Noche Argentina -Catering a tennis tournament

Don Marco · BBQ Fan Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Posts: 308 Location: Germany

Howdy folks...

On friday a teammate and i made a catering at a tennis tournament for our beef sponsor. It was a 550 miles roadtrip for me and we had lots of hurdles and some major PITA but after all it was still a great event.

Heres the Que-mobile after a 250 miles drive in the summer...

Since i arrived quite early i had time to enjoy some tennis

After watching the women play for a while i almost decided to quit grilling and apply for a job as a ball boy.

Well, time to do some work, and thats where the troubles began.

Heres my buddy "Camillo" who is supposed to be my grilling "wingman" and who organized a lot since he was a local over there.

Note his left hand...

A knife slipped out of his hand and in a reflex he tried to catch it.

FAIL !

He cut a tendon of a finger and right on the bone and had to have immediate surgery. He is out of hospital already, but has a lot of pain and a cast on his left arm for 4 - 6 weeks. Take care using knifes !

So, now i was on my own with a couple of helpers to assemble the plates ,serve the food and collect the cash to arrive later.

Heres more than 200 portions of orange-garlic butter and chipotle butter

Argentinian Beef Strip Loin, smoked a day ahead and sliced thin for sandwiches

Heres the booth.

I had to wait for more than 2 hours to bring the smoker in because the referee said the tennis players might get confused when we pull the smoker on the main road along the courts. Nerds !
Off course that delayed the timing bigtime.

Then the restaurant at the location went nuts.
I had a bad feeling about them since i arrived and they clearly showed they didnt like us to cater that evening since that meant they wouldnt have any business at all.
Since it was all arranged with the organizer of the event we were told we could use the kitchen and cooling but they sabotaged all they could until i told them to get stuffed and pulled out of there. A**holes...
There we were without a kitchen and proper cooling, but our sponsor managed to call in one of their cooling trucks just in time.

Heres the Menu

250 grams Argentinian Strip Steak or smoked striploin roast with our butters, chimichurri, corn and salad

280 grams of irish angus beef cheeseburger

Smoked roastbeef sandwich

Smoked Chorizo Sandwich with chimichurri

Corn on the cob with butter

All the meat was prime argentinian beef except for the fantastic irish burgers and chorizos.

Heres the first load of strip loin in the smoker and some chorizos for a test run. The chorizos were smoked for about 45 minutes and the finished on the grill

Heres a Choripan Sandwich, chorizo with chimichurri and bread.

Roastbeef Sandwiches

Yummie !

Some of the guests actually wanted me to put their slices of the striploin on the grill for a couple of minutes because they liked it well done.
I told em the cow was dead already but they didnt care.

That was really painful.

Heres the stripsteaks

Cooked about 100 pounds of those irish burgers on the outlaw.
You wont believe the smell of that grill now.

If only i could bottle that Wink

Heres my wonderful support team. Now thats the way i like it. Cool

Thats it, i was too busy to take more or better pics.

After all the troubles it was still a great event, we had lots of fun and the guests loved it.

Cheers,

DM
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BBQMAN · Posted: Jul 27 2008 Post subject:

Great post and pics (as usual) DM!

Working in an environment with the country club set can be a real pain. You should have seen the group we were stuck with last week! Rolling Eyes

Great job pulling it off with a man down. I hope your buddy is OK, and wish him a speedy and full recovery. Tendon damage can be really tough to rehab once that cast comes off! Shocked

So I just have to ask after seeing that fly plastered cooker- did you offer French-Flies with your meals?! Laughing

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Skidder · BBQ Super Pro Joined: 10 Feb 2008 Posts: 1720

Nice writeup with great food and pics.

k.a.m. · Posted: Jul 27 2008 Post subject:

Don Marco, as always a pleasure to read and view your pics food looked great. Hope your Buddy makes a speedy and full recovery.

Doc1680 · Posted: Jul 27 2008 Post subject:

Nicely done Don Marco. Working with a bunch of A-holes is tough. And being short handed. Kudos for pulling this off.

I'm sure having such a lovely support staff helped the situation though. Cool

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Don Marco · BBQ Fan Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Posts: 308 Location: Germany

Harry Nutczak · Posted: Jul 28 2008 Post subject:

That beef looks amazing!!!

Nice job!!

I can understand the restaurant getting all tweaked over this, I bet if you would have got your product into their cooler it would have been treated in some fairly foul ways, or even stolen.

Timing issues & Confused athletes. I am sure am glad I didn't need to deal with that. My normal sunny disposition Shocked

would have went away in a hurry and I would have gone into "Richard Cranium" mode.
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Kokun · Joined: 10 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

Hola,

I have a question...What would be the name in spanish for the piece of meat we can see in the smoker and that you named strip loin (bife ancho, angosto...? )

Gracias

enjkuck

T00lman · Posted: Nov 06 2008 Post subject:

MORE TENNIS PICS

great looking chow too
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