patron secret dining society in san diego

Last week it was Comic Con! And Patron decided it was high to come back to San Diego for another special event: the Patron Secret Dining Society! In my email I got a little hint that Patron was heading back here and I promptly answered their question and gained myself an invitation to the dinner and the dessert party. “DESSERT PARTY!” Goodness, can you imagine? You won’t have to – just see the bottom of this post!

The invitation for the invitation told us to meet Downtown near the Santa Fe Train Station. Due to horrid traffic conditions that day, Stacey and I were fashionably late and skipped the reception at the Contemporary Art museum but we still got to follow the very first clue (though someone told us where to go). It was sent as a text message:

“A Super Man in plain clothes with a briefcase has just pulled in at the station.”

Then once we found this Clark Kent looking fellow (in a suit and glasses with a briefcase), we had to whisper the secret words and he gave us a ticket:

A ticket to ride the PATRON TEQUILA EXPRESS. Fancy train time, what what!

Oh, also, our invitation said to arrive in “costume or creative cocktail attire”. I dressed up as Cat in the Hat and Stacey dressed up as Pam from Archer. 

Let me also note here that NO other guests arrived dressed in costume. Which made me feel slightly ridiculous but whatever. You just have to OWN it when that happens! 

As soon as stepped up to board the Patron Tequila Express we were immediately presented with food.

Specifically sea urchin on toast. I’m sure this had a fancier Patron-y name but I don’t know what it was. This was my very first time ever trying sea urchin. I was quite unsure about it since it looks like a gloopy pile of orange tongue meat or something but I managed a few bites and it wasn’t as horrendous as I thought it would be. It tasted rich and creamy it was quite soft on top of the bread. 

Before I could catch my breath, there was another tray of food! These were little banh mi bao sandwiches with generous slices of roasted pork belly. My first bite tasted like a pickled mess and after removing all the pickled stuff, it was much more enjoyable. The pork belly was so tender!

Here’s a small peek of the intricate woodwork from inside of the train, which is owned by the Patron co-founder John Paul DeJoria (who also co-founded Paul Mitchell hair products). Incredible detail!  

There were two sleeping cabins in the Patron car. One had this set of bunk beds and the other was more like a “master suite”. There were two beautiful, old school style bathrooms connected to each room with stained glass as the windows inside the bathrooms.

At the end of the Patron Tequila Express train car, there was this beautiful sitting room with these high-backed couches and grand looking chairs. 

They were serving the “Super Marg” drinks here. 

Stacey and I just called them the “Fig Margaritas” since we couldn’t remember the fancy super hero name for them. They had a nice fruit-ish flavor but weren’t too sweet – a good balance of flavors.

Eventually we all headed down to the next train car which served as our dining room for the Patron Secret Dining Society event. The train remained parked at the station though we did see at least one train amble by during dinner. 

I loved the beautiful flowers and every place setting had a tin of cocktail salt which served as our name cards. They had special labels that said “Arc Reactor” on them. Sitting next to me was a “Patron Secret Agent”.

Outside of the Patron Secret Dining Society menu.

The food menu! Gosh, I loved the design of this menu. 

And the drink pairings for each course. Bam! 

Stacey and I again, pre-buzz. 

The dolphin says “hi”. 

Also the dolphin liked the drinks. 

This is the first drink pairing, “The Frozen Freedom Fighter”. The drink looked a bit like an orange frozen slushee. It was made with liquid nitrogen (fancy), Patron Roca Anejo, Citronage Lime, White Gold and a bit of fennel. To me that just all means spiked frozen slushee! 

The first food course was Seabass Crudo but I somehow got the vegetarian version. I didn’t really mind that much. Instead of seabass, Stacey and I had cucumbers covered in herbs, lime and salt. Very simple but the lime and salt gave a good bit of flavor to the cold, crunchy cucumbers. 

The second course’s drink was called “Poison Ivy” and it was made with Patron Silver, Hoja Santa, crushed lime and Yucatan raw honey. This was a refreshing, slightly sweet drink. 

Okay, don’t tell… but I wasn’t supposed to take a photo of the second course. 

I’m a rebel. Sorry, Brian Malarkey. 

They were preparing all of the dishes somewhere else and then walking them over to the train car, so they had to go quite a distance, across train tracks and up the stairs… so this dish isn’t as pretty as it should have been. But holy goodness, it was DELICIOUS. It is a chilled pea soup with creme fraiche. That thing floating on top is a really crispy crunchy yummy piece of pork crackling. The flavor in the soup was super intense and just blew me away with how good it was. Even if it wasn’t pretty! 

Here’s the vegetarian version of the third course for my non-seafood eating friend Stacey.

And here’s my version. It is Halibut Cheek Bourguignon with potatoes, carrots, and confit onion. The halibut cheek was incredibly tender and tasted very light. An excellent course. 

The third course was paired with a drink called “The Inspector”. The Inspector is made with Patron XO (a coffee-like version of Patron) with vacuum infused Krispy Kreme donut Patron, lemon and egg white.

That probably all sounds super weird. The mixologist, Lucien Conner from Puesto, showed us how they soaked the donuts in the Patron to get the “donut” essence into the drink. He had a large glass filled with donuts covered in a layer of Patron. Crazy! 

The drink was creamy, a bit sweet, and tasted a bit like a dessert coffee drink. Really good! 

Here’s Malarkey talking to us about one of the dishes. He was a bit disappointed that almost no one dressed up but came up behind me and told me he loved me! Cat in the Hat pays off!

The dolphin is an alky, I think. Here he is enjoying our last drink called the “Batmobile” – a twist on the Cadillac Margarita. It was made with Patron Anejo, citrus zest, black truffle and agave foam. 

I didn’t realize until right now that it was also made with black truffle! It had a very smooth finish and Stacey remarked how it reminded her of an Old Fashioned. 

The fourth and final course of the Patron Secret Dining Society dinner was this incredibly tender filet mignon with trumpet mushrooms and mashed potatoes. 

But wait! Then Malarkey went by to each person and shaved some black truffle on top.

And elevated the dish juuuuuuuust a bit more. I ate every. single. bite. It was so flavorful! Too bad I can’t have a little truffle shaved on top of every meal… 

After dinner, we headed over to the Contemporary Art museum for the Patron Dessert Party. 

I maybe got a bit excited at this point. Here’s a look at the desserts! 

Cream Puffs. Covered in rose petals. Because WHY NOT. 

These were very soft and a little gooey. 

Sea Salted Chocolate and Peanut Butter Crunch Pops. I would marry these if I could, I loved them so much!

There was also an ice cream sammywich station. I only got the cookies and took them home to eat later.

Musical entertainment. 

More people were invited to the dessert party and these were the tickets for this event. Cute! 

The curry flavor on the nuts made these really unique. 

Dude. A giant bowl of brownies and chocolate! Om nom nom nom. 

They also had freshly made marshmallows. One was spiked with tequila, of course. 

Chocolate fountain! 

They even had a little box with hot coals so you could make your own s’mores.

And I did.

And then my marshmallow promptly fell INTO the coals.

And then it started to smoke. 

And then I got nervous and tried to poke at it and retrieve it.

And Stacey told me to just “let it go”. And then we quickly walked away… 

Apparently when I’m buzzed I like to make up songs. Like songs about how buildings are really tall. 

And I guess also take photos of the buildings. Hmm.

My songs at least make Stacey/Pam laugh. 

The Patron Secret Dining Society is a very, very fun event! Even if you have to sit in traffic for over an hour to go Downtown during the start of Comic Con (grr), it was definitely worth it.

You can go check out last year’s Patron Secret Dining Society event right over here, too!

Thanks very much to Patron for the invitation to this awesome and incredible event!