Riga the hip

Lots of fun things going on in my neighbourhood.  Firstly, two wonderful small businesses just opened, which I promise to blog about in June: Veltin, a wine bar specializing in wines of the countries who were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and a bubble tea shop called Tea 2 Go (I think that’s the name) that I just checked out this afternoon for a small taste test- yes it’s good.

There is also a movie being filmed the next block over so the street is rammed with camera crews, lights, trucks, special roped off areas and actors.  Fun to watch.

My post today is on Riga (the city in Latvia) and how I almost booked a last minute flight, prompted by a 50% off seat sale for next weekend.  Riga has been floating around my travel radar since I landed in Prague last year.  The initial hook was an article I read about the city’s Jewish baked goods and particular style of rye bread which I am dying to go try.  The second hook is its seemingly blossomed design scene.  In a panicked consideration whether to book the 50% off flight or not (the decision ended up being not- but I will get there), I did some quick research on hotels.  Low and behold, there are some impressive looking boutique hotels that have opened or were renovated/reconstructed in the past five years not to mention interesting design stores and restaurants- I’m sold.

One hotel in particular which caught my attention was, Hotel Bergs, located in an area called Berg Bazars.

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Hotel Neiburgs also looks great.  The hotel is housed in an Art Nouveau building in old town and is owned and operated by members of the Neiburgs family who were involved in the construction of the building 1903.

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Then there is the very cool concept store, Riija where customers can experience the Latvian design and craftsmanship under one roof.  It looks like country, minimalist chic to me.

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And of course the hip eatry, Cydonia Gastropub (cydonia is Latin for quince) that recently opened.

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While my trip to Riga won’t be happening this month, I will visit the city sometime this year (I hope) and happily report back to you, my design inspired travel readers/followers of this blog!

How to plan a wedding abroad

On numerous occasions, I’ve been asked what it is like to plan a wedding from abroad without the use of a wedding planner.  No, planning a wedding abroad is not hard;  planning a wedding abroad is not scary; planning a wedding abroad does not have to be stressful if managed correctly. I thought I would dedicate a post to sharing my experience and maybe be of help to those of you who find yourself in a similar situation.  This post will be lengthier than usual, but I hope it will demystify the process of planning from abroad if this is something you are seriously considering.

To give you some background, I actually had the opportunity to plan three weddings abroad, only one of which will come to fruition, the one in Toronto in August, as the other two were “re-routed” for various reasons.

If you have made the decision to get married in a city, other than the one in which you are presently living, congratulations, you are now planning a wedding abroad.  I researched and planned three different weddings, cities I was neither familiar with, nor in which did I reside (Amsterdam/Florence) and planned the third wedding in Toronto (where I am originally from, but not currently living).   I will first address the experience of planning a wedding in a city where you neither live, nor are from- as this type takes a bit more leg work.

How Much Help Do You Need on the Ground?

The first step is to determine how much help you need on the ground.  This ranges from hiring a wedding planner who will act on your behalf and negotiate with local vendors (full service), to going it solo and relying on your own research skills and perhaps the venue’s staff to help you sort things out.  If you are getting married at a venue such as a hotel, vineyard, museum, or restaurant, that is already accustom to organizing events, your planning task becomes simpler.  Outside of negotiating what can and cannot be brought in from third party vendors and what has to be supplied by the venue, this type of venue is proficient in running their business and is usually experienced in events and can help guide you through the decisions that need to be made for your destination wedding.

In Florence, for example, where we were looking at a mix of hotels and Tuscany villas, we started with a planner as we thought it would be helpful to have someone show us around for a day or two but to be quite honest, we did the research ourselves, told our planner what we wanted to see (what type of venues looked good/suited our budget) and at the end of the day, could have conducted the visits ourselves.

If we went through with Florence, hiring a planner would have been helpful to help manage our guests on the actual weekend of the wedding, help us coordinate and oversee the extra guest activities as well as manage the legal wedding process, especially if there are documents that need translation or certain requirements to be met by the local government.    For instance, some countries require that the couple is present in the country three weeks before the wedding if neither person is a citizen of the country.  Be sure to check out local marriage laws if neither of you has citizenship of the country you are getting married.  Government websites are the place to look for this information.

On the other hand, in Amsterdam, we found our own religious officiant, set up meetings with florists, cake makers and located hotels for our guests.  We also researched and found our own venue and would have felt in good hands and received support from them since it was a hotel with an on-site events manager/team.

Planning a wedding in Toronto from Prague, brought its own complexities but nothing that was too difficult to manage.  The benefit of this situation is that we are both from Toronto and were familiar with venues.  We also planned to return home once before the wedding and did most of the correspondence with our caterer, cake person, florist, DJ, venue and decor via email. We then set aside and booked one week of meetings to finalize details and meet everyone in person when we returned to Toronto.  For the most part, vendor decisions can be discussed and managed online or on SKYPE because they require a little face time until a taste test is required.

We did opt to hire someone for day of execution because this bride-to-be would end up micro-managing the heck out of this event (more out of pure love of events and a strong interest to be hands on in everything she does) but that might not suit the needs of the guests and people around her.  So we mutually decided to increase our team by one and partner on the execution.

How Much Do You Love Research?

The more you love to research, hunt and search, the easier it is to plan a wedding abroad.  I will say, our process in all three cities was smooth due to the fact that both of us like hunting for things and one of us excels at online research.  Because my fiance and I were on the same page and shared a common interest in research, it was a pleasure to meet, talk, find, and learn about the potential vendors we could work with in each city.  It wasn’t stressful.  It was like an adventure.  We also gave ourselves enough time to do it so when we landed on the ground in each city, all of our meetings were pre-booked and all we had to do was follow our schedule of appointments and say yay or nay.  If research is not your thing, interest, forte or desire, hire someone.  Planning from abroad takes a lot of leg work and organizational skills.  If this does not bring you or your partner pleasure, outsource this duty.

Thanks to the Internet, our invitations, decorations, DJ, cake, groom’s suit/shirt, plus a couple other items, all came from online.  Pinterest has also been an extremely helpful tool in terms of creating image boards and finding pictures to help us communicate (visually), what we are looking for to vendors.  It is so easy to send a picture or group of pictures if words are not your forte, to help someone understand your needs. I have Pinterest boards for everything, the most minute detail if it is more helpful to communicate with a picture to someone I am speaking with. (If you are new to Pinterest- here is an example of a series of Pinterest boards)

If anyone has any particular questions, or is in need of some ideas, feel free to leave me a comment in the comment section below.  Happy to help where I can.

The Fly Trap: My Favourite Breakfast

Of my top five favourite breakfasts in the world, and yes I could probably list off my top five all time breakfasts around the world, the Fly Trap in Ferndale, Michigan belongs on this list.

While in Toronto, my mother and I dashed down to Michigan for 48 hours to shop for a wedding dress and managed to squeeze in a meal at the “famous” diner- it was on an episode of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

I love their entire menu, and when it comes to breakfast, no one does it like the Fly Trap.  They even have items with tofu which is rather unexpected at a diner.  In my opinion aren’t diners all about excelling at meat, more meat, grease, cheese, butter and eggs?

While I’ve sampled several of the Fly Trap’s dishes over the years, I consistently come back for their:

Gingerbread Waffle – with Sautéed Apples and Cinnamon Syrup –

Gingerbread anything is great but gingerbread waffles are off the hook.  This tastes like warm gingerbread cookies and the sauteed apples and cherries add a nice flavour to the ginger and cinnamon.  You don’t really even need the maple syrup to enjoy this dish.

Granola – House Mixed Nuts, Seeds and Honey Rolled Oats, with Coconut, Banana and Vanilla Yogurt –

This is heaven in a bowl.  I never can finish it but always make a serious dent in the serving.  It’s not too sweet, and the granola has a great texture that is something between a soft oatmeal cookie and crunchy oatmeal.  It is artfully wrapped in thin banana slices, with a side of fanned apple slices and topped with yogurt.

Are you drooling yet?  Could someone in Prague please take note- this is how you do brunch!!!

DAVIDsTEA

There is no secret of this blogger’s love of tea.  While in Toronto the week before last, I frequented, on numerous occasions, the newest location of DAVIDs TEA which opened at Bayview Village, in North York.

The new store is filled with bright colours, lots of light, a wall full of fun tea accessories and a second wall full of all of their colour coordinated tea.

I never leave this shop empty handed.  It is great for host/hostess gifts, and to stock up on new and interesting tea flavours.  Of course I am still loyal to my dragon pearls (jasmine tea) and sencha tea but on this visit, I did try an interesting watermelon flavoured tea and even enjoyed my fiance’s flavour of choice, a tea with gold flecks that has a cinnamon flavour mixed with black tea that was refreshing when iced.

DAVIDsTEA even has a cute little patio in front of the store where you can watch the beautiful shoppers of Bayview Village pass you buy while sipping tea.  In other exciting news, in the last shot, Aroma, the Israeli espresso bar/cafe chain that has taken Toronto by storm, will be opening across the “street” from DAVIDsTEA this year.  I think the two businesses will complement each other as one is a specialty tea store and the other is more well-rounded cafe-espresso focused.  Bayview Village continues to impress and astound me.  It’s come a long way in terms of evolving its retail mix from what it was in the 80s!

Lastly, if you are American and are reading this post, DAVIDsTEA opened its first two US stores in New York city this year.

Cake Tasting @ Flour Studio

One of the appointments I was most looking forward to while I was on my whirl wind wedding planning week in Toronto, was a cake taste test at Flour Studio with owner, Esther Ha.  Esther started cake studio almost five years ago in the Bathurst and Eglinton area after studying at Bonnie Gordon’s College of Confectionary Arts and believe it or not, I visited Esther’s brand new cupcake business, during the first week it opened and was happy to return five years later to put my official wedding order in.

Part cake/cupcake studio and part flower boutique, Flour Studio embodies everything a cupcake shop should look like.  Sweet smells, cute lighting and subway tiles, pastel coloured cake stands, inspiring cake displays and lots of fun gift and party items that decorate the perimeter of the store.

We came to Esther to make us a small wedding cake that we could cut at our wedding in August, but decided to add on an order of cupcakes for our guests to enjoy.  During our appointment, we sampled four cupcake flavours: chocolate chocolate, red velvet, vanilla vanilla and blueberry lemon. We also brought home a strawberry cupcake to taste later.

I heard from some very loyal Flour Studio cupcake customers that apparently, Flour Studio makes a banana cupcake that is to die for that was not available that day but if you are in the area and happen to see one sitting on a cake stand, it would be a mistake for you not to try one.

I think the butter cream that Esther makes is some of the best in the city.  I wouldn’t dare cover up one of her cakes in fondant. Rather, I want to eat and enjoy the butter cream.  Her cupcakes are spongy with a bit of crumble, never dry and full of flavour.  During our appointment, between mouthfuls of cake and icing, we spent some time talking “shop” about the cupcake industry in Toronto and which areas were saturated which areas could handle another opening.

While we haven’t made our decision yet on flavours, I think we have nailed down our cake shape and I look forward to placing my order and actually getting to eat our cake in August.

Does anyone have a favourite flavour cupcake at Flour Studio that you think I should consider incorporating into our wedding cupcakes?  I would love to hear your feedback.  Send me comments!!  Have a great weekend where ever you are.