This past Wednesday night I was able to attend Gastropost’s 100th Mission Celebration hosted inside a 123 year old historic house where the Italian restaurant Osteria Dei Ganzi currently resides. 100 tickets were given out and I was lucky to be one of the ticket holders. It was a free event to celebrate the 100th mission idea in the history of Gastropost.
For those who are unfamiliar with Gastropost, they put out weekly food missions on their website surrounding a food theme for fellow Gastroposters to take pictures of and post online through various social media outlets. Gastropost works in conjunction with the newspaper National Post and every Saturday they also run a page in the paper showcasing some of that week’s top food pictures. Gastropost is a large food community across the country with outlets now expanding from Toronto into other major Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary as well.
The party started at 7PM and parking was a nightmare for me to say the least. To sum it up quickly, a parking enforcer was about to write me a parking ticket before I luckily ran over to stop him. My credit card did not work in the public parking lot in front of the restaurant which meant I couldn’t leave my car there so I ended up driving around the area in circles until I finally found a spot with a parking metre in the surrounding area. Glad that part was over!
I checked in and immediately got their Gin Caesar at the bar to start off. Throughout the night there would be servers walking around the venue with appetizers and horderves fresh out of the kitchen for the guests to try. I did my best to grab as many as I could and the things I managed to get were delicious.
Miniature Pizzas - Asparagus & Mushroom; Margarita
Crab Salad on Enddive
They also had a special guest come to the event which was Chef Corbin from Food Network Canada. Some of the shows people may be familiar with him in include Dinner Party Wars, Restaurant Takeover, and Crash My Kitchen. I had the chance to speak with him for about 20 minutes where I found out about his charity event that he is a part of later on this year called Cook for the Cure. A very stand up guy!
The night ended off with the giveaway of door prizes. The most notable prizes were a brand new Nokia smart phone and a $3 000 kitchen appliance. Unfortunately I was not one of the lucky winners in that area but I still had a great time at my second food event of the year. I saw an old friend, made some new ones, networked with a celebrity chef, and had some good food and drinks. It was an awesome night and looking forward to whatever the next food event may bring.
