Fear the Gelatin . . .

Monday conference luncheon at TheFour  Seasons Houston. Standard salad greens with a grilled chicken breast, some bok choy and rice. Not bad. Having somewhat gone paleo a little while back (after a 3 mo vegan stint) no rice for me. Pretty nice pan Asian sauce on the chicken. Although forgettable since 5 days later I can't tell you if it was coconut, curry or both.  

Now, also on the tables at each place was a mystery bowl with something yellow in it. Initially I thought it was a chilled soup but then the servers never gave it to us, and it looked like it had cream in it. Dairy is non paleo (and non vegan) so it's not like I was gonna eat it anyway. 

Did I say the conference was an oil and gas infrastructure conference? Lots of dudes. Handful of women. 

Back to the yellow bowls. Turns out it is dessert. The dudes looked super suspicious about eating it. Waiter says its pineapple panna cotta. I ask for bowl of fruit. Otherwise I'd be down with panna cotta. Once planet man saw me ask for fruit as well as my vegan coworker no one was touching dessert. The guy next to me asked what it was. Panna cotta not answering his question I said "custard". It didn't encourage him at all. Looking at the other tables it was clear the yellow panna cotta was not tempting anyone.  Watching the reactions to it however, excellent. As conference food is usually lowest common denominator of food the thinking behind panna cotta for dessert was clearly misguided. Four Seasons, surely you know you can't get all creative with a room full of oil and gas business guys and lawyers. Come on. You should've just done freaking soft serve.  

For conference food is say this was not bad. For Foir Seasons not impressive at all. Solidly mediocre. Overall I'd give it a 3   

On the conference front though, really well done and interesting.  

Can't wait to see what they serve next year!