Food Elevates Your Event

If you are hosting an event in the mile high city you may want to consider taking your party or conference to new culinary heights.  Anyone who knows me will acknowledge that a single word lights me up.  Food!  And not just any food, but great, inventive food.  It’s just not a party without some form of victual and libations.  Few realize the true potential of food to  elevate your event not just with a spectacular menu that reflects your personal taste, but with food that will entice all your senses.  From a visual perspective, I always try to incorporate food as part of the decor of an event following both color and texture cues from the overall event design.  Great caterers and chefs use the infinite palate that mother nature gives us in form, color, taste and texture and combine them to create either the central focus of an event or that extra flourish that can make an event a memorable experience.  I remember great and inventive cocktails, appetizers and entrees that I have had the pleasure of imbibing or consuming over the years, and that memory brings me back to the event itself.  O.K., so maybe you are not as food obsessed as me, but food is an essential ingredient in many an occasion, so why not raise the bar and make it delicious, fantastic and memorable.

When planning your event peruse magazines, watch a cooking show on T.V., search websites (or blogs!) and of course go top the sources by working with great caterers or up and coming chefs who want to stand out and are willing to get creative.  Explore new restaurants and you may come away with some ideas to incorporate into your menu.  Perhaps you can bring an ethnic slant to your menu.  Take some cues from the places you have traveled; your second or third language, where your ancestors originated, the next place you’d like to vacation or your new favorite restaurant.

One of The Main Events‘ wedding clients who lived in LoDo (that’s lower downtown in Denver) frequented Fogo de Cho and loved it so much we hired a caterer to replicate the Brazilan style food and service at their wedding for over 200 guests.

I recently had the pleasure of discovering ChoLon, also in the LoDo section of Denver, via my friend Preeya, who works for a fabulous catering company, Catering By Design .  (Follow fellow foodies to find the best eats!)

ChoLon was stupendous.  Chef Lon Symensma and his wonderful team whipped up an amazing array of incredible dishes that reflected both his CIA training and his travels across Europe and South East Asia.  Under the direction of reknowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Gray Kunz, Lon helped open Jean Georges Shanghai and then returned to New York (my home town) to work at the famed Spice Market which was recently featured in the Bravo T.V. show Bethanny Ever After.

While dining at ChoLon I was bombarded with ideas of how to raise the bar at our next event. (Ironically, we were sitting at the bar so we could see all the open kitchen action in front of us.)  Our first course was the heavenly, Kaya Toast, Coconut Jam, Egg Cloud.  What is an egg cloud you ask – well some sort of magical version of an egg.  I think I heard the words nitrous oxide and I’ve seen that used to aerate and transform ordinary liquid into something other worldly.  This type of dish would be a perfect passed appetizer for any upscale event and the use of the nitrous oxide can really transform an ordinary sauce into a very unique texture.  We dipped the sweet toast in the egg concoction and it was hard to put down the toast bits when it came time to dive into the lemongrass infused mussels.  I’ve eaten many a bi-valve in my day, but these were amazing.  All the flavors melded beautifully.  I thought that mussels would be a great first course at any event and a nice departure from, say, a standard shrimp cocktail.

 

The next dish that wowed me was the Soup Dumpling, Sweet Onion, Gruyere.  Imagine a little innocent dumpling sitting patiently in it’s steamer basket.  You nestle it between your chopsticks, place it in your mouth and BAM!  As your teeth pierce the pouch, warm onion soup floods your mouth and enraptures your taste buds.

Next came the Crab Rangoon.  This one you’ve probably seen before, but what a lovely presentation.  I just loved the fact the little puffs were filled with locally made cheese.  Several more dishes followed, yet the portions were perfect so that I could keep on enjoying the bites with room left for dessert.

When the dessert was set in front of us, we were again treated to first a visual feast, followed by yet another fabulous taste sensation.  I didn’t know you could make sorbet from a banana leaf, but this oval of rain forest green had the most wonderful flavor, color and texture.  Lon paired it with coconut sorbet that was rich and creamy, a perfect complement to the light texture of the banana leaf sorbet.  Both were topped with sweet and spicy crispy ginger strips that stood at attention atop the scoops.  This dish would make a perfect intermezzo or dessert.

So, when planning your next dinner party, social or corporate event – remember to focus on the food; and, if it’s been a while since you’ve dined in the mile high city, know that restaurants like ChoLon are raising Denver’s culinary stature  to new heights.