Eat. Drink. Be Married (Astor Center)

I was invited to attend the Eat.Drink.Be Married event by the lovely folks from Astor Center, so I grabbed Hungry to enjoy the festivities.  I didn’t realize that you could actually get married at Astor Center – a fairly intimate affair, which would be nice, the two rooms offer a lot of options as to layout and activities.  Hungry pointed out that the raised platform in the room off to the right could easily be used as a dais of sorts for the bridal party… ideas, ideas.

(This may not be obvious from my site: though I can ‘hang with the boys’, I’m also a girly girl to the extreme.  My favorite color is pink, and I can sit and discuss wedding plans for hours [and with the recent slew of engagements, I do].  I’m not quite Monica Geller & the wedding binder [if you don’t get that reference, how are we friends?], but I have a mental file of all the things I’d like… I should probably write it down since I have a notoriously bad memory!) 

As soon as we walked in, the first table that caught out eye was the Fatty Cakes table. 

With good reason – look at all those cookies! 

The Big Daddy cookie! 

The movie theater cookie, featuring semi-sweet chocolate, popcorn and Swedish fish. 

I think my cookie happened to not have any Swedish fish or chocolate, but the texture of the cookie itself was soft, like homemade cookies can be… and pretty good, not too sweet.  I wanted to go back and eat one of each cookie but my stomach just wouldn’t allow me later… boo. 

The Cleaver Co. had a mini pot pie tartlet – I thought the little heart cut out was adorable! – and it tasted decent.  The other item was listed as a chicken banh mi… let’s just say it wasn’t a banh mi and leave it at that. 

Liddabit Sweets had a table filled with lots of goodies, including these awesome individual pouches of candied popcorn. 

I love this idea, and would totally like to do this with mini-snacks sometime for a party or event. 

Daria Culver Events had a table setup – they do wedding planning of all kinds – but what struck me was the table they had showcasing some of their work.  While I’m not a fan of robin’s egg blue (yes, even when it’s a box being handed to me), I liked the centerpiece.  I normally see tall vases with a clear, thin stem so you can see the people across from you at your table, or short squat ones for the same reason.  I liked that this was tall so you could see around them, but the vase itself still had a design. 

Next up, a bunch of bites from Scoozi Events, which was showcasing a bunch of their different food items.  First up, a small bite of salmon that I can’t describe because it was a little bit… unimpressive, though the look is quite nice.  The flavors just didn’t pop. 

Also from Scoozi, this is a margarita – you are meant to eat this by wrapping your mouth around the lime and pulling the jello-cube off with your lips, while scraping the lime with your teeth to get a little juice.  It was interesting, certainly, but I’m not a huge fan of molecular gastronomy… 

Scoozi also had a mini mozzarella burger that was adorable, but I didn’t manage to take a picture before I ate it.  It was also a little unmemorable – I remember how it looked, but I don’t remember what it tasted like.  I would definitely try making that myself though… yum.  And the last food offering I tried from them were these tuna scoops, in what I thought was a really unique presentation: rectangles of a thin cracker – maybe even a fried wonton wrapper? – topped with edible paper, with “TUNA” printed on it with edible ink, then a schmear of tuna tartare.  I enjoyed the textures of this bite, and could totally see myself making something similar – the paper also acted as a layer between the cracker and the tartare to prevent sogging, I believe.  Yum. 

Last but definitely not least, Scoozi also offered two specialty cocktails.  This one was presented nicely – the lychee-tini, which was champagne, lychee juice and a splash of St. Germain.  That’s right I said St. Germain. 

One guess which one is mine – if you said the lychee one, with St. Germain in it, you’d be right.  Hungry took the other one, which was a granita of some sort, though I didn’t pay attention as I inhaled mine and quickly asked for another one.  So quick, I don’t think Hungry noticed 😉  I’m a sucker for sweet cocktails that mask the taste of alcohol… it helps get you drunk faster. 

At this point, we wandered into the next room and found ourselves at the Anne Booth Cateringtable.  On the bottom of the picture, you see what looks like grapes or perfectly round globes of hmmm.  Well, they’re grapes, rolled in blue cheese and pistachio.  I tried one and found it really interesting, and I love the presentation.  Very brilliant.  On the other side was mushroom terrines… I didn’t get a chance to ask the woman, but I assumed that they were a vegetarian-friendly caterer, since both bites were quite good without containing any meat. 

We continued our wandering and passed by the Cake Alchemy booth.  We didn’t stop to grab one of the mini cupcakes, though I took this pic.  (And looking at the literature, I was wise to skip – those don’t look like coconut cakes, but apparently they are…)

Great presentation by The Works Catering – Housing Works is a great organization – though these were really bland for some reason.  Shrimp wrapped with watermelon radish. 

More mini-bites from Housing Works…

The raised platform I mentioned before was decorated by Party Rental Ltd. – another nice layout, with a completely different feel from Daria Culver’s setup.  Very chic. 

Benchmarc Events had a table laid out with goodies like breads, cheeses,

meats (and a crazy spotlight right on them)… 

My piggy plate.  I love gherkins. 

Bespoke Chocolate was there with their

pretzel covered sea salted caramels; you know how I love salted caramels, right?  Unfortunately, I tend to like chewy caramels, and this was liquid inside.  Thankfully, the guy manning the table warned us ahead of time so I knew not to try to bite it to get a shot of the inside, or I’d have been upset when it oozed down my face, front, fingers… I don’t like sticky things.  In any case, this was tasty, though I definitely think it would be way more amazing if it’d been chewy caramel. 

There was a booth featuring Canton.  They offered two different cocktails… a pink one and

a yellow/green lime one.  I chose the pink one and found it really pleasant to drink… went down very, very easy…

As we were getting ready to leave, we returned to the first room and found a purveyor set up where there’d been an empty table earlier.  I guess they arrived late – it was Little Candy Cakes, with the most adorable favors for wedding guests. 

Mini-cakes!  I didn’t eat mine, but they gave me one… and Hungry’s had some really extra intricate sugar work on hers in the shape of hearts and petals.  (Mine has a flower on top and is also fairly intricate – I’d be afraid to eat these if I got one at a wedding! – but they are gorgeous, and super labor intensive.)  The guys behind these are really talented. 

And the last place we hit was New York Cake Pops, who were giving out cake pops.  Cake pops are basically cake crumbs/scraps (or you can use fresh cake, of course) mixed with cream cheese or frosting (to bind it), rolled into balls, then stuck on sticks and dipped in chocolate or candy coatings.  These were decorated.  I think they used a little too much cream cheese or frosting inside because my pop was so mushy, it was hard to eat.  Ah well – I like the concept. 

Thanks again to the Astor Center folks who invited me – we both had a great time and I certainly came away with plenty of ideas to use later!