Event Recap // Red + White on Thursday Night

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Last Thursday we braved the snow to head to Quaker Station at Quaker Square in downtown Akron to attend the Red & White on Thursday Night event to benefit the Arthritis Foundation.

We got there around 6 and headed straight to the VIP room where they had cocktail servers handing us delicious appetizers and I tasted my first red wine of the night. Don’t ask me what it was, cause I seriously wasn’t paying attention.

We decided to make our way into the main room and check out the festivities.

Holy.Smokes! The spread was incredible. The room was buzzing with activity. Between all of the food + wine vendors and the silent auction, the nearly 800 people were roaring!

Local Akron blogger, Ashley, from Our Little Apartment won the tickets from my giveaway. Even though Akron isn’t very big, we had yet to run into each other. So we were making it a point to find one another at this event.

At first it felt like a blind date, but I’ve been reading Ashley’s blog for so long, it didn’t take very long for us to start chatting it up like long-lost friends! 🙂

Back to the food — some of our favorite restaurants were there, including The Lockview, Saffron Patch, Bricco and the Pierogi Lady. Gourmet grilled cheese, Indian food, flat bread pizzas, and Buffalo chicken pierogis.

Best part about this event? It felt like Chad and I were on a speed date with all of these new restaurants we were dying to try! Like Moe’s Restaurant of Cuyahoga Falls, D.B.A., which is Dante Boccuzzi‘s Akron restaurant, and Bistro on Main. The crabcakes below were from Bistro on Main. I’m a sucker for good food with a beautiful presentation!

As someone who rarely buys a bottle of wine over $30, I was pumped to taste wines I wouldn’t otherwise get to taste [if for nothing more than I rarely buy out of my comfort level]. I drink primarily dry, red wines, so my favorite of the night was the Black Stallion Estate Winery 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon.

While a lot of people crowded around Chocolates by Erin, a fancy shmancy homemade chocolatier, we were drawn towards Salvino Dolci Bakery. We heard two things: Lemon Curd and Ganache [not together, silly!]. See these gourmet cupcakes below. Yum!

Get this, guys: we stayed until 9pm! Yep, we basically closed the place down! Guess we really enjoyed our big date night after all! 😉 I hope I get a chance to attend this event next year too!