Forget love – I’d rather fall in chocolate! With that thought in mind, why not dip into our Valentine’s Day themed event courtesy of The Chocolate Consultant Louise Thomas. She will be offering lucky Qypers a brief overview of the history and origins of cacao, including images and examples of cocoa pods and beans. She will be discussing the process of bean to bar, which includes a tasting of cacao nibs, theobroma cacao or theobroma grandiflorum pulp (subject to availability) and cacao butter.

From there, you’ll learn how to taste fine chocolate from assorted terroir and chocolate makers such as Valrhona, Amedei and the Artisan Du Chocolat.

Date: Thursday 25 Feb
Venue: The Drawing Room on Portobello Road
Time: Arrive promptly at 7pm, event to end around 8.30pm though guests are invited to have a beverage in the Muse Gallery afterwards.

“Valentines schmalentines” I cry every year as February 14th swings round again and my boyfriend and I studiously ignore each other til all the fluffy red hearts, sickly confectionery and schmaltzy cards have disappeared from the shops. We’re just not in to it.

But – surprise! – it turns out there is another side to the celebration than mass produced cute overload and overpriced dinners in jampacked restaurants, events to pique the interest of even the hardest of cold hearts…events like:

Friday 12th February – 7pm, review bookshop, Peckham

Writer and psychoanalyst Anouchka Grose takes part in an author meet and greet and book signing in this lovely local bookshop. Her book “No More Silly Love Songs” is a “nimble and original exploration of love’s hidden motivations and hideous manifestations.”

Sunday 14th February – 5.30pm-1am, Volupte Lounge, Chancery Lane

For £75 you can enjoy an amazing Valentine’s dinner gala with a top class Cabaret & Burlesque banquet and a club night to follow, with a tenner gaining you entrance to the AfterShow Club only. All profits go to VDAY, a charity founded by Eve Ensler (“The Vagine Monologues” author) seeking to stop violence against women. Find out more here.

Now to persuade the boyfriend to come along…

Image courtesy of Bob.Formal’s Flickr stream.

The lovely people at Pho are inviting only 5 bloggers (from Qype) along to listen to Stephen and Juliette give some information about the adventure from Vietnam to London that has brought them to own two successful London restaurants.

The idea behind this evening is to teach bloggers more about Vietnamese cooking, and allow them to have a go at cooking some traditional dishes (whispers of summer rolls and the secrets of soup stocks can currently be neither confirmed or denied). They will reveal a couple of their secrets, make sure the guests are well fed, all the while collecting feedback on their current menu.

Sounds like your cup of… soup?

Respond in this thread with a link to your food blog and the reason why you deserve to be there on the 15th of March to take over the lower level of Pho on Great Titchfield Street.

Lunchbattle.com is a handy little website, that uses Qype’s API to help you and your mates decide on where you should go for lunch today.

All you have to do is enter a WHAT and a WHERE (sushi in Soho, pubs in Paddington, chippies in Chipping Norton… you get the idea), and the site brings back the best choices based on our reviews. Then comes the clever bit.

Select the options you want to send to your friends (the top three pubs for example) and then share the voting page with them via Facebook, Twitter or email. Then sit back and watch the votes come in.

It’s lunch democracy for the masses, and Qype’s reviews are a click away if you need a hand making up your mind. Brilliant.

A giraffe, yesterday.

Did you know that in Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes? Or that a giraffe has the same amount of bones in its neck as we do (humans that is, not just us here at Qype HQ)?

Or were you aware that the hardworking, dedicated husband and wife team of Juliette and Russel Joffe have just opened the Belsize Park branch of their fine global Giraffe restaurants? Well they have and to celebrate we have this delightful competition, with a prize also donated by those fine fellows from London Zoo, which will bring your attention to their wonderful animal adoption scheme.

So, here’s what’s up for grabs: Giraffe, who serve up everything from award-winning breakfasts, all day brunch, gourmet burgers, healthy salads, handmade pies, desserts, fair trade coffee, freshly made smoothies, cocktails, beers and wines, have generously thrown in a three-course meal for two (with coffee, soft drinks and a bottle of house wine also included) at their new NW3 location.

Plus, they kindly got on the phone to their local zoo-keeping friends and arranged a London Zoo adoption. This means the lucky winner gets to adopt Ellish, ZSL London Zoo’s cheeky and mischievous giraffe. Headstrong and sometimes stubborn, four-year old Ellish is at an age where she’s testing keeper limits to see what she can get away with, rather like a very tall toddler. This part of the prize includes: a free e-ticket to the zoo – so you can visit your animal, access to exclusive animal web pages – for images and videos about your animal, personalised e-certificate – for you to download and proudly display, a subscription to Wild About – ZSL’s award-winning quarterly magazine and plenty of email updates to keep track of what your animal has been up to.

Get your entries in via one of these three easy routes:

1. Email us at QDL@qype.com with a subject line that reads “Qype: flippin’ heck, you’ve got some neck!”
2. Hit us up on Twitter with the message “@qypedoeslondon You’re giving away a giraffe?”
3. ‘Like’ the Facebook post.

Lookin’ for a little Friday night delight? Check out this news brief!

Friday, the 26th of February from 7pm to late, the Exhibit Bar in Balham will treat 10 Qypers plus a guest each to a complimentary drink and a free screening of the hilarious comedy classic, The Anchorman. Following the movie, attendees will be offered 50% off Exhibit’s menu (which could mean a three course meal for as little as £7.50).

Exhibit has kindly offered to provide moustaches to everyone (Seriously!). However, wearing your own bad 70s suit or dressing up as one of your favourite Anchorman characters will most certainly not be frowned upon!

Interested? Stay classy and sign up here.

Ah yes! Yet another yummy freebie for Qypers!

This one will be at Alimentari Italian deli in Queen’s Park. Ten lucky attendees will have the opportunity to learn how to make the perfect frothy cappuccino with advice from Clara Boatto, Alimentari’s resident expert barista, and will also receive a lesson in creating yummy Sicilian treats from Le Dolci’s Lisa Sanguedolce.  The event will also offer the chance to brush up on your Italian language skills for your next ristorante italiano visit. Sweet!

If you’re free on Tuesday the 16^th of February from 7pm-9pm and keen for a tasty dose of la dolce vita, sign up here.

It’s fair to say the average working Londoner has somewhat of a soft spot for lunch, and although the trend is to eat at our desks we’re usually up for trying something a bit different. Long gone are the cardboard sandwiches of citylore – these days we’re pretty much spoiled with food from all over the world.

So, where next for the modern worker who wants something more from their midday meal? Atsuko’s Kitchen not only concoct and deliver bento boxes to your workplace, but also run Japanese home style cooking courses. I had a chat with Atsuko herself:

QYPE: What is a bento box and where does it come from?

ATSUKO: Bento boxes means same as lunch boxes in western which are served in all over Japan, work places, schools, department stores, and even on the trains. These tasty Japanese lunch boxes have been enjoyed for over 800 years!

It is literally convenient box which is used to be wrapped by bamboo sheet to carry it to traveling long time ago, also a refined container which made from lacquer ware was used for picnic or tea ceremony.

QYPE: What does a typical bento box contain?

ATSUKO: There are many styles of bento boxes. For example, “shokado bento” is a large lacquered bento box which normally has 4 compartments. Each space contains rice, sashimi, tempura, nimono (stewed dish), and pickled vegetables.

“Makunouchi bento” is popular in a theater, eaten between the play (interval of play). Normally contains rice with black sesame, grilled salmon, stewed dish, and egg roll something like that.

Although a most common style of home made bento contains rice with umeboshi (salted plum), tamago yaki (egg roll), kara age (fried chicken), and potato salad (japanese style) etc… It should be very well balanced dishes in the bento boxes. Such as rice as a main dish, then protein from meat or fish, and egg, minerals from seaweeds, vitamins from vegetables.

QYPE: Can anyone make and eat bento?

ATSUKO: Yes, anyone can make their own bento. It is very common people make or just pack their own bento in the morning. For school, office, picnic! So that the bento workshop would help to make your bento.

QYPE: Can you tell us a little bit about the classes you run?

ATSUKO: I have been running the Japanese home style cooking classes which anyone can learn simple and tasty Japanese dishes at home. There is not only fancy sushi but also a plenty of Japanese dishes you can cook with use fundamental 5 seasonings and secret mum’s techniques… which might impress you.

Also the bento workshop is actually worth to learn about well balanced quick dishes used intensive techniques. I would like students to learn what is a real flavour of Japanese dishes in the classes then they would find what is the best dish!

QYPE: Can you recommend any good places to sample bento in London?

ATSUKO: I do catering as well. Bento from Atsuko’s kitchen would be the best!

Visit Atsuko’s website for more information on classes and how to book and make sure you check out the reviews on Qype, too!

Image courtesy of moogs’ Flickr stream.

If you thought we at Qype were going to spend 2010 resting on the laurels of last year’s resounding triumphs, you were very wrong.

Alas, if you’ve been finding January a tad stressful and detrimental to your overall well-being, feast your eyes on this forthcoming gem: we have teamed up with the folks from Kuno Tierra, who from their Regent Place salon offer “a unique holistic approach to body and mind, set within a boutique style urban retreat”. On March 2nd, a select bunch of Qypers will be frantically rushing over to Kuno Tierra’s Spa for a complimentary, calming evening of mini hand treatments, gel tasters, express manicures, 30-minute facials, 20-minute Indian Head massages and relaxing head, neck and shoulder massages, before tranquilly floating home: relaxed, rejuvenated and with all signs of stress evaporated.

In one evening, we will get a proper pampering and a flavour of the unique experience on offer at this W1 holistic haven of health and beauty. If you’re interested in attending, sign up here.

London’s most plugged-in audiovisual festival Alpha-ville presents the first in a series of podcasts, further developing the festival’s commitment to promoting emerging electronic artists on music’s cutting edge via a partnership with music sharing company Soundcloud.

This series of music events will offer an insight into the type of music that makes Alpha-ville tick, the trends that are setting in and the direction that electronic music is heading in. With so much free music available thanks to the internet, they feel it’s time the most forward thinking producers are given an opportunity to find a wider audience and establish a heightened awareness of what Alpha-ville stands for.

Artists already confirmed showcase the scope of the project with a truly global line-up taking shape including Midori Hirano, a Berlin-based Japanese-born producer, the UK’s own artist and producer LJ Kruzer and Magnitophono, a project by Eleni Adamopoulou.

The first podcast will be available to download the last week of January as part of an exclusive partnership with music and art magazine Fact magazine, where you will be able to find introductions and Q&As with the featured artists available online as part of a ongoing, monthly basis.

For further information:

www.alphavillefestival.co.uk
alphavillefestival@googlemail.com