9th Annual GIordano Feast Of 7 Fishes — Dom Giordano’s 9th Annual Feast of the Seven Fishes is 6:30 -10 p.m.., Monday, Dec. 18 at the Sonesta Philadelphia Rittenhouse Square, 1800 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19103.
The always fantastic affair features a huge and varied menu, live music and the bestowal of the National Person of the Year Award which this year goes to Pennsylvania-based commentator and brilliant provocateur Jeffrey Lord.
Lord, alone, is worth the cost of a ticket which are $90 ($800 for a table of 10) and can be gotten here.
9th Annual GIordano Feast Of 7 Fishes
Just a strong word of warning about this…it was so highly touted by Dom on 1210 that I took my daughter in 2012. It was in the Crystal Room in Philly. It cost us a total of $160 ($80/person at that time) and it was just a TOTAL DISASTER! I vowed I would never go again and have not. Here is just SOME of what happened…it’s detailed because I copied from a letter of complaint that I wrote to the organizers after the “event.”
1. CELEBRITY GUESTS: The celebrity guest that I was most interested in seeing, Colonel Oliver North, was cancelled (for whatever reason) a few days before the event. This was a disappointment, but not a game-changer.
2. SEATING ARRANGEMENTS: The Crystal Room was a lovely room with, as advertised, “ample seating for everyone.” The problem was that even though we were relatively early, we had to search and search for a table that didn’t have a sign on it indicating that it was reserved for 1210 VIP’s (which we obviously weren’t). We finally found one far away from the stage and activities and as a result heard virtually nothing. We never saw ANY of the celebrities who were purported to be in attendance, nor could we hear a WORD coming from the podium from our table, so if there was any program, it passed us by. [I will say that around 9 PM, when most of the attendees left (and I can understand why!), we heard the wonderful Bishop Shanahan choir singing “Holy Night,” which was beautiful, but prior to that, it was almost impossible to hear their lovely voices.]
3. WATER: The only item adorning the table was a poinsettia – no cutlery, no water glasses – NOTHING! We were thirsty and had to stand in the bar line to PAY for a glass of water (after paying $80 for the “feast”) – just inexcusable!
4. DINNER: We were right next to the bread table where loaves of bread were displayed. Alongside of those were two types of appetizers. At least we had something to eat! (No butter or olive oil for dipping though.) There was no communication as to where we should obtain our dinner, but there was one long line (way across the room) which led to a long table where the different restaurants distributed very small portions of different fish dishes on small Styrofoam plates. I should mention that, although the miniscule portions were mostly tasty, there was no resemblance to those displayed on the video on the 1210 web site. Since no trays were available, we had to pile the plastic plates on top of one another to take them to our table (which was way across the room). I would think that whoever arranged this “feast” would have had the sense to have had at least three different lines, so the distribution of food could have been performed more quickly and efficiently, but that unfortunately was not the case. The portions were so small that many of us thought these were the appetizers, but we ultimately realized that this was to be our dinner. We schlepped our multiple Styrofoam plates back to the table, ate, and since our appetites were not satiated by the small portions, decided to get back into the line again. After waiting an inordinate amount of time, we found that “seconds” of the majority of the dishes were not available since the food was gone.
5. DESSERT: Although the small portions of the dinner were a disappointment, I was waiting for the highly touted delicious desserts from Termini’s. The desserts were being distributed in a separate room and by the time we realized this, they were entirely gone. Again, there was absolutely no communication to us as to where and when the desserts were to be served. Had we known, we would have obtained a dessert instead of waiting in the long dinner line again for food that was gone. The lack of communication was simply inexcusable!
6. COFFEE: OK…I realized that I wasn’t going to have any dessert, but I figured that at least I could get some coffee. A friend at our table said “It’s slow drip!” I thought she was kidding, but unfortunately she was not. I went into the dessert room, saw the TOTALLY EMPTY dessert table, and waited for a cup of coffee. Although there were only three people ahead of me, it took me about fifteen minutes to get a cup of coffee. Incredibly, they did not have a large coffee pot – they were preparing the cups INDIVIDUALLY in individual DRIP devices. I simply couldn’t believe it! When I asked them why they weren’t doing it in a large coffee pot, which would have made the distribution faster and more efficient, the man said “Our coffee pot is 220 V and they don’t have that voltage here, so we have to do it this way.”
Anyway, I hope they’ve learned their lesson and are correcting their mistakes of 2012, but I’m not going to waste my money finding out.
Seriously good looking menu.
It looked great in 2012 too but was just HORRIBLE! Just a word of warning!