The Grand Tasting
Cocktail dresses and plastic plates: The delicate strategy behind Sugar Land'swine affair
Mixing a cocktail dress and a tiny plastic plate is always a dangerous combination (though I adore whatever genius invented the square plates with the wine holder in the corner), but it becomes particularly precarious when also navigating between the dozens of food and wine booths along with 1,000 other people.
But for The Grand Tasting, the marquee event of Sugar Land's five-day The Grand Wine & Food Affair, you make allowances. With mostly food vendors on an exterior ring and wines toward the middle, my strategy was to fill up wine judiciously, seeking out labels like 100 Acres and scoping out bottles of prosecco, then to move in a rough counterclockwise tour of the restaurant offerings.
Say hello, fill up the plate and eat it as you edge toward the next table. Repeat until stuffed.
Some offerings were unexpected — the shot of beef and cheese grits from Marriott's The Burning Pear was aggressively odd and oversweet, but the hot pink test tube drink of lychee liqueur, Belvedere citron vodka and cranberry juice was light and delicious, and the push-up pop of mango puree and vanilla ice cream from Austin's The Driskill Hotel was fun enough to forgive the messiness.
Other favorites? Valentino Vinbar's shrimp pasta carbonara, the cornet of balsamic tuna tartare with green olive foam from Quattro, Aura's veal-stuffed ravioli with au jus, the heirloom carrot salad from Central Market, the mesquite-grilled halibut cheek sope with avocado and salted crema from Citrus in San Antonio, Branch Water Tavern's Maker's Mark cocktail and Rebecca Masson's delightful pastries.
Nearly three hours for food, wine and more food and wine seems like it should be enough, but most guests seemed to leave the hall reluctantly. Good thing the weekend holds ever more chances for epicurean delights ...
