The Sacrifices We Make for You Guys...

May 27, 2008   Comments (1)

Everyone has suffered through bad conference food at one point or another. We've had our fair share of terrible sandwiches, wilted salads and rubbery chicken. While the food at our first Unleashed conference was pretty good, (the guys sure seemed happy about unlimited fried chicken each day) we wanted to make sure our second show featured a feast worthy of Columbus's reputation for fantastic food.

We'll be having a light breakfast each day featuring bagels and spreads from Panera. We figured since local folks have a chance to snag something at home and hotel guests have access to a free hot breakfast at our partner hotels, we didn't need anything too substantial in the mornings. That was good because it left us with more budget to spend on lunch, dinner and snacks. The question was; what to pick?

So it was with duty in our hearts that Rachel, Vickie and I set off to The Polaris Grill for a "tasting" so we could try to figure out what would keep everyone happy. The owner had given us a list of their catering options ahead of time and asked us to pick out some things we'd like to try. Since some things, like mashed potatoes are pretty standard across the board, we skipped those and went with the things we just weren't sure about.

All in all, we ended up tasting a nice variety of things.

We tried their Italian pasta salad and their redskin potato salad. We knew fresh fruit salad was going to be good anywhere, but the question was which of these two would make a nice second side. Turns out they were both super yummy, but we figured more people would like potato salad than pasta salad. Are we right? Let us know in the comments which one you generally prefer.

We tried one of the best chicken wraps I've ever had. This was a good thing though. We knew we'd be having a heavy meal on Monday night, so although we're used to serving hot lunches, we weren't sure we should stuff our attendees with something heavy for lunch. That said, we also weren't sure "wraps" would really cut it for the men and the women with heartier appetites. Turns out we were wrong. The wraps at Polaris Grill were the size of a log (ok, slight exaggeration) and were super hearty. Not to mention crazy tasty. Since we knew the side salads were super yummy, we decided going with wraps on day one was a good idea.

We tasted apple glazed pork chops, beef tips with burgundy sauce and parmesan chicken in our quest for some yummy Monday night entrees. While we loved the beef tips with burgundy, we ended up deciding we might like to kick it up a notch and offer prime rib. While Jen and Vickie adored the pork chops, Rachel felt pretty strongly that the parmesan chicken was a better bet. (Who is right? Given a beef, fish and vegetarian option, would you rather have chicken or pork as a fourth option?)

We tried out their daily veggies (yum!) and their twice-baked potatoes (not bad, but not near as good as mashed potatoes) and sampled a few different salads, all of which were yummy. We even lamented the fact that their "Aztec Chili," a white bean and chicken chili with a ton of cheese and some nice kicky heat wasn't going to fit into our plans.

Next up was pasta. Since we were sending folks home on day two without any dinner, we thought a good, hearty lunch was going to be our best bet. We were already pretty sure we wanted to plan an Italian feast for lunch, but we wanted to make sure their pasta sauces were good. We'd asked to sample both their Alfredo and their marinera and asked them to use their cheese tortellini since standard pasta is pretty much the same across the board.

Here's an idea of how good their pasta was...since they were bringing us so many things to try, they'd come in with the next round and remove the plates of what we'd been trying. Now, I could see they were simply setting them on the table behind us, but Rachel was sitting across from me. To her, it just looked like they were taking the plates away. When the manager picked up the bowl with the pasta in it, I could just see the look on Rachel's face as she debated saying "please, please, don't take those away." (Of course I could have been nice and pointed out they were sitting right behind her, but where's the fun in that?)

We spent about two hours tasting the food that afternoon and I can tell you, it was a sacrifice. In fact, it was such a chore, I decided to drag Greg back there two nights later for dinner and a date. (After all, I shouldn't be the only one suffering in the name of this show, right? Besides, we still had some desserts we needed to sample before making any more decisions.)

Needless to say, we're pretty confident you'll love the food at the fall Unleashed conference. Nonetheless, we want to hear what you think! Italian pasta salad or redskin potato salad? Chicken or pork? Apple Tart or Creme Brulee? (mmm...creme brulee!)

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