The Buick Regal Discovery Tour

We knew very well that this event was just a fancy sales pitch, but we didn't care — we went for the food, of course!

The event was at the SLS, where we were greeted with light refreshments. 

Our first session was a demo with Executive Chef Jorge Chicas from the Bazaar, where he and a sous chef showed us how they make their watermelon tomato skewers and infamous olive bubbles. It was really insightful and fun to get the inside scoop on how the food is made and their experiences with Jose Andres, but those samples were almost cruel. We wanted buckets more. 



Then we had a session mixologist Michael Greene (who has the best job EVER), where we made virgin green tea sours.

The ones we made seemed to be missing something...GIN!

Then Michael Stern from roadfood.com shared some tips on finding good local eats.

The best part of this session was when he solicited the audience for their upcoming travel destinations so that he could make recommendations. From Oklahoma City to northern Idaho to the best pizza in NYC, his tips seemed pretty legit.

When a certain someone quizzed him about Orange County, he recommended El Campeon in San Juan Capistrano, which we'd never even heard of, for good Mexican food. Sure enough, though, it has 4.5 stars on yelp. Anyone ever been?

The highlight of the day was a cooking demo with Top Chef Master Marcus Samuelsson (prefaced by "complete" versions of the cocktails we'd made earlier).

We didn't watch this season of Top Chef Masters, but we wish we had.

He's got loads of charm and a killer shrimp and grits that we polished off in no time...

...But, thankfully, can make at home, thanks to this awesome party favor.