I just came back from the food tasting at Leonards...I went with only my parents this time since FH couldn't make it, but FH and I had gone to a food tasting last June. It was held in the Parisian room, one of the rooms on the main floor where the woman sits at the desk. We arrived about 20 minutes early, and the woman at the desk had to call to find out where the food tasting was goign to be...I found that a bit odd...shouldn't she know that?!? Anyway, we were escorted into the food tasting room at 11:55am.
Most of the cold CH foods are the same, but they actually changed quite a bit of the hot foods, and I have mixed feelings about the 'new' CH menu
According to the papers they gave me when I signed my contract and based on the notes I took from last June's food tasting, the 'old' CH menu included:
veal marsala
meatballs with tomato sauce
chicken cacciatore
sweet italian sausage with onions, peppers & potatoes
fried calamari
tortellini tre colore in alfredo sauce
eggplant rollatini
Based on last June's food tasting, the stand-outs from the above list were the meatballs, fried calamari, eggplant rollatini, and tortellini with alfredo sauce...everyone has slightly different tastes, but these 4 were amazingly good
Here's what's on the 'new' CH menu (based on the food tasting, not on any paperwork):
sesame chicken
veal brasciole (spelling?)
penne with meat sauce
sweet and sour pork
pork medallions with sweet peppers & carrots
sweet italian sausage with onions and mushrooms (no sauce)
steak pizzaola (spelling?)
fried calamari
tripe in tomatoe sauce
The stand-outs from the above list were the brasciole, penne with meat sauce and fried calamari. The steak pizzaola and italian sausage were also very good, just 1 notch below the others listed. The 2 pork dishes and sesame chicken were decent but forgettable, and we didn't try the tripe.
I spoke to Maurizzio and a new banquet manager called Tommy, and they both said that since we signed with the old contract, it's not all or nothing, but rather they can work with us to mix and match items from both menus. That made me feel a lot better because the eggplant rollatini we tried last year was AMAZING and it'd be a shame to not have that.
We've got some more time to think about this (we're expecting to meet with Ian sometime in late August or early Sept), but I at least am leaning more towards the old menu but substituting a couple of items from the new menu...we'll see
On a side note, I noticed that the food tasting this time was very scaled down compared to last year's and Tommy didn't serve us everything that was available. We asked him if there was fried calamari, he said yes, but he didn't serve it to us!!
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I walked around the food displays with my father and we noticed the calamari and asked our server to bring us a plate! We also were not served the tripe and 1 of the pork dishes (we asked for the pork dish but not the tripe).
There was a lot less personalized service on the part of the Tommy, who only served us and asked us if we had any questions but didn't really spend any time with us We saw Maurizzio walk in, my father waved to him and Maurizio sat down to talk with us for a few minutes. There were also fewer people coming in for the food tasting than last year.