You may have already heard about our event inspired by our friends at Poketo we held out in our garden. It was featured in The New York Times and in 100 Layer Cake! The time has come to talk a bit about it here on our own blog. Here we go!
As is the tradition of these collaborations (here’s the most recent one), we clear out everything from The Salon so our featured guests can completely reinvent it. Here Poketo made a pop-up of their downtown store. I especially like how they used tape on the floor to make designs, even a rug!
The chalkboard artist, Joyce Chai, works at Poketo so she did up all the many chalkboards we have around with little sayings and figurines just to add some pop.
In The Salon here is Nicolette, one of our catering managers. Together, she and I design and plan all of our special events. You may not always recognize her because she likes to roll out in costume.
We enlisted our talented friend Yasmine to do the flowers. She was a bit horrified that I gave her a bunch of artificially colored buds to work with. They had to be in our color palette: sea blue, red, purple, and yellow, all the colors of Poketo’s logo! I knew they were cheesy but having Yasmine’s delicate touch arrange them balanced it all out. I thought they looked beautiful!
Nicolette and I scoured Korea Town and Thai Town for components of flair and we were delighted to find very colorfully wrapped candies that we used in our decor. By the end of the night, those candies had been gobbled up.
Let’s talk food! We had 4 “Action Stations” where we served our take on Thai and Korean street food. Our friends who own Poketo, Angie (who is Korean) and Ted (who is Thai), took us out on the town for some traditional comfort food from their homeland so as to familiarize Matt and I with the flavors and techniques of their respective countries. Then Matt put his own spin on things.
STATION 1: THE FRYER!
STATION 2: THE GRILL!
COLORFUL SOJU COCKTAILS!!
Let’s get the tunes going! My dad drew and cut out those animals and vegetables that we painted in our color palette. Angie, of Poketo then wrote the names in Korean. Cute, huh?
For the tables we wrapped wood blocks with Thai and Korean newspaper pieces and then spray painted little matchbox cars and tractors (it was a street party after all!).
STATION 3: THE WOK!
STATION 4: LETTUCE WRAP STATION
LET’S DANCE!
We made lots of little Thai inspired desserts that we tray passed.
The Flipbooth made it’s debut at this party and it was a huge hit! Guests make little movie books that were printed for them on the spot as takeaway gifts. So much fun!
Oh yes and our friends at Smilebooth brought a set-up for us to have fun with, remember when we talked about it here? Did I mention we had ping pong table up too? We all had such a blast!
Wow all are looking very nice and enjoying each other really fantastic things