The continuing adventures of Kimberly and Willy

Celebrity Chef Night at Palapa Joe's

We met Guy Fieri a couple years ago while he and his family were vacationing in La Manzanilla. They ate in the restaurant a couple of times and we became acquainted. At this point in time, he had entered the Food Network "The Next Food Network Star" contest but was not yet aware that he had won the competition. I think that he said there were 8000 entries.

They came back the following season for vacation and at that point he had a weekly show on the Food Network called "Guy's Big Bites." I opened the restaurant early one morning so that the family could gather and watch the show. He mentioned that they we in discussions for another show called "Diners, Dives and Drive-ins," now both shows are starting a second season.

About a month ago I got an email from Guy and his dad suggesting that we do a benefit dinner. We batted some ideas back and forth and decided to put on a special dinner with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit the La Manzanilla school system.

 The menu for the evening was:

Deep fried artichoke hearts with a red bell pepped aioli

Olive rosemary flatbread

Grilled romain lettuce with a bacon blue cheese vinagrette

Cajun chicken breast with garlic chardonnay alfredo penne

Tequila lime tart.

Guy and his dad along with our kitchen crew worked all day preparing dinner for ~70

We did 2 seatings...around 30 for the first seating at 6pm and 34 or 35 for the late seating. The meal was a hugh success. Guy was great. He talked to everyone that attended....answered questions, signed things...posed for pictures....

The kitchen crew came out for a well deserved round of applause 

All in all, a great evening....We've already started talking about next year's version. 

Posted at 08:22PM Mar 09, 2008 by Willy in General  |  Comments[2]