Although the life of a beanfluencer can be extravagant, it doesn’t exactly pay the bills. That’s why it’s vital to take out massive amounts of debt or marry into wealth if you’re going to live this lifestyle. Whichever you choose, you may find yourself as a plus one at various engagements – in this case at the Apple holiday party at Apple Park. Cupertino baby. The real deal.

Have you ever considered what life might look like if everything was an Apple Store? Apple sure has. That’s basically what Apple Park looks like even though it’s round and stuff, and we appreciate a commitment to a bit. Chris and I were handed a bingo card with things to do at the party: take a selfie with an entertainer (there were entertainers), engage in conversation with your fellow team members, and belt your heart out at karaoke. What wasn’t on there was to try all the food. What food does the world’s most iconic and successful company serve its employees for their annual holiday party?

Imagine a very wide, very tall Apple Store except it’s a cafeteria. The tables are in the center room and there are two cafeterias serving identical plates bookending the dining area. The center room is also where drinks and dessert are to be found. We started with a NV Brut. It was dry. But not too dry.

Our first bites were a blue cheese, pear, and radicchio salad (hehe) and seared tuna with seaweed, black tobiko, and cucumber pickles. The salad popped with each bite of pear and blue cheese, but overall was a tad under-seasoned. The tuna was served delightfully rare but it came with some kind of smokey orange sauce that neither added or subtracted from it. Chris thought the seaweed salad was too fishy. I did not.

Top to bottom: seared tuna, seaweed salad with black tobiko caviar, cucumbuer pickles, orange sauce; radicchio and arugula salad with walnuts, pears, blue cheese, and parsley

Our second bites were jackfruit dumplings served with ponzu, something called “winter forest noodles,” and pistachio-crusted salmon served on a bed of black lentils. The jackfruit dumplings were surprisingly flavorful, especially with the ponzu sauce (the filling didn’t really taste like jackfruit… it didn’t really taste like anything). The winter forest noodles were indeed noodles, Asian-inspired, very dry, interspersed with thinly-sliced vegetables, but helped by being drenched in the dumpling’s ponzu sauce. The salmon would be a “safe dish” if it were served on a mid-tier season of Top Chef. For second drinks, Chris got an Almanac which tasted “like college” and I got an extremely buttery Chardonnay, the only non-red option that was also alcoholic.

Counter clockwise from the top: pistachio-crusted salmon, black lentils; jackfruit dumplings with ponzu (vegan); “winter forest noodles” (also vegan)

Our third bites were turkey meatballs with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (IKEA’s are actually crave-able), turmeric sea bass with rice noodles (some bites were fishier than others but the sauce was pleasantly coconut-y), and thinly sliced “Spanish-style” prime rib served with “smashed potatoes,” peppadew peppers, and olives. Some bites of meat were moister than others, and the demi-glace it came with had vague Japanese overtones… Mirin perhaps?

Top to bottom: turmeric sea bass with rice noodles; turkey meatballs, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, micro greens

Sliced “Spanish-style” prime rib, “smashed potatoes,” demi-glace, peppadew peppers, fried capers, olives

If you don’t know, I love the taste of popsicle sticks. Naturally, Chris made me suck on the bamboo cutlery (flavorless) and the plates (blegh, bitter).

Desserts consisted of two different pastry creams stuffed into an arrangement of various shells. There were also nutmeg-heavy donut holes studded with raisins, served warm. And there was hot apple cider made with apples grown inside Apple Park itself, (they take their apples seriously at Apple, you can even buy an Apple apple pie). The cider was biting and tart, nice in the cold air, brewed with what I imagine to be standard apple cider mix. We took it to an overlook upstairs and drank it as Chris and I picked up a deck of Apple-branded conversation cards. What other Apple-branded things has Apple made that only Apple will ever see? Chris then partook in conversation with others and waited his turn for karaoke. Then we went home.

Counter clockwise from the top: chocolate mouse cake thing; two tarts filled with vanilla cream and a log thing filled with chocolate-hazelnut cream; a tart filled with vanilla cream, a cornetto filled with vanilla cream, and a profiterole filled with chocolate-hazelnut cream

Is the Apple Holiday Party a corndog event? Or does it leave more to be desired? There is only so much fun one can have at an event like this – cameras are tastefully hidden in recessed alcoves all around. And I would say the food reflected that. Cameras be damned, the Apple Holiday party is the chance Linda from Hardware Tech gets every year to show off her dance moves that are otherwise repressed (dance is her true passion after all, but dancing, like beanfluencing, doesn’t pay the bills). Likewise, the food at the Apple Holiday Party is imbued with interesting choices the chef must feel strongly about, but unfortunately it doesn’t dance or sing.

The carpet must match the drapes (— there are no carpets or drapes in Apple stores/Parks).

Everything We Ate at the Apple Holiday Party

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