Food Catering Services

A good food catering service will prepare a meal that you and your guests will rave about for a long time. The food will be scrumptious and the presentation divine. A gourmet catering company has chefs that have years of training in preparing exquisite gourmet meals and a wait staff that extends the best professional services

Food catering services should offer quality of service, and the best meats, seafood, poultry, desserts and more. They will work within your budget to guarantee that the food served is the finest and was purchased at the most reasonable prices. They will help you plan and cater any event whether it is small or large, and they will do it with total elegance serving extraordinary food.

Many gourmet caterers have websites that allow you to download their catering menus. You can fill out a form requesting what you think you would like, and, within a few days, they should send you a free estimate. Gourmet caterers usually offer all-inclusive package that include menus, servers and bartenders. They also supply catering supplies such as the tents, tables, chairs, linens, and china, silver and service wares. They usually have an onsite manager who oversees the event from start to finish. If you wish, they will even do the decorating for you. This always helps with a large, gala event or convention that involves several catering venues.

When choosing a food catering service make sure you ask if the ingredients used are fresh, and if they bake their own breads, desserts, etc. Make sure to discuss food portions and the amount of food that you will need. Always ask for a tasting, proposal and a contract, and go over the contract with the caterer. Make sure the contract includes the list of services and their cancellation policy, price per person, service charges and taxes. Finally, ask for references - it is always wise to talk to other people who have used the caterer for other events.

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Before you begin choosing between filet and chicken, you'll need to consider how you'd like to serve them. The most common serving options include seated meal, buffet and passed-tray reception. When it comes to budget, whether for wedding catering or corporate catering each style has it's own important budgeting considerations and tips:

Seated Meal:

At a seated meal, guests are seated and served by a wait-staff at tables usually pre-assigned by you. This style is the most traditional and typically the most formal. The types of sit-down services include: 1. plated service - where the full meal is pre-arranged on individual plates before served to guests; 2. Russian service - where wait staff serves courses from platters onto plates already on the table; 3. French service - where two waiters serve guests from the platter, one holding the platter and the other serving.

Budget Tips: Don't assume a seated meal is a drain on your wedding catering budget. Costs are moderated by the fact that guests eat what they're served and cannot go back for seconds, making the amount of food consumed easier to manage. Costs also depend almost completely on what you choose to serve. One way to save cash is to decrease the number of courses. For instance, serve either soup or salad, not both. Chicken tends to be the most inexpensive of the proteins, and although beef is typically the priciest, you can cut down on cost by serving a triangle-cut sirloin. If you prefer seafood, consider farm-raised salmon which tends to be the most reasonably priced fish with the widest appeal. Other options include pork, lamb, pasta and vegetarian. If you must, rely on dinner rolls and other inexpensive sides to satisfy your guests' appetites.

Buffet:

At a buffet, guests select their food from either one long table or stations strategically placed throughout the room. An advantage is that you can serve a varied catering menu from which guests can choose what they like. Having a buffet-style meal does not mean that you have to sacrifice sophistication. A buffet can be formal when served by stylish wait-staff or more relaxed with self-serve stations.

Budget Tips: Although you will save on the cost of wait staff by presenting your meal buffet-style, the total cost may not be less. People tend to eat more because they can return to the buffet as often as they wish, so you may have to order more food, which can cut into your wedding budget. Again, costs depend almost entirely on what you choose to serve.

Passed-Tray:

At this style of wedding reception, there is no full meal. Instead waiters circulate the room, offering trays of hors d'oeuvres to standing guests. This style of service is ideal for a cocktail reception, which is often a shorter duration than a full reception.

Budget Tips: If cost and time are major considerations in your wedding planning, then a passed-tray reception consisting entirely of cocktails and appetizers may be the perfect option for your wedding catering budget. This style is typically the least stressful and the most wallet-friendly. Since these events typically run for only two hours, in addition to savings on food and beverage - location, staffing and other rental fees are also considerably reduced.

Now for the next step: Special Event Entertainment.

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