. We had a bit of a struggle with the cork on the Chocolate Block (a bit dried), but the wine was delicious. 

11. The best cheese fondue that I have every had, tucked away in an adorable little chalet-restaurant in Megeve. What made it so good? It had cepes (mushrooms) in it, was gooey, thick, piping hot and every bite was sooooo tasty. It also created the most delicious toasty-cheesy-crust in the pot at the end. Accompanied with some Crepy white wine from the Savoie wine region, it got us nice and ready for the next day of skiing in beautiful powder!

I'm looking forward to sharing more food and wine adventures from Paris!

La Comète: a great local

I'm amazed at the number of restaurants in Paris. It feels as though there's at least one on every corner of every street. I guess this really shouldn't have surprised me, given that last year the 'gastronomic meal of the French' was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list as a 'intangible' cultural heritage...but it's still pretty incredible. Our apartment, located in a residential area, is close (which I define as less-than-a-2-minute-walk) to at least 8 bistrot / brasseries, and that's not counting the two asian restaurants and the two creperie / shawarma spots either!

So it's not surprising that we have found our favourite local already. It's called 'La Comète'. It's open all day, and great anytime, whether it's for a quick coffee and croissant, light lunch, delicious dinner or late-night glass of wine. What makes it our favourite local? It's not that it's close (clearly we have options), or that it's fancy (simple wooden chairs and tables), but rather that the food is FANTASTIC, and the people are pretty chill. Any restaurant/bar that has their kids drawings pinned up on the wall behind the bar, and that has local 'jazz and beajolais nouveau night' seems pretty awesome.

Relish: The food is absolutely magnificent. Simple but satisfying, and consistently good. For dinner, they do a different menu every night - a great entrecote and frites, a super satisfying 'pot-au-feu' (which I discovered is basically a pot filled with a delicious broth, veggies, a duck leg and piece of beef, which tasted like the equivalent of a home-made chicken soup, nothing will be able to beat this for comfort on a cold day), a fabulous fondent de boeuf, and great fish dishes as well. The lunches are also great; a top-notch croque-monsieur (this is where we discovered that a croque-madame is actually just a croque-monsieur with an egg on top), and fantastic salade et croustillant de chèvre (basically a piece of goat cheese wrapped in filo pastry and deep-fried, served over lightly-dressed salad).

It's fun, because once the chalkboard with the menu listed on it is set down on a chair near our table, we usually we have to ask about 30 questions to figure out all of the different french foods on the menu:
- "What exactly is a fondent de boeuf?"
- "It's a slow roasted piece of beef that basically melts in your mouth, served with onions and berries"
- "What is a pot au feu? "
- "It's delicious and you should have it" (this answer resulted in my ordering of the pot au feu)

Quaff: A solid list of wines - glass, carafes and bottles all available.

Feel: Depending on the day, it can be a simple cafe filled with people studying or reading the newspaper, or a bustling dimly-lit bistrot packed to the brim!

I will definitely be back - possibly even tomorrow morning for a cup of coffee!

Jacques Genin and the Mille Feuille

Apparently, a regular contender for the best patisseries in Pairs is Jaques Genin, with his star patisserie being the Mille-Feuille. As part of my mum's chocolate-tasting-self-tour, we decided to try it out and see whether the reviews were accurate.

Unfortunately, we arrived at around 4 on a Sunday and the on-site cafe was packed. Instead of waiting in yet another Parisian line, we decided to get them to go. The shop is designed so that it looks like you're in a very high-end luxury goods store...glass cases protect the patisseries and white-gloved servers delicately serve your chocolates or patisseries to you in the most elegant (and only slightly outrageous) manner. This is only heightened by the fact that each Mille-Feuille is made to-order, and carried down a circular staircase from the workshop upstairs, and each patisserie is then boxed individually in a separate perfectly sized carry-away box. I was impressed.

Jacques Genin - Ephemere and Mille Feuille au Caramel

We selected the Mille-Feuille au Caramel and a chocolate (what else!) Ephemere as the second dessert - layers of dark and milk chocolate mousse and praline, topped with a passion-fruit mousse (we had initially tried to get an Opera, but they were all out). Once our Mille-Feuille was whisked down the circular staircase, and our Ephemere specially-boxed, we braved the Metro ride from Republique home (all the while protecting the desserts VERY carefully).

Relish: The Mille-Feuille was AMAZING. I don't even usually like Mille-Feuilles (too much cream normally), but this was incredible. The pastry was phenomenally delicious, crispy, and almost melted in your mouth, while the cream...a soft caramel taste...sigh...sooooo good. The only difficulty was in cutting it and eating it. Because the pastry was so fresh and hadn't been softened by the creme, it made it a bit hard to cut...but I figured it out eventually (use the only sharp knife in our kitchen...who cares if it's massive...).

mmmmm....

The Ephemere was good, but the passion fruit mousse wasn't so much my thing. I separated it from the bottom layers and then the chocolate layers were stupendous!! Oh, and the chocolate siding was also fantastic, delicious and creamy rich dark chocolate.

Quaff: We made a small pot of espresso on the stove with our bialetti espresso machine (which I am in love with). It was a heavenly combination.

Enjoy!