My friend Aubrie & I had the pleasure of attending Diner en Blanc last year for the first time. Although we were less than wowed with the parking lot choice of venue we had an amazing time and hoped for a better venue in 2014. Get ready for a picture-heavy post from our amazing 2014 experience last night.

We started planning our checklist of items & menu the minute the event was announced for September. Last year we rented a table & chairs but seeing as were in this for the long haul this year we purchased a table from Canadian Tire & wood chairs from IKEA that we spray-painted white. For attire, I purchased a white dress from Lulus.com this summer that was perfect so was hoping for great weather. I re-wore the fascinator I purchased last year. And although not the classiest I wore white flip-flops because I learned my lesson wearing high heels last year. They are just not conducive to dragging a dolly with a table and chairs around on. As we were leaving Aubrie’s house a man said congratulations to me. Must’ve been the fascinator. So I let him down and said we were only going to a dinner party.

If you’ve never been or heard of Diner en Blanc, the concept started in Paris 25 years ago. You pay a membership to meet in small groups around the city and arrive to a secret location for a white dinner party. This year we signed up for the Broadview station group. We were told we were a Pedestrian group at first so I was guessing the venue was going to be Riverdale park this year. Then a week before the event they said we were a TTC group and then when we arrived we were shuttled onto charter buses. I’m so thankful for the charter buses this year. Every single group had them and I feel like my membership fees were well spent. The secret location this year was… ONTARIO PLACE! The grounds were lovely and we had an amazing view of the Toronto skyline. I loved this year’s location.

This year’s timing worked perfectly. Last year I remember sitting around for a while waiting for the napkin twirl. When we arrived at Ontario Place we were shuttled into the venue immediately. We were a bit spoiled as our bus had a broken mirror so they had to send a new one. We still arrived around the same time as everyone else so we weren’t late in the least. When we found our table row, Aubrie set up our table, I ran to get our sparkling & red wine for the evening by the time we sat down it was time to swing our dinner napkins around our heads and dig into our food.

Aubrie is definitely a foodie and she spoiled me with our meal this year. We started with cured meats, goat & sheep cheese and some rosemary crackers. We could’ve eaten this all night but we still had 3 more courses to go!

Our first course was a scallop ceviche served in endive boats. The ceviche was to die for. We decided the endives were a bit bitter for the ceviche and we should’ve drizzled honey in them to counter the bitter taste. However, I just slurped up the ceviche in happiness. I even have leftover ceviche for my lunch today and I can’t wait to dig in.

The main course did not disappoint. Last year we had beef tartare and this year I begged for something gamier. The venison tartare with potatoes cooked in duck fat was amazing. Let’s just say our table mates were a bit jealous of the food & of the plate presentation. Yes, Aubrie brought parsley to garnish.

We finished off our four course meal with pots du creme which at this point was too much for my little stomach but the 5 bites I had were to die for.

Last year we didn’t stay for any of the dancing. This year we were seated right next to the dance floor. I brought an extra package of sparklers so we could enjoy more than one and we danced our little hearts out for an hour and were home and in bed by 11 like responsible working women. 🙂

Thank you Diner en Blanc Toronto for an amazing evening. See you next year!