On Wednesday morning, I had the novel experience of heading downtown during the morning commute (8 amish), as my group was having a working offsite in the city at the W Hotel. I had the task of planning most of this offsite, so it was fun over the last month to search for a good place. We had a hefty agenda full of topics, and our intent was to have the meeting off-campus, in a nice locale with good meeting space, and where there was a good restaurant on site. I originally wanted to have the offsite at the St. Regis, as I was dying to try the new hot restaurant, Ame (from Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani, who opened Terra in Napa Valley), but alas, there was no room for us (foiled!). And that's how we ended up at the W Hotel. Not too shabby.
We spent the morning embroiled in agenda topics, and broke for lunch at noon. We headed down to XYZ Restaurant, where had each chosen menu items from a 3-Course Prix-Fixe menu.
For an appetizer, I chose the carpaccio of ahi tuna with pickled red onion, daikon sprouts & agrodolce cucumbers. Surprisingly, this was not a typical carpaccio cut of tuna. It was almost like ahi sashimi, and we all know how much this girlie loves her raw fish. The pickled cucumbers were delicious as well.
For an entree, I had the fennel rubbed skirt steak with deciccio broccoli, delicata squash & veal jus. The flavors in the veal jus were very good and added a slightly different taste to the skirt steak. The squash was so delicious that I imagine it was cooked in a pound of butter, tremendous indeed.
For dessert, I chose the chocolate caramel bar with candied peanuts, coffee sabayon & salted caramel ice cream. In truth, it was fine, but not amazing.
Here's a picture of the other dessert (that I didn't choose) that looked pretty tasty, the roasted pear bread pudding with huckleberry sauce & sour cream mousse...d'oh!
Our meetings ended around 4 pm, and most of the group had to get back to work or go home to some poor little sick kids. I headed off with a couple managers around the corner to Vino Venue, where we were going to do a little wine tasting.
Vino Venue is an interesting place. It's a smart business idea, but there's a little contradiction to what I imagine any wine tasting experience to be like. The best wine tastings that I've experienced is when you have someone knowledgeable who takes you through a flight of wines, nurtures and supports the tasting of the particular wines, and teaches you a little bit at the same time. For me, this happened a lot when I was a server in Calgary at some higher-end restaurants and they really took the time to educate servers on wines and food pairings. My trips to Napa have been really fun, but it's really rare to got somewhere to taste wines where the staff will spend time with you in that way.
So, at Vino Venue, they have these high-tech machines that are designed to pour exactly 1-ounce pours out of a nozzle hooked up to the bottle of wine. Each "station" concentrates on a varietal of wine. You put money on a card (like a debit card), insert it into the slot, put your glass under the desired nozzle, and push a button. Each 1-oz pour costs different, depending on the price of the wine, so in some cases, it's not cheap. There are little cards above each wine that talks a little about the wine, the flavors, etc. etc.
I stuck with Pinot Noirs for my tastings. I ended up trying about five different pinots. It's a great business idea because people can taste independently, at their own pace, and it requires less manpower to staff this place. It's also good for people who are looking for wine to buy and want a quick taster without any troubles. Apparently this place is popular for work functions too. They have room in the back for food to be laid out and it's right next door to A.G. Ferrari Foods, so you can get good nibblies catered too.
By 5:30, I parted ways with my co-workers and ran a few errands while I was downtown. I hoofed back up the hill after my Muni ride and was amazed at how ridiculously sweaty I was.
Around 7 pm, I headed over to Heather's house for a get-together of the ladies of present and past Brass Monkey for dinner. We ordered take-out Thai food from Thep Phanom, always a good place to eat. The ladies hung out, ate yummy food, and had some quality girl-bonding time on a weeknight. By 10:30 pm, most folks pulled the chute, which was to my relief, I was tuckered out!
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