It has been a while hasn’t it? I’ve been so busy with life and work, and now all the wedding stuff is creeping up. I was waiting for this time to come so I would have more to write about, but it seems that there’s no time to blog about all the current events! I can’t believe we are down to double digit days now… we were over 400 days away when this blog started.

Last week was our tasting at the hotel, and J and I both took our mums and had an absolute blast. Why couldn’t every meal involve nibbling off everyone’s plates, unlimited beverages, customized desserts and perfect service?

Overall, the food was quite tasty and we were happy with our selections of entrées. Of course, how the food will turn out on the wedding night is questionable – I’m not that naïve to think that a meal for 5 is the same as 250, but it’s still good to know that food was yum at the tasting and the presentation was nice. I’d be on the right track to think that I won’t be eating much that night anyway.

I know everyone loves food photos, so here are a few of the desserts that the chef made that night – and I’m only showing them because we aren’t going with any of them. From top to bottom: Lemon Meringue tart (it was so fun plucking off each one of those spikes and eating them), Key Lime tart and Warm Apple Blossom.

Problem was, as lovely and sweet they looked, the desserts really left something to be desired. After discussion between us and the hotel, we’re heading back for a dessert re-tasting. Yessss!!!! If anyone has any good ideas for dessert, please pass them over to me because I can give the chef some suggestions for our next tasting.

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!