Eating Our Way Through Paris

Paris is known to many as le cité des amour yet to me it's more like le cité du manger and that's pretty much all we did.

The last time Coasts were on their European tour I packed my bags and my mother off to a quick sojourn to Berlin and then Hamburg. (How was that two years ago?) The only difference this time was that the venue/ country had changed and Coasts joined label mates The Hunna, oh yeah and there was a new album so I guess pretty much everything had changed really.

On Sunday night, after a delayed Eurostar trip, my mother and I checked in at the Saint Louis Pigalle hotel before heading out to explore the Pigalle neighbourhood, from the Moulin Rouge to the Sacre Coeur where the 10pm service was just about to start: cue the organ music.

Le Bon Bock was the venue for dinner/supper and was a great find. It is the oldest restaurant in Montmartre and used to be a popular haunt of artists like Toulouse La Trec. Here my journey through classic French dishes began with onion soup and confit de la canard.

On Mondays, many (if not all) of the museums and tourist attractions are closed which left us with no choice but to explore the cobbled streets of Paris, and, most importantly, the gastronomy.

When I had researched the foodie scene before we came out one of the places that had stood out to me was Soul Kitchen on the Rue Lamarck but I could not for the life of me find it. In its place, the Hardware Societé offered a very appetising alternative.

Fried brioche served with pannacotta, poached pear and lashings of chocolate sauce may not be your usual breakfast fare but omg you really need to try that like right now!

Hotel two of two for our Paris mini city break was the Best Western Saint Martin Bastille, just opposite the Bataclan and, as the name suggests, situated in the Bastille area of the city.

Dalloyau famously provided the Palace of Versaille with Pattiserie delights up until the French Revolution and they can now add me to their prestigious list of customers as we happily stumbled across one of their Salon de Thé(s). We sampled the gorgeously light Delice de Chef and the absolutely divine Tonka - brb in heaven right now.

The Little Café, in the Marais part of town, continued my foray into the world of classic French dishes with Boeuf Bourginon. For dessert, I opted for the Pain Perdu, made with croissants and served with a deliciously sweet caramel sauce.

Our final culinary stop or the day (Monday) was Jones, formerly known as Bones. Here diners can enjoy a four-course meal that is a delight to the senses or indeed for individual dishes. It would have been criminal to not at least try the exquisitely prepared food even if I had eaten a three-course meal only a few hours previously and those smoked carrots were simply stunning.

On our last full day in Paris, we visited the Pere Lachaise, the notorious graveyard where many famous faces are buried; Jim Morrison and Frederic Chopin included, as well as a memorial to Oscar Wilde. Alas, If I had only been there a few hours later I could have played everyone's favourite game 'spot The Hunna'

Frederic Chopin

Jim Morrison

Oscar Wilde - he's not actually in there though

The snowy stroll (read hike) left me feeling particularly hangry by the time we approached
Notre Dame. The aptly named Brasserie Esmerelda was as good a spot as any for a crepe and a chocolat chaud as it was getting pretty cold actually.

The plat du jour on the Rue Babylon was Côte du Boeuf, accompanied by dauphinoise potatoes and a bearnaise sauce. Our brasserie of choice just happened to be opposite Le Bon Marche, the Harrods of Paris which at the time of visiting housed the Sous La Ciel art installation by Leandro Erlich.

The Musee d' Orsay is not actually a museum at all but an art gallery housing five storeys of everything from impressionism to sculpture including work from Toulouse Le Trec who by the way I approve of your choice of restaurant/bar but dude what is that artwork?

On the way home to the hotel we stopped off at a patisserie for madeleines and a l'imperial - berry goodness encased in créme de pistache with a biscuit base.

Next stop: Le Maroquinerie.

P.S. We bought croissants for the journey home aka our super fun 7am Eurostar train.

Fangirling hard

I may have mentioned Coasts once or twice on this blog before (by Coasts I mean the band not the geographical terrain) and that would probably be because I'm fangirling….hard.

To be honest I hopped on the bandwagon fairly late in the game  when I randomly decided to go and see this indie rock band at the Wardrobe in October 2015. It wasn't  'random' though was it, it was fate.

Coasts returned to Leeds only a week later to play a free gig at Trinity Kitchen and guess who was front and centre.

Most people who I talk to and say that I'm going to-yet another- Coasts gig don't actually know who I'm babbling on about so here's the scoop:

The band, now known as Coasts, formed in Bristol in 2011 after attending the same university; Bath Spa uni - the very same one that I attended. 

I found out, when I asked them in Hamburg, that the guys (well Chris and Jimmy at least) did Performing Arts and graduated the same year that I arrived. (2009)

Coasts may be most widely known for having had appeared on the second season of Made In Chelsea or maybe you heard them on FIFA16.  They released their debut album in January of this year and have been blowing things out of the water ever since.

Earlier this year, in March actually, I kind of went to Germany to go to the Berlin and Hamburg dates of Coasts European tour yet alas I didn't have enough dollar to get to the U.S. for the American leg. *cries*




Alas this was not the case... insert awkward dialogue from the merch table:

However when Chris, Jimmy, Ben, David and Liam returned to the U.K. I knew that it was a 'go hard or go home' situation.

The original plan was to go to the first and last nights of tour (which were Bristol and Leeds) yet unfortunately  for me Coasts are just so awesome that Bristol was soon sold out….closely followed by all the tickets for Oxford being snapped up.

Last Thursday I woke up early to make a large batch of chocolate chip cookies before hopping into the car. Glasgow here I come!

Except before that could happen I may have had a ever so slight breakdown.

When I bought my tickets for the Garage 2 at Glasgow which I would then be able to pick up at the venue the website told me to bring along my confirmation email but the problem was that there wasn't an email to be found….anywhere.

The clock was ticking and I still didn't know where this email was. The doors at the venue were set to open at seven but it was nearing five and we still hadn't left the house and it was going to take four hours to get to Glasgow.

Imagine the scene, you're cruising along the M8 and suddenly you desperately need to go to the toilet. You can't stop though because otherwise you'll miss the gig completely. Hence the need for the bum shuffle dance as we journeyed further into Scotland.

No sooner had we pulled up into Sauchiehall Road and walked through the doors (I didn't even need that bloody email) than Coasts came on stage with Wallow. I loved the feeling of walking into the club and being met by a wall of incredible sound.

The Glasgow crowd were hilarious and I especially loved the chanting of 'Game Of Thrones' before Wolves.  Somebody even even ended up splashing beer over my head which was actually quite welcome because it got very, very sweaty.

We were spending the weekend at our cottage (another couple of hours further on) so at the end of the set we weren't able to linger. There was just time to give Chris the box of cookies.

Fast forward a few days and we have a familiar situation yet in reverse as now we need to get back to Leeds.

My sister was supposed to be meeting me at the Brudnell Social Club yet as she was pulling out of the drive her car broke down.

Coasts were going to be on stage in approximately forty minutes time and neither of us were there yet.

If I thought that the Glasgow crowd were great then Leeds was totally insane! Forget Game Of Thrones this was more full on stage invasion. Completely epic!

You  know when you are about to a really famous person and/or someone you really admire and get super tongue tied and nervous - well you would have thought that I'd be over that by now as I had kind of met Coasts once or twice before *ahem*

Jimmy: hey we've seen you before.

Chris: yeah she came to Glasgow...and Germany

Me: *thinks* I wonder if they liked their cookies

January Favourites

The longest, most tedious month of the year is finally drawing to a close and I for one, am glad to see the back of it. It hasn't all been doom and gloom though; here's some of my favourites during the month of January:

1. Coasts 

So I don't know if any of you remember but in my 'Top Gigs of 2015' post I mentioned that a certain band (who were, by the wa,y number one on that list) were set to release their debut album on the 22nd of this month. I was most definitely not disappointed when I received my parcel from Amazon (naturally, I had pre-ordered), and I may or may not have had the album on repeat ever since it was released.

I am not alone in my love for this album (and the band obviously) as they went straight to number 1 on the Alternative Album chart on the day of release and hit no.4 of the regular Album chart.

2. Harry Potter

Spurred no doubt by the passing of Alan Rickman  (R.I.P.), who will ALWAYS be Professor Snape to Potterheads all over the globe, I have been re-reading Harry Potter this month and am currently about half-way through Half Blood Prince. To be honest, I actually skipped 1 and 2 in favour of starting Prisoner Of Azkaban. The Harry Potter series for me, and I'm sure many people, is rather comforting to come back to over and over again. We grew up with the characters of this story, so diving into the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is like being welcomed back by old friends.

3. My Nespresso machine

Having already written an entire post on the subject I'll try not to waffle on about it.

Waking up to fresh coffee every day that tastes just as good (if not better) as barista-made never gets old and I recently purchased a top-up of coffee capsules. Indeed, I now have in excess of 200. The next coffee's on me it would seem.

Ok I know I normally do 5 items in these kinds of posts but its January so yeah...that