Last Thursday, I was sitting at my house, getting ready to down some $1 beer at the RiverDogs game, when I received an invite to an exclusive foodie event from the Queen of the Food Age herself, Sydney Gallimore (follow her insta, she posts awesome pics). The event was the opening of the new restaurant in the Renaissance Hotel, 1 Kept. Sydney opened with the fact that it was hosted by Andrew Zimmern, so I said screw the RiverDogs and I basically ran over there.
When we arrived to the event, we could see everyone was sipping on the signature cocktails of the evening, so of course we had to try them (strictly for foodie business purposes). First, we tried the Moscow Mule, which was a refreshing start to the evening.
As we looked around, we spotted a photo booth and had to jump in. As you can tell, we are very photogenic. When we exited the photo booth, we saw the food coming around and immediately snagged some.
The first dish we tried was the best bite of the night. It was watermelon gaspacho with crab in it and it was sweet, refreshing, and served in a shot glass (turn up). After we had a few more bites that included the likes of steak, pork, pimento cheese toast, and truffle popcorn, we moved on to more cocktails.
Since it was Negroni Week, we had to try their Negronis. Tbh I had no idea what was in a Negroni, but Sydney seemed to think it was a good idea, so I had one (and then a few more). The Negronis were sweet at first, but with a kick of bitters at the end to make it more complex.
As we were sipping on our cocktails, I almost dropped my glass when Andrew Zimmern walked into the room. It was a total fangirl moment and I had some heart palpitations for sure. After we saw him, my main mission was to introduce myself. Luckily, the cocktails gave me the courage to go up and do so. He thanked me for his compliments and was humble about his accomplishments. I might have slickly slipped in the title of my blog in return, so it was a successful mission.
After I calmed down from the excitement of meeting Andrew, the musical guest of the night came out. Former American Idol finalist Elise Testone was the perfect complement to the atmosphere and the food. Her soulful sound made everyone in the room stop and sway to the music (I spotted Andrew busting a few moves too).
The 1Kept event was a night filled with fun, food, and plenty of drinks. We might have had a little too much fun as far as the drinks go, but it was night I will surely never forget.
