I hosted my sister in law's bridal shower with Cheri at the Eat Street Anaheim location. Overall the shower turned out well, but there were a few things I thought definitely could have been better.
The Good
- Cheri was nice and pleasant to deal with on the day of the event.
- The venue was good for what we had going on (brought in our own long table and had a nice set up).
- The kitchen set up was nice and there was plenty of room for us to make everything without bumping into each other but close enough that we could still all hang out and socialize during the cooking.
- The food that we prepared ended up being quite good. Also the appetizers that Cheri had prepared for us were also very good, along with the salad and dessert that she provided.
- They cleaned up all of our messes and did all the dishes, which was AWESOME. No body likes doing that, so that was great.
The Meh
- I thought communication prior to the vent could have been better. It would often go days (sometimes more than a week) before I had a response to one of my questions that I emailed about. Granted at least one of those emails may have been during the holidays, so that could have been why the delayed response in that specific instance, but I still felt a little "out of the loop" even prior to and after the holidays. A few times questions would be overlooked in my email, and I had to repeat them to the point where I felt like I was being a nuisance.
- I feel like the contract itself should have been more clear and was quite sloppily put together. I noticed it included a contact phone number for me that wasn't mine and conflicting information on the number of attendees and the event location. In one space it said 10 people, on another it said 13 (neither of which were the number of people we had attend the event). In reality, the final headcount was due a week before the event, which should've been written out. In one place it said the location of the event would be in Anaheim and on another it said it would be in Costa Mesa (which could've been a disaster if we all went to the wrong location and good thing I caught that and asked before the event). It was clear on the deposit terms, but final payment wasn't really discussed. I had to follow up on the status of the final invoice and planned to bring a check for the balance to the event, only to receive an email on the day of the event stating that no checks were accepted and I had to pay online that day prior to the event. Not a huge deal, as I was easily able to make payment, but the payment terms really should be included in a contract.
- The demonstrations on cooking techniques or about the meal we were about to prepare were pretty lack luster. I think the whole "demonstration" lasted all of 10 minutes, much of which consisted of how to cut an onion and sharpen knives. I would've liked to have heard more about how to prepare the meal we were actually about to make or good tips/tricks instead of handed recipe instructions and told to "have at it"
- In some of the recipes there were missing ingredients that we weren't provided with or incorrect instruction and when we asked about it, we were stared at like chickens with our heads cut off. I understand not being able to get certain ingredients on the day of and needing substitutes, but it's not like these recipes were printed on some expensive paper or anything that wouldn't have taken more than 5-10 minutes to update and re-print to avoid confusion At $100pp, I would've expected to at least have correct recipes printed out prior to the event, OR to have them mention before hand that certain items were missing or substituted.
- Again, back to communication, they didn't really tell us where to look for pots/pans/utensils and when we asked for a spoon one of the assistants said something along the lines of "Oh, you can get everything yourselves, isn't that great?" But in what certainly seemed like a very condescending attitude. Two of us looked at each other after she said that like...what the heck? are we supposed to magically know where this stuff is or what we're allowed to take?
- One of the initial contact emails mentioned that the event would include culinary trivia, digital recipe file and digital photos from the event. Of course none of this was specifically listed out in the contract, but its been two weeks since the event and we have yet to receive the digital recipes from the event, and I don't anticipate digital files from the event, as I didn't see anyone with a camera taking pictures. It could be that trivia wasn't provided since we had our own shower game going on during dinner, but it wasn't even discussed, so I really have no idea.
All in all - Did we have a good time? Yes. Do I think the overall experience could've been better for the price? Heck Yes. I've attended other cooking classes at comparable prices that included a few bottles of wine and the demonstrations were more substantial. read more
