March 8th, 2010 admin Posted in Cleveland, Lifestyle 3 Comments »

Dinner with Strangers

Recently, Erika and I were invited to be part of a new concept, “Dinner With Strangers”. This event was conceived from our friend/shop owner Danielle Deboe of Room Service. She spoke of this concept recently during her speech at TEDxCLE, citing her source of inspiration for this event as being herself invited to a similar event held in France when she traveled there last year. Her concept is to get a group of people together that may or may not know each other for dinner, conversation and socialization – in essence, a networking event.

This [brunch] dinner was held at the Market Avenue Wine Bar and was catered by Ryan Santos of Please catering (needs a web presence, contact me). It was a great event, great venue and great company.While some of the attendees were already friends, Michelle and Jamie Venorsky, some were acquaintances, and more were complete strangers. It was nice to get to sit down and have a meal with these people and get to know them at least a little. From this initial event, I can definitely see future connections with more than a few of these people.

Here was the menu:

Amuse: Donut
tomato donut hole / sriracha / worcestershire powder / celery / black peppercorn lemon sugar

First Course: Cereal & Coffee
pumpkin seed fennel black pepper granola / cereal milk custard / squash sheets / coffee soil

Second Course: Bagel & Lox
smoked to order fish / nasturtium caper buds / everything pretzel / black olive cream cheese / scallion + edamame kimchi

Intermezzo
champagne / cucumber /shiso / candied red chile / lemon

Third Course: Bacon & Eggs
soft boiled egg / “bacon” / english muffin crouton / smoked maple consomme / green onions rhubarb

Dessert: Housemade Pop Tart Plate
cranberry jalapeno / maple bacon / sage grapefruit