Fandango Catering Announces New Menu Additions

Twice a year we spend extensive time coming up with menu ideas, and we've just finished a serious menu-a-thon of this type. 

New Menu Additions Include:

• New hip hors d'oeuvres and tapas
• New creative dinner menu items for buffets, stations, and seated dinners
• New vegetarian vegetable side dishes and vegan main courses
• New small hot plates for cocktail events that run through the dinner hour

New menu items include:

Salads and Starters

• Mixed Greens and Roasted Cherry Tomatoes in Sherry Vinaigrette
• Spinach and Roasted Pears in Honey Vinaigrette
• Stuffed Avocados with Creole Shrimp, Jack, Tarragon, and Tomato
• Tomato, Cucumber, and Mixed Fresh Herbs with Mint Vinaigrette Verrines (parfaits), garnished with Cinnamon Croutons

Hors d'oeuvres and Tapas

• Chicken Bites in Marsala Sauce
• Poblano Crab Cakes with Red Remoulade
• Ancho-Marinated Pork and Mango Skewers
• Ham-Stuffed Mushrooms Au Gratin
• Asparagus and Bechamel Tart Bites
• Shrimp in Sherry-Scallion Cream Puff Pastry Bites
• Black Bean and Jack Quesadilla Bites
• Dill and Pimentón Seafood Tartlets
• Mini Meatballs in Saffron-Orange Sauce
• Mango and Peach Gazpacho Shots, Garnished with Fresh Herbs
• Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Salad Vol-au-vents (puff pastry baskets)

Dinner Items

• Smoked Ham and Gruyere-Stuffed Ravioli with Pink Champagne Sauce
• Chicken with Tarragon-Orange Sauce
• Chicken with Pears in Sherry Sauce
• Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Cutlets with Salsa Verde
• Beef Tenderloin with Five-Spice Crust in Beer Jus
• Beef Tenderloin with Caramelized Onions in Cream Sauce
• Beef Tenderloin with Shallot and Blue Cheese Sauce
• Spice-Seared Scallop Lollipops with Pistachio Sauce
• Salmon with Orange-Basil Sauce
• Ginger-Glazed Salmon with Creamy Scallion-Ricotta Sauce
• Moroccan-Spiced Roasted Seasonal Vegetables
• Mushrooms in Sherry Glaze
• Carrots and Spinach with Pimentón-Vermouth Sauce
• Glazed Carrots with Caramelized Onions
• Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes in Gingered Reduction
• Bacon and Gruyere Macaroni and Cheese
• Baby Potatoes in Salsa Verde

Desserts

• Espresso Cream with Coffee Bean Crunch
• Upside Down Bourbon Cheesecake Shots
• Chocolate Croissant Mini Bread Puddings

Of course, we continue to offer our signature menu items!

As always, all our menus are custom menus so that each event is unique to the client.

And, as always, our produce is local as much as possible, as is our chicken and wild-caught shrimp, supporting local businesses. 

For more info: (713) 522-0077 or info@fandango-catering.com

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Offers Top Food Trends for Spring Events

Many are now planning spring and even summer events, and some party foods continue to be hot this year for warm-weather events.  Here are some of the top with-it foods for spring parties and events:

Artichokes in lush preparations such as braised with pancetta or cipolline, in flans with shallots and cream, or in frittatas (trendy served as individual frittatas, trios of frittatas, or as small wedges on tasting dishes).
Crab in crabtinis, yuzu-crab combos, shrimp and crab combos, and retro-fusion hot crab dips
Sliders with gourmet cheeses like Comté, avocado or caramelized sweet onion, and interesting spreads such as red allioli mayo, curry mayo, or horseradish sour cream mayo.
Oven-roasted or caramelized farmer's market vegetables with retro-trendy green goddess dip or cabrales dip
Fresh fruit in parfaits, dessert shots, blended with cream for dessert, mousses, poached with wine or liqueur, or in free-form crostatas sprinkled with sugar
Make-your-own pizza parties with toppings of jamón serrano, potato, or other gourmet treats
Comfort foods like mac n'cheese with luxe stir ins like lobster; American Bistro foods such as these have resurged, often in tweaked form (meatloaf with an interesting add in and sauce, puff pastry chicken sausage pigs in blankets, fries with unusual mayos or ketchups, mini puff pastry pot pies)

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Offers 4 Ideas for Making a Theme Party Distinctive

Theme parties are hot now, and if you're planning one or more this year, or a theme wedding or gala, read on for ideas on how to make your theme event distinctive and fun rather than kitschy.

Use the theme for the food but get creative within the theme--For a Western party, for example, we do BBQ items like BBQ Braised Bourbon Beef Tenderloin and Margarita Chicken with Two Sauces--not just BBQ sauce BBQ.  For a New Orleans party we do Red Wine-Glazed Andouille Bites and Mini Bread Puddings with Caramel Sauce as well as more traditional fare like Etouffée and Crab Cakes.

Set up a themed beverage station/bar--For ideas on beverages from specific decades, try googling.  For a 70s retro bar, for instance, consider screwdrivers, Mai Tais, or Tequila  Sunrises.  But to make this idea distinctive and avoid kitschiness, use classic silverplate bar accessories (at Macy's, Pottery Barn, and  other better stores). 

Go the "little touches" route--We are fans of this concept, used by Hollywood event specialists.  These are things like themed candies, blooms in rows of glasses in colors to complement the theme, playing chips, mini film canisters, rolled music sheets, etc. "sprinkled" on tables--the trick is to have neither too many nor too few of such little touches, on one or two focal point tables is best, not on every surface.

Keep entertainment confined to certain zones--This way those who want to avoid the entertainment can.  Avoid the strolling mariachi syndrome.

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering and Events Offers 3 Ways to Make Catering Planning Easier

If you've not worked with a caterer before and will, or may, use one this year, there are a few things to know to make the caterer's job easier and ensure that your experience is a great one. 

Try to pin down a few thoughts on the kind of food you'd like--When you first approach a caterer, have at least a couple of thoughts in mind, or better, jot down a few ideas.  For example, if you're looking for ideas for a dinner preceded by hors d'oeuvres, tell the caterer what kind of main dishes you're most interested in (chicken, beef, fish, vegetarian) or if you're interested in a particular cuisine (such as Mexican or Greek or whatever).  Increasingly caterers do not work with fixed menus anymore as more and more clients want greater freedom of choice and control over their event menus, and this is true not just for weddings but for any kind of event.  Would you go to a car dealer and say you want a car but don't know which make, model, year, or color you want? Probably not, and so you should be ready to tell your caterer your tentative ideas for your event--such as whether you want hors d'oeuvres only, hors d'oeuvres plus dinner, a dinner party, or whether you hate broccoli or cheese or can't eat seafood or whatever. 

Tell the caterer your price range or budget--Only then can they send you suggestions suited to your finances.  Sometimes a prospective client will say they don't know their budget.  But the problem then is, how does a caterer know what kind of food to suggest for an event--whether expensive or more moderate--if they don't have even a ballpark budget? Unlike restaurants, increasingly caterers don't have a fixed price menu but draw from many recipe "lists" to tailor a catering proposal to a specific client's needs and budget.

Tell the caterer what "feel" you'd like for the event--Casual or formal, fun or elegant, exotic or down home, very modern or more traditional--by sharing this with the caterer it's easier for the caterer to interpret your vision.  More and more caterers now offer a wide range of styles and presentations, serving pieces, etc., so it's much easier than it was even five years ago to get the look and feel you want at all kinds of catered events, large or small.  If the caterer insists on a certain look--often, one they've had far too long--that may not represent you vision, contact another caterer.


Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Launches 2012 Menu

Fandango Catering has launched its 2012 menu with many new, all HANDMADE global hors d'oeuvres and starters, main course items, and desserts. 

We are known for our handmade, 100% from scratch food, created using ingredients that are sourced locally as much as possible, with no preservatives or trans fats.

Just a few of our delicious new menu items:

Hors d'oeuvres/Starters

• Shrimp Mousse Cones
• Cinnamon Chicken Pastillas (Moroccan mini phyllo parcels)
• White Gazpacho Panna Cotta Shots Garnished with Grapes
• Chorizo-Stuffed Mushrooms with Panko Cheese Breadcrumbs
• Tomato-Gruyere Tart Squares
• Beef Sirloin Crostini with Balsamic Glaze
• Cheese and Vegetable Puff Pastry Napoleons
• Shrimp and Mango Skewers with Pineapple-Lime Dipping Sauce
• Red and Yellow Cherry Tomato Salads in Puff Pastry Baskets

Main Course Items

• Beef Tenderloin Braised with Zinfandel
• Chicken with Balsamic Glaze, Pancetta, and Shallots
• Pepper Crusted Beef Tenderloin with Rosemary Chimichurri
• Chicken with Strawberry-Feta Sauce
• Beef Tenderloin with Caramelized Shallots and Vermouth
• Pulled Pork Macaroni and Cheese Gratin
• Spicy Red Wine and Honey Chicken
• Five Spice-Rosemary Beef Tenderloin
• Salmon with Cabernet Sauce
• Moroccan Carrots
• Brown Butter-Nutmeg Potato Puree
• Braised Green Beans and Cipolline Onions with Pancetta
• Sherried Sauteed Mushrooms and Spinach
• Sauteed Baby Potatoes with Rosemary Butter

This year because of client requests we have also added ASIAN APPETIZER choices, including:

• Tandoori Chicken Spears and Drunken Chicken Spears with Ginger-Chile Sauce
• Bacon-Wrapped Pork-Scallion Potstickers with Ginger-Soy Dipping Sauce
• Shrimp and Chicken Honey Summer Rolls with Pineapple-Lime Dipping Sauce

And new SWEETS offerings, including:

• Chocolate Wontons with Orange Dipping Sauce
• Berry-Vanilla Cream Cheese Puff Pastry Mini Pies
• Roasted Red Grapes with Mascarpone Shots
• Chocolate Verrine (Crumble) with Chocolate Mousse Shots
• Upside-Down Cheesecake Shots

In 2012 we are again offering our FUN FOODS options, launched last fall, including:

• House made frozen treats and ice cream carts
• Savory and sweet popcorn bars
• Candy and sweets buffets
• and more!

Our Food Station options also continue in 2012, including interactive chef stations, concept stations, themed stations, and regional stations.

Of course, we continue to offer our most popular signature items--such as Roast Chicken, Spinach, and Jack Puff Pastry Empanadas; Beef Tenderloin in Rioja Sauce; Potato-Gruyere Gratins; and Chocolate and Raspberry Tiramisú Shots.

We've also expanded our serving and presentation lines to include, besides our lovely silver pieces, a variety of white and black porcelain, clear glass, beaten gold leaf, and footed serving pieces as well as dozens of beautiful new garnish and presentation ideas from classic to modern.

Bon Appetit!

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering's Holiday Menu

Cocktail parties, office parties and lunches, family and friends' gatherings, dinners, dessert buffets...We make it easy, delicious, and beautiful!

Our amazing chefs have created our Holiday 2011 menu with many wonderful hors d'oeuvres, tapas, dinner items, and desserts debuted this fall and which have proved very popular with our clients and their guests, including:

• Spanish Honey-Lemon Chicken Brochettes
• Local Greens and Red and Yellow Cherry Tomatoes with Fresh Herb Vinaigrette in Mini Puff Pastry Baskets
• Flight of Antipasto Brochettes
• Chicken in Strawberry-Feta Sauce
• Tiramisú Shots

Our 2011 Holiday Menu also includes many favorites from our regular menus.

And of course, a must on our holiday menu are our signature citrus Gran Marnier Castle and Cathedral Cakes, beautifully decorated with powdered sugar snow and chocolatines, which have become a tradition at many Houston holiday events and meals.

 We can also prepare ideas that are not on our Holiday Menu--our chefs are all culinary school-trained, so no problem!

See our Holiday 2011 Menu on our website home page:
www.fandango-catering.com

For more information, menu suggestions, or a price quote for your holiday event:

(713) 522-0077 or info@fandango-catering.com

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering and Events's Recent Menus 2011

It is May and we are celebrating the one-year anniversary of our fantastic sous chef Josh Exner, a 2010 LeNotre School grad! And we are also celebrating our explosive growth in 2010 and 2011 and the fact that in 2011 we launched several new and updated menus to better serve our clients' needs. 

Since many people ask us which menus we have, or think we only do food from Spain or Latin America (not true), today we'd like to talk about our recent and updated menus of 2011, which are our most popular menus.

Our most popular updated menus are:

• Hors d'oeuvres menu
• Dinner Menu
• Sandwich Lunch Menu
• Organic Wedding Cakes and Cupcakes

The three most popular types of events that we do are:

• Hors d'oeuvres parties (cocktail parties and receptions large and small as well as some clients wanting hors d'oeuvres served at their large brunches)
• Dinners (for private clients, weddings, and corporate events like important meetings or conferences)
• Sandwich lunches (generally for corporate and non-profit clients but sometimes for private clients)

We have made our most popular menus into PDFs as this works best for our prospective clients and does not use paper senselessly; but we also have many off-menu items, and we create a custom menu for each event by pulling together what interests the client and is within their needs, type of event, and budget.  Plus people don't really like cookie cutter menus; they like to feel that their event, from a gathering of friends to a wedding, is unique.

New Hors d'Oeuvres
New hors d'oeuvres added this year include:

• Spiced Chicken Mini Skewers with Avocado Crema Dipping Sauce
• Heirloom Cherry Tomato Melange in Puff Pastry Baskets Garnished with Fresh Basil
• Crispy Shrimp, Cream Cheese, and Chive Tartlets
• Honey-Guajillo Beef Skewers
• Ciabatta Cheeseburger Sliders
• Avocado, Mac n' cheese, and Gulf seafood stations

New Dinner Menu Items
New Dinner Menu items added this year include:

• Roasted Cherry Tomato and Spinach Salad with Thai Citrus Dressing
• Greens and Strawberry Salad with Poblano Buttermilk Dressing
• Beef Tenderloin with Riesling-Dijon Sauce
• Chicken in Leek, Red Pepper, and Champagne Sauce
• Tilapia with Citrus Cream Garnished with Leeks
• Shrimp Ravioli with Ginger-Vermouth Sauce
• Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Shallots
• Cheese Flans Garnished with Fair-Trade Chocolate Bits
• Medley of Macerated Local Fruit Served with Tequila Cream
• Lemon Curd and Seasonal Fruit in Puff Pastry Mini Baskets

New Sandwich Menu Items
New Sandwich Menu items added this year include:

• Berry and Spinach Salad with Mozzarella Rounds and Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Apple Cider Chicken Salad on Croissant
• Roast Beef and Swiss Tortilla Rollups with Pesto-Ranch Dressing
• Mushrooms, Sausage, and Swiss Puff Pastry Empanadas
• Red Potato Salad with Bacon, Gouda Bites, and Dijon Mayo Dressing
• Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies

Um, What type of food do y'all do?
We are often asked what type of food we cater.  The simple answer is that we have several specialty areas, which are:

• Sustainable Food
• American Bistro
• Spanish
• Latin
• European and Mediterranean
• Tapas and Small Plates from Around the World (including mini desserts, one of our most popular offerings)

No matter the type of food or cuisine that our chefs prepare or our clients request, we are big on sustainable food! We use all local food (from within 400 miles of us) and buy as much organic and fair trade food as possible; our beef is grass-fed and our chicken is antibiotic free, while our fish is sustainable as recommended by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 

Thanks for all the support and to our blog readers (over 3,000 strong) and a shoutout to Jane Marx, former owner of Jane's and Jane's Carts in NYC, who long ago encouraged, mentored, and initiated us into the world of catering and events!

Bon Appetit!

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
http://www.fandango-catering.com/

Fandango Catering and Events Executive Chef to Provide Catalan Tapas at Paintings and Pairings

Fandango Catering and Events' Executive Chef, Jesús Lumbreras-Calvo, a Madrid native and 1999 graduate of Scottsdale Culinary Institute, will be the featured chef at "Paintings and Pairings" on Saturday, April 2, 2011, 6-9pm at Kitchen Incubator's Café des Artistes in downtown Houston, located at 907 Franklin St.

As part of its ongoing series of food- and beverage-related public events where attendees can taste and learn about different cuisines, attend or participate in cooking competitions, and do hands-on food-related and other crafts, Kitchen Incubator will host this, the third in its popular "Paintings and Pairings" series, where a featured chef demonstrates his/her craft with a themed menu.

Chef Jesús will present a menu of tapas from Cataluña (or Catalonia in English), one of the great culinary capitals of the world. In fact, Chef Jesús spent a year in Barcelona as a child.

This will be a great evening of delicious tapas and wines with the opportunity to do one of Miró's famous paintings, and does not require previous painting skill! The Kitchen Incubator kitchen and café space, with its freshly done Tuscan-inspired decor, is beautiful, and so is the downtown Houston skyline at night. The kitchen and café are located in an art deco building (see photo above, left) in the historic Market Square district of downtown Houston.

Please join us for a delightful evening of Catalán tapas, art, and things Barcelona.

More info on Facebook:

http://fb.me/Mj2cL4r1

Warmly,

Kristina

Kristina Ríos de Lumbreras, Ph.D.

Director of Sales and Operations/Event Manager

Fandango Catering and Events

(713) 522-0077

(281) 796-9841

info@fandango-catering.com

http://www.fandango-catering.com/

Fandango Catering and Events: How Caterers Choose Their Menus (Part I)

We belong to a group called Association of Catering Professionals, some of whose members in its forum last week discussed how they choose menu items or, as chefs prefer to call them, recipes.
This is very timely for us as we just launched our 2011 menus, and today I'm going to give readers an inside look at how caterers choose their menus (or recipes).
This is not as simple as it seems and provides a lot of inside info that most people (except caterers) don't know, or...



Why Grandmother Aurora Isn't Really Our Culinary Muse


Via the Association of Catering Professionals e-discussion, we were astonished to learn that a surprising number of caterers use only, or mostly, their family recipes. We don't have any old family recipes that we could serve to our discriminating clientele. I've written about my grandmother, Aurora Padilla, here in the blog before. She was born in Valencia, Spain, orphaned, and at 14 married my grandfather Benito Ríos (a Polish Jewish escapee from the tsar's army who was granted asylum in Spain and whose real name was Wladislaw Benjamin Rostok), then when my father was two they emigrated to Mexico and later to Texas. By all accounts she was an excellent cook, masterful at both Spanish and Mexican cooking. But our clients expect more than that kind of food, and we give it to them.

This brings me to how caterers choose menu items. The breakdown is roughly as follows:

• Family recipes (not us)
• What other caterers are doing (not us)
• What other caterers have done in the past (not us)
• Cookbooks, food magazines, the Web, and food shows (us, with tweaks and improvements)
• Chefs' original ideas (us, with tweaks and improvements)

We believe that our clients and prospective clients should help guide our menu selections, not so much the other way around. That's why we no longer e-mail even our few fixed menus of last year (we have always had custom menus) to prospective clients, instead choosing and sending from huge binders, updated annually and on a rolling basis, of suggested items by category (for example, American Bistro/dinner, Spanish, hors d'oeuvres). Our clients know and appreciate this. After all, this is the age of customization, personalization, and niches.

And true chefs--that is, true culinary artists--get bored preparing the same food all the time, which is why truly talented chefs rarely go into catering unless they own the business and/or have full artistic license (and why talented chefs change restaurants constantly).


For our 2011 menus we just finished combing through over THREE HUNDRED cookbooks and food magazines, plus about 50 pages of notes for recipe ideas. We also added, because we've had inquiries, Intermezzo (palate cleansing, generally sorbet) and cheese course options as well as dessert trios (NOT quads, which are hard to plate and require those square plates I despise). Obviously these aren't for everyone. But isn't it good to know they're available, just like a great wide selection of hors d'oeuvres for the young professional's or business cocktail party is there too?



The point is that we believe caterers should be responsive to their clients and potential clients and be less concerned with what's easy and cheap for them (like buying partially-made food from big suppliers). So we also have selected this year menu items that are not trendy for trendy's sake. In fact, retro elegance is "in"--or maybe it's always been there and now a majority of people, from twenties to boomers to mature folks, all full of life, find it makes them happy at an event in ways that bento boxes and triangular risers (or square plates) didn't.
Next time: Why more caterers are moving toward buying local (and why that's a good thing)



Warmly,
Kristina
Kristina Ríos de Lumbreras, Ph.D.
Director of Sales and Operations/Event Manager
Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
info@fandango-catering.com
http://www.fandango-catering.com/