Wow, what a whirlwind of a week it has been! I am sure most of you saw last week’s British Weekly Toscar coverage (if not, its available online at www.british-weekly.com). We had a fantastic turn out and a very successful event. Thank you so much to everyone who came together to make it the best one yet! To view all the five-minute parody films, including this year’s winner ‘Terminate HER’, please visit our website TheToscars.com
Our Oscar parody week was launched with a Toscar Participants Luncheon for 100 people over at Palihouse in West Hollywood. We feasted on their newly-launched Sunday menu designed by fellow Brit, Matthew Woolf. Chef Woolf started cooking at the age of 16 at Claridges in London and his talent took him on an amazing journey, which included a stop at the Ritz, then on to the Trump Hotel and also the Fig in Santa Monica. More recently, his path returned him back under the helm of Gordon Ramsay, as Executive Chef at The Fat Cow (The Grove Shopping Mall at Third & Fairfax). The Palihouse certainly knows how to pick ‘em! Their Sunday lunch menu is absolutely delicious and quite unique – especially in the Los Angeles area – I tried the treacle-cured roast beef and also shared a Scotch Egg with curry mayo. I am definitely going back to try the Guinness flavored Welsh Rarebit and save some room this time for dessert. I have my eye on the Apple & Toffee Crumble Pie (with Rum Ice Cream!). Sunday lunch menu serves from 11-3pm. Visit palihouse.com for full details.
On pre-Oscar Friday we had the pleasure of being invited to The GREAT British Film Reception hosted at the British Consul-General’s Residence, in honor of Oscar winner (then nominee) Steve McQueen, for ’12 Years A Slave’. There were plenty of notable guests in attendance, including Dame Helen Mirren and Chesney Hawkes but the one that seemed to cause the most excitement was Sir Alex Ferguson! I think partially because it was so out of context to see him away from a football match. I asked him if he was here for football reasons (wondered if he was dabbling with managing the LA Galaxy), but no, he told me his friend was hosting a little party for Vanity Fair, so he thought it was a good excuse to pop over. Virgin Atlantic had a fun photo booth set up with a First Class Cabin back drop, complete with real live flight attendants. Jaguar USA’s patriotic Union Jack-wrapped F-Type was the other star of the show, featured prominently at the event check in and coveted by pretty much every guest.
One of the downsides of the Oscars is the horrid traffic it causes for those of us living in Hollywood – I read an unsurprising statistic this week which informed me that Los Angelenos spend 47 hours a year sitting in traffic! I think I have done that in the past week thanks to the storms, the Oscars, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s current visit and we still have the LA Marathon to get through on March 9th!
We have lots of other fun events going on this month and would love you to come and join us at one or all. Visit our website Britsin.LA for all the details or drop us a line at info@britsin.la. And if you happen to be running in the LA Marathon this weekend tweet us @BritsinLA so we can follow your progress and share with our other members.
Cheers!
Eileen
