If you missed Champagne Day on October 21, don't worry! Champagne shouldn't be celebrated in a day anyway, it clearly deserves its own week! At least that's what my friends Jess and Alison thought. These two wine pros are throwing DC's first ever Champagne Week, from Sunday November 6 to Thursday November 12. The idea for DC Champagne Week started off small. Jess runs Young Winos of DC, a group that connects people in the District with wine tastings and events. She reached out to Alison, who runs her own wine consulting business Bon Vivant DC, to partner up on a champagne focused event. Jess jokes that Alison took a small idea and blew it up, but Alison retorts that Jess never would've ...
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What’s the Best Baguette in Washington, DC?
I've lived in the District for over 10 years now and as the French expat one of the top question I usually get asked is "where can I find good bread?" Usually it's recent transplants from France asking... The answer partially depend on where you live I guess. I mean, Bread Furst probably makes the best baguette in the city. But I live in Shaw. It's bad enough I have to spend close to $3 for bread, I'm not trekking all the way across town on top of it. So I get my baguette mostly at A Baked Joint now, and occasionally at Paul or Le Pain Quotidien. Two places where I would never buy bread back home...but hey, I have limited options here ;-) Of course, Parisians take their bread very ...
Catch These French Films at Filmfest DC
In the winter months, I try to cram in as many oscar-nominated films as I can before the awards are given out. After that movie-binge, I typically take a needed break from the cinemas. Until April and Filmfest DC! Filmfest is the District’s first, largest and only international film festival. Between April 14 and 24, 2016 Filmfest DC will celebrate 30 years of delighting Washington cinephiles with a really impressive line-up of 75 movies from 45 different countries. As always, that includes a number of films from France and Belgium. Here are some of the French(-ish) or French-language films you can look forward to this year. THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT The poster claims that "G-d exist... and ...
Life Goes On~Celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau in Washington, DC
I'm not exactly in a celebratory mood these days, but life goes on. Paris is about life, about being at a terrasse right now etc. Life has to go on and this week life includes the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau, which always takes place on the third Thursday of November (or midnight that Wednesday!) Here are a few, selected spots where you can partake in some Gamay-drinking in Washington, D.C. BITRO DU COIN Still THE place to be at midnight when Beaujolais Nouveau is released. It's probably too late to get reservations for dinner, but show up around 10PM when they start clearing out the tables. The Beaujolais typically starts pouring 11PM, which technically is well past midnight in ...
Gad Elmaleh in DC – Part Trois, Now All In English
Le revoici, le revoilà! Gad Elmaleh repasse au Birchmere, avec un petit changement qui n'est pas négligeable: le comedien fait son show en Anglais!! It's hard enough being funny in your native language, let alone in a foreign one. Seinfeld, for example, was notoriously bad when dubbed in French, and the humour didn't quite translate. And yet, that’s exactly the personal challenge that French funnyman (and Seinfeld BFF) Gad Elmaleh has set for himself. After performing sold-out shows in Washington, DC twice in 2013 (in April and September - you can read my recap from the September show right here), the comedien is back for a third time. This fall, he’ll try to branch out of the ...
Save the Date~Two Fabulous Champagne Lanson Events Coming September 15th
Just last weekend I was dressed in white from head to toe and appropriately sipping some Champagne Lanson Brut White Label NV at Washington's second annual Diner en Blanc. You can read more about DC's 2015 Diner en Blanc here (and here and here and here.) If you missed Diner en Blanc or you just want to relive a part of this magical evening, the House of Lanson is coming to town and hosting two events in the District. The first, more casual, is a tasting of the entire champagne house portfolio at one of my go-to wine shop Cork and Fork (always trust a wine shop owner whose grandfather ran the Champagne Veuve Clicquot vineyards) between 6-8PM on September 15 (Tickets $20). The ...
Museum Open Houses in Old Town for Lafayette in Alexandria Day + Tour the Hermione
In a previous post, I wrote about the return voyage of l'Hermione, the Frigate of Freedom, that delivered the young Marquis de Lafayette in 1780 to General Washington with full French aid. Well... it's not exactly a return voyage since the ship is a replica, but it's an authentically reconstructed one, 17 years in the re-making. After sailing 3,819 miles across the Atlantic, she's about to land in Yorktown, just like Lafayette did 235 years. Her next stop after that is Mount Vernon and Alexandria, both in Virginia. While she isn't docking in Old Town until June 10th, the city is already rolling out the red carpet and building up the excitement with a Lafayette in Alexandria Day May 31st. ...
Hermione & the Spirit of Lafayette Back in the US
Nope, I'm not talking about a Hermione Granger, the Harry Potter character, but Hermione, the Frigate of Freedom, a ship. The replica of the ship that brought the Marquis de Lafayette to the United State some 235 years ago to carry the message from King Louis XVI that France was going to aid the colonies. In 1997, a group of people came up with the idea of reconstructing the frigate using the same building methods applied in the original. Some 17 years later, on April 18, 2015, she left Rochefort in France to set sail for Virginia and retrace a journey through American history. For the past month, L'Hermione plied across the Atlantic, retracing Lafayette's journey. She's set to arrive in ...
Retail’s Night Out @ City Center DC
The National Retail Federation knows a thing or two about shopping, and in an effort to highlight retail’s entrepreneurial spirit, the trade association is hosting Retail’s Night Out at City Center DC on May 6, 2015. The one night only event featuring pop-up shops from local merchants and national brands is part of Small Business Week (May 4-8, 2015) and will also feature live music, local food trucks and a red carpet. Participating retailers include: ALEX AND ANI, ArtJamz, Bull and Moose, JRINK Juicery, Salt & Sundry, stubble & 'stache, Hugh & Crye, Potomac River Running Store, proper topper, Milk Cult, Ah Love Oil and Vinegar, LiLi The First, UrbanStems and ...
VinoFest DC: Music, Wine, Food, Charity
My! How Vinolovers has grown? It feels like not too long ago, I was attending the D.C. startup's launch party at 1776 (see pictures below) and now they're throwing VinoFest DC, a huge wine and music festival at a venue so cool I haven't even heard of it yet. Let me backtrack... Vinolovers is a DC-based personalized wine subscription and delivery service and this is their second year hosting VinoFest DC actually. Last year's event was held at Union Market, and on Saturday, May 9, wine producers, musicians, DJs and of course, vinolovers, will take over Storey Park in NoMa. If you've been in the city for a while like I have you may remember that place as the former Greyhound bus station. ...
