QOOQ - Playing in Paris with the new tablet!

I was invited to travel on Eurostar to Paris recently to try out a new French tablet made exclusively for the kitchen.  That was the exciting part but not being a morning person the 06:15 train to St Pancras was not the best part of the plan!!

The train journey from St Pancras, London to the Gare du Nord, Paris was a quick 2 hours 20 mins and a chance for a relaxed chat with the other food bloggers on the trip including Helen and Kavey and new friends Mark and Farrukh.

The new tablet is called QOOQ (pronounced Cook) and is intended to be used in the kitchen and will withstand all the rough and tumble a typical cook will put it through.

The QOOQ was originally made in China but due to rising costs the manufacture was trasnsferred to France.  This makes a very popular statement in France that it is produced on home soil and offering jobs and revenue.

When we arrived at the Gare du Nord station in Paris we were met by the lovely staff from Unowhy - the parent company and taken to their headquarters.  We were very eager to see the tablet and start putting it through it's paces. Coffee always tastes better when someone else makes it and this cup was no exception along with the little pastries which we sampled whilst hearing all about the things that the QOOQ tablet could offer. Hubert, the Marketing Director was able to answer all our questions and even tell us things we hadn't thought to ask yet. 

We were introduced to Farida, a well known French TV personality and chef. Farida is an accomplished cook having learned from her Algerian mother. It was Farida's recipe that we would be preparing first.

We went into their kitchen area to discover that we would split into teams of two and prepare two recipes.  There were an odd number of us so I was paired up with Linda, the Project Manager and we were told to pick up the QOOQ and find the recipes and start preparing them without any real hints to do so.  The purpose of this was to highlight how easy the tablet was to use.  We were timed as we set about our tasks and at the end of the time our efforts were judged. 

Our starter ready for judging!

Champagne and a good bit of banter follwed then on to a simple lunch of what we had prepared and plates of cheese, fois gras, fruit and some lovely wine.

After lunch were taken to a very well known French cupcake shop for a drink and a cupcake we had a quick chat with Chloe who also featured on the QOOQ amongst the other well known TV personalities and chefs.

Chloe and some of her cup cakes ready for sale

I had a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing.

We all shared a piece of Chloe's famous Nutella cake, yumm

Another little morsel!

 A couple of hours free to wander round the shops and then the Eurostar home.  A slightly different Saturday from usual and a very enjoyable one.

And now for the technical stuff:-

The QOOQ offers users a unique interaction with top chefs and allows the user to access over 1,000 recipes and for a small subscription fee you can access up to 4,000 more.  The recipes range from easy beginner level to much more accomplished cook and encourages the user to cook along with the chef.  It is also possible to load on your favourite recipes, share them with friends and even works our a shopping list for you.

It has a touch screen display and an extra durable case and is spill proof and designed to be used by sticky, floured hands and still works.  The tablet has a foldaway stand, timer and speakers as well as 8GB of memory.  You can also use if for accessing email, social media apps and online radio.

There are many more functions and features (the English language is still US English but will be changing to UK English for the UK market).

The QOOQ tablet costs £289 and is available online via the QOOQ website. This would make a great Christmas present for any budding chef or accomplished cook!