Tasting chit chat

carliealissa

We're finally having our menu tasting in a couple weeks (yay!), and have to choose what we want to taste by next week. So for the entrees, we can choose two to serve at the wedding, then there is an additional vegetarian choice. (Which I always think is weird, that the veg choice always seems to be "hidden away".. like you have to ask about the options, and they assume it won't be offered to your guests as a choice with the others- but I digress).

We are planning to do a beef or chicken choice, a fish, and a veg, and list all three on the RSVP cards. We can choose 2 entrees to taste. I thought that was kind of weird- so we are just tasting the ones we plan to serve, minus veg, to make sure they are good? What if we don't like them? There's no tasting more than one choice to see which one is better (ex: there are about 4 chicken options. How do we know whether to choose Chicken with Hazelnut or Chicken with Wine Sauce etc? ). FI's parents said it is normal though to do it this way.

Also, I'm a pescatarian so I won't be able to taste the meat dish. No big deal at all, but I'm starting to think this tasting is kind of pointless- wondering if we should skip it and get a $100 credit toward our reception. What do you guys think, what were your tasting experiences if you've had one?

bethsmiles

I don't really see the point of doing a tasting if you can only try 2 dishes and you have to pick two dishes.

ShallowSeas

For our tasting, we could chose whatever we wanted to taste on the menu, so we tried several different entrees and appetizers and chose the ones we liked. It was a lot of fun. I expected tiny portions for each entree/appetizer but they served us regular sized portions and we got to take what we didn't eat home with us, which was nice. If you're limited in what you can try, then I would skip it. If we had the option of choosing between a tasting and the $100 towards the reception, I might've skipped the tasting.

Peaseblossom55

For our tasting we got to taste the 5 choices for the first course, we didn't taste the second choice since it was just a salad. 

We did get to taste all of the choices for the main course except for the chateaubriand since it's too expensive to bring in for just a tasting.  There were 4 different choices for the chicken option, 4 different options for the fish and since I'm vegetarian they gave me the vegetarian option to taste.

This doesn't seem like much of tasting if you can only try two dishes, have you asked them about that?

carliealissa

I did- she said that the way they get around that is to choose a "duet" plate for one of your tasting choices. (In lieu of offering guests 2 menu choices, we could serve one duet plate to everyone).  That way, at the tasting you'd really be tasting 3 things- the 2 items on the duet plate and the other choice.  I thought this made sense at the time so I moved on.

When we got home and had the chance to review the extensive pages of menus and packages, I discovered that the duet plates all consist of a filet and something else (filet + lobster, filet + salmon, etc).  None of the single entree options are a filet!  So, that completely negates getting to taste the extra thing since we aren't serving a duet plate.

I think I'm going to point out to her that none of this is making sense.  It threw me for a loop that FI's parents, who are in the restaurant and catering business, told us that this is how tastings are typically handled.

Dignity100

I agree with what the others have said, so you taste the two dishes and if you don't like them you're blindly picking a different dish!  One of the venue's I was looking at did a 'tasting night' where all their upcoming event hosts were invited to try the different dishes and make the selection. 

From what they're doing, it almost sounds like if they had a restaurant or something you should just go and order a few dishes and try them out that way.

Blue & White

We tasted 3 dishes and were allowed to pick 2 or 3.  Since our wedding was during Lent, we wanted to pick 3 so we could have a fish dish.

We picked beef tenderloins cause it came with crab cakes lol
We picked pretzel crusted chicken breast cause it sounded weird (the other one was airline chicken which who can screw that up?!)
and We picked atlantic salmon because we didn't think mahi was as widely accepted as a fish.

Not gonna lie, we ended up using all of those the day of the wedding cause they were delicious.

We also got to taste the wine at the tasting...lol

I was really nervous about the tasting though, so I'm glad we went through with it.  And it was a lot of fun (we also did an individual tasting so we also nailed down some other details that we just didn't know when we booked - like would there be a guestbook, etc.)

[Deleted User]

I went to two different tastings and we chose our main entrees based off of what we tasted at the tasting but we chose our side items blindly since they weren't being offered at the tasting we went to.

We had Chicken Florentine with roasted green beans

Beef Tenderloin or Roast maybe...I can't remember with roasted new red potatoes

They had the salad at the tasting but we didn't try that so I guess we did the salad blind as well.

Seasonal veggies which included squash, zucchini, and carrots I believe

So I'm glad we got to taste the meat and a few other things. We were only limited to one caterer anyways so we could only chose from what they offered.

We also got to taste their alcohol as well which was nice.

ETA: We also chose our passed apps based on the tasting as well. Tomato bisque with grilled cheese, candied bacon with blue cheese, and bruschetta with sundried tomatos I think?

buddysmom80

We have our tasting July 13th and we can pick any of the passed appetizers that we want to serve during cocktail hour and also the three meal choices (beef, chicken or fish/vegetarian) we want for the reception. They'll plate it how they would at the reception as well. If we don't like what we picked initially, we can reschedule a tasting (for a fee) but I think FI has his heart set on specific dishes.

Swazzle

We tasted a billion things at ours. They gave us 17 different hors d'oeuvres to try and then we had a chicken dish, a fish dish, dessert and cake (I wasn't kidding about a billion things). We ended up having an endless cocktail reception so I'm glad we were able to taste so many hors d'oeuvres.

I agree that if you can only choose 2 items to taste it seems pretty pointless. I don't know how you'd go about narrowing it down between different variations on the same "dish."

carliealissa

We also get to choose 4 hors d'oeuvres to taste, and will serve 3. That part I don't care about as much. I think it's widely known that all their food is delicious, I just did not understand the point of a tasting at all if you aren't CHOOSING anything based on it. Glad to hear I'm not the only one anyway.

phira

Our venue offers a complimentary group tasting, or you can opt for a private tasting. If you have a private tasting, you pick the menu you want to serve. At the group tasting, they serve multiple appetizers and entrees and also have some of the bonuses (e.g. late night snacks, app stations) that you can pay extra for for your event.

Our venue made it really clear that the point of the group tasting is to get an idea of what the food is like, and that most couples pick their menu after a group tasting, and don't need an additional private tasting. Neither entree we plan to serve was offered at the group tasting (although one was kind of served--there was an app form of it). But we had an easier time picking our menu after getting an idea of how the food is served.

labro

Both of our tastings were pretty much blind. For the 2nd one I selected a menu from several menu choices and they served us a meal that was based on the sample menu. It's definitely not in my experience to taste more than a couple entree choices. We got to try multiple apps and side dishes and a dessert as well.

leia1979

I think we got to try two of each meat. I'm also pescatarian, so I tried the two fish dishes, H tried the chicken and fish, and we both got to try the salad. I actually wasn't happy with the fish, so we got to go back a second time, and the chef made exactly what I wanted.

Of course, I did have to explain to the chef that the vegetarian option couldn't have shrimp. What?