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Friday, September 19, 2008

Orange County Restaurant Association Launch Party


I was recently invited down to the launch party of the new Orange County Restaurant Association. The party took place at the gorgeous, new Orange County Art House in Ladera Ranch. The Orange County Art House is a nearly 9,000 square foot mansion that houses artwork from Southern California artists in every room. The house will be used as a private venue for parties, but will also occasionally be open to the public.

As my wife and I walked through the large front door, we encountered a martini bar that was serving Kai Vodka martinis in plain, kiwi and lychee flavors. Kai vodka is distilled from rice. They were serving the martinis with these huge ice spheres that looked like crystal clear, glass orbs. These amazing ice cubes were made by Glace, a specialty ice company in Canada, that FedExes their ice all over. We tried both a kiwi and a lychee martini. They were both very good and went down very smooth.

Lychee Martini

Super Rad Ice Spheres

We ventured further into the party and saw stations set up by a bunch of different vendors. Some of the beautiful presentations we saw were...


Baked Goods from Solomon's Bakery

Produce by Melissa's

Chocolates by Downey's

Sole Water debuting their new bottle design

Cheese, Nuts and Fruit by Champignon

Dirty Steak Martinis by Steer Crazy BBQ (These look kinda gross, but they were SO YUM!)


We sampled a few of the delights and they were all very good. We then wandered around the ginormous house to look at all of the artwork.





The party was absolutely amazing. A good time was had by all. I would like to extend a special THANK YOU to Pam Waitt and the Orange County Restaurant Association for hosting such a wonderful event!

8 comments:

Chubbypanda said...

Nice! I figure events like that one are sure to have great food. After all, everyone at them is in the business.

Anonymous said...

Griffon you are so awesome to post such a nice blog about the launch, thanks...So glad to meet you and happy you had a great time.

Warm Regards,
Pam

ila said...

WOW. it all looks soooo purty!

Diamond Dog said...

you can make ice cubes clear like that by boiling the water. letting it cool, then boiling the water again.

Tip of the day brought to you by Diamond Dog

Griffin said...

Hi ChubbyPanda! Long time no see!

Hi Pam. It was great to meet you as well. I'm looking forward to more awesome OCRA events!

Ila, It DOES look purty!

Diamond Dog, thanks for the tip, but how am I supposed to make them into those cool sphere shapes?

Diamond Dog said...

Is that a marbled chocolate toilet and sink ? I hope you are not supposed to eat it afterwards?! It would be kinda weird going to the bathroom there with all the glass. Like going in a fishbowl for everyone to see. The more I saw this picture, the more strange it was and I finally had to comment on it.

Griffin said...

DiamondDog-The toilet is not made out of chocolate. It's just a normal toilet that someone painted to make it "art." They put it in the shower for some reason. I don't know why...

Captain said...

That'd be a handy arrangement for those pesky times you run out of terlit paper....