Happy New Year 2012 21/01/2012
Happy New year and Happy Chinese New Year to all of you. We spent New Year's Eve and New Year in Carmel, California, far away from our traditional Sydney summer picnic and fireworks. Instead, we had a quiet dinner at La Bicyclette, (http://www.labicycletterestaurant.com) quite a good French restaurant there. Returning to Carmel after 25 years of absence was kind of familiar and at the same time new, as boutiques and restaurants are now everywhere and the city has finally surrendered to worldwide concern for OH&S by lining the streets with sidewalks! But it is still a charming little place, with antique shopa, wine bars, delicatessen, fashion and cosmetics boutiques aplenty and gorgeously set among the tormented pine trees. And obviously, once you get to the beach, you could think you are somewhere in Australia, if not for January wintery chill in the air! It seems also fashionable to have a "meute" of dogs to walk the beach and people seemed almost more attentive to their pets than their fellow human colleagues... As a gift to all of you for this New Year, we will give you free access to our newsletters until the end of February, including our latest one on "Olives and Olive Oil". Enjoy! Add Comment I was barely back from Paris that work took me to another Capital, and for almost three weeks, Canberra has been "home away from home". I just returned yesterday and hopefully there will be little travel from now until Christmas... So, having been on the road almost non-stop since the beginning of October, my usual enthusiasm for going out for dinner started to become more a necessity than a pleasure. Sure, I do enjoy coming back again and again to Belluci's in Manuka, because of the honest Italian fare and the friendly service that one enjoys by being a regular, and also having "brekkie'"at My Cafe in Manuka as well, where I do not have to place an order as most of the waiters and waitresses as well as the owner would not dare serve me my coffee before I have finished my food (they make a very good Egg Benedict...), an unfortunate habit of all cafes in Australia, where you end up either ordering a second one later or drinking the first one cold... So out of frustration, I went back to the Promenade Cafe at the Park Hyatt, a "valeur sure" in the Canberra hotel and restaurant scene. We had experienced some of the "new" style brought in by their new Executive Chef, Hartmut Kehm, and his Chef de Cuisine, Jiju Rajappen last Christmas, when I took my wife for a tour of the region's museums, restaurants and wineries and stayed at the Hyatt. So here I am on a lonely Thursday night, and surprise, surprise, there is now a three-course menu for 65$! That has to be good value, even if you add a couple of glasses of wine (which I did...obviously!) and the total bill was 84$. Most nights, for more money, I certainly didn't experience such good food in such a confortable and friendly environment. Dinner that night consisted of an entree of prawns, followed by a lovely pair of Italian style home made sausages on a mash and a generous cheese plate. It was so good that I asked if I could talk to the Chef, and Jiju comes and introduced himself, we have a chat, I told him about my blog, and how impressed I was with the new menu. We said our good byes and a couple of days later, I got an email from him, asking me if I was going to be in Canberra two weeks later for an special Asparagus dinner. I may have done the trip just for that, but didn't have to as I was already booked to spend the week in Canberra anyway - and no, it was not because the POTUS was in town... The memories of this dinner still linger, being one of the best meal I had in a long time. See my review on our "Restaurants" page. Also Jiju was kind enough to recreate some of the dishes from the set menu, so I could take proper photos: Over the last couple of years "commuting" to France to take care of my Dad , and spending a few days in Paris on the way, I usually stayed with a good friend in Versailles. This year though, he had just bought a new appartment meters away from the previous one, but in dire need of renovation. So this was not really an option... Besides, I had a lot of meetings for my other blog, most taking place in the East of Paris, so I decided to find a small hotel near Gare de Lyon and Bastille, and I found a little gem on tripadvisor.com - The Pavillon Saint Louis Bastille, old stone walls, tiny but confortable room. Only complaint was that their WiFi connection was not working in the room, apparently a temporary problem due to a change of provider. Nice little breakfast room at the front of the hotel where the service was lovely and the fare quite adequate, although cooked breakfast is not available. It seems to be very popular with Dutch people, a sign of good value!. It is walking distance from three Metro stations: Ledru Rollin, Gare de Lyon and Bastille a bit further away, so really convenient. Also, walking distance to Rue Cremieux - see photo on the left _ a very charming street lined up with plant pots, quite like a London mews. There is quite a collection of good brasseries, small bistrots and also the Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon itself. If you keep coming back and check my "Restaurants" page, then you will see my reviews of the ones I tried. Near by Bastille, there is a BIG market, with 6 kms (!) of stalls on the Thursday and Sunday - don't miss it! In the meantime, here are some photos and later on, see my review on our "Markets" page. One of my good friends in France took me to this bistrot, one of a handful featured in a new book called " bistrots de Chefs a Paris". It's all about tradition, best ingredients, respect for the client and passion infused food from non-celebrity Chefs. L'Ordonnance hides itself away in a back street of the 14th arrondissement, far from the tourist trail, but very well patroned neverttheless. A funny story told to us by the chef's wife goes like this: A badly informed journalist writes that the Chef is Japanese - consequently they get fully booked with hordes of Japanese tourists, until the record is finally put straight: the Chef is actually from Alsace! More on my Parisian and other discoveries over the coming weeks.... As far as I can remember, Mum always used one brand of olive oil, Puget. Although today, this product is made out from olives from all over the Mediterranean Basin, it originated in Provence, and was made out of local "picholines", the main variety grown in the south of France. Here, in Australia, we grow mostly Italian varieties, and I only found recently an olive grove in Mudgee that have planted "picholines": Blacklea Vineyard and Olive Grove in Mudgee, where I have been looking to buy a farm, with a mature olive grove on it. For the record, Blacklea is not for sale, but the grove I am looking at use Blacklea to process their olives.Puget started to export to south america and is now a big enterprise with not much resemblance with its artisan roots. If you are interested in learning more about olives, olive groves, olive oil and related products, subscribe to our newsletter and you will know as much as I do in no time! Restaurants Reviews - S, T, U, V 05/08/2011
Well, the birthday boy turned 21 on July 16th, and to celebrate, we went to Sepia for the occasion. As promised in an earlier post, we will review the following restaurants we had a chance to discover over the last six weeks or so. Here they are in alphabetic order: Sepia http://www.sepiarestaurant.com.au/ Tastevin http://www.tastevin.com.au/ Uncorked www.unionhotel.com.au/uncorked Venturo www.ventuno.com.au Read on: It is all here on our "restaurants" page Bastille Day and the Tour de France 17/07/2011
The month of July is traditionally very busy in France with the Bastille Day celebrations and the Tour de France, as well as a lot of people going on holidays. On a more personal note, it is also a month full of birthdays for our family: my grandmother was born on the 1st, my wife on the 3rd, my sister on the 7th and my son Gregoire on the 16th, being his 21st this year. Hence why you have not heard much from me recently... In Australia, we are lucky to have a great coverage of the Tour on SBS, with also some culinary delights, by either our local Gabriel Gate, a Melbourne-based French chef, or the French Food Safari every Thursday night - and obviously the ever present MasterChef competition, which is often French inspired! Some local restaurants are having a Bastille Day menu all month like "Uncorked" in North Sydney that we will review shortly. Late last month, as we had my sister-in-law and her partner visiting from Perth on their way to Las Vegas, we had the pleasure to share a dinner at "Tastevin", a gorgeous French bistro in East Sydney, also on the list to be reviewed. Finally, we have celebrated our son's 21st at Sepia in the Sydney CBD, where the chef is the ex executive chef at the very famous Tetsuya. To give you a glimpse of the place, I will just review the wines we sampled there on our wine page. I thought you would expect me to give you my (french...) impressions of the movie, so here we are! The fact that the film is primarily set in Cap-Ferret, near Arcachon, south of Bordeaux, brought back some fun memories of my early childhood, when we would take the train from Bordeaux to either Soulac, or Arcachon, in the Landes, with the bikes fitted with little seats for my sister (who was born there...) and me in front of our parents, a very affordable version of a "cabriolet" (but not "convertible" as we found out when hit by a big storm after a day of wandering around the pine forests and dunes that are the hallmarks of the region...). But let stay focused... The film starts with a bang, and I will not disclose it, as it would spoil the story for you - but I wonder how it was filmed...and it is the start of the unfolding of the sclerosed frienship of a group of mainly self indulgent French men and women in their thirties and forties. It is very well acted, and some of the portraits all along are really gorgeous (and I am not talking only about Marion Cotillard here...) Some of the scenes are hilarious, most of them related to the host, incapable of relaxing on his holidays and searching frantically for weasels supposedly squatting in his holiday house - and I let you find out if he is successful in his search, and for once in a French film, the only sex scenes are only in the brains of the participants (or in the dialogues...) which is a welcome change! (or is it???...). To be noted, the performance of Valerie Bonneton, playing the wife of Francois Cluzet ( on screen as well as in real life) the angry fifty something main character, quite amazing as a bored, loyal, and very smart housewife... The film's pace is pretty good all along, but eventually lacks in depth, as one gets fed up with the self-centredness of the participants, up until one of them speaks out and articulate for all to hear the depth of the misery keeping all these people together - and maybe this is the message of the film, and maybe my own expectations were different, or maybe this is just a movie to pass a good wintery afternoon, which it did quite succesfully! Your own opinions are welcome! Winners of Little White Lies tickets 11/06/2011
Well, the competition is over... Here are the winners: Nicole T and Mark L from Manly Janine S and James M from Melbourne Thiago D of Coogee and Martine C of Seaforth John B and Barbara S of Gladesville Jane and Kevin C of Hornsby Congratulations to everybody and enjoy the movie! Remember, it is this week-end, then public release on the 16th Little White Lies - a new French film soon to be released in Australia thanks to Hopscotch Films 19/05/2011
![]() Marion Cotillard Hopscotch Films, a boutique distributor of movies in Australia, has sent us a press release to annonce its preview in Sydney on the long week-end in June (10 to 12 of June). Hopscotch Films have previously released, among others, Mao's Last Dancer, of which I am the lucky owner of a DVD signed by Li Cunxin - the hero of the film, and the Aussie Director, Bruce Beresford. Here is the story behind Little White Lies: Starring Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) LITTLE WHITE LIES follows a group of friends who gather every year at a beautiful beach house, celebrating the birthday of one of the gang. Fun, French Riviera, fine wine and seafood mix with sun and sand as they all leave their city stresses and inhibitions behind. But this year is different. One of them is badly injured in a serious motorcycle accident just as they are about to leave Paris for their seaside reunion. His friends flock to his bedside, where their unconscious pal is still alive but in intensive care. What to do? Stay in Paris to be by his side, or leave for their vacation having been assured that there is nothing they can do? By the time they return he should be conscious and up for visitors. After some intense discussion, they decide to head off for enjoyment and relaxation. Over the course of the next week, all the tensions within this group erupt into full daylight. Through a succession of incidents, the group is pulled apart and dragged together by their ties of loyalty and marriage. Their relationships, convictions, sense of guilt and friendship are sorely tested. They are finally forced to own up to the little white lies they have been telling each other... The Director is Guillaume Canet , also an actor, in the Beach and Love me if you dare, has previously directed Tell no one. Some of the other actors are Francois Cluzet, Benoit Magimel, Gilles Lellouche, Jean Dujardin, just to name a few... Hopscotch Films having found our blog (in the first place...) and qualified it as "awesome" have kindly given us FIVE FREE DOUBLE PASSES for the preview. I am in turn offering them to my first five Australian readers subscribing to our Newsletter. (form on the right side of this page) Hurry up and hopefully we will meet at the Premiere!!! PS: There will be preview sessions in all major capitals in Australia. (Sydney Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra) As a bonus, here are a few clips and images of the film. Enjoy! | AuthorBorn in France, well travelled, relocated to Sydney in 1997. ArchivesJanuary 2012 A link here for our non-metric readers:
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