One of my friends here works for a magazine and invited me to join her as her +1 at an event at the swanky W hotel. Being a sucker for free food and booze (and for the company of my pal) of course I accepted the kind invitation. Upon arrival I had no idea what the event actually was, but the green (rather than red) carpet, oversized tennis rackets and stream of men in Chefs whites helped clue me in a little. The press pack my friend received promised a plethora of tennis stars and top New York chefs. I hadn't heard of a one of them, except Serena Williams, who I've heard of a lot… As we were still, frankly, a little confused about the convergence of chefs and tennis players at one handy event, we decided to camp out on the green carpet to see what we could see.

We saw this man. I thought I overheard the guy interviewing him call him Mardy Fish, who I have actually heard of, though only because his name is banging. Upon Googling on my return home, I discovered that this isn't Mardy at all. We did see Mr. Fish but I did not photograph him, this man is a bit easier on the eye anyway, so let's just pretend we know who he is (maybe you don't even have to pretend, in which case, yay you!).

I haven't the foggiest idea who this lady is, but she had radishes around her neck and chillies around her wrist so props for that I guess. She also described herself as the 'Queen of Green', which I think might be overselling the point a little but who knows, maybe she is massive in the vegetable world.

Here's Mirjana Lucic, who I believe to be fairly well known. Full disclosure, in case you hadn't worked it out… I know next to nothing about tennis, so this entire post is a bit ignorant. Sorry about that.

That's James Blake in the middle, who is going to be competing in the US Open tomorrow, he seemed very nice and his face is pretty so I've decided I want him to win. Go James go!

By this point we'd been squished in the throng of press for ages and were starting to get a little itchy to sample the food part of the event (much more my sort of thing). We'd really been waiting for a look at Serena Williams, but we decided she wasn't going to show and answered the calls of our bellies. I've since discovered she did actually turn up and we missed her, bugger.

Upstairs were a ton of different tables, manned by chefs from many of NYC's best restaurants, each serving a little sample of their wares. There were also tables serving delicious cocktails. This made us very happy.

I've tried in vain to find the name of the chef/restaurant who are responsible for this dish, but alas, no joy. It was porky and delicious though, with a little shot of Christmas spice on the side.

Gnocchi a la Parisienne with Truffle Pesto and Truffle Sauce by Romuald Jung at Bagatelle. Sorry it's a little fuzzy, I blame the cocktails.

Mini Burger with Caramelized Onions and Chedder and Truffle Aioli by Brian Ray at Stk Out.

Gluten Free Chocolate Soufflé Cupcakes and Green Tea Cupcakes withy Buttercream by Inky Park (competing with Mardy Fish for best name of the night) at Kyotofu.

Slow Smoked and Braised Berkshire Pork Belly with Fried Quail Egg, Stone Milled Organic Polenta and Poblano Emulsion by Peter Andino at Heartbeat.

At one point my (very beautiful) friend was accosted by a Mohammed Al-Fayed lookalike. It's possible it may actually have been him, he offered to take her on his yacht, buy her an apartment and kill her boyfriend. What a charmer, I saved her though, I'm tough like that. After that, plus eating all the above and many other dishes that went unphotographed, we decided we were done so decided on a vodka luge nightcap. I drank it very elegently, as you can see.

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