Famous for :15 at Francesca's at Sunset

Sunday, January 2, 2011

On The Menu...

All the photos and fun are well and good, BUT what was on the menu???

War - d’Oeuvers

“Campbell’s Chicken Noodle”

House Made Pasta Noodles-Natural Chicken

“Spacefruit and Ham” Salad

Cantelope, Orange, Starfruit, Serrano Ham

“Fish and Banana”

Line Caught Pescado Del Mar-Banana Mash

“Cow” with “Diamond Dust Shoes”

Wagyu Beef and Rock Candy

“Hershey’s Coca-Cola”

Chocolate and Cola

Menu by Chef Ernie Estrada

Dessert by Pastry Chef Henry Wesolowski

Both of these men are very talented artist!

Thank you Chefs for all your hard work and wonderful creations!

to see our regular menu and restaurant...
http://www.westinlacantera.com/dining.html

Years ago we began transforming the dinning room of Francesca's for New Year's Eve. Every year the challenge is to come up with something that is engaging and entertaining. Some years are better that others. This year was simply the BEST! Kind of ironic, we did not know what we were going to do until our Moet-Hennessey sales person, Erin Holleran, told us about the Dom Pérignon tribute to Andy Warhol. Even then we were not convinced, would Pop Art and fine dinning go together?

Chef Estrada was the first to get excited about the potential. He researched a lot of Warhol's art and became INSPIRED to create a menu that was delicious, layered with complex flavors AND had the look and feel of Pop Art! The titles of the dishes all had connection to the art of Mr. Warhol.

Next; our Maitre d Milan Djordjevic got excited and began researching on the intranet and purchasing some DVDs about Mr. Warhol. It was not long after I also became excited about the prospects. There is much about Mr. Warhol on line and it the internet is a great media for him. Some of the best sites we looked at are:

Andy Warhol's Secret (an informative/unexpected read)
Factory Girl Movie (very well made, and a bit naughty)
try your hand at painting Marilyn (lots of fun!)
The PBS documentary (long and informative, well done)
The Superstars now? (some content is disturbing)

One of the aspects of the Francesca's New Years Eve is an interactive element. We toyed with the idea of giving each guest a canvas and paint! Which would have been great fun, and who know what would have happened with Champagne in the mix? Not satisfied with this idea, I kept looking. One place for my inquiry was with the App Market on my Moto Droid phone. Trying several phone-camera apps which promised Warhol inspired Pop Art effects I found the best to be: Warhol Camera. (Oddly, even with the apt name it was not the first to show on the searches.) It really worked great and I highly recommend it for your Pop Art picture taking fun. Just look at the pictures from our dinner!

The take away from our experience is that Pop Art can be a lot of fun. Mr. Warhol was controversial and out on the edge of our culture. Now with some perspective of time we can see he was a visionary and innovative. For better or for worse the things he was experimenting with in the 60's and 70's have become much more mainstream in our world today. So, this year we toast the famous artist and all the madmen working in their own "Factories" endeavoring to communicate something new to the world through silk screening, printmaking, painting, photography, film making, rock-n-roll, multimedia, and everything else! CHEERS!

Friday, December 31, 2010

We love our guests and the New Year...

2011 willbe the best year yet! Because we started it with these fine pepole.

"It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it."

Andy Warhol

"Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."

Andy Warhol