Help choose menu options

heidirs731

Our venue gave us a menu to choose dinner items from, and we have decided on everything except the meat. We get two choices. For the first one, we're doing grilled chicken breast. But for our second option, we're having trouble choosing between the following:

peppered beef tips

sliced honey baked ham

grilled pork chops

We went with the chicken because we figured a lot of people eat chicken, but we're just not sure about the rest. My mom voted for honey baked ham because she LOVES it, but I need some other opinions.

The rest of the menu we've decided on, if you are interested, is:

pasta salad (salad)

smashed potatoes w/ toppings (side)

sauteed vegetable medley (side)

mixed fruit with chocolate fondue (appetizer)

cheese and crackers (appetizer)

EDIT: I originally choose the pasta salad so that our menu would be varied and have as many different options as possible so everyone would be able to find something they wanted. But my fiance feels not everyone eats pasta salad and we should do a garden salad instead. If we do a garden salad, I could switch out the veggie medley for mac and cheese, but I don't know how important it is to have a pasta option for people.

NOLAbridealmost

Beef tips. Lots and lots of people for whatever reason don't eat pork. The menu is fairly small so I'd make each and every thing a crowd pleaser. More people eat beef than pork.

melb2013

Beef

doeydo

Personally, I would prefer the beef.  I also agree with NOLAbridealmost, lots of people don't eat pork.

JoanE2012

You need to appeal to the masses.  I'd go with beef.

heidirs731

Both our families eat ham (it's the main dish at Christmas), so I don't think we'd have an issue of people not eating pork.

JaneAustensGhost

I don't eat pork.  I can't stand the texture of it.  I'd definitely go with beef.

heidirs731

added an edit to the original question to ask about pasta and veggies

southernbelle0915

BEEF. If I were having a small get together where I knew everyone liked/ate pig, I'd be with your mom. But for a large group, I think beef is more universal.

Ven&Radio

I can't eat chicken or black pepper, so I'd be a very unhappy guest at your wedding.

JoanE2012

Ven&Radio said:

I can't eat chicken or black pepper, so I'd be a very unhappy guest at your wedding.

I'm sure OP is trying to appeal to the masses.  If I had a dietary restriction as you noted above, I'd make sure to include it on the RSVP.  We addressed all dietary allergies/resrictions and had no unhappy guests.  In this case, I'm sure the chef could probably have the beef tips prepared without the pepper.

heidirs731

That's a good point. We could ask everyone about dietary restrictions when we call to confirm rsvps.

itzMS

heidirs731 said:

That's a good point. We could ask everyone about dietary restrictions when we call to confirm rsvps.

You don't need to ask about dietary restrictions. If someone has a restriction or allergy, they will let you know when they send in their RSVP card or they will call.

I vote for garden salad over pasta salad.

Add in the mac&cheese and keep the veggie medley, too.

The fruit fondue should probably be served with dessert instead of as an appetizer, not sure if that's a typo on your OP.

heidirs731

The fruit fondue is only available as an appetizer. Don't know if they will take it away once dinner starts or leave it all night. I should ask.

I can't have both the mac&cheese and the medley. I can only pick one, sadly.

itzMS

heidirs731 said:

The fruit fondue is only available as an appetizer. Don't know if they will take it away once dinner starts or leave it all night. I should ask.

I can't have both the mac&cheese and the medley. I can only pick one, sadly.

Both of these seem really unreasonable. You can't have an extra side dish? You can't have chocolate fondue for...*gasp*...dessert?!

Why is your venue so limiting? They should be accomodating you as a client...

heidirs731

They give us a pretty extensive list of choices, but we're only able to choose one or two items in each category. Two meats, one salad, two accompaniments (we could do mac&cheese and the medley, but we'd have to drop the smashed potatoes with toppings, which we really liked), and two appetizers. They include rolls, water, and iced tea.

allispain

Beef definitely - I know a lot of people who don't like ham and I feel like pork chops just wouldn't be as appealing to the masses either.

As for the salad - garden salad most definitely. I don't think of pasta salad as a salad course, but as a side.

Regarding the sides... I can't believe I'm going to say this (because I'm a bride to had my caterer put together a special app of mac and cheese - my favorite food)... I would keep both the potatoes and the veggies and not do the mac and cheese. Since you're only able to have two sides, one should be a starch and the other a vegetable - given that you and your FI loved the potato option, that pretty much eliminates the possibility of having the mac and cheese.

Viczaesar

What are you doing about vegetarians?

heidirs731

We don't have any vegetarians in our family, friend, or coworker circle.

NYCMercedes

Lactose intolerant?

heidirs731

ooh, we do have one! Thank you for reminding me...

MDbride1012

I would say beef.