Please The Palate Pick of the Week: Office Holiday Party Pop Up at Severance Wine Bar

Written by Allison Levine on December 7, 2019

Lifestyle Cocktails

The Holiday season is here! If you are looking to get into the spirit, head to Severance Wine Bar in West Hollywood for their Office Holiday Party Pop Up, inspired by everything from Planes, Trains, & Automobiles to The Office. Drinking Champagne and Sherry based cocktails, eating some sweets while surrounded by tacky holiday decorations make the Severance Office Holiday Party Pop Up the Please The Palate pick of the week.

Owner Evan Charest was laid off from a tech job on Christmas Eve in 2017. In 2018, he opened Severance Wine Bar with the severance money he received. And here we are at Christmas time again, so what is better than drinking cocktails inspired by the one of the worst yet funniest workplaces, Dunder Mifflin.

Through the month of December, the space next to Severance Wine Bar on Melrose Avenue has been converted into a tacky office holiday pop-up. Open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, for $20++, you will get a complimentary cocktail or a sparkling wine flight. So get into the holiday spirit!

The cocktail offerings are all Champagne and Sherry based. Each is named after a Christmas themed movie that will test your trivia knowledge. Read More +

Please The Palate Pick of the Week: EatWith with Chef Christina Xenos

Written by Allison Levine on November 30, 2019

Lifestyle Food

I love going on food tours when I am traveling in a new city as they are a great way to see a city and learn about the culture. I find nothing more fulfilling than when I can meet with locals and experience their culture through their eyes. And that is why Eatwith, the world’s largest community for authentic culinary experiences with locals, is the Please The Palate pick of the week.

Eatwith is in more than 130 countries and they are bringing people together through food. Cooking classes, food tours and dining experiences are hosted by home-cooks, food-lovers, MasterChefs and Michelin-starred chefs. My Eatwith experience was with Christina Xenos, a professional chef, cookbook author, recipe developer, and journalist based in Los Angeles. I have known Christina for years as a journalist but had yet to enjoy her cooking. When she announced her dinner, featuring cuisine from Sifnos, the Cycladic island in the Southern Aegean Sea and said the proceeds of the ticket sales would benefit the Union Station Homeless Services in Los Angeles, I bought my ticket.

Christina is Greek-American and her family roots are from the islands of Crete and Milos. She travels there annually and this past summer she visited Sifnos, the birthplace of the first Greek cookbook author Nikolaos Tselementes. An island known for baking in clay pots, she worked with farmers and cooks while on her trip to learn these traditional recipes. Read More +

Please The Palate Pick of the Week: Bourgogne Wines for Thanksgiving

Written by Allison Levine on November 23, 2019

Wine

Some of the greatest wines in the world are from Burgundy (Bourgogne) in France. It is wine region that produces some of the worlds most legendary wines, as well as some of the most expensive wines. But the world of wines from Bourgogne is far more vast than the sought-after top producers. There are beautiful and affordable expressions of white and red Bourgogne wines that can be enjoyed anytime, especially with Thanksgiving dinner, and that is why Bourgogne Wines are the Please The Palate pick of the week.

Bourgogne (Burgundy) can seem intimidating. What is important to note is Bourgogne wine is influenced by its terroir and there is huge potential for exploration. Understanding just a few basics makes it that much easier to start picking out wines in a store or on a restaurant list and finding some great values! Read More +