Live Blogging the Wine&Food Festival: Casino Night With Peter Kelly
The party tonight with the Greater New York Wine & Food Festival is Casino Night, hosted by Peter X. Kelly, chef-owner of X20 Xaviars on the Hudson in Yonkers, Restaurant X and Bully Boy Bar in Congers, Freelance Cafe and Wine Bar in Piermont and Xaviars at Piermont. So far, we’ve tasted some delicious sliders made with filet mignon, coconut shrimp, short rib and foie in puff pastry, lobster cappuccino and fancy pigs in blanket. Oh, and did I mention that I’ve already lost $200 in fake money on craps?
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This will be all for tonight because my camera battery has died. I’ll see you back tomorrow for more chef demos and wine tasting!
By the way, any comments from today’s visitors? I’d love to know if you had a good time?
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Hi.. we had a great time today. We’re not big wine drinkers so we did not take full advantage of the event, but we did manage to eat plenty. I thought the event was seriously overcrowded. You’re lucky a fire marshall did not show up and shut the place down. The lobby and tents were impossible to move at times. Clearly there has to be another venue that can handle this better. Had some great food—the salmon sashimi on crispy wonton from Wasabi was excellent. Ruths Chris had really nice samples, they had nice slices of seared tuna, some steak tips, bread pudding, and berries with zabaglione. I got to meet Jeff Raiser from One (formerly of Valley) which was nice since I’d never met him, even when we ate at Valley (I found out that he took the mushroom raviolis and madelines with him to One). I got home and found names of some restaurants in the program that were supposedly there but I did not see because of the crowds in the tent. Also I did not get to the Mojito station in the rear of the tent because it was just too crowded.
The demos were great, but sadly we had to watch the Top Chefs one from lounge where they had set up TV’s (I did not realize you needed tickets, we did not need for the first one). Sadly the speakers they had did not work well and several people were talking so we still have no idea why the Top Chef chefs made. Fortunately I got tickets for the Peter Kelly demo and he was really wonderful, and he had plenty of samples for the entire audience (and then some). My daughter was very excited to hear that Hung was there, she is a big Top Chef fan! I got his picture for her. Please let me know if you post the video from that.
BTW, some restaurants (Peter Pratt’s/Umami, for one) are giving out discount coupons for use at their restaurants. Check it out if you’re there on Sunday.
Liz, thank you again for the tickets from the contest. I brought my mom and while the two of us sampled some good food, I’ve got to put in my two-sense here:
Have to agree with Bill in terms of overcrowdedness. We arrived on Saturday at about 1:30. The lobby area of the Grand Tasting Room was mobbed. There was no room to walk around, no clear view of what the vendors were giving away, and a bunch of frantic, aggravated people.
If I had paid $75 for that ticket, I would’ve been seriously bent as soon as I set foot in the hotel. As it was, I was still a little bent that someone spilled red wine all over my leather jacket, because they were knocked into me.
While the food was tasty and the portions generous, why squeeze everyone into such a small venue? The event planners knew ahead of time how many people had paid for tickets and how many vendors were there – so how come there were no chairs, almost no waste baskets and no larger tents? My mom and I felt like we were at war trying to squeeze our way to the tables, and once we got there, there was no place for us stand and eat! We had trouble even moving out of the way to let other people get to the table. And sadly, because it was so crowded, I’m not ever sure what food was from what restaurant.
Highlight from the event? I met Hung who was also trying to squeeze his way through the lobby.
I think this festival has a lot of potential, and obviously the demand is there. Hopefully next year, it’ll be done with a little more room to breathe.
(Btw, does anyone know who made the DELICIOUS Sweet potato tarts in the tent? They were the best thing I had hands-down, but I didn’t have the willpower to fight my way back over there later to find out the name of the restaurant. Now I wish I had. I believe they were also serving fresh fruit and custard in a cup.)
They really needed to give these out so people could have a free hand to eat with:
http://www.wineenthusiast.com/E/details.asp?Ep=An/0//A/21472
Of course, you’d still have to worry about someone bumping into you but I’d imagine that with a not very full glass, there would be minimal chance of spills.
A third arm would also have been handy (no pun intended)
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I missed the sweet potato tarts
. The fresh fruit (berries) and custard was Ruths Chris. They also had seared tuna that was great, and some bread pudding, and steak bits.
Jeff Raider from One had some crab cakes that my wife said were excellent. Hudson House had a nice salad with duck. The guy selling wine sorbet were also very interesting, I had an interesting conversation with him.
The Incredible Edibles people had some nice chocolate dipped strawberries and apples. Oh, and I saw some people with Doubletree cookie wrappers but I did not see anyone giving them out. Maybe they were only for hotel guests (they usually are but I figured it would be nice to give them out to attendees). They’re excellent (but I did not find one to eat).
I have a feeling that the Doubletree had made a sweet deal with the event organizers to host it, and their lack of appropriate facilities wasn’t going to get in the way of having it there. Even the chef demos should have been in a much larger room. Can you imagine if you were a hotel guest and you had to make your way through the madhouse of a lobby? I guess at least you could eat good food along the way
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