festival

The annual Hot Chocolate Festival in Calgary

/ sarapiper / Leave a comment

Perhaps it’s the fact that the weather in Calgary feels like we are on our 103rd day of January that inspires me to write about the hot chocolate festival that happens here every year!!

For the entire month of February in Calgary, Meals On Wheels has their biggest fundraiser of the year, called YYC Hot Chocolate Fest.

(If you don’t know Meals-On-Wheels, they are an organization that delivers meals to people who aren’t able to purchase or prepare their own meals, like seniors or people who are physically unable to get out or make their own meals.)

I discovered the festival a couple of years ago and it seemed like the best excuse to get out and discover new coffee shops and cafes and restaurants, and enjoy a fancy hot chocolate in the mean time. It was also an excuse to make an event out of a simple coffee date with friends and family, and people I rarely see!

As part of the festival you can review the drinks you try and vendors are vying for the “Best of The Fest” awards, so they often pull out all the stops. One dollar from every festival drink goes towards Meals On Wheels!

This year I decided to try and do a hot chocolate a day! I was able to try 29 different Hot Chocolates at 28 different vendors!!

Here they all are: in order.

Day 1!

First drink of the fest:

Cafe Rosso‘s Orange Blossom Hot Cocoa smelled like an entire satsuma orchard, but actually had a very gentle flavour. It was also served with a cookie. A lovely start to YYCHotChocolateFest!

Day 2, hot chocolate 2.

The Gingerbread Spice at Bell’s Bookstore Café. Reminded me of a ginger cake. Lots of spice and delicious whip cream!

Day three, #3.

I got in a dinner date with my delightful friend Charlotte and we tried the S’Mores Hot Chocolate at Alforno Bakery!

I normally love the offerings at Alforno so I was a bit disappointed by the mediocrity of the actual cocoa. The toppings were good; there was a nice graham cracker rim, and we agreed that the marshmallow was the best part.

As it was the most snowy wintery day that day, clearly double the hot chocolate was in order! Day 3, and 4th hot chocolate of the festival!

At One18 Empire my friends Tawny and Raine and I went for late night snacks and ordered the Toasted Sneaky Pete. This ‘spirited’ hot chocolate had Jamiesons in it, with whip cream and a toasted marshmallow, with a dark chocolate spoon on the side. We thought the spoon was a fancy garnish. Not so, my friends, not so. This beverage came with steps that our server failed to mention: you must stir the spoon in the steamed milk *the second* it arrives at your table, so it melts and actually makes the drink complete.

IF however, no one tells you this, and you eat the spoon immediately, all you are left with is steamed milk and booze. 😄😳

Soooo I can’t say we loved this one, but we never really tried the ‘completed’ recipe. I am pretty sure, however, that even if you were to stir in the chocolate, this is one stiff drink!

 

Day 4 (and drink No. 5)

When I went to pick up my Cocoa Troll at Primal Grounds Cafe, another customer was waiting to ask me if she could take a photo of my drink before I grabbed it. Why? This hot chocolate had a face and cotton candy hair.

And ALL the whip cream. 😁

Once you get past the straight sugar topping, this is a deliciously rich and smooth hot cocoa! I recommend!

#Iamsogoodatadulting 😉 #ridiculouslookingdrinkforagoodcause

 

Hot chocolate #6

Suneshine-y day off plans with my mum included stopping into Bite in Inglewood to try their Kris Kringler hot chocolate. This was my favourite so far. Creamy, rich hot chocolate with divine vanilla bean whip cream and tiny brownie chunks on top. This one was deluxe, people.  😊

 

Hot Chocolate #7: Who knew peach and chocolate made such a delicious combo?

The Peach Melba Hot Chocolate at Waves Coffeehouse was surprisingly delightful. Sweet and like peaches-and-cream-meets-cocoa! Yummy!

Have you heard of UTCA? They make chimney cakes and their hot chocolate was the most colourful drink I had tried of the festival so far!

Also, can we talk about how cozy and inviting this place is? I want to bring people back here!

This one was number 8: called the Chimney Hot Chocolate. Once you get past the uber-rainbow-explosion topping, the whip cream and fresh orange zest melts right into a sweet, caramel hot cocoa. Delicious!!

 

I see your winter storm warning and I raise you: drinking chocolate. 😉 Drink number nine:

The slow motion snowfall tonight was too beautiful to not go for a walk. Thank goodness Analog Coffee is open super late so I could warm up with their #yychotchocolatefest offer!

Like many places, their featured drink Thai Chili Chocolate was more popular than expected and they were out of all their fancy garnishes (in this case, a mini pastry and macaron). C’est la vie, and really, I didn’t feel like I was missing a thing. This is the closest thing to “drinking chocolate” (true chocolat chaud) that I have had outside France, though this had a hint of heat to it with thai chili.

It was a perfect way to watch the snow come down after a long day!

 

The next morning’s hot chocolate adventure brought me and my friend Norm to Boxcar– the cutest little board games/coffee shop on 1st St SW!

Drink 10: Gingerbread Hot chocolate. Delicate cinnamon and nutmeg flavour that made it feel almost like a chai flavoured cocoa.

Beautiful, simple presentation.

 

The 11th hot chocolate of the festival was enjoyed at Sauce Italian Kitchen and Market. The flavour: Vanilla Pistachio Cannoli!

Yep. This was truly a full dessert hot chocolate. It came with an entire cannoli perched on it. Rich and sweet and delicious!

 

The next #yychotchocolatefest adventure was had at Ca’Puccini in the Arts Commons.

Drink 12: Can’t Beet Red Velvet.

Well…

It sure tasted like beets… Warm, sweetened beet juice. With some fake whip cream on top. It’s… a choice… and a poor one. Bottom of the list! 😳

#foragoodcauseatleast

 

Lucky 13 of the YYC Hot Chocolate Festival was enjoyed at The Bean Stop and their hot chocolate specialité: Amour.

With ginger-lemon infused dark chocolate, this came with toffee/cookie crumbs and purple edible glitter sprinkled on top of the whip cream.

Definitely rich, definitely good, and yet not quite the best ginger-chocolate combo I have had (that goes to last year’s dreamy drink by Monogram 😍).

 

The Nash served up their Smoked Chocolate Chili Mocha for drink 14.

There was no dairy-free option; this one had the best whip cream so far. Good heat in the chili, and perfect sweetness.

 

We ventured to Fiasco Gelato to try their Salted Malted Hot Chocolate complete with crushed Maltesers on top. Definitely the sweetest so far.

#15

 

The Cinnamon Bun Hot Chocolate at The Main Dish marked #16 on the list. Cream cheese marshmallow topping was a sweet surprise, and the cinnamon/cocoa rim was a nice touch, but the hot chocolate itself was rather average. I decided I would have to come back for their Salted Dark Rum + Baileys Caramel another time.

 

My mum and sister are the best company ever!

On this particularly delightful afternoon we visited the Deane House for their Caramelized Honey Hot Chocolate (my 17th).

Excellent flavour and texture, and check out that *chocolate* marshmallow!! It was divine. 😍

I highly recommend this one!!

 

I stopped into Phil & Sebastian’s for my 18th hot chocolate of the festival.

The Tonka Soul Hot Chocolate had a rich dark chocolate flavour with hints of caramel. The presentation was some of the finest latte art I have seen. I’d recommend this one for sure. I loved it!!

 

An impromptu visit and breakfast with my friend Elizabeth was an awesome excuse to go out, so of course it included a hot chocolate; and a return to the Main Dish for their alcoholic offering.

(We had to wait until 11am to order their Salted Caramel Rum and Baileys Hot Chocolate.)

Sadly, it was just so-so, and tasted more like rum than hot chocolate, but maybe that’s what they are going for. The Cinnamon Bun was definitely the better drink here. Drink 19:

 

My friend Shanny and I went for the Orange Florentine Hot Cocoa at Sucré Patisserie, and it did not disappoint.

Luxurious flavour, not too overpowering, and lovely presentation. No wonder this place is so busy. A delicious (20th!) hot chocolate.

 

The 21st Hot Chocolate was the Earl of Ginger at Cococo (Bernard Callebaut), which came with a ginger chocolate candy on the side. The hot chocolate was rich and creamy and a perfect ‘classic’ hot cocoa, though apart from the chocolate candy served with it, I tasted no ginger. I’d still recommend it!

 

#22 -This next ‘hot chocolate’ was the Frozen Hot Chocolate milkshake at Boogie’s Burgers.

People in Calgary rave about Boogies, and particularly about their milkshakes so I had high hopes. In the end it was a very basic, boring, chocolate milkshake. I expected much more, honestly.

The 23rd of the hot chocolate festivities was enjoyed at SAIT, and the company was the best part! My friend Nicole works on campus and we wandered into the sunshine to enjoy our pink drinks. The Flirty Chai Hot Chocolate.

This hot chocolate was a powdery pink (coloured by beetroot without the intense veggie flavour), and was *without* even the tiniest, remotest, slightest hint of the promised chai flavour, but was still very pleasant simple white chocolate.

 

The Lavender Honey Hot Chocolate (#24) at Higher Ground was as pretty as it was sweet. The flavour danced right on the line of ‘dessert’ and ‘perfume’… 😳🤔

 

I made it to Blush Lane Organic Market on a dinner break from work, and got to indulge in and surprise my friend Chris with the Pistachio Orange Blossom hot chocolate. #25!

This drink was soooo good; the chocolate ganache and orange blossom whip cream was divine. I highly highly recommend it.

I wandered into Famoso for my second coffee-infused hot chocolate of the festival. The Nutella Mocha is the perfect combo of hot chocolate, coffee, and Nutella.

This was drink 26!

 

A new discovery! Société Coffee Lounge opened up recently on 11ave SW and my mum and my friend Karen and I got some good chatting in over warm drinks and delicious breakfast baking! ❤️

We tried their Bumblebee hot chocolate. My 27th of the festival, this turmeric & honey hot chocolate was a nice start to the day.

 

#27- A snowy day’s walk had me stopping into Ollia for the Rocher Chocolate Chaud: a perfectly refined hazelnut & chocolate combo. I felt sophisticated drinking it. And French. 😉

Plus it comes with a tiny hazelnut macaron so how can you go wrong?!

 

The 29th and my final hot chocolate of the YYC Hot Chocolate Fest was had at Cornerstone Cafe: their Mexi-Cocoa.

This was the spiciest of the chili hot chocolates that I have tried, and I wish there was something to cool the heat or at least compliment it. The good/bad news was they ran out of the much anticipated topping (homemade marshmallows) because they sold 100 more drinks than they expected to. A good problem to have, I guess!

If you have a chance to go out and get a hot chocolate next February, do it! Support Meals on Wheels, maybe discover a favourite new coffee shop or restaurant, and enjoy a delicious fancy hot beverage as well!

Fête de la musique – le 21 juin, 2014

/ sarapiper / 1 Comment

Saturday the 21st was Fête de la Musique, and there were free concerts all over the city.

This is a huge event in Paris every year and I was so happy to take part in it!

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My classmate Robert told me to go to the concert at the Invalides Metro station, because it would be all Canadian bands. The weather was spectacular and I walked past four other concert venues on my way to the “Nuit Boreale” Stage (aka, the Canadian stage), including a military band performing at the south end of the park at the Eiffel Tower.

The first group of the night was Marijosee (marijosee.com), a woman from Manitoba with a wicked voice and awesome band! When I arrived she was just killing it with crazy high notes and an amazing stage presence.

There were lots of people standing in front of the stage, and dozens more sitting on the grass in the huge field off to the side. There also some really adorable kids dancing their faces off just in front of me – they really had some great moves! 🙂 In between each of the 5 acts that night there was also a DJ from Toronto (Skratch Bastid), who was truly the very best DJ I have ever seen, and watching him is uber entertaining because you an tell he obviously loves what he does!  He will be in Calgary July 19th at The Marquee! Go see him! (skratchbastid.com)

The next group at our stage was a rock band called Mise En Scene, another Manitoba group (an English band with a French name). I ended up hanging out with Marijosee and her rockin’ drummer Kathryn for the changeover into the next band’s performance and we had our own sort of dance party during the DJ’s tunes. Marijosee told me that they had also been at a festival in Switzerland before Paris and were heading back to Canada the next day. Sounds pretty good to me!

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The next group was called Klô Pelgag, with a fantastic lead singer/piano player and a crazy band including violin, viola, cello, upright bass, and drums. The costumes really were the cherry on top, with the three female string players in bridal gowns and baseball caps, the drummer in a speedo and bathing cap and sporting a fake mustache, the bassist in a speedo, bathing cap, cape and flashlight spectacles, and the lead singer in a skeleton jumpsuit. They clearly have a lot of fun, and the lead singer has a great sense of humor and rapport with the audience. And in the middle of one song, the bassist did a magic trick centre stage. Yup, they are the whole package. (klopelgag.com) 🙂

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I ran into my friend Robert by the stage, which was great, and we enjoyed grooving to Franklin Electric -the next group. They were from Montreal, and were phenomenal. The lead singer started the first song wailing brilliantly on a trumpet. I was delighted to realize that I had made my way to the very front and had an awesome view of the stage for the rest of the night. (I promptly went home and bought their latest cd on iTunes.)

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The last group was a punk bank (Dracula Legs), and the crowd at this point was mostly made up of highschool/university students and they got a little crazy. A mosh pit was created, and several kids tried crowd surfing but didn’t get very far. It was a bit much by the end (yes, I am too old for this).

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I ended up chatting with another ‘solo’ Parisian attendee, and we left at the same time and ended up walking up and down the Seine talking in French for about an hour, before walking home. Since the concert ended at about 1:00am, and we took the long way, it turned into about a two and a half hour stroll so I got home just before the sun came up. Haven’t done that in a very long while. What a night. 🙂

The unexpected long weekend, in two parts…

/ sarapiper / 1 Comment

It wasn’t until mid-week when I was informed that Monday would be a holiday, so we had a long weekend coming up right away- no Monday classes! I kind of wished this information had been presented/advertised sooner, as I would have planned a weekend trip further out of town if I could have booked earlier. As it was I had several local adventures, including some theatre, another Basillica, a flea market, shopping in the Marais, the Seine walkway, a jazz concert, the Arc Du Triomphe, the Champs Elysees, Spoken Word, and a day trip to Fontainebleu! No complaints about that list!!
So from the beginning…or, Friday/Saturday…


Friday night I wanted to see some theatre so I picked up a “Pariscope”- a magazine with a detailed list of all events and arts going on in the city this summer- totally worth the 0.50€ it cost! I was hoping to see a show I had already seen in English so I had some context, and discovered that Molière’s L’Invalide Imaginaire was playing at Comedie Française, and I convinced a classmate to come with me. We saw that there were reduced price tickets for ‘restricted’ view seats, and when we went to purchase them we realized they are even cheaper than we thought – at 5€ each! C’était bon!
The show was very funny, but one thing about comedies that is for certain: they are very fast- the actors speak very quickly most of the time, so it was quite challenging at times to understand exactly what was being said. We had to go over what happened afterwards when we went to a cafe (called Molière!) for drinks after the show. Friday was a warm day, and the evening weather here is often perfect for walking around and finding a good bar or cafe to have a ‘happy hour’ drink- I have noticed that many of the bars in Paris have 4 or 5-hour long ‘happy hours’! Basically, if you go after 5 or 6, luck is on your side. (And since pop/soda is about the same price as a beer or glass of wine (!), this makes a difference to this coca-cola drinking girl. (Also, here, you ask for a ‘coca’, not a coke, if you want to say it ‘correctly’.)

Complete side note: I am finding that Parisians are so nice!! I am currently at a cafe, and the girl next to me needed a phone charger as her android phone is about to die. I couldn’t help her, but a stranger on the other side of me heard her ask me and offered his charger. I also find that shop owners and locals are very encouraging when I fumble with my French, or ask where I am from because they can ‘hear a slight accent’ to my French. I’ll take that ‘*slight* accent’ as one for the ‘win’ column! 🙂

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On the very hot and sunny Saturday I went up to Basillique Saint-Denis, at the suggestion of my friend Diana. A lot of the exterior was under construction, but inside you could defintely appreciate the grandeur and majesty of the building. Plus, the temperature inside was very cool, which was delightful. 🙂

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The square outside was pretty busy, as there had been some sort of celebration/festival of Saint Denis going on. I was about to head back to the metro when I saw some tents on the other side of the square and discovered my first French flea market.

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This place was crazy! There were clothes, housewares, cleaning products, jewelry, scarves and saris of every color and style, and it was a busy place- vendors calling out “allez allez allez allez” and other such things to get people to come over to their stall. I think that most people would have a hard time not buying *anything at all* if you had any cash on you- it’s hard to resist 3€ pumps- even if they only last for one night out!! ;).

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Yes, those shoes are on sale for 3€. That’s less than 5 bucks.

I  took the busy metro back to the centre of Paris and walked along the Seine, enjoying the many people out walking, biking, skateboarding and rollerblading in the sunshine! A brass band started playing just as I came to the steps by the Musée D’Orsay, and played some great covers of pop music with tuba, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and percussion.

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I also walked by the Bridge of Locks again, which, you may have heard on the news- had a section of the railing collapse from the weight of the locks on Sunday and police had to evacuate the bridge! Too many lovers…. Insert your own joke here… 😉

Another discovery in the Pariscope magazine is that it is Festival season in Paris! So now a jazz festival has begun. Saturday night I made my way to the Parc Floral De Paris to watch a jazz show on their outdoor stage; the concert is free with admission to the park – another evening of entertainment for 5€!

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The Park is at the south end of the Chateau Du Vincennes that we visited last week, and is probably very lovely during the day, and is free to visit on weekdays. I’ll definitely plan to make it back there! I didn’t explore too much of it as I wanted to get to the concert. The band performing was called Paolo Fresu Quintet, and they were fantastic!

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There were people all over the place sitting on the grass, on benches, and of course right by the stage where there was concert seating. I sat across the lake to listen, as the acoustics were great. It’s a common occurrence to see large groups of Parisians spending time with friends around the city, and here was no exception. Not only did I see an energetic group of people just outside the park playing badminton in a field, but there were a couple groups of people down the odd pathway playing la pétanque (bocce), but in the park at the concert there were numerous groups of anywhere from four to twelve people sitting on blankets, towels, and mats with a pile of food in the middle of them and boxes of beer and bottles of wine strewn around them. There were lots of families and some particularly hilarious kids were trying to do kart wheels and handstands nearby throughout the evening. It was a truly relaxed atmosphere (un air le détendu), and I loved it.

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Be prepared- Sunday/Monday is the lopsided part of the weekend. Il y a beaucoup des photos!