Hey ladies and gents!
I just had my venues food tasting this past weekend and thought I would share my experience!
My venue does their tastings in large groups (the other couple sitting at my table was getting married in late June)! They had 152 people at the tasting and we had to pre-select what we would like to sample (each person only got to choose 1 entree).
I brought my parents, MOH and her husband and FH and I to our tasting (we were allowed to bring others, they just had to pay). This was great because there were 6 dishes available in the tasting menu, so I was able to try them all, BUT there are also a lot of opinions this way!
I found the whole experience to be a bit overwhelming as I was trying to listen to the explanation of the menu and the important information the speaker was giving, while also trying to taste all my food and jot down some notes on the dishes for later reference, and answer the questions being hurled at me from my group.
So my advice if you are going to a group tasting...
1. Have a sheet of paper with the menu options printed and a space beside them all to write notes, maybe even create check boxes for common things (like spicy, bland, tough, tender, etc)... the less you have to spend time writing the better!
2. Bring a an extra person or 2 if you're allowed. My group was a bit much, but I would have loved if it were FH and I and my MOH and her husband. They gave me straight forward opinions and pointed out things I may not have thought of and offered a different palet to tell me what they liked! Parents are great and all, but sometimes they are just happy to be there and don't always give the VERY honest feedback that I needed (they said they liked everything haha)
3. Bring a list of questions in advance for the venue if you have them! Our coordinator walked around to the tables after the speech and I knew I had questions but couldn't think of anything on the spot!
4. Take your time!!!! I had a pork dish that was delicious when I had my first few bites, but after trying some other dishes and coming back after it had cooled of a bit, it was tough and awful! Also I took in the decor options that were available (as my venue had many options all set up).
5. Don't be embarassed to ask things! I wanted to see what it looked like to have a black table cloth with a white chair cover at a table and I was too embarassed to put one at the only table with the black table cloth... well we waited until some of the table had left and my MOH's husband went and asked the table if he could move a chair there for a minute for me HAHA. It was a bit embarassing, but ultimately REALLY helpful in making decisions!!!
I'm still undecided on the menu (still torn between 2 chicken dishes), but all in all a very successful tasting with lots of information!
