Long delayed post on Chef’s Night Out

Posted on May 17, 2013

So, I was lucky enough to win a facebook contest from Bluecoat Gin and got two free tickets to Chef’s Night Out which they are a sponsor of. This was held in the basement of the Plaza hotel and is connected with the James Beard awards. I brought my friend Alexandra who is a pastry chef and we got to business immediately by making nuisances of ourselves in the lobby of the plaza and taking photos before the event. Like this.

And this:

Then we diddled around, checked out the bathrooms (natch, we are ladies after all) and then hung out in the lounge before the event opened.

So after this we waited on line and finally the event began. We were confronted with an overcrowded bar immediately, that we knew was a suckers game. We snarfed up some pastries and chocolates. Alexandra wanted to go savory after that initial taste, and I knew my vegan choices would be slim and perhaps there would be some slippage.
The first free drink we helped ourselves to was a Woodford Reserve “Manhattan”. Now..they tried to give us a giant cocktail glass, with a pre-mixed Manhattan loaded with ice. We were all…uh…please strain, we’ll take it up. It was good, though very watered down by whatever ice treatment they gave the pre-mixed drinks. Still, it was free, like everything we had so who is complaining?

At this point we began to look for stuff to eat. I confess trying several non-vegan macarons. (I won’t compound the shame by including photos.) I was meanwhile looking for the gin, knowing that the Bluecoat people were here and a sponsor and therefore there had to be a gin drink on offer. We got waylaid by these truffles, both of which were cocktail flavored, the orange one was supposed to be a Mai Tai. It was yummy but I’m not sure it totally succeeded with that.

Then I got cheese free pizza with caramelized onion and eggplant, and Alexandra got a short rib sandwich of some kind. There was fruit and hummus and olives and I kept stuffing my face with that. As my friend made a round to look for more things to gather I settled in to chow down. There were a lot of annoying rich people, some of which got annoyed when you were too near them. But again, this was free, I was eating and drinking for free in the Plaza, admittedly the basement but still, gift horses, mouths that you don’t glance at.

Then…the good stuff started to happen. First I met a lovely person who actually won a James Beard award for her children’s cooking magazine, Chop Chop, she was so nice she’s sending me an issue and the website is lovely with beautiful photos. Definitely getting children into cooking real food is an important mission.
Next I found the pumpkin ravioli, which I asked for without cheese at the same time as finding the nicer back bar which had the gin cocktails. Eureka. I proceeded to eat about eight samples of the noodles and saw that to my surprise one of the sponsored gin drinks was a Bronx cocktail!!!

(check the pretty out of focus Bluecoat bottles in the background)
I had really heard good things about Bluecoat, from my friend Amy but honestly the stores around me do not carry it. However after some poking around I realized that I have the absinthe by the same distiller Vieux Carré. That is a topic for another time but lets just say I am a fan already. Anyway, I was thrilled to get a Bronx, though again it suffered from having sat in ice for a bit, however they did serve it to me up as asked, and I drained that thing. Amen.
I got a gin and tonic that was also lovely. There was a tequila sponsor, and don’t ask me why every place has to ruin a margarita, but this was a Tommy’s margarita and it was terrible. So I won’t say what tequila or anything it was because the drink was a watered down kool-aid tasting mess, which I could barely have two sips of. Here have some more gin.

At that point we actually met the reps from Bluecoat, and they were genuinely fun people to hang out with and I am so appreciative that I won the contest and got to meet them and talk about cocktails and have gin with them. Lovely. Alexandra and I head upstairs to poke around the vacant Palm court before we leave.
So the final point of the night, my friend Jeff who had been following my facebook updates, texts to dare me to take pictures of myself lying on the carpet upstairs with my green hair against the red rose patterns. Which I absolutely say no way to. I mean forget it, the security guard was breathing down our necks and it’s not happening. So…

And then…

Thanks Bluecoat and Chef’s Night Out, Alexandra and a shout out to carpet lint for not getting in my hair too badly.