Friday 26 July 2013

Thursday May 23 – Pink Ribbon Breakfast & Friday May 24 – NZIA Awards

Two things occurred this week which are worthy of mention from a eating point of view (and the second thing was also kind of a big deal for the office).

The first was that our office hosted a Pink Ribbon Breakfast. This was a breakfast that an organisation throws where the staff donates some money towards Breast Cancer research. Technically this was not free, as you should give a donation but the food was well worth the small donation. Our Office Administrator and Business Manager prepared all the food and it was awesome.

My only regret is that I hardly eat breakfast and as a result I could not really eat as much as I would have liked to.

We had pikelets, cupcakes, omelette, sliders (Yes! Mini burgers for breakfast), muesli and some other stuff I couldn't even try because I got too full too quickly. There was even pink decorations and our model maker made a pink toaster for the donations box (ironically we didn't have toast).

All in all it was worth coming in half an hour early for.

Pink Ribbon Breakfast
The second event of this week was the NZIA New Zealand Awards night, held at the Marine Events Centre at Wynyard Quarter (Karanga Plaza). Our office was lucky enough to have come out with two awards and we had booked three tables for the evening. Because I had worked on one of the projects that we had won an award for I was lucky enough to tag along.

The night started with a few of walking into a room lined with waiters with trays of Champagne or beer. I decided to take it easy and only grab one drink, holding myself back from downing a glass of wine there on the spot and chasing it with a bottle of beer for each hand, this was probably a good idea as the clients from my current project were also attending the event.

After a bit of chit chat and catching up with people you recognise working in other offices, we were ushered into the main hall, where we found our tables and got ready for dinner. Of course there were a series of speeches from the sponsors and hosts prior to our first course. Naturally my table started finishing off the bottles of wine that was on the table.

The first course was a salmon dish, which was ok. It was not too fishy which was good.

This was followed by a steak main, with some sort of potato hash brown and peas. The steak was prepared medium rare, which was good for me, but probably wasn't so great for others who couldn't handle a bit of blood. There were no choices in the menu (unless of course my office had just pre-chosen for everyone and didn’t let us know).

The Steak Main
After the main course there were the awards presentations and the short speeches that followed each award, except for one student who claimed an award for some competition and was really enthusiastic and spoke for about five times the length of everyone else.

After the awards were over and we had finished giving each other high fives, we were presented with the desert course. A platter of assorted deserts, mini eclairs, mini tarts, mini cheese cakes and some other mini desert thing. It was pretty good.


I would have to say the food was all of great quality, but as one of my colleagues who also went said, there wasn’t quite enough. The other downside was that they ran out of wine and beer and stop serving out table.  

Saturday 11 May 2013

Friday May 10: Cake, Mini Burger and Hotdog Week


This week at work has been a particularly good week in terms of food. It started off with a double birthday on Tuesday, meaning birthday morning tea. We were treated to mini burgers from one of the birthday people and chocolate slice from the other. They were both delicious and there was quite a few absentees that day so there was plenty to go around.

Mini Burgers & Chocolate Slice

Sausage Feast
Later on Friday there was another birthday, this time it was celebrated by chocolate cheesecake and some other chocolate type cake. I only had the cheesecake this time. Also on Friday was a special ‘Friday night drinks’. This week it was German/Austrian themed. The catering was organised by an Austrian guy who works with me. He organised German sausages with mustard mayonnaise and curry powder. Apparently, curried sausages are all the rage in Berlin. He also got in a mini keg of Krombacher, and some other German beers that I could not pronounce. It was a great change to the regular chips and dip. To go with the sausages and beer there was French fries (apparently it’s traditional). But un-traditionally we got the fries from the Burger King across the road. I didn’t complain because BK is awesome and it only added to the awesomeness of the over-abundance of sausages and semi-exotic beer (semi-exotic as in not the Steinlager we normally get).



It was a good week on the food front and helped as a good distraction to the lack of invites that we have been receiving to free food events. 

Monday 1 April 2013

Saturday March 23: Urbis Design Day


I don’t know if it’s because I am getting busier now at work and don’t pay enough attention to catered events that get spammed to my email, or that there have been very few lately. But it would seem that I’ve hit a massive dry spell in the ‘free food’ events department.

I was hoping that this year’s Urbis Design Day would end all this with a great canapĂ© overload, but I was totally disappointed. Unlike previous years, where the nibbles were plentiful and the Champaign was free flowing, this year’s Design Day was lack lustre. I was lucky that I managed to get a couple of free passes to the Design Day (thanks to Resene Paint – I will never specify another brand again) so I really can’t complain, but I was one of the public that bought my $40 (or so) pass, I would be pretty pissed (and not because there was too much wine).

First of all, there were only about six venues. In previous years you had to plan your day properly and pick the ones you wanted to go to, because you may not end up seeing everything. This year I hit all venues, plus went off for an extended BBQ lunch, and got home before 5.

Most venues didn't even have nibbles, which was the sole reason I went. I mean, lets be honest, if I wanted to see a tap sample I could easily ask them to bring it into the office. I wanted mini burgers and meatballs on a stick. Sure if their nibbles are good enough I could possibly specify a product of theirs (probably not because it will be cost engineered out).

Because of the lack in food, I only took one photo. This was of a mini roast beef sandwich with horse radish at the Mini (as in the car manufacturer) garage. They served them with Red Bull (not alcohol!)
Other venues had cheese and salami with bread and one place had Peroni beer, but nothing really like the last time I went.

Mini Roast Beef Sandwich


Bring back the chocolate fondue and the tasting shed! Hopefully next year they will step up again and deliver.