tag: wine

So! I took an unintentional blog break last week. Birthday shenanigans plus a sudden influx of work meant lots of late nights and subsequent late mornings. You know how it is. Wine, and beer, and food, and friends, possibly some dancing, and suddenly it feels like the internet can do without you for one more night.

I couldn’t think of a better place to celebrate my birthday than at Verjus. So we went twice… once for drinks with friends in the bar, and once for the tasting menu in the restaurant.

I treated myself to some Grüner Veltliner for my birthday. Grüner is one of my favorite wine varietals, and it’s so hard to find in France! I’ve been asking Laura about this one for ages and finally bought the bottle.

Thanks to Edna, Jackie, Tríona, Oisin, Andy, and the gentleman for the excellent company!

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Posted in: dining out, paris | Tags: bar à vin, birthday, dining out, drinks, food, friends, paris, paris restaurant, restaurant, restaurants, rue de richelieu, travel, verjus, verjus bar a vins, verjus paris, wine | 3 COMMENTS

This week, a small group of us gathered at Dans les Landes to celebrate our friend Brad’s birthday.

It turned out to be an excellent choice; a Spanish/French tapas restaurant, Dans les Landes serves lots of shareable, creative small plates. Truffle risotto served in beef bones! Smoked duck and foie gras salad made into maki-like lettuce rolls! Mushroom “cappuccino” soup! Nothing pretentious, just good food and a convivial atmosphere.

Happy birthday, Bradley!

Dans Les Landes
119bis Rue Monge, 75005 (Censier – Daubenton)
01 45 87 06 00

And now I’m in Nice, writing from an American-style diner. I got here on Tuesday and the whole week has been a blur of trying to figure out the apartment and the town and realizing more and more that I’m irrevocably addicted to the internet.

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Posted in: dining out, paris, travel | Tags: birthday, cafe, emilie's cookies, emilie's cookies nice, food, france, free wifi, free wifi nice, internet addiction, l'expresso, l'expresso nice, nice, paris, paris restaurant, restaurant, tapas, travel, wine | 5 COMMENTS

This week, we visited the Salon du Chocolat, a huge chocolate expo at the Porte de Versailles. It was a chocolate, and people, overload — perhaps we should have expected it, since there are very few foods that people are more passionate about than chocolate.

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Posted in: dining out, life, paris | Tags: apartment, autumn, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, chocolate fountain, cuisine, fall, food, friendship, fromage, nougat, paris, paris restaurant, party, salon du chocolat, salon du chocolat paris, sherry, spices, tasting menu, tea, travel, verjus, vin, wine | 16 COMMENTS

Like Elaine from Seinfeld, I’ve always been something of a man’s woman. I have a lot of dude friends and not too many girlfriends. In fact, I remember in first grade that my two best friends were boys. I still talk to both of them on occasion. One is an expat in Vienna and other brews beer. Apparently first-grade me knew how to pick ’em.

But I do crave female company a lot of the time, especially here where friends are precious and few. There’s nothing quite like girl talk. There’s that ineffable quality in women, especially in gossipy one-on-one sessions, that makes me open up a little more than I am usually wont.

Ariane is one of the first friends I met after moving to Paris. She’s an artist. I have never seen her without some kind of sketchbook in her bag or in her hand.

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Posted in: dining out, paris | Tags: art, breakfast, chez jeanette, claus, drinks, food, friendship, girlfriends, lunch, merci, paris, paris restaurant, petit dejuner, travel, wine | 8 COMMENTS