Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Where to begin???

Hello wedding-web-world! I'm back from my holiday hibernation and am back with a wedding ferociousness! RAWWWWR!

The holiday season was a roller coaster of emotion as far as the wedding planning was concerned. Filled with wonderful things like my mom buying us engraved Vera Wang toasting flutes and the matching cake serving set, engraved with our future Mr. X and Mrs. X names. (I cried, my mom cried and then we laughed at each other. It was a beautiful wedding planning moment that I highly recommend!)

My pictures:




The pretty pictures I found online:




But it was also full of the make-you-want-to-tear-your-hair-out-and-pound-your-fists-into-the-ground moments, such as a certain issue concerning our guest list (which blew up in the worst way to day. It seriously makes me sick to my stomach how presumptuous and rude our own families can be at times.)

This past weekend, however, was my favorite of our holiday hibernation; we spent the whole weekend in Carmel, planning our wedding together. I can honestly say that it was one of the best weekends of my life. :)

So I'll begin the story of the world's best wedding planning weekend with the food (I'm just going to go ahead and throw that whole chronological order thing out the window!).

OMG - The. Food. Put simply: to die for.

They brought out some really cute little aritsan rolls (Mike laughed at me when I took a picture of the rolls. I told him he'd be thanking me in a few months when he forgets if there was a bread starter or not!!)



We started by choosing a first dish:

Romaine lettuce with blue cheese, cranberries and walnuts, and basil vinaigrette. I could have eaten this baby all day long.

Runner up: Baby spinach and butter lettuce with hazelnut vinaigrette, toasted pine nuts and pears. Love the dressing, but when they brought it out I thought the pear was nigiri. I looked at Mike and asked if sushi came with the salad - nope that's the pear. Not pretty, but tasty.

Loser: Cream of Broccoli soup = yuck. Bland and kind of ugly. We both veto'd it.

Then we move on to the entree's that we choose. We weren't positive that these were the entrees that we were going to serve but they both were delicious!

Chicken Roulade stuffed with Artichokes and Mushrooms in a Roast Garlic Sauce with scalloped potatoes and spring vegetables. Oh this was soooo tasty. The chicken was moist and the gravy and the stuffing were some complimentary and sweet and savory at the same time. The scalloped potatoes could have been served on their own they were so good, perfect marriage between cheesy gooeyness and starchy potato. Delish!

This was the best, and yes I saved it for last.
Crab Ravioli with Prawns, Tarragon Sauce and Julienne Vegetables. The inside of the ravioli was delightful, it was the freshest crab, the texture of the crab inside the ravioli was such a wonderful surprise. The tarragon sauce was unbelievable, it had the slightest hint of lemon and it felt so perfect for a spring/summer Memorial Day weekend wedding meal. Love love love.



And that's all.

What? Yes, La Playa Hotel is making our cake too. Yes, we did a cake tasting. Oh you want to see the pictures from that too, oh, well, um, I sort of don't have any cake tasting pictures to share, because I, um, sort of didn't take any because I was too excited about tasting the cake. And it was gooooooooooooooddd!!

I'll post more about the cake another day, it's not really wedding food but more of a wedding art piece that happens to be edible.

Is your mouth watering? Mine is!! Did you enjoy your caterer tasting as much as I did? :)

14 comments:

Born to be Mrs. Beever said...

Welcome back...was wondering when you would return :) We had some great menu tastings but still have to do a final one with our caterer to confirm our menu selections. I am looking forward to it because it has been a very long time since we first booked him back in March! Your food looks amazing...ours won't look that glam or gourmet...so I'm a bit jealous...but sounds like you got lots done!

Kim said...

Oh yum! All of it looks so good - especially that first salad! Yum. I'm sad we won't be having a salad course, but it just wasn't going to fit in with the rest of the Indian/Middle Eastern food we will be serving.

GM said...

That food looks sooo good! We haven't had a tasting yet but I'm excited to!

Jennifer said...

Yay, Crystal! We're actually going to La Playa to do our cake tasting this weekend!! We're doing the buffet, and was disappointed when Richard told me that they don't do tastings for buffet food. But hearing your raves about La Playa food in general made me feel better about things!! =) Thanks for posting!

Heather said...

Welcome back! I’m glad you enjoyed your tasting! We really had fun at ours, too, sampling the different appetizers and entrees available as part of our Mexican buffet. And the cake tasting was definitely my favorite!

Ams said...

Mmmmm... all of that looks really good!
Wedding planning is stressful :( I hope it is easier from here on out!!!

little luxury list said...

Welcome back and wow! The entrees - chicken roulade and crab ravioli - they are just divine and way more divine than our entrees were. Great choices!

Chocolate Lover said...

Welcome back! IThe food looks so good! This is something we still need to do!

Shannon and Jesse said...

What lovely flutes!!! I heart the Vera Wang Knot collection.

The food looks so yummy... and as an ex-pat of California, I have to say you are getting married in one of my favorite places in CA.... Carmel is GORGEOUS!

Shannon and Jesse said...

You have a blog award....
http://jesandshan.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-awards.html

Cupcake Wedding said...

Yummmy.... I want that shrimp dish. Now.

Unknown said...

wow. your mom has exquisite taste. Can't go wrong with Vera! Also your meal selections look yummy. I'd probably get the chicken dish while my fiance would get the seafood dish. btw, I love your blog! Consider me a follower!! ;)

honey my heart said...

everything looks so delicious!! i am craving the salads :)

Annie @ Marry You Me said...

I'm sooo glad yours went well there - our first tasting at La Playa was a DISASTER (this was before the awesome Richard came on board) and we had to go back down to Carmel from Seattle for another. The second one was better, but our day of food was a little iffy (way late serving lunch, my chicken was undercooked, sauce was delish and everything else on the plate was tasty). We ended up doing our cake from Patisserie Bechler in Pacific Grove.

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