While looking through my vast collection of pictures the other day and I stumbled upon one that I had to share.

In April of 2006, 14 friends got together to throw a surprise birthday dinner for our friend Todd. We went to this great (and expensive) restaurant in NYC called Alta. Their menu is certainly unique and they offer dishes you won’t find anywhere else.

What did we order? Everything on the menu. Twice.

Yup, we got the whole shebang, 2 of them.

Waiters began bringing out food as soon as we had poured wine into our glasses. Dish after dish continued to arrive.

We developed a border system where one end of the table was the northern territory and one was the southern tip. Trade agreements began forming. Popular dishes went fast only to be replaced by the next dish coming out of the kitchen.

The waiters would drop one of each dish off at each end, tell one person what it was and venture back into the kitchen to fetch some more. It was that person’s job to communicate what the food was. No one could remember the name, only parts of it, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was how much the person before you liked it.

Some dishes were too scary looking and were simply passed around until a brave soul tried a sample. Then of course others would have to indulge themselves.

I had a great time and I got to sample some very interesting foods. If you ever get a chance to order everything on the menu, I highly recommend it.

Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve ordered mass quantities of food. There was that time at Taco Bell that I asked for the entire yellow menu. But that’s a story for another time

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