Friday 09 May 2014 - Suit up for dinner

It was time for another NZIA New Zealand Architecture Awards dinner and I was lucky enough to get a free ticket from my office again which meant three things; remember to bring a suit to work for the dinner, a lot of drinking will happen and probably very little food will be served.

So I got my suit dry cleaned (it had taken a bashing lately with a string of weddings I had been attending) and bought it in for the big night. From experience, from last year, about half the office went across the road to Burger King before the awards dinner knowing that a) dinner won’t be served till about 10pm and b) it would most likely not be enough. Unfortunately, I had a few things to tidy up on my project and I missed the dinner call. Instead I ‘carbo-loaded’ on beer and potato chips.

This year the event was held at Queens Wharf, which is a short stroll down the road for us. So as per the usual, we left it till the very last minute before walking to the venue. This ensured that we could finish off a few family sized packs of chips. Once we had all suited up we walked down there.

Vegetarian Entree (note micro greens = fancy)

We were greeted with Champaign which we happily accepted. This marked the long night of drinking ahead. I followed that up by a couple of Peronis before we moved on to sit at our tables. However, while we were standing around catching up with people from other offices and sipping our drinks, there was a distinct lack of canapés. This meant that for the people who didn’t grab a whopper before hand, we were pretty much starving when we sat down at out tables at about 8:30.

Similar to last year, and to no surprise the food was pretty lack lustre. For starter we got a fish dish. Which was ok. However, the vegetarian option was pretty hilarious. For what I saw it looked like marmalade or mashed up fruit quince with a bit of micro greens sprinkled on top (cause you know micro greens make everything fancy).

Steak Main

After downing that and the bread roll at the table we sat through the intro speeches and the first of the awards. There was also a speech from Rob Waddell (NZ rower/Team NZ sailer) which was actually very inspirational.

Mains was a steak and steamed vegetables which was ok on the taste level but tiny on the portion level. It also didn’t help that it was 9:30 at night and we had been solidly drinking since 5. We even asked for bread rolls, which they didn’t have any extra.

Desert was a mini meringue, some sort of mini pannacota and a tiny chocolate slice. After it had all finished a group of us went over to the 24 hour MacDonalds on Queen Street and grabbed some burgers.

Although the food was disappointing, the night itself was quite fun. We got to catch up with others from other offices, drink heaps and even won an award or two. 

Desert Platter

An overdue post from 2013

2014 is now a third over and work life is spiralling out of control. It seems that anything that could go wrong on a project is doing so with mine. As a result I haven’t been able to attend any events lately, and there have been so many good ones. However, I did start writing an update last year for the Resene End of year Christmas Party that I didn’t get a chance of posting until now. Hopefully this will do until things get calmer and I can finally go back to free wining and dining.

2013 marked the return of the Resene Christmas Party, a highly anticipated event that for quite a lot of us in the architecture profession. The last Resene Christmas Party, I can remember, was held on the roof top of a bar called ‘Honey’. It was so packed that the mid stair landing to the roof was as far as I could get, people just handed me down drinks. Besides not actually making into the party I remember having an awesome time. So with those fond memories in mind, I had high hopes for this year’s party, fortunately, these high hopes were not let down.

A view from the upper level

Resene held their Christmas party at ‘Number 01 on High Street’. They had hired out the whole venue and possibly the club downstairs. I say possibly because a group of us ventured down there with the free drinks from above but it didn’t really feel like it was a part of the rest of the party. Most likely we just managed to bypass the bouncer with our drinks in hand.

The only downside to the party was that it was held on a Thursday night, and I had quite a bit to do the next day. This of course didn’t stop everyone. Stories of total mayhem spread the next day and of people leaving in the early hours of Friday totally inebriated.

Deep Fried Cheese Stick

Myself and a group of my colleagues arrived to the venue at around quarter past five, with the event kicking off a five thirty we thought arriving fifteen minutes late would make us not look too eager but still be early enough to get in a drink or two before the crowd showed up. We were totally wrong; the place was already packed when we got there. Lucky for us we managed to corner a waiter who got us our drinks. Setting the bar high (pun intended), everything from the bar was on offer, as opposed to house wine and beer as per the norm. I however, kept on the safe side and only drank beer (with an occasional wine just to mix it up a bit).

The canapés were slow moving though, this is most likely because the waiters could hardly move around the venue, we were advised that about 650 people had turned up and crammed into the venue. But when the canapés did arrive they were of very high quality.  The first bite sized snack I managed to get a hold of was a crumbed mozzarella stick. These were delicious but dangerous. The cheese on the inside was melted making them extra tasty, however the melted cheese was also super hot. If it wasn’t for my cold beer I could have has a cheese tongue burning disaster. My white shirt did suffer the collateral damage of the melted cheese, lucky I could scrap off the cheese before a permanent stain.  

Shrimp Burger

Next up I scoffed up a lamb mini burger, this was ok, but I do prefer the regular beef mini burgers over this lamb variety. After downing about three lamb burgers I grabbed a forth thinking it would be more of the same, but to my surprise my forth burger did not come with a mince meat  patty, but rather a whole shrimp. Needless to say my mind was blown as this set up a new level of free canapé standard. Of course there were also the regulars available, ie some sort of filo pastry savoury cupcake and sear beef bruschetta. I don’t believe the food ran out it was just difficult to circulate.

Overall the party was a hit with everyone I talked to about. I guess this is why we specify Resene paints, so we get invites to this party. My only complaint is that the upstairs area, where I spent most of my night, was ridiculously hot. You could really feel the accumulated heat of the 650 bodies below. But it was free, so I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.   

Filo Pastry