Categories: Travel & Events; Eat & Drink

Chatty At the Big Day Breakfast Launch

By @ubreeWYATTsmith
updated 3 months ago

Guidespotter's Warning: This is going to get awkward...and delicious.

Once you get stuck in "chatty mode" at an event, even if you're typically a reserved or even timid person, you're stuck in chatty mode. You're stuck in chatty mode with perfect strangers. And at the Hilton Garden Inn's launch of its Big Day Breakfast, as conceived and delivered by Top Chef's Chris Jacobson, that's exactly how things went down for this Guidespotter. You'll need your napkin in your lap for this guide. (Anything else would just be bad manners.)

The Entrance

Soho. Fifth floor. Bright, open space with tables and chairs and servers holding trays with water and orange juice. Orange juice looks like a better score but it’s not what the majority of folks are clutching awkwardly. It probably has to do with breath and meeting new people and networking.

Pinning that name tag on is never easy, especially if you’re wearing something nice and you’ve just picked up a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, which you instantly regret choosing. Surveying the room for friendly faces, it may just be a safer bet to jet for the loo and make sure that everything is in its place.

"Aaand We're Off!"

The hair could be better. The hair could always be better, but
the dress is not clinging, perspiration has not yet happened, and teeth
are in just-brushed splendor. Choose the only table with
twenty-thirty-something press. Ladies Home Journal, a major network
segment producer. Aaand we’re off: “Hi I’m So-and-So from
Such-and-Such”. “So-And-So from Such-and-Such”, (muffled)
“So-and-So…Such-and-Such.” Nods all around. No one is going to drive
this car and you’re swilling your orange juice as if it’s a mimosa, so
you almost unconsciously implement the chatty.

What are you talking about? Absolutely nothing of consequence. Where you live, how the car ride down was for you, how you watched Top Chef and always wondered what the food actually tasted like, how difficult it is to find sandals that look good without ravaging your feet and rendering you lame for the rest of the summer. Now that you’ve assumed the role of driver, all eyes are on you. The Ladies Home Journal contingent perch cross legged and folded armed, unimpressed. The segment producer who looks much younger than she cops to does her best to dust pan a series of failed jokes. Everyone is hungry.

The Chef

Chris Jacobson, better known as “CJ”, was “a perfect choice” of chef to design the Big Day Breakfast menu, enthuses the Hilton Garden Inn’s marketing wizard into a microphone as a culinary loft full of famished press sit patiently in their too-tall chairs. And why was CJ a perfect choice? Because as a California native and former professional volleyball player, CJ is conscious of health as well as taste. It doesn’t hurt that he was also a favorite on Top Chef. It doesn’t hurt either that he’s easy on the eyes* and kind enough to nod and smile during your merciless stream of chatty. You saw season three of Top Chef, you wonder if he still plays volleyball, you ask him if he exercised this morning.

CJ poses with waves of admirers throughout the event and the photographer performs near gymnastic feats in order to get the 6’ 8” chef and his fanciers in the same frame.

During the feed, CJ makes his rounds and chats amiably with each table. Jokes about his altitude abound, along with mutterings of enjoyment and the persistent clanking of cutlery.

The chef will probably have a TV show. A TV show with a cartoon opening. Some reference to being tall will have to factor into the title. This guy is good.

*Bad breakfast puns like “eyes over easy” came to mind, but (thankfully) you refrained from using them.

The "Big Day" Breakfast

Because The Hilton Garden Inn is, we’re told, a hotel where the majority of guests elect to have breakfast, a healthy alternative was conceived in order to give these transients something to prepare them for their “Big Day”.

The menu consists of CJ’s Signature Waffles, Healthy Hash, and Great Granola & Flax. The hotel did well to bring CJ on board because everything a la carte is full of flavor and makes you feel as though you could dread your PowerPoint presentation a little less or tack on two extra hours to your shopping excursion. But, as CJ reminds you, “butter makes everything better”, so don’t forget to tuck in that tie and butter that waffle up. The health benefits of a Big Day Breakfast have already done a triple-jump past Bisquick and boxed sausage, so you can afford to splurge a little on the spreadables, which your table mate makes sure to tell the chef you did, indeed do.

The Exit

It begins and ends, as always, with a cursory trip to the loo. If there’s anything in between your teeth you’ll soon find out, too late. You can now, at last, unwind from the Olympic chatty you unleashed for the past two hours. It’s time to unpin and once again slip into the kind of anonymity that requires strangers to prompt you for your name instead of glancing at your chest. Time to start your very own Big Day. How big? Frankly, none of your business.