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

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.  

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. 

Thursday August 23rd: A Splash of Color

Tonight was the annual Resene Color Awards, and this year it is back in Auckland meaning I can attend. As usual Resene did not disappoint when hosting a party. Our office entered one project for the awards, that I did help out a bit (not really), but it gave me the excuse to go along and pretend to be part of the team. We weren’t expecting much, especially since upon arriving some projects looked like they were designed with the sole intention of winning color awards. However, we won in our category as well as winning overall. This was awesome (and pretty surprising).  

Anyway, back to the important stuff, the food and drink.

The table of booze

When we arrive we were greeted by our Resene Rep, Simon Blincoe, on side note Simon is the man he remembers everyone by name and is awesome with his product. After a brief chat we were confronted with a table of booze (see photo). There were the usual merlots, savs and beers but also Verve was on the menu tonight. I stuck to beer tonight to try to look as manly as possible. The crowd I came with was pretty keen on drinking, most likely because there was a lack in events such as this lately.

The Whitebait Fritter

The food was a little slow to arrive, and there wasn’t as much of it as last time (at No1 on High Street). But there were a couple of outstanding nibbles. First off we were offered a whitebait fritter on a crusty toast base. It was topped with aioli. Some of my colleagues really enjoyed it. But I felt it was a little too fishy and needed a bit more citrus to tone it back. Lucky for me there was an ample amount of Heineken to wash it down with. Next up was a round of your typical deep fried samosas. These are the same potato filled ones you get at all of these. Don’t get me wrong samosas are delicious but they are pretty boring.

There was a break in the catering when the awards were presented, but that didn’t last too long and it was back into drinking after that.

Samosa

Due to our recent success we increased our drinking rate, which may have made the next lot of canapés seem even better than they actually were. Next, we had a chicken skewer with a sort of tangy BBQ sauce. It was really tasty from my recollection. This was followed by some deep fried crumbed thing with a soft centre. It didn’t really taste like anything to me, more like fried matter. But one of the guys I came with later informed me that it was a lamb thing. Anyway, it was ok once you dipped it into aioli.

Next up were lamb mini burgers. These were really good. The meat was juicy and the sauce was excellent. I had to have seconds (and thirds) of this burger. Lucky, one of the group managed to persuade the waitress to exclusively serve our group.

Overall the night was a fun night, the next morning, however wasn’t so fun for some of us.

Chicken Skewer

Lamb thing

Mini Burger (No2)

Additionally, the next day we had a special Friday night drinks, as one of my co-workers was leaving us. Our Administration Manager made these awesome gourmet sliders. There were three types, the first was a roast beef and gherkin one with horse radish. The second type was a smoked salmon one with capers and cream cheese. And thirdly there was a turkey and cranberry one.

Friday Night Sliders

I would have to say that these sliders were much better than most of the catered food made by professionals at most events. 

Mini Burger Monday

The firm that I work at has a very peculiar birthday tradition, where the birthday person brings the cake (or any baked goods) to share with the rest of the office. It’s kinda weird as it is usually that person who receives the treats rather than dispatching them. However, because everyone does it, it even outs and we get frequent little morning teas spread out through the year.

This Monday was one such day where someone had to bring the (baked) goods and share with the rest of us. But this time is was special. In addition to a cheese cake the birthday girl had also made mini burgers!! In my ranking of awesome food you get at a catered event mini burgers is pretty up there, probably just behind the mini asparagus rolls. So to see mini burgers at a Monday morning tea was a pretty big ordeal for me.

The burgers were pretty awesome, firstly, the bread buns were home-made. They weren’t chewy and were a great golden color, lasted great too. There were two types of meat filling, a small chicken patty or small slices of sausage. I thought the sausage was a good change from a regular patty, as the circumference of each slice was ideal for the miniature nature of the burger buns. They were conveniently bite sized and packed a lot of taste (see photo).

To top this off, there was another birthday on Wednesday. This time there were cakes. But having two birthday morning teas in one week has been brilliant.