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The Blue Plate

Avon Colorado Restaurant

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Pink Vail Benefit Party: $25,020 raised for the Shaw Cancer Center

We partied to kick cancer! And it was so worth it.

On Feb. 27, we hosted a 5-course benefit dinner at Blue Plate, and ALL PROCEEDS from the evening were donated to the Pink Vail Organization, which supports enhancements to patient care and patient programming at the Shaw Cancer Center in Eagle County. About 80 guests, 15 staff members, 10 volunteers & 6 musicians partied together to raise $25,020!

The party featured live music by local performers. The Fabulous Femmes kick off the night with a groovy dance party, while The Sam Bee Trio serenaded guests throughout dinner with smooth jazz.

There was also an elite silent auction with high end items donated by local businesses.

But, the highlight of the evening was the unveiling of Blue Plate’s new exclusive dining experience, Chef’s Tasting Gondolas.

There’s a new way to dine at The Blue Plate in Avon. Owners Adam and Elli Roustom are now offering an exclusive dining experience in two vintage gondolas nestled on the restaurant’s East patio. Refurbished with old European wood by Arrigoni Woods and traditional Austrian textiles, each private cabin embodies the luxurious warmth of a Alpine chalet.

Up to four guests will be able to choose between two special menus: an Alpine menu or Chef’s tasting menu. The alpine menu will feature European charcuterie, traditional fondue with imported cheeses, crispy Austrian schnitzel and apple strudel. The Chef’s tasting menu is determined weekly by Adam. He bases his menu on the freshest seasonal ingredients and enjoys being creative with the colors and flavors in his dishes. Both menus will be four courses, and guests may choose to add wine pairings.

 Vail Daily

For the benefit party, the gondolas were used as a fun Photo Booth. Guests were able to mingle inside the cabins & snap pictures with goofy props. And at the end of the night, the FIRST two 4-course dinners in the new gondolas were auctioned off. It was a super fun (and merrily competitive) way to end the evening.

Blue Plate is now accepting reservation requests for Chef’s Tasting Gondolas, starting on March 18. To learn more, click here.

Pink Vail Benefit Party – Photo Gallery

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JOIN US! Pink Vail Benefit Dinner

JOIN US FOR A DELIGHTFUL NIGHT OF DINNER & DANCING TO SUPPORT A LOCAL CAUSE!

Adam & Elli Roustom of Blue Plate are teaming up with local cancer survivor & philanthropist Robyn Loring Specthrie to host a Pink Vail Benefit Party!

The Fabulous Femmes will kick off the night with disco dance tunes at 6 PM, followed by The Sam Bee Trio‘s juicy jams throughout the rest of the evening.

Dinner will include a 5-course menu with elegant wine pairings. Guests will determine the price of their meals by bidding in a silent auction during the event. The two highest donations will each receive a reservation in one of Blue Plate’s new & exclusive Chef’s Dining Gondolas along with a 4-course dinner for four.

The event will also feature an elite raffle with awesome packaged prizes, along with a fun photo booth in the new gondolas. Guests will each receive their own complimentary Gondola Photo Booth picture.

The profits will be donated to Pink Vail, a charity that assists the Shaw Cancer Center in Eagle County through enhancements to patient care and patient programming. The organization helps to fund the center’s special wellness programs to improve patient experience. To learn more, visit www.pinkvail.com/.

This is an exclusive event with very limited seating and will require a non-refundable $100 deposit per person to reserve your spot.

TO MAKE A RESERVATION:

Contact Elli Roustom at info@blueplateavon.com or call (970) 845-2252.

Please be prepared with guests names, phone number, email & credit card information for the initial deposit.

LET BLUE PLATE ELEVATE YOUR TASTE BUDS WHILE SUPPORTING A LOFTY LOCAL CAUSE!

Join the Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/331960814190855/

**Joining the Facebook event DOES NOT make a reservation. You must CONTACT Elli Roustom or The Blue Plate to reserve your spot**

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7 Easy Ways to Decorate Your Wedding Rehearsal Dinner at a Restaurant!

We all know how much planning goes into a wedding. Not only do you need to organize your guest list, book your venues & determine logistics, but you also need to define the theme & style of the day. It takes a lot of time & energy (& Pinteresting!) to choose colors, flowers, dresses and the little extra adorable details. And, after 10 years of hosting special events at Blue Plate, we’re surprised how often couples ditch their theme when it comes to the Wedding Rehearsal Dinner. It’s silly to plan so extensively for your life-changing event, yet not follow through with every aspect.

Luckily, it’s fairly simple to keep up with your theme at your rehearsal dinner. Here are 7 Easy Ways to Decorate Your Rehearsal Dinner at a Restaurant! (Be sure you check out #6! It’s my favorite 😉 )

1. Special Menus

Menus are very important for your rehearsal dinner. They give the meal structure, letting guests know what to expect and showing the options to choose from for each course. So, why not make them pretty?

Special printed menus can make a great keepsake from your special day, especially if they include the details of your event (date, bride & groom’s names, etc) and fit your theme. At Blue Plate, we include custom menus for every special event, but every restaurant has a different policy so make sure you discuss this ahead of time. It’s also important to discuss any specific details you would like included on your menus (such as the event details or colors).

2. Floral Arrangements

 

Yes, fresh flowers can be fairly expensive, but they are a great way to bring life & vibrancy to a party (and keep up with the colors of your big day!). And, they don’t necessarily need to be too pricey. You probably already have a florist to make the arrangements for your wedding, but make sure you check with your restaurant host before booking flowers for the rehearsal dinner. Many restaurants, such as Blue Plate, will add flowers & other decorations to the cost of the event for less money than a florist.

3. Chalkboard Signs

If you’re planning a wedding, there’s no way in hell you haven’t seen those adorable chalk board signs every bride seems to have. Not only do they make great photo ops, but handwritten signs are a great way to give guests direction with a personal touch. We love them for rehearsal dinners at Blue Plate because they can give guests instruction, show the schedule of events (i.e. cocktail hour, toasts, gift-giving, etc.), and they just look so pretty.

But, are ALL those brides that damn crafty? The answer is, simply, no. Sure, some may have an artsy aunt to help them, but many of them hire someone to help. (Don’t worry, we’ve included the contact info of our own beloved chalkboard artist & graphic designer at the end of this post.)

4. Special Table Settings

One of the BEST ways to incorporate the colors & theme of your wedding is to rent special table settings for the occasion. In the past, we’ve rented colorful cloth napkins, table clothes & runners, as well as special plates & silverware (they were GOLD & fabulous – we wanted to keep them 😉 ). At Blue Plate, we help find these special settings through our food & bev connections, so make sure you chat with your restaurant host before finding them on your own.

5. Candles & Lighting

One of the greatest mood-determining factors of an event is its lighting. It’s important to discuss this aspect with your restaurant host before the event. For example, you may check out the space during the daytime (with awesome natural lighting), then come back for your evening dinner & be blinded by fluorescent bulbs. Luckily all of our lighting is on dimmers at Blue Plate, so determining the mood is easy, but not all restaurants have this capability.

 

Furthermore, candles (if allowed in the restaurant) are the way to go! It’s one of the most simple (& cheapest) ways to give your event extra glamour & flair. Be aware: if children are attending the dinner, it may be a good idea to designate a specific “kids’ table” without candles (and other breakable items). We have our own candles we can break out for special events at Blue Plate, so check with your restaurant host before buying out Target’s supply.

6. Stylish Cocktails

“His & Hers” colorful cocktails may be my FAVORITE way to insert the theme of your wedding into your rehearsal dinner. Offering your guests beautiful beverages (such as our deep purple Blackberry Old Fashioned or a glass of our Pink Sangria) is an adorable & memorable way to start the festivities. It also makes for fabulous photos. We personally love working with couples to develop colorful cocktails or other drinks that fit the theme of their wedding, but not every restaurant will work with you in this aspect.

7. Name Cards, Programs & Fun Extras

Apart from special menus, additional custom printed items are easy ways to make your wedding rehearsal dinner beautiful, fun & functional! You can style the name cards for the seating arrangement (or name tags for your guests) to fit your theme. It can also be a great idea to print a pretty schedule of the night’s events to make things run more smoothly. And then, there’s the fun extras, like this adorable “5 Things Her Side Should Know About Him” card that we saw on Pinterest & would LOVE to see at one of our dinners.

If you need help designing any printed goods (or special event chalkboard signs!), our graphic designer Kinsey Ellissa does a fantastic job with special products for special occasions. You can contact her here.

Well, we hope your enjoyed our tips for decorating your wedding rehearsal dinner! Be sure to check out our other post for 5 TIPS to Run Your Wedding Rehearsal Dinner Smoothly…In a Restaurant!

And if you’re interested in hosting your Wedding Rehearsal Dinner at Blue Plate in Avon, Colorado, click here for more info!

 

 

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How to Taste Wine: No-Shame Basics for Beginners

The first wine tasting I ever attended was at the Irish Pub where I worked in college, which specialized in imported beer & amazing Irish whiskeys. You can imagine how it went. Let’s just say that this was the first time I heard “cat piss” and “garden hose” as descriptions for flavor profiles, and my coworkers decided it would be cool to drink the dump bucket when the wine rep concluded his spiels.

I apologize. I did not start with this story to make you all gag, but I wanted you to have a little info on my background so that you could understand my dilemma when I started tasting and learning Blue Plate’s wine list. You see, Blue Plate’s owner Elli Roustom is a very learned wine woman. She strongly believes that her staff should know the flavor profiles of her entire wine list and be able to recommend wine to guests without any B.S. (she knows good wine folks see right through the bullshit anyway 😉 ).

So, when we started our bi-weekly wine tastings leading up to the holiday season, I pretty much needed to learn it all. I don’t mean our wine list. I mean wine.

I hope that some of you are snickering behind your plump Cabernet glasses, wondering how a 28-year-old woman could know so little about this illustrious drink, because I DID ask a lot of, ahem, dumb questions during these tastings. Luckily, Elli & our wonderful wine reps were happy to answer these questions, and so today, I’m happy to share a bit of beginner knowledge about HOW TO PROPERLY TASTE WINE.

Observation

The first step to a proper tasting of wine is a simple examination (with your eyeballs alone). After filling your glass to just above its curvature (NEVER fill a glass to the top as the wine needs room to breathe!), lift & tilt the glass to a 45 degree angle.

Determine the wine’s:

  • LIMPIDITY: Are there particles floating in the wine?
  • COLOR TONALITY: Is it straw colored or more golden? More ruby than rust?
  • HUES: Does the edge of the liquid have a gradient?
  • LIVELINESS: Is the wine bright or dull?

Next, swirl the wine in your glass to discover its consistency. If it flows smoothly & freely, it has less alcohol and structure. If it is more dense & viscous, the wine will be of higher alcohol & complexity. When you stop swirling, you may see transparent glycerine “legs” running down the side of the glass. More legs generally means more alcohol, and vice versa.

Smell

Now, we use our noses. Smelling wine is very important (and very interesting!) because scent is dependent on your own experiences. Basically, everyone smells things differently, and you will often find various scent comparisons being thrown about by different people during a group tasting.

When smelling a wine, stick one nostril on the rim of your glass (because you can’t smell with both at the same time, I’m told… I can’t make this shit up!) and sniff swiftly & purposefully.

Be aware of the wine’s:

  • OVERALL INTENSITY: How intensely does the odor hit your nostril?
  • COMPLEXITY: What is the extent of the scents in the glass?
  • FINESSE: Are the smells clear & elegant?
  • SPECIFIC ODORS: Can certain smells be identified, such as fruity, floral, spicy, etc?

Be sure to smell your wine when it has been sitting still and after you swirl it (and with both nostrils, but one at a time! 😉 ) because the swirling can cause more aromas to be released.

Taste

Okay, cool…but can we taste it yet? Yes, young grasshopper, now you are ready. Take a sip. (Some people “chew” their wine. That may be covered in the intermediate course?)

The first thing you need to observe is the wine’s softness:

  • SUGAR: Is the wine dry or sweet (or excessively sweet)?
  • ALCOHOL: Is the wine light or alcoholic?
  • SOFTNESS: Is the wine sharp or velvety?

The next thing you think about is its hardness:

  • ACIDS: Does the wine taste flat or fresh?
  • TANNINS: This feeling can be hard to pin down. Basically, after you swallow, does your tongue feel dry (more tannins) or not (less tannins)?
  • MINERALS: Is the wine tasteless, tasty or salty?

After these assessments, you can go on to determine its:

  • STRUCTURE: (also referred to as depth or body) How do all these previous assessments fit together?
  • BALANCE: How do the wine’s softness and hardness complement (or combat) each other?
  • INTENSITY: How smack-you-in-the-tongue is the taste of the wine?
  • PERSISTENCE: Does the taste linger on your tongue?
  • QUALITY: How good (or bad) is it?
  • MATURITY: Did you open the bottle too soon, too late, or just at the right time? (cue Goldilocks joke)

And finally, Your Opinion

So… Did you like it?

That’s really all that matters in the end. Everyone’s taste buds (like our nostrils) are different, and it really comes down to this simple truth. However, knowing how to properly taste wine can make you appreciate and enjoy the event more.

Keep an eye out for more blog posts with wine wisdom to come, and have a happy Monday! 🙂