food&drink Archives - Page 27 of 29

london part two

October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween! What are your plans for the spooky holiday? We plan to hand out candy & possibly dress up!

Today marks the last post from our two-week European adventure. We ended the trip with a long weekend in London with our family. Thursday we started out without missing a beat. We had places to go and very little time left! Our first stop was taking the tube to Kensington High Street. Our destination was The Roof Gardens and Babylon Restaurant, which are located one hundred feet above Kensington High Street and are part of Sir Richard Branson’s portfolio. This hidden treasure is truly spectacular. While we were visiting, they were setting up for an event and we couldn’t help but think it would be the perfect setting to throw an elaborate party! Next stop was a pub stop (It had been way too long since the last one.) We found ourselves at the wonderful Scarsdale Tavern right in the heart of posh Kensington. Our pub stop ended up being longer than we had planned, as we were caught in the middle of a complete downpour. No one was complaining though – time for one more round! After our afternoon break, we hopped on the bus to Harrods. My goodness, we could have spent days and days at Harrods. The shopping, the food, the people watching- it was the perfect afternoon. After Harrods, we took another bus back to Putney where we were greeted with the lovely aroma of Coq au vin, which helped immensely with our post-Paris-blues!

Rooftop Gardens

Walking in South Kensington

Pub stop: Scarsdale Tavern

Harrods

On Friday, we realized our trip was almost over. A few of us decided to head to the All England Lawn Tennis Club to experience the famous Wimbledon grounds. The Championships have been held there since 1877. A few years ago we had the opportunity to be at Wimbledon during The Championships (where we fell in love Rafael Nadal!) and after this visit, we are already plotting a summer trip to the tournament. After a tour and a stop at Centre Court, we headed to Notting Hill for a delicious lunch on the go from Le Pain Quotidien and an afternoon spent at the Portobello Market. We loved all the unique vendors and interesting shops. From Notting Hill, we took the bus to fabulous Sloane Street in Chelsea for some final shopping. The last place on our list was a visit to Imperial College where a few of us studied abroad for the summer. Had to grab a Snake Bite at the College pub before our trip ended! That evening we were treated to yet another wonderful dinner consisting of a very traditional English dish: Fish & Chips. PC does the perfect Fish & Chips, complete with English peas. Yum!

Wimbledon

Centre Court at Wimbledon

Tube to Notting Hill

Portobello Market

Saturday, our final day in London, was spent relaxing with our family in Putney. We spent a good part of the day in the kitchen helping to prepare dinner – Spiced Slow-Cooked Lamb Shank. It was nice to be back in the kitchen after so long! We spent the day enjoying each other’s company, the guys had cigars in the rain in the garden, and even did some pear picking. Two weeks flew by, but between seeing London and spending precious time with our family there, to having the experience of living in Paris for a week, we can’t imagine how we could have had more fun!! On to the next adventure…

Cigars in the rain

Until next time Flat 1

Cheers,

paris part two

October 29, 2013

After our day trip to Reims, we got up Tuesday morning and had café au lait and croissants before heading to Musée d’Orsay. It was a sunny day in Paris, so we started off with a walk through the Tuileries Garden. The garden is really a beautiful place! We then enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the Seine to the museum. The Musée d’Ordsay is such an impressive structure, built from an abandoned train station, and houses the largest collection of Impressionist art in the world. Think Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas, and many more, all under the same roof. Amazing! After getting our culture in, it was time for some serious shopping, so we headed to St. Germain. First up – a macaron stop at Ladurée. Then it was time to hit the shops. Louis Vuitton for a new handbag for one of us, and champagne for all! Katherine wore her “souvenir” here. Following LV, it was Hermés for more treats, and then a Metro ride to the Champs Elysées for some additional shopping. While we were over that way, we hopped on the Metro again, to the Trocadéro for a fabulous nighttime view of the Eiffel Tower. We finished the evening at a restaurant in our Marais neighborhood – Robert et Louise. As we walked in we could see Robert cooking huge rib eye steaks over an open fire, which was very exciting for our husbands! We started with escargot, the main courses consisting of tiger prawns for the girls and ribeyes for the guys. Delicious!

Tuileries Garden

Resting before a long day of culture and shopping

Museé d’Orsay

Macaron break at Ladurée

Metro to Champs Elysées

Arc de Triomphe as seen from Champs Elysées

Eiffel Tower at night

Wednesday was our day to head back to London. So sad to be leaving Paris, but so excited to be with our London family again! Before we had to be at the train station, we had time for a visit to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was stunning. Notre Dame just celebrated her 850th year! So much history and so many years of people worshipping God in that beautiful cathedral. Wow. On the way back to the apartment we were met with a downpour – lucky thing we were wearing our rain boots! Check out our post on rainy day wear here. It’s not goodbye! But until next time, Paris!

Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Rainy day in Paris calls for Hunter Boots

Cheers,

reims: the champagne region in france

October 25, 2013

Happy Friday! This week has not slowed down in the least. Being back to reality means: work, laundry and catching up on our neglected to-dos. Vacation is officially over, but we still have a fun weekend in store! This weekend, we are celebrating a very special birthday (although the celebrations started at the beginning of the month!) with a fun family dinner, and attempting to make French macarons for the first time. We’ve heard this can be a bit touchy, so please wish us luck! We planning to share our recipe next week if it’s not a flop…or even if it is!

While we were in Paris, we took a day trip to Reims, a city in the Champagne region of France. When we learned that the Champagne region was just a quick 45 minute ride on the high-speed TGV train, we jumped on the idea. Although on the one hand, we hated to leave Paris for the day, it wasn’t too hard to convince us, considering we would be sipping champagne all afternoon! Reims is a charming city, with its art deco facades, relaxed atmosphere and its 800 year-old Gothic cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims, where there have been 33 French kings crowned. We arrived in Reims around lunchtime and found a darling little café to get lunch for a picnic in the park prior to our first tasting. We ended up visiting three Champagne houses: Taittinger, Pommery & Mumm. We were able to tour the ancient chalk wine caves, which go underground up to 60 feet deep (160 steps down!) under the city. At Pommery alone, there are over 20 million bottles of Champagne stored in their caves! And, the best part of it all – beneath the streets of Reims are 150 miles of caves filled with bottles of champagne! After learning that we were walking on all that bubbly Champagne, our step definitely got a little lighter!

Enjoy our pictures from Reims & have a wonderful weekend!