chowfoon wrote:One of the questions was what does "LTH" stand for in Chicago food website LTHForum's name? I yelled out "Little Three Happiness," but not quite as loudly as several others since I didn't get the blender (I don't really need another one... but it turns out those suckers are $120!) Definitely quite a few site readers were in attendance.

This is really great!

I have a friend who was once a Jeopardy question. I will now have a counter example from my life to counter! I love it!

Regards,

The Wife and I stopped by around noon on Sunday, and had a pretty good time, though we were surprised for many of the reasons noted:

There were incredible quantities of wine, but I concluded that the wine to food ratio was probably 20-to-1: for every twenty or so wine stands, there was one food stand. Places like Fox&Obel were rare and much appreciated, providing the opportunity to grab some salami, cheese and bread (albeit, as noted, on a napkin) and keep rolling. We had some tasty nibbles, but not that many, and with all that wine, more food would have been a very good thing. There was never a wait for wine; food lines were usually at least a dozen folks, but they moved fast.

Millennium Park is a big, big space, and it's hard to make it feel full. With vendors lining the periphery there was a huge empty center which made the place seem almost deserted at various points in the day. In that center, I would have liked to have seen more tables -- and why not a battalion of servers bringing food and wine out to people? For anyone paying full price, the reasonable expectation would be that there'd be somewhat more attentive service.

It's called Chicago Gourmet, so it was hard to figure out how Dunkin' Donuts got it. Oh, right, they bought the opportunity, as I'm sure anyone can do. Still, they offered the only coffee drinks on the grounds, so after a hard day of eating and drinking, that was kind of nice.

There was some organizational confusion surrounding this event, due in part to the fact that the first public relations firm that was handling the event since its announcement was dumped three weeks ago. The current organizers did their best, but they had just a little time to pull it all together. I believe next year will be be an improvement.

There were clearly many comps in the crowd, including those that went to media, wine industry folks, and customers of food and wine distributors, etc. I met one guy, a parole officer from Fresno, who flew to Chicago specifically to avoid a high school reunion in his hometown. I guess there are many different reasons for attending Chicago Gourmet.

nsxtasy wrote:I'd sure like to know how everyone except me was able to get complimentary tickets to this event.

I can only surmise that they didn't sell enough tickets, so they started giving them away. My father got a few tickets from his financial planner earlier in the week. We were just lucky that we didn't already have plans and that he was able to get enough tickets for us to join him.

I've read the comments here and on a few other websites. It seems that the consensus is that there simply wasn't enough food. I hope that the organizers heed the comments - - MORE FOOD, PLEASE! Otherwise, I have a feeling they may sell even fewer tickets than they did this year.

Ronna

REB wrote:I've read the comments here and on a few other websites. It seems that the consensus is that there simply wasn't enough food. I hope that the organizers heed the comments - - MORE FOOD, PLEASE! Otherwise, I have a feeling they may sell even fewer tickets than they did this year.

And I hope this clear, widespread and resounding request for more food is not interpreted as (merely) a bunch of gluttons whining for even more bloated bellies. With all that wine, food is required, and if this get-together is going to be billed as a "gourmet" event, rather than a wine-tasting, there gots to be more grub.

REB wrote:

nsxtasy wrote:I'd sure like to know how everyone except me was able to get complimentary tickets to this event.

I can only surmise that they didn't sell enough tickets, so they started giving them away. My father got a few tickets from his financial planner earlier in the week. We were just lucky that we didn't already have plans and that he was able to get enough tickets for us to join him.

I've read the comments here and on a few other websites. It seems that the consensus is that there simply wasn't enough food. I hope that the organizers heed the comments - - MORE FOOD, PLEASE! Otherwise, I have a feeling they may sell even fewer tickets than they did this year.

Ronna

That's what kept me away from this event. Details on the food were always sketchy, yet the wineries were boasted about in nearly all of the pre-event press. Not being much of a drinker, I sensed it was going to be a wine centric event and didn't have much of a desire to attend. I turned down free tickets as well.

Im wondering if anyone went to the Gourmet Food Fest and what their experience was like. I read about it but did not attend. As much as I like the idea it seemed like alot of doe for not much dough and I read it was more wine then food.

My wife and I went on Saturday and we got there right at 11:00. We checked in and got our lanyards, then we were given our tote bags(which I used yesterday for picking cilantro in the garden) and our huge wine glasses. We found that many of the sparse food tents were not ready to go. Even Dunkin' Donuts (a food booth at a gourmet event?) wasn't ready with iced lattes. We are both light wine drinkers, maybe good for 2 glasses a piece at a meal. Also, without enough food to put in our stomachs, we didn't want a bunch of wine that would go straight to our heads. We figured out pretty quickly that our best bet would be to head to the chef demonstrations. Tasting the creations made there wasn't allowed, but the demonstrations were entertaining and smelled wonderful. We were most impressed by Rick Moonen of RM Seafood, who did some butter poaching of halibut. Rick Bayless was awesome, as usual. We stayed there for the first three sessions before moving back to the lawn.

After consuming the thimble-sized portions that the few food vendors grudgingly gave out, we had a choice to make around 2:15...stay to see if the 4 chef tasting tables were going to produce anything substantial, or leave the event to actually get something to eat. We opted for the latter option. The highlight of our day was watching the toddlers play in the fountain at the park. We wouldn't trade that happy experience, but it was quite a letdown from what we had expected when we had arrived a few hours earlier.

The culinary schools did rise to the occasion, and the crab cake mentioned previously was the best thing out there. Frankly, the rest seemed to me to be food items that could be prepared in advance in bulk. While ceviche and a bread salad with fresh tomatoes and fresh herbs are tasty, they hardly represent a demonstration of fine gourmet food.

My first posting ever about the Buen Provecho Pilsen event couldn't be a bigger contrast to what we experienced on Saturday. At BPP, we experienced more than 25 eager restaurants who gave generous portions for a $20 (total cost for the event) ticket. At Gourmet Chicago, it was like going to the supermarket on Saturday morning and getting a 1 oz. souffle cup of salsa with 1 chip to taste. Stefani's in particular, with lousy penne and 1 mini-ravioli, acting like they were giving away gold nuggets should be embarrassed.

We made a huge mistake in purchasing our tickets when the event was announced. I will know next time to wait to see if the event's web site posts as much information as the event program. I knew we were in trouble once I saw the map of the tents. We expected much more food for the money we paid. That, or the event should have been named something more along the lines of "Chicago Wine Festival", or something that reflected the true nature of what was going to happen. For $150, I think we should have gotten some tasting plates, something like a tapas meal. For the price, it should have been served to us at tables, as well. Our opinion is that $50 should have been the price of admission, maybe less since the wineries and distributors probably paid for what they poured at the event as a PR expense. We believe there should be five times the amount of restaurants at this type of event than were there this past weekend.

Many of the sentiments in this thread are echoed in Julia Thiel's Food Chain blurb on this event -- I don't think I've seen such regular use of the word "fuck" in any other Chicago Reader article or post:

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/food/200 ... -happened/

David Hammond wrote:I don't think I've seen such regular use of the word "fuck" in any other Chicago Reader article or post

Now that the newspaper's parent has declared Chapter 11, maybe the writers feel less constrained...

Incidentally, even though I personally was satisfied with what I had, I agree with the criticisms in that blog as well as those expressed by others posting here. There were NOT ENOUGH FOOD BOOTHS, and there was a disconnect between the number of food offerings and the way the event was promoted and priced. Simple as that.

From the Reader article:

Despite the long lines the crowds didn't seem overwhelming, but there were still a few issues with overcrowding, complicated by poor communication among the staff and volunteers.

Not suprising in the slightest - the organizers didn't seem to have any idea of what they were doing with respect to the taining and organizing of the vols. I received a notification the Sunday before the event, after no communication for weeks, that indicated that the "training" was to be held Wednesday afternoon, a spectacularly inconvenient time for virtually everyone involved. The attached vol schedule wasn't formatted properly, so we had to wait until Monday to get bare-bones info on our assignments. No specifics were listed as to what we were to do, only the five-hour blocks (!!) for which we were scheduled.
The real deal-breaker for most of the vols who gave up on the event was the admonition that 1) we were going to have to pay for our own parking, and 2) that there was not going to be a place for us to secure our belongings (like, the car keys, and the vast pile of needed to pay for five hours of prime-time parking on a weekend).
Perhaps I'm just used to the Botanic Garden vol routine, but if you are going to expect people to work for hours for free, it seems prudent to not treat them like crap up front, to provide them with basic needs, and to respond to important questions re: procedure and such - I never received any response to any of the emails that I sent regarding the communication problems. I'm frankly a little surprised that any vols showed up at all.

Anyone planning to go this year?

turkob wrote:Anyone planning to go this year?

Here's info for this year:

http://www.illinoisrestaurants.org/asso ... /?page=297

sundevilpeg wrote:From the Reader article:

Despite the long lines the crowds didn't seem overwhelming, but there were still a few issues with overcrowding, complicated by poor communication among the staff and volunteers.

Not suprising in the slightest - the organizers didn't seem to have any idea of what they were doing with respect to the taining and organizing of the vols. I received a notification the Sunday before the event, after no communication for weeks, that indicated that the "training" was to be held Wednesday afternoon, a spectacularly inconvenient time for virtually everyone involved. The attached vol schedule wasn't formatted properly, so we had to wait until Monday to get bare-bones info on our assignments. No specifics were listed as to what we were to do, only the five-hour blocks (!!) for which we were scheduled.
The real deal-breaker for most of the vols who gave up on the event was the admonition that 1) we were going to have to pay for our own parking, and 2) that there was not going to be a place for us to secure our belongings (like, the car keys, and the vast pile of needed to pay for five hours of prime-time parking on a weekend).
Perhaps I'm just used to the Botanic Garden vol routine, but if you are going to expect people to work for hours for free, it seems prudent to not treat them like crap up front, to provide them with basic needs, and to respond to important questions re: procedure and such - I never received any response to any of the emails that I sent regarding the communication problems. I'm frankly a little surprised that any vols showed up at all.

Did you actually end up volunteering? What roles did the volunteers have?

What struck me as particularly interesting is the "Dine Around" program (five meals and one gets free admission) - with special pre fixe menus. One of the restaurants that is participating is Arun's, where one can get four appetizers, two main courses, and a dessert for $50. While Arun's has its detractors (and fans) on this board, if you have wanted to try Arun's and couldn't bear the pricetag ($85), dining during August or September might be the opportunity. Vie also has a special dining option ($40), but the menu seems fairly limited. Tru will also be involved.