Months ago, when we were still looking for our venue, we fell in love – no, make that lust – with the Board of Trade, exclusively catered by O&B. You may remember? I never gave you the scoop on what happened with Mr. Oliver and Mr. Bonacini.

J and I visited the BOT a good 3-4 times (once was for Eight Chefs, one of the more delicious foodical events of ’09), which I would say makes us pretty good candidates for booking a venue. The final meeting with Lisa, the event co-ordinator, was to talk about what kind of menu we were looking at. Going back through my emails, that was on May 1. After we discussed all our wants, Lisa was going to have a chat with the chef, and see what he could come up with in our budget. On May 11, I followed up with an email, and was told it had been very hectic but she was going to sit down “with the chef tomorrow morning”.

On May 12, the next day, she emailed me with a few questions, to which I promptly replied. And then we waited. Loads. Believe it or not, I received a final menu from Lisa on the 26th of June. By this time we had already signed a contract and paid the first deposit to the Westin. I couldn’t believe how long it took for them to get us a menu to just take a look at!

We had pretty much forgotten about the BOT after our first visit to the Westin, because we fell in love, not lust, at first sight. But we still wondered where on earth Lisa went with our menus to take 6 weeks to get back to us?! As delicious as their food is, I’m totally disappointed in the way Oliver & Bonacini handled this. Damn them for making yummy brunch that keeps me going back!

Our venue visits last week with the mothers proved to be… unsuccessful. 2 out of the 4 places were complete write-offs, with 2 contenders remaining. In J and my eyes, there’s really only one place left. And tonight they invited us to a special event they are throwing!

If you are not familiar with Oliver & Bonacini restaurants, you have been seriously living under a rock (if you’re not from Toronto then it’s ok). We’ve been eyeing the Board of Trade for a while now, and the biggest attraction is that they are catered by O & B. Tonight, at the Board of Trade, O&B is throwing a private event called Eight Chefs, and they are bringing a chef from each of their restaurants to make delicious food and drinks for everyone, including us!! The space should also be all prettied up, so that we can envision the potential of the corporate meeting rooms that is the BOT.