Friday 27 August 2010

A CONFERENCE DINNER


“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.” - George Bernard Shaw

It was the last day of my conference today and this evening we had the closing ceremony and the conference dinner. The conference and the dinner were held at the Crown Promenade Hotel at its Conference Centre in Southbank, very close to the City centre. It has been a relatively good conference with plenty of opportunity to network, some good speakers and workshops and a very good conference dinner!

This evening we were greeted in the foyer of the venue with drinks, both soft and alcoholic, and allowed plenty of time for opportunities to network. We then entered the main conference venue that had been set up for the dinner. Round tables of about a dozen people were set out within the main hall and a jazz band provided live music. The lighting was low but adequate and once again as we moved to our tables there was more opportunity to get to know other attendees and renew acquaintances.

The food was very good to excellent and the menu had as follows:

Entrée
Seafood tower with quick seared tuna, crab salad, prawns, tomato salsa and avocado with smoked salmon and saffron dressing.
Bread rolls with butter.

Main Course
Herb baked lamb and red wine braised lamb shoulder on coriander risotto with red wine jus. Seasonal vegetables including baby carrots, broccolini, beans and mangetout peas.

Dessert
Warm apple tarte Tatin with cinnamon ice cream and calvados crème anglaise.

There was a selection of alcoholic drinks including Crown Reserve Sparkling, Reserve Chardonnay and Reserve Shiraz. Heineken, Hahn Premium light and a selection of soft drinks completed the offerings.

I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and barring the relatively slow service, we were looked after very well by the service staff. It was a very good evening and a fitting ending to a very good conference.

2 comments:

  1. Having a meaningful life is a joy and a luxury.

    recent 'conference' of Aus legal org was held in GOA.
    Next week Victorian Bar are having their annual dinner in The Great Hall and there will be long gowns to cover the long-johns (a room that high could never be warm). Tix are $170

    It is tricky to serve good food simultaneously to 100 people. The kitchen scene can be a horror movie and the person under the white hat really earns the money.

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  2. Wow that's some dinner! Usually in most of the conferences I have been to they serve really terrible food.
    As Ann says above, it is so difficult to serve warm and tasty food to so many people concurrently!

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