Last night I joined a DishCrawl with the other Gemini Crickets moms on a night out event. I was looking forward to it as it was my first time partying with this group. We were to meet at a restaurant in San Jose downtown and DishCrawl would take us to 4 different eateries for different courses of the meal. There was an element of surprise – they only revealed the first restaurant where everyone met. Two girls representing DishCrawl coordinated with the restaurants and walked us to the different locations. All 4 places were at easily walkable distances, within about a block from each other. We got to taste 4 flavors of food while walking and talking with the gang. At each restaurant the owner came out and introduced us to their restaurant and food. Nice concept.

Our first location was Mezcal Mexican Restaurant and Bar. This is where we all gathered, had a drink (not part of DishCrawl deal) and some appetizer. They had tortilla chips, salsa, guacamole, grasshopper and some rice and mole for all. I had requested the vegetarian option which I had to wait for since they didn’t have it ready with the other items. So I waited while mingling with the GC moms. We were a total of 64 ladies and seating was limited. So most of us had to stand, and I noticed that without tables it was hard to have a big margarita glass in one hand and the plate in the other and eat! Although it is nice to mix and mingle, we were often bumping into each other. Anyway after a few minutes I wondered if they had forgotten about my food. So, I checked again with a DishCrawl representative. I was told that it was still in the making and they’ll let me know when its ready. A few more minutes of wait and I finally got one fried dumpling. It was tasty.

Our next location was Hanuman Thai Cuisine. Here we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. It is a smaller place, which we filled up. One nice thing was that we all had a place to sit at the table. Drinks were half priced. They had a buffet which included fried rice and a chicken item (tiger something). When I asked them about my vegetarian option, they said sorry they didn’t have anything vegetarian. I was pissed at this point! But one of the GC mom suggested I talk to the organizer. So I checked with the DishCrawl representative again. She said there is vegetarian food and she would let me know when its ready. So, I waited again watching my other companions finish their food. Finally they said it was ready and I got a small plate of white rice, red curry and pad thai from the buffet. I didn’t care for the food too much, it wasn’t great. But I emptied my small plate quickly because I was hungry.

Our next crawl was to a food truck called Omi Ninja. They serve Vietnamese street food. This was interesting. Even though we had to stand out on the street to eat, they had the food plated and ready to serve for all, yes including the vegetarians!! The food was good – tasty and warm. There was an egg roll and a long spring roll, some fried rice and a rice crisp. I enjoyed it. I think it was probably the most pleasant food experience thus far for the night. And I think it had to do with the fact that I didn’t have to wait again while watching others. I liked that they had a compost bin to throw our trash. They get a bonus point for that!

To end the night, our last stop was at Whipp’s Frozen Fruits & Desserts, which was right next to the food truck. The owner explained that apart from gelato and frozen yogurt they make frozen whipped fresh fruit. It is basically fruit puree with nothing else added. Its whipped and frozen like an ice cream. They had the banana with chocolate topping ready for us. They also had peach with vanilla for non chocolate eaters. It tasted pretty good. I would bring my kids here for healthy “ice cream” options 🙂 They offered seconds as well. It was nice overall.

On the whole, it was great to meet up with the other GC moms. Its always nice to take some time to enjoy a nice summer evening with some good company.  I would have loved for a chance to talk to everyone, but there were 64! Talking about the count, 64 is way too many for a DishCrawl in my opinion. It may be more suitable for smaller groups. I was really put-off by the wait for my food and would have enjoyed it more if it had been served at the same time as the rest of the food. DishCrawl has a nice concept of introducing 4 different restaurants, all within walking distance. But it could be better executed.

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