"Insta"-Brunchin'
Last Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to attend a lovely event hosted by Zac Wolf Photography at Roxy's Grilled Cheese brick-and-mortar in Allston. To fuel this amazing food-filled adventure, we began with some coffee from Black Magic Coffee. Dave, the owner, is so sweet and talked to us a bit about his mobile concept and his use of local beans. Each time you catch him, his coffee may be a different roast, as he works with 4 to 5 different local coffee roasters. Having worked with him before at some Zipcar events, let me tell you - his coffee and cappuccinos are always perfect no matter the roast. He is extremely dedicated to his craft. I also have to mention the cute cup sleeves that said "let it cool" in a beautiful watercolor lettering.
After the coffee, we all bit into our customizable bagel sandwiches via Exodus Bagels. We were able to choose the type of bagel, the type of cream cheese and a filling. I chose a jalepeño cheddar bagel with plain cream cheese and lox. The options were endless - I was eyeballing the salt bagel (well actually, all of them to be honest) and the housemade blackberry cream cheese sounded intriguing. The bagel was one of the best I have ever had. The texture was perfect and the jalepeño was not overpowering, it had the right amount of heat. I liked the pieces of jalepeño and pepper in the bagel, it was a nice fresh touch. The lox and cream cheese were perfect too, the ratio was right on. If you want to get your hands on an Exodus Bagel, check in on their website for the latest location. They are currently a pop-up bagel company with no official storefront. I can't wait to see where they pop-up next - I'm craving one as I write!
Next up, was Roxy's Grilled Cheese poutine. Being a HUGE fan of their truffle fries, I knew these were gonna rock. And I was right. They used the same hand-cut fries as the base, topped with pork, gravy, cheese curds and a fried egg. Can't get any better than that! We followed with a few sweet treats, one being dessert from FoMu, a vegan ice cream shop. Coconut cream is used as the base for the ice cream and I couldn't tell the difference! We sampled a espresso flavor topped with chai-spiced pecans and it was delicious. Blackbird Doughnuts was also in attendance, allowing us to pick one doughnut from their assortment to try. I chose the S'mores doughnut, which was good, but the chocolate flavor wasn't as intense as I had hoped. It was a bit bland, but the texture was awesome and fluffy and it was easily one of the most visually appealing doughnuts I've seen in a while.
Throughout the sampling process, Zac of Zac Wolf Photography was giving us information over a slideshow presentation on how to take the perfect food photo with your mobile phone. He gave plenty of samples, ideas and tips and I can't believe how my photos have been turning out since! All the photos were taken on my iPhone and any minor edits were also done on my iPhone. He suggested VSCOcam as an option to edit photos on your iPhone, and while I am partial to Afterlight, I have been dabbling a bit in VSCO and coming across some neat options. I would recommend checking it out for sure! L.R.E.A.M (light rules everything around me) was the biggest thing that I took out of his class, which seems slightly obvious but it makes the biggest difference. I laughed a lot through class and he was an absolute pleasure to take class with! Informative, fun on top of lots of food, how can you go wrong? I hope to attend another one of his classes soon!
Thank you to all of the restaurants that came out to this event - it was definitely a tasty one!
xo, M
featured EATS
Roxy's Grilled Cheese
Neighborhood: Allston + food truck schedule
485 Cambridge St, Allston, MA 02134.
$ (under 10)
Blackbird Doughnuts
Neighborhood: South End
492 Tremont St., Boston, MA 02116.
$ (under 10)
Exodus Bagels
Neighborhood: rotating pop-up locations
$ (under 10)
FoMu
Neighborhood: Allston
481 Cambridge St, Allston, MA 02134.
$ (under 10)