 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!
 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
 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!
 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
 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!
12 Cheeses - 12 Villages  Yes, that's right: our next Newsletter will reveal our 12 favourite cheeses and the villages they are coming from with tasting notes and wines to match!
Don't delay: register now, it is free and you should have access to your own copy as well as our previous newsletter towards the end of the week.
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 It is MasterChef season again in Australia, and we get glued to our screens most nights at 7.30pm...
In its third year now, this is an amazing phenomenon, with wide ranging repercussions in the life of many young or older people, as well as a big economical impact, as everybody rushes to buy the (branded...) products used, or visiting the restaurant whose Chefs are invited on the show.
Take the example of this recipe: it calls for verjuice and vino cotto.
These two ingredients are definitely not your top of the list ingredients in your pantry, are they? Do you know what "vino cotto" is? I didn't...
So, here I am, reading the recipe by Maggie Beer, one of our iconic food figure in Australia, following a hint from my ex-colleague Janine, herself a talented amateur cook who was short listed in the 50-strong Melbourne contingent of this year's program contestants, and guess what? verjuice and vino cotto are two of the ingredients that Maggie Beer makes and sells by the gallon (vino cotto is now her most popular product sold via her online shop!).
I had not seen the episode, a Masterclass, and got some help from Janine.
You can find the recipe here: http://www.masterchef.com.au/chocolate-quince-and-almond-tart.htm
I am not very good at pastry, and I struggled to get the dow right - in fact I failed lamentably, but got some consolation out of the fact that my friend did have some similar problems.
The end results were obviously very "eatable" as we both almost missed out taking photographs of the finish products...
So here are a couple of shots of the last remaining slices:
 Janine's Chocolate, Quince & Almond Tart  and mine...
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