was berlins kreuzberg/neukölln, das soll der stadtteil jungbusch für mannheim werden. vom sozialen brennpunkt entwickelt sich der stadtteil immer mehr zum kleinen kulturviertel zwischen rhein und neckar. neben den altbekannten instanzen wie der onkel ottto bar, kommen auch neue bars/cafés wie zum beispiel das cafga hinzu.

abgesehen vom nachtleben hat auch bildung und existenzgründung seinen platz gefunden. sowohl pop-akademie als auch der musikpark mannheim geben die möglichkeit sich  in der medialen landschaft zu entfalten.

es lohnt auf jeden fall einmal vorbei zu schauen.

Le Meilleur du Monde is a new cafe and ice cream shop situated on 5th Avenue. It prides itself on specializing in Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. The tiny cafe offers its customers a wide selection of sumptuous sandwiches served on your choice of a freshly baked baguette or panini, croissants, waffles, porridge, salads, smoothies, cakes, and hand prepared ice cream in tasty flavors that include stout. 

The owner, Millicent Clarke, runs the business with her husband Ernaldo; They make just about everything on-site so be prepare to experience the freshest of fare no matter what you order. Le Meilleur du Monde offers take out, delivery, catering, or eat in service to their customers. They hope to add sidewalk seating in the spring. 

Located on the cross section that separates east and west Harlem, customers can sit on one of the stools in the front window and watch the world go bustling by. 

Le Meilleur du Monde
2029 Fifth Avenue (btwn 125 and 126 St.)
212.534.4343

Hrs: M-Sat 7A-9P, Sun 9A-7P

(Credit: D. Bell for Uptownflavor.com)

Eva and THAT famous advert

I own this seemingly unmarketable object – Brighton’s loudest alarm clock – because a magazine advert, not dissimilar to the famous one on the top of this page, caught my eye. I don’t remember it well but it probably had one of those catchy little slogans that adverts have: “Don’t live a little, live an alarm clock”, for example, or “If you like a lot of alarm clock on your biscuit, join our club”

Bear with me; I’m coming to my point – but first I must brief you about two other events yesterday that bring me to write this blog.

Half an hour after rising, I was on Twitter when I noticed a message exhorting people to race to www.millionpoundlist.com. The website was one of those attempts to raise money without doing anything much. Click on the link if you want to know how crass it is. In most cases, you’d have to be as thick as a rhino’s bunions to fall for this sort of thing. Alas, it was persuasively worded and I stumped up a tenner hoping there would be some eventual advantage for the tea shop. In retrospect, there won’t be.

The third event took place at Asda in the Marina, where I got so angry I left my half-filled trolley in the frozen peas aisle and came home empty-handed. Brighton and Hove is full of supermarkets from which I have flounced without any groceries and this time it was because they didn’t have the nut roast I wanted. Or any nut roast, for that matter.

How are these three events linked? Well, they’re all about advertising, or ‘legalised lying’ as HG Wells called it, and how it works.

In the first two, I was duped into parting needlessly with cash by forms of advertising. The third is an example of how I was left disappointed because I didn’t take advantage of the available advertising – in this case, the product search facility on Asda’s website.

Advertising, you see, is everywhere and in some form or another affects you and me hundreds of times a day. This fact, and the fact that the advertising industry here in Brighton alone is worth tens of millions of pounds, tells us one thing: advertising works. For small businesses like Metrodeco, there’s no hiding from that fact. And that is the point of this blog. Sure, if you’re like us, you’ll take advantage of free advertising, or PR, as the PR industry calls it. But you won’t get a steady stream of timely, high profile, on-message coverage unless you pay for it. A local press campaign can increase awareness, establish familiarity and, ultimately, drive up sales.

I’m not going to go further into the boons or the banes (ie. the cost), but what I want to do here is give you the benefit of my limited but valuable (I hope) experience of Brighton and Hove’s advertising industry from the perspective of a small business. That way, if you ever have a heart attack, a brief period of internet stupidity and a bout of intense trolley rage all in one morning and decide that you too need to advertise, it might be a little bit easier for you to navigate that murky world.

So, onto business. Like all good things, good advertising is like tea.

It’s:

Trustworthy

Energetic

Appropriate

Taking each criteria in turn, it has to be trustworthy because, if it’s not, people will find you out and your adverts and everything else you say will become ineffective. Have you seen the recent national newspaper adverts by Halifax building society, in relation to the floods in Cumbria? They claim to have ‘put in place a number of special arrangements to help Halifax customers’ affected. These include three month mortgage payment holidays and emergency overdraft increases. Piffle! These things were available at all reputable banks and building societies before the floods, including Halifax. It looks like spin and makes Halifax look cynical.

People are already suspicious of the whole industry without being lied to and our detailed research on the issue in the Brighton & Hove area shows us why:

Metrodeco Guesstimate Graph 2009

Why energetic? It’s thought we are bombarded with around 3,500 media messages a day from brands attempting to capture our attention and engage us with their products. Even my local bus stop in Kemp Town has now started talking to me with its ‘real time’ display, rather than behaving like a normal inanimate object. Most of this noise is boring. Deeply, mind-numbingly, soul-scarringly, eye-gougingly boring. And utterly pointless too. So by the following day, 99.9% of these messages forgotten. You, too, will be forgotten in the blink of an eye if you don’t attempt to bring something fresh and original to the table. So think about what your advert is saying and whether the consumer will have seen a similar message that day.

Finally, your advertising has to be appropriate in terms of the audience, the likely affect of that advert on that audience and the cost. It’s pointless advertising zimmer frames at the local youth disco, especially if you have to sell your husband or wife to afford the advert.

Below this blog, I have provided a run-down of some of what’s on offer in Brighton and Hove and how much it will cost you. Admittedly, it’s only the print side of things, but I’m sure our friends in TV and radio will let me know if they have interesting to add.

Next week: how to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Ends

CITYWIDE PUBLICATIONS

• BRIGHTON AND HOVE LEADER

Delivered once a week (on Fridays) to homes across Brighton. Importantly, it’s free, which means it has a huge readership (over 95,000 according to its publishers, Newsquest). On the upside, this means all sorts of people will read it, from sports fans to politicians to religious leaders – so you’re likely to reach your target audience and some you didn’t know you wanted to reach. It’s also only available in Brighton and Hove – so if that’s where you customers are, then you’re not wasting any money advertising in places like Lewes, Crawley or Worthing. The downside is that it’s fairly expensive at £7.50 per column centimetre. In English, this means it’s going to cost you in the region of £330 for a quarter page colour advert.

• THE ARGUS

The city’s daily paper and key publication. Same price for adverts as the Leader but slightly fewer people will see your ad – 91,000 read each paper (about three times as many as actually buy it). Thursday is a good bet if you think this is the publication for you as it’s the best-read with jobs guide and motoring pull-out. Again, it’s got mass appeal, but although its core readership is in Brighton and Hove, it is sold across Sussex. If your advert is in the Argus, it’s likely that it will be on the side of a packet of fish and chips within 24 hours, whereas the Leader can hang around homes for a week. However, the Argus is more influential insofar as it is read by far more of the city’s power-brokers and decision-makers than. It might interest you to know that nearly half of the Argus’s readers are over 55. Of those in the core area of Brighton and Hove, 56% regularly enjoy eating out.

• BRIGHTON VISTOR

One of the hardest working ad teams of them all, the Visitor gang are our favourite of all the magazines. They will not only put your ad on the pages of the mag AND the website but will promote you endlessly on Twitter and by word of mouth. At only £275 for a half page ad this publication is definitely recommended. Also, if you’re looking for an ethical ad placement, Brighton Visitor puts massive amounts of time and effort into community events, like the annual Food Festival and does a lot to promote the city in their own time and at no profit to themselves.

• LATEST 7/LATEST HOMES

Available for free at hundreds of Brighton and Hove outlets, this weekly glossy mag is a bit younger and fresher than the Argus stable and at £300 for a half page advert, your money goes a bit further. Of all the zillions of city magazines it has the feeling of being the most established and trusted. It’s the one, for example, that the city council leader writes in and has a talented editor in Bella Todd, formally from Time Out. The Latest sales team claim that more than 100,000 ‘in Sussex, London and the South’ read it, which begs the question: “How many of those live in Brighton?” For my money, it’s not as credible as an independent news and features publication as the Argus because it offers favourable ‘editorial’ with paid adverts, leaving readers wondering just how honest the many supposedly objective reviews inside are. However, one of the best advertising opportunities in the city is the Latest’s ‘Hot List’ listings at £10 per week per entry (minimum of six issues). Very cheap but advertisers tell us it is effective.

• ABSOLUTE BRIGHTON

EXPENSIVE!!! £650 for a half page ad but this is the posh kid in the class. This glossy magazine looks higher quality than Latest, with its spine and professional front page photography – so it’s a surprise that it’s free. It is delivered to a limited area of the city around the Dyke Road area (ie the posh houses). My feeling is that if you’re selling dental cosmetic treatment or Ferraris, this might be your publication. There are some very high profile celebrity interviews, high end interiors features, travel features and reviews. However, the writing is not up to the standard of Latest. 25,000 copies of Absolute Brighton are distributed around Brighton and Hove and the surrounding areas and it claims to have a readership of 65,000 plus.

• YOU GOT PAPPED

Unlike most new kids on the block, you get the feeling Papped is here to stay because it’s a bit different being so photo-based. This monthly publication describes itself as “a photographic review of all that happens in Brighton and Hove”, covering “fantastic events, as and when they happen”. Describes ‘mud wrestlers’ among its key audience, making the point, which I’d agree with, that it has a wide appeal. It’s only £200 for a half page ad but that’s because there are only 10,000 copies of each edition, which are distributed to bars, restaurants, hotels, gyms, other clubs.

• GSCENE

This is a bit of a no-brainer. It’s a gay lifestyle mag so is probably the one for you if your audience is the gay community. Worth noting here that, while you might not have thought your audience was necessariy the gay community, Brighton’s gay population is estimated at 50,000. Furthermore half own their own home and 75 per cent are working – so there’s likely to be a bit of spending power there. Gscene is high quality and very independent, which accounts for the fiercely campaigning style of its reportage and comment. There are 20,000 copies distributed in Brighton and Hove, and 10,000 to London and the south coast from Bournemouth to Eastbourne. The editor claims that approximately a further 15,000 readers nationwide download a copy online each month. A good bet at £275 for a half page ad.

• ONE80NEWS

Lesbian and gay free newspaper, fortnightly, claims to be for an older, more informed read. Print run of 20,000 but is read by 60,000. A half page ad is £460.

• ABC MAGAZINE

Free Brighton-based parenting magazine and directory. Distributed in local libraries, leisure centres, children’s centres, doctor surgeries and the like. There are three issues a year and the print run is 35,000 (estimated readership 105,000) – distributed across the county. In Brighton, it counts among its advertisers organisations like Brighton Baby Expo, Tumble Tots, St. Aubyns School, Susanna Cassam Music Tuition and Rox School of Dance & Drama – all give glowing references. The cost is £460 for a half page ad.

• WHAT’S ON

Free pocket-sized monthly listings guide to Brighton and Hove, launched in 1995, 10,000 copies every month, nearly half distributed to pubs and clubs. In the words of the sales team: “Your advertising has greater potential to be viewed repeatedly in a listings guide more than a magazine as the reader returns to the guide on a regular basis throughout the month to view events.” A half page ad is £275.

• BRIGHTON SOURCE

Principally a monthly listings magazine, but also contains interviews with local ‘characters’. Distributed in pretty much in every pub, bar, café, record shop and cool clothes shop in the Brighton & Hove area. A very good cheap option at £40 a month for a listing.

STUDENT MAGAZINES

• THE BADGER

Weekly student newspaper of the University of Sussex Students’ Union.
It covers news, reviews, comment and listings. Claims to have secured exclusive interviews with Will Smith and Johnny Depp. Written by students so likely to be more trusted than the official university magazine. A half page ad is £380, which is expensive for its measly print run of 3,000.

• THE PULSE

Sussex University’s termly glossy mag politics, culture, feature investigations, arts and lifestyle. Again, expensive at £380 for a half page considering the even smaller run of 2,000. But it’s likely to be kept for a longer period than The Badger.

• THE PEBBLE

With a print run of 7,000, Brighton University’s Students’ Union newspaper would seem to be better value at £375 for a half page ad.

BEST OF THE REST

In the West of the City, HOVE FACTUALLY is delivered monthly to 5,000 homes in central Hove, 2,700 in the Hove Park area and 3,000 in Hangleton. It’s A5 booklet size and an ad is cheap at only £65 for a half page ad.

In the East, the KEMPTOWN RAG is widely read and well-loved with its eccentric columnists. It’s hand-delivered to 7,000 homes in Kemp Town (note correct spelling) and Queen’s Park.

There are many other publications that are very local. Some are good, some less so. They’re distributed to anything from 5o to 5,000 homes and ads are usually around £80 for a half page but can be as cheap as £10.

I list some of them here:

Seven Dials Directory (9,500 homes), Fiveways Directory (3,000), Hangleton Harbinger, Hanover Herald, Hollingdean News, Knoll Scroll, Mosaic, Moulsecoomb Community Forum Newsletter, North Laine Runner, North Portslade community newsletter, Portslade Pages, QPCV News, Roundhill Reporter, South Portslade newsletter, West Hove News.

NOTES:

Rates are for one-off ads – discounts are nearly always available for bulk purchases.

Hier werden wir euch in Kürze Cafes in Bielefeld vorstellen.

2nd food bloggers’ gathering of the month was sweet. Literally. 1 Caramel, the latest patisserie in town, was chosen as the place of honour to indulge our sweet tooth.

9 desserts. 8 foodies. 6 cameras. 1 passion.

I don’t like shortcakes. But this Shortberry Shortcake ($8.90++) has changed my mind. Yes, it’s that good. Usually the sight of stark white cream in shortcakes turns me off but this rendition uses strawberry creme instead. You may think that ultimately it’s still cream but the colour and flavour matter to the fussy me. The contrasting texture between the soft vanilla genoise and crisp puff pastry flakes is another plus.

Conclusion: I like unconventional shortcakes!

Forget dryness when it comes to the Hazelnut Pear Torta ($6.90++). This cake was extremely moist (in a good way!) and despite its dense look, it wasn’t overly rich or heavy. Nor were the caramelized pear slices too sweet.

I like.

The petite Red Miso Souffle ($12.90++) scored big on originality and creativity. I wouldn’t have thought that salty miso would complement the sourish yuzu ice cream so well. This was interesting but it’s a pity the portion was so small. Ah, and there’s that annoying icing sugar on it again.

Midori ($7.90++) is one of the latest creations with a strong Japanese influence to it. The matcha sponge and azuki bean compote layer are common enought but what differentiates this from other green tea cakes is the yuzu infused bavarois. Very distinctive and light in texture.

Lychee Rose ($7.90++) is a misnomer. I think it should just be named “Lychee” since the strong fruity taste overwhelmed the rose infused mousse and Valrhona ivory chocolate glaze. It’s lucky that I’m a fruit (and not “bundung”) lover so the cake was still acceptable for my palate.

As a general rule, I don’t like/eat cheesecakes or cheese tarts. The Peanut Butter Cheese Tart ($6.90++) is not likely to change my mind anytime soon. This is seriously for hardcore P.B. lovers! It was so rich that I felt like I was eating P.B. straight from the jar. The law of diminishing returns definitely applies here. You will either love it or hate it.

I’m still sitting on the fence.

Compared to the above cakes, the Chocolate Praline Cake ($7.90++) came across as prosaic. Any self-respecting patisserie will have some sort of signature chocolate cake and this is it for 1 Caramel. It’s a safe choice since it’s quite hard to go wrong with chocolate mousse and crunchy hazelnut praline feuilletine.

Just very average.

My 3 criteria for brownies? 1. Nutty. 2. Fudgy. 3. Moist. I’m not sorry to say that the Brownie Almond Cake failed my last 2 tests. For just $4.50++, the thick slice was value for money though.

I’ve saved the worst for the last. One bite of the Carrot Walnut Cake ($5++) with cream cheese frosting was more than enough. I’m not a fan of carrot cakes to begin with and this just reinforced my stand.

Dryness to the max is what this is.

If you haven’t noticed it by now, I’d ranked the cakes in order of my preference. No prize guessing which one is my favourite! Unless you totally hate sweets (an unfathomable concept to me), it’s more likely than not you will find something you like since there are more than 20 cakes to choose from daily!

I’m high on sugar.

Here are my sweetest foodie friends (Hi! Nice meeting you guys!):

Angeline & Janelle from Sistafood;

Elaine from Divine Essentials;

Fen & Yuan from Indulgence After Workout;

Harris from The Simplest Aphrodisiac;

and Michelle from Never Trust a Scrawny Foodie.

1 Caramel
6 Handy Road
#01-01 The Luxe
6338 3282

Cozinha Popular: aprenda a preparar um bom café

Location: Girin A (Hongdae)

Something special happened the moment that I took this photograph and I love that I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s really helping me cope today.

“Before Stumptown, Gorilla, Grumpy, and even Dallis, there was a coffee roaster who set up shop in Manhattan, and 160 years later, still proclaims the good news about specialty coffee. Gillie’s Coffee,who moved to Brooklyn from Greenwich Village in 1991, survived through the tumultuous economic times in the coffee world, the “coffee crash” of 1881, when unsuccessful attempts were made to corner the market on coffee. They’re still surviving even as the third wave of young bucks spread the coffee gospel.”

via Coffee Chronicles: Coffee’s History In America, A Short Primer | Serious Eats : New York.

Desde hace unos días salgo cada mañana a la “difícil tarea” de elegir un café donde sentarme a estudiar. Y digo difìcil tarea porque si hay algo que puedes encontrar por todo Berlín son cafés de todos tipos: cutres sin estilo, glamourosos (los menos), bohemios alternativos (muy abundantes), cafés de barrios en los cuales familias con niños toma el kuchen (tarta) y disfrutan de los helados en verano. Algo tiene Berlín que hace de estos cafés lugares muy acogedores, donde puedes pasar horas y horas sin querer moverte de allí con el consecuente resultado para el bolsillo y la figura (yo nunca puedo resistirme a probar cuanta tarta hay). 

Pues bien, mientras buscaba qué café invadir hoy cual okupa con mis libros, cuaderno, bolis, kleenex y demás, me fijé que del otoño queda bien poco y si hace dos semanas salir a la calle era un espectáculo de color otoñal ahora de ello no que más que los restos pues cual migajas tras un gran banquete lo que hay es un extenso manto de hojas secas en las calles y aceras que parecen esperar a que alguien las recoja o a que el viento se las lleve a un lugar muy lejano. Estos días hace un viento potente, frío, que nos avisa que el otoño termina y que quizá en una semana damos la bienvenida al gélido invierno berlinés.

Pero eso aún no ha pasado y mientras escribo esto miro las ramas peladas de los árboles agitarse de un lado a otro, y veo a la hojarasca moverse cual remolino, pero me siento a salvo de todo eso mientras estoy sentada tomando un café en la Hufelandstr.

Normalmente nunca vengo por aquí, y eso que esta parte de Prenzlauer Berg es preciosa, con sus calles adoquinadas, sus edificios antiguos de cuatro alturas, todos bien pintaditos y cuidados, y sus tiendas recoletas, la mayoría de adornos para la casa hechos en talleres berlineses, manualidades de gran delicadeya pero algo caras por ser producción artesanal. También hay algunas librerías bien interesantes, creo que es en la Marienburgerstr. donde hay una librería de libros en inglés que es una maravilla, ahí es donde quiero comprarme A time of gifts de Patrick Leigh Fermor, un libro que un amigo al que no conozco (suena raro no?) me ha recomendado encarecidamente. Ahora que trabajo puedo permitirme el lujo de comprar libros nuevamente.

A los cafés de Prenzlauer les pega la música de Yann Tiersen, sé que suena rebuscado pero es así. Me encanta Tiersen y tengo bastante música suya en el móvil, no sólo las bandas sonoras de Amélie o de Good Bye Lenin! (que para mí es la música de Friedrichshain), también sus canciones de C’etat ici o de Tout est Calme, piezas preciosas para escuchar mientras recorro el barrio con mi bici, es algo muy personal, y no sé si seré capaz de explicarlo bien, pero cuando voy por estas calles de “mi barrio” oyendo a Tiersen, creo en el destino, en que tenía que venir aquí a descubrir cuán feliz se puede ser sólo por el hecho de estar enamorada de una ciudad.

Berlín puede ser pobre, desesperante a la hora de encontrar trabajo, frustante por las pocas expectativas profesionales que me ofrece, pagadora de míseros sueldos, pero todo ello lo olvido cuando salgo a la calle y vuelvo a ver esta gran urbe que a veces parece sólo un barrio inmenso.

Word on the street is that there’s a new tea store trying to muscle in on the monopoly that is Easyway. If you’ve been down George St any time over the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed Chatime – the latest tea store to hit Sydney.

Their selection of teas are interesting – amongst them Yakult Lemon Juice, Ichiban Roasted Tea, Lemon Yoghurt Smoothie and Brown Rice Green Tea ……….but do they really beat Easyway?

Since Chatime had a Buy 1 Get 1 free promotion until the 13th November, I was naturally tempted to try their new range of drinks.
Grace had bought a Hawaii Fruit Tea (M – $4.20) the day before, and it had tasted suspiciously like breakfast juice in tea form …but hey! New things might always surprise you

Grapefruit Green Tea (R) and aloe vera – $4.70 &
Chatime Roasted Milk Tea (R) with pearls – $4.70

First up on the list of drinks to try was the recommended grapefruit green tea and the interesting sounding Chatime roasted milk tea.
The prices are a little dearer than Easyway, which is often justified with the random inclusion of toppings in some of the drinks (not in this case, though).

I asked the staff if the grapefruit green tea would be sour, to which I was told it would be bitter =[. Had a slight bitter aftertaste, and the aloe vera texture was a little mushy (Easyway’s is definitely better), but if you like grapefruit it’s definitely worth a try.

Chatime roasted milk tea, which is supposed to be green tea based, just tasted like watery coffee. Like, SUPER watery coffee. -_-  The pearls were very chewy though, which is good I suppose, if you like chewy pearls.

Verdict? Grapefruit > Roasted milk

Despite not being blown away by these 2 drinks, Helen & I decided to give Chatime another try with:

Brown Rice Green Tea (R) with pearls – $4.20 &
Tokachi Red Bean Milk Tea (R) included with pearls and red bean - $4.50

Was not really a fan of the brown rice green tea. Tasted like the hot green tea they give you in Japanese shops – the ones that taste like sesame tea instead (which apparently isn’t sesame or green tea at all, but rather the brown rice..so I guess the name is rather accurate). In Helen’s words, is it ”infused with smoke” ? =\

The tokachi red bean milk tea came with a serving of pearls and red beans. Red beans were really nice – not overly sweet (Easyway’s milk tea is a thousand times sweeter – although you can adjust the sweetness), and rather small. The milk tea had a red tea aftertaste that could potentially be amazing if you love milk tea.

Verdict? Tokachi red bean > brown rice green tea

Unfortunately, despite trying four different drinks, we still hadn’t found the WOW factor of Chatime ….so one more time.

Longan & Red Date Juice (L) – $4.20

One thing I can say about Chatime is that the descriptions for their drinks are pretty accurate. Although a refreshing drink, there was a definite longan aftertaste that could very easily be overwhelming if you don’t like longans that much. There was a strong date flavour as well (which was only accentuated further by the small sweet date pieces floating around in the drink).

Figured that I haven’t really liked anything from their energetic healthy juice range .. =[ (which this drink came from)

Fairy Vanilla Milk Tea (L) and pearls – $5.20

The WOW factor.
This was definitelyyyy my favourite drink so far! Not much to say other than it’s a vanilla milk tea, and if you like vanilla, you’ll looove this!

As for comparison with Easyway, I suppose it all comes down to whether you have a tolerance for sweet things, and whether or not you’re obsessed with milk tea. While Easyway has a large variety of different drinks, Chatime differs in that they have a few of the populars – e.g. milk tea, green tea – and then a few variations of the same thing.

But speaking of Easyway, did anyone see the episode of the Simpsons where all the shops in some megamart turn into Starbucks?
That’s pretty much the same case with Easyway and George St, with a new Easyway opening up opposite the World Square one and diagonal to the Goulburn St store.

Grand Opening

Oooh, competition, considering this new Easyway store opened up in the same time frame as the Chatime store.

…a store which uses masking tape to hold its sign up.

Hahahah.

Anywayyy. If you’re adventurous and really like milk tea, then maybe Chatime’s gazillion different types of milk tea will appeal to you!
If anything, the tea is worth a try at least once – and if you’re not game, you should swing by Easyway Castle Towers for the best Easyway around

Chatime (Visited 13/11/09)
Shop 181, 569 George St
Sydney, NSW 2000
(Summit Arcade, opposite World Square)
http://www.chatime.com.au

Weather Report for Paris: Shitty and Cold!

Alright, I can’t exactly call 13 degrees ‘cold’ since I used to wear miniskirts to class in High School whenever the temperature crawled above zero. However, it was raining and the wind was at about an appropriate level of ‘F-You’ – this to me equals ’shitty’. But, it did not ruin my day.

First stop: La Ferme Opera. A cafeteria style café (har-har) with tons of healthy food choices ranging from couscous to croissants (yes, I consider them healthy!). I actually got lost trying to find this place despite mapping out my route to an exact inch. Therefore, I did get to experience something I haven’t done in a while here: getting lost. Although, the experience was kind of ruined when my umbrella was taken hostage by the wind and a cyclist pulled over to vomit on the sidewalk in front of me. Yum.

So here is the outside of La Ferme. Lovely isn’t it? I know, I know. You just can’t get over all the French words.

And here is me in the reflection of the window. Notice my ultra heavy duty gear. Which will actually probably make you laugh at the fact that I took this picture with my iPhone rather than the Canon 5D I’ve got hanging uselessly off my shoulder.

My choice of lunch: Some sort of couscous mix with pomegranate seeds and curry chicken. Seriously, very very good. And very very small. The entire place smells like a bakery, so can you blame me for getting a chocolate croissant as well? No – you can’t.

The ‘dining’ area actually reminds me of a ski lodge in Alberta. Albeit, a very run down and unimaginative ski lodge where all the teenagers drink beer rather than actually ski.

Next stop – Le Cap Bourbon. Just down the street from La Ferme, I decided to stop in for a glass of wine and write for a bit. I mostly just ended up staring out the window and occasionally checking myself out in the mirror that was right in front of me.

It started to really pour (drizzle) while I was inside enjoying my wine and listening to tunes from the 70’s. I headed out with the intentions of going to the gym. But once I got outside I nearly fell over since I’m apparently a cheap drunk – so I decided against it.

So, I returned to my apartment and experimented with my very first HDR shots. So far I only have the trial software so all my images come out with tacky watermarks on them, inevitably leading people to think that they aren’t actually my photos.

A simple Day Two, but I got to accomplish two things that I’ve been wanting to do. Go to La Ferme for lunch, and witness a random cyclist puke on the street during daylight hours.

Time for dinner…

Reviews of Coffee Shops in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, St Paul area

Just a short post today before I go back to mugging mode. I’m sure that many of you know about Bakerzin’s monthly promotion, right? This month, it’s macarons at $1+ each! I went to the Paragon outlet and was amused by a sign saying “Please queue here for macarons”. Will there even be queues in the 1st place? I don’t think Singaporeans are that crazy over macarons. Yet. If ever.

Flavours tried: Pistachio, Hazelnut, Black Sesame, Sakura and Yuzu (clockwise from the green macaron). Only 2 out of the 5 were good enough to impress. B.S had an intense flavour which I loved (it’s no secret that I love anything black sesame!) and yuzu was interesting with its light citrus tang. The other 3 were very forgettable.

 I’m still loving the macarons from TWG!

Bakerzin
#02-09 The Paragon
6333 6647

I think I would drive the 75 miles to Milwaukee just to eat at Honeypie, a cute new restaurant in Bayview, the hipster neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee. HoneyPie’s logo is a big blue pig. And boy do they love their pork here. As a total contrast, though, they can make almost any dish vegan. The craziest twist, to me, is that all their cupcakes were vegan! You know how hard it is to make vegan pastries taste good? These were some of the best cupcakes I have ever had, vegan or not. Crazy! The pumpkin cupcake was moist, flavorful; no weird textures (telltale sign of a vegan pastry). It was a very rustic looking cupcake, with the delicious cinnamon frosting spread on with a knife, instead of being piped on;  a butter cream-like frosting, with no butter. Crazy!!

Honeypie has the potential to make almost everyone happy. They are open for breakfast, lunch & dinner and have a liquor license.  We went for Saturday brunch at 2:00. I had a dish called “the failure bowl” which had roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts, scrambled eggs, cheese sauce and pork gravy. The mushrooms that were supposed to be in it, failed to show up., but I could care less. I had my pork gravy. I was happy. I asked the waitress why it was called “the failure bowl” and she said she had no idea, that the kitchen named all the dishes & always came up with crazy names. She told us that one day the special was called “Don’t You Think I’m Pretty?” I think the kitchen just loved messing with the front of the house; an example of that infamous front of the house/back of the house rivalry.

My friend, Andrea, had a chicken curry sandwich. It normally came with fries, but she could sub a side salad for $1 or, get this, a slice of pie, for $2. Oh yaaaaa! She went with the pie, as any sane person would do! And as any sane person would do, we took home another cupcake, a slice of apple streusel pie, and one of their homemade flaky biscuits that took two hands to hold. We had to be prepared for the hour and a half ride home. In all honesty, I actually didn’t eat again until noon the next day.

A couple other facts about Honeypie…..they make just about everything from scratch, using local ingredients whenever they can,  purchased from Growing Power and other local farms. (Growing Power is one of the amazing farms that participate in Green City Market here in Chicago.) While Milwaukee won’t go smoke free until July of 2010, Honeypie is smoke free all the time because, as they say, “smoking is gross unless it involves meat.” Hallelujah!

Honeypie is located in the Bayview neighborhood of Milwaukee at 2643 S. Kinnickkinnic Ave., 414-489-PIES and at www.honeypiecafe.com. Start planning your road trip today. And don’t you dare go without bringing me back a vegan cupcake!



I have only in the last year discovered Flat white as a way to drink coffee and I like it.

Two places which do it very well in Soho are in fact part of the same antipodean chain. They are Flat White and Milkbar. They serve up Square Mile Coffee in two quite different but equally cool locations on Berwick Street and Bateman Street. I like the Milkbar logo a lot.

I had a lovely weekend visiting my friend Jen in Bath. Bath is a beautiful place. We cooked Thai, visited the Jane Austen shop, watched movies and drank tea. We also discovered a sweet, cosy little spot to shelter from the rain, Alpine gift store and strudel bar, Hansel und Gretel. At the moment the shop is filled with lovely hand-made christmas decorations, from carved wooden trinkets to little knitted angel dolls. Downstairs in the strudel bar we found twinkle lights, an eclectic assortment of cushions, cuckoo clocks, rustic wooden tables and lovely green striped crockery. We both tried one of their special German coffees, mine was spicy vanilla, Jen had almond. But the pièce de résistance was the cherry and apple strudel. Delicious.

Had a fantastic birthday party yesterday at An Clachan café in Kelvingrove Park for my son’s third birthday. As he was getting a bike for his birthday, we wanted a venue that would allow him to do a bit of cycling outdoors with his wee pals. Fortunately, the rain stayed off long enough for the kids to run around the play park and try out each other’s bikes before coming indoors for pass the parcel and cake. Barbara and her team at the café did a brilliant job: balloons, decorations, lovely scones, bacon sarnies, fruit bowls and a gorgeous sparkly chocolate cake with white vanilla icing. Yum. When we got home he announced it was the best party “ever and ever and ever”.

As you know it doesn’t take much to persuade me to go to G&D’s, so when I got a tip-off via Facebook that they’d named an ice cream after me, I made sure that our Saturday afternoon shopping took us past the Cowley Road branch. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating on the fame-and-fortune front: I’ve been nicknamed ‘jaffa’ in various places for some time, and their new ice cream is ‘Jaffaholic’. We were obviously meant for each other. … Look, it’s not as if you need an excuse to eat ice cream full of jaffa cakes and cointreau, is it?

Anyway, following two scoops of in-depth research, I can report that the Jaffaholic is delicious. The mixture of cointreau-soaked jaffa cake biscuit, “tangy orangey bits” of jelly, and thick creamy ice cream, results in something containing all the good points of trifle with none of the 70s naffness. It’s a limited edition ice cream, but if they’ve run out by the time you read this, don’t worry: I’ve never yet had an ice cream from G&D’s that wasn’t delicious.

Two double-scoop servings of Jaffaholic. Not both for me, honest.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time in G&D’s recently as the St Aldate’s branch is conveniently situated between my workplace and the Cherwell Singers‘ rehearsal venue. (The choir is probably a bit off-topic for this blog, but if you felt like buying tickets for a concert of Britten’s sacred works on Saturday 5th December, that would be great… just saying.) There aren’t many places where I can spend a couple of hours sitting and reading, writing or working while eating my dinner (usually a ham and pineapple pizza bagel, but occasionally a tuna-and-mozzarella or stilton-and-mushroom melt — all equally delicious) and drinking a generous-sized latte — all for around £6.

Knowledge is good. So is ice cream. You can have both!

Look out for fun ways to get more ice cream, too: my beautiful blond research assistant swears that there’s a night when you can get a discount by turning up with a cow-related item (or maybe he’s just trying to get me to wear that cow costume…), and you can usually win a free scoop of ice cream by answering the quiz question of the week. They’re not usually as difficult as the one in the photo, which said research assistant — an Oxford maths graduate, no less! — sheepishly admitted he couldn’t answer. Fortunately, you don’t have to answer it to get an ice-cream.

So: delicious ice cream, tasty bagels, good coffee, non-compulsory maths, and a nice atmosphere — warm, bright and cheery, music not too loud (and usually good!). All in all, it’s a lovely place to sit and eat or drink, on my own or with friends. Better still, though, G&D’s is open from 8am till midnight every night. Now, I confess that the “8am” end of that isn’t really my scene (I’m normally still fast asleep), though I bet they make a mean breakfast; but at the other end of the day it’s fantastic to know that there’s somewhere to sit and drink and talk all evening when you don’t want to drink beer or fizzy drinks.

G&D’s can be found on Little Clarendon Street, St Aldate’s, and Cowley Road. Cow costumes and cube roots optional.

You just have to mention Moreton Bay Bug and my mouth waters!

I wanted something a little classy to do on Sunday instead of my usual culinary disasters, so I am headed to Mauburg for a ‘Sumptuous Seafood Christmas Buffet’ luncheon. If candlelight, jazz and a seafood feast do not satisfy my taste buds them i am doomed!

It is well worth the trip if not for the food, for the country views!

…….do yourself a flavour 11.30am start – bookings at Warrego Winery – 5464 4400

Love ff

“cause the good outweighs the bad”. Sing it Ms. Bozzio!

I thank God for my friends and family. I thank God for my good health. I am so blessed, everything else is really butter when you’re in good health. I was a bit down yesterday and fortunately I connected with a dear friend of mine. He and I have not know each other for long but I recognize good folks when I see them and he’s GOOD FOLK! Thank you for making me laugh out loud, Monsieur B!

I am always thankful for the good, but rarely do I appreciate the bad stuff that comes around. I now recognize that I should be thankful for all that comes my way. It’s all just a part of what’s going to make me stronger, wiser, more compassionate and hopefully, FUNNIER.

I am thankful for where I am right at this moment. God took me from a place and from certain people that no longer had my best interest at heart. He has now brought me to a place and time that will only nourish me and prepare for bigger and greater things.

It is well with my soul and I hope it is with yours.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

P.S. This is not turkey by any means, it’s better. I think that I’ll have another bowl.