Elite Event – A Fork Full of Pork @ The Lodge

I meant to leave this review last week and completely forgot! This Elite event was my first time at the Lodge and I was really surprised when I walked in, it didn’t look like what you would expect for a bar on Chippewa. I loved the décor, and could see why the place became so popular so fast.
I can’t say much about the food because I don’t eat pork but I really liked the drinks. The staff seemed a bit stressed by the size of our party but tried their best to answer all questions.
Thank you to Alex for setting up another great event!

My Order: A la carte– a little bit of everything! (pork skillet mac & cheese, roasted brussel sprouts, sweet potato casserole, potato pancake, oysters… the works!)
PROS
— talk about a smörgåsbord of delicious cuisine. this amazing Unilocal event definitely busted my winter blahs (especially w/​the cold weather we’ve been having)
— great drinks selection! –i tried the mango mojito (my personal fave) and the almond joy (which i thought to be too sweet– needed to dilute it with the ice).
— the food was delicious and rich– i really liked the meat addition to the mac & cheese dish as it really gave it piazza.
— this being my first pig roast, I didn’t know what to expect. the consistency of the meat reminded me of spam and that was kind of interesting
— off street parking was easy to find (esp on a weekday!)
CONS
— I would’ve appreciated if each of the dishes were labelled. Because it was a la carte in a very dimly lit room, I had no idea what I was dishing on my plate.
It was my second time here at the Lodge and they def went above and beyond. I hear that this will be a re-​occuring event available to the public at $ 45/​person. Given the a la carte nature of such a festivity (and the variety and caliber of the food), I can rationalize the price tag.

What a fun event!
I’ve been to The Lodge once for drinks but have never had the chance to try any food here let alone a pig roast.
Atmosphere:
The Lodge is a really cool modern interpretation of a ski lodge. Everything here is slick yet comfortable. Trendy but not pretentious. The event itself was held on the second floor which is home to a pool table, some arcade games, and a skee ball machine. There are various sofas and comfortable seating areas with pillows which recerates a lodge feel. The lighting is very dark. Too dark which made tasting the food «interesting». More on that later.
Food:
This event offered the most food options of any Elite event I’ve been to. We started off with oysters, crab legs, and shrimp. I’m not much for seafood but I will eat crab legs. The crab was fine in itself but the sauces provided made it much better.
Then came the main feast. Confusion. Lots of it. We noticed the food was brought out but no announcement was made. Do we eat now? What’s going on? Nobody was sure so some of us started to dig in. Nothing was labeled and the staff seemed unsure which side was which. Perhaps because the lighting was so dark? After getting some sides we were told the pig wasn’t ready yet. Should we have waited? Oh wait, there’s pork belly that I already grabbed. Is there more pig to come?
As for the sides the Pork Mac and Cheese was my favorite. Delicious, cheesy and so good. There were also sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, and a few others. The sweet potatoes was almost raw. Everything else was fine.
Now onto the star… The pig was delicious. The pork belly was my favorite — crispy on the outside but succulent on the inside. Everything else there was parts. It was too dark to tell what the parts were. I love game meat but I would really prefer to know what part of the animal I’m eating.
Drinks:
We were given two vouchers for drinks at the bar. My favorite was the Bartenders Special. This drink was an interpretation of southern sweet tea with bourbon. Really enjoyable and something I think any guy weary of mixed drinks could enjoy.
Activites:
One of the things that makes Elite events fun are the interactive activities (ex. Trivia at Community Beer Works). There were no activities. What was very disappointing is the lack of any introduction or background from The Lodge’s owners or management. Every event I’ve been to I’ve learned about the business’ story. This is terrific because you get to emphasize with the business and cheer for its success. For this event there was nothing. It was like the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain. Did they really care about promoting their business? Alex did all the promotion on their behalf. Don’t get me wrong I’m enormously appreciative of the effort and invite but it seemed cold to me.
Overall:
This is a tough event to rate. I had a lot of fun. I had a chance to converse with many old friends and some new ones. But fun doesn’t equate to a great mark. This event needs to be judged against prior Elite events. On that, this one falls short. There were many new Elites and it would have been nice to get to know them aside from introducing myself to each one individually. Some sort of interactive activity would have helped. The poor lighting was a problem as well. When eating from a whole pig it would have been helpful to know what part of the animal you’re eating. There were also some organizational issues around when/​how to get food. Finally, the lack of involvement from management was disappointing.
A very fun event where execution fell short.

This was an interesting contrast to the other events (Elite, CYE and UYE) that I’ve attended so far in Buffalo. All of the previous events were smaller and intimate, even when quite a few people were in attendance. I’m used to seeing a certain circle of Unilocalers, so it was a little overwhelming to see so many Elites that I’ve never met before.
Then again, I’ve only been in Buffalo since September of 2014, and I wasn’t an Elite until I moved up here. Perhaps this is more of the norm?
Anyhow, there were a lot of people, and there was a decent amount of food. We were warned beforehand that there wouldn’t be necessarily enough food for us to make a dinner of it, but that seemed to not be the case. I was more than satisfied with the amount of food. I was a little disappointed in where it was served: the room was pretty dimly lit, with no real identification or explanation of the dishes, and the sides were placed out before the pork itself was, which caused me to have to go through the line twice.
I know from another source that there was pork belly mac and cheese, potato pancakes (I think?) a sweet potato dish, something else that I think was butternut squash, or some other sort of winter squash, and brussel sprouts. There were also some black pepper biscuits. The best of the sides (and probably the best thing I ate overall) was the pork belly mac and cheese. It was unctuous and rich, with large chunks of pork belly.
Probably the worst were the piggy cookies, which were prepared more for looks than for taste — one of my pet peeves about desserts. They were pretty to look at, but the dough was tough from being overworked, and the icing was shortening based, which gave them a waxy aftertaste.
I was also slightly disappointed in the pork itself, once I got to it – it was very tender, but also a little dry. Was this because I got a section that got cooked unevenly? It’s possible. I will also add that the seafood appetizers were quite good, but identification of what we were eating (other than the obvious: shrimp, oysters and clams) would have been nice as well.
I really do regret not trying one of the mixed drinks, but I had had a beer from the bar downstairs prior to the event, and a second beer caused me to hit my personal limit.
I was disappointed that there didn’t seem to be anyone from The Lodge to talk about their business. It was much more of an event where people showed up, ate some food, had some chat and then bailed. I really enjoy hearing from the business as to why they’re here in Buffalo, what they are trying to do with their business, and so on. Why is this place a post-​modern hunting lodge? It left me with more questions about the place, and not much in the way of answers, and that was probably the most disappointing part.
Other than that, I did honestly have a fun time meeting people, saying hello to new people I hadn’t met yet, and hopefully I will see all of you at one of the other upcoming events soon!

There’s nothing like a few free mojitos to drown out the sorrows of arriving under a thin blanket of snow. After a drink and some giant shrimp, I was able to feel my face again and enjoy an event that was clearly put together with great effort and consideration for its attendants.
This event made me realize that I need to 1) participate in the talk threads more and 2) attend some smaller events to meet people, because starting a conversation with «Hey, I recognize your face from the great Bot Take-​down of 2014 thread!» makes you look (and feel) like a weirdo. Luckily, ripping the heads off of shrimp did make for a decent opener, and I enjoyed meeting a few fellow Unilocalers as we discussed our food.
That brings me to the first hiccup– I am not sure what I ate. It was good; I ate plenty of it (no need to eat before this event for sure!) but the room in which it was served was dark and I did not see any signage to indicate what we were eating. Obviously, I knew the basics– mac & cheese, potatoes, sprouts, pig– but I would have liked to have known what made them «special» (and if I was a vegetarian, I would have liked to have known what was cooked with meat.)
The venue was a really neat place, with an atmosphere you might not expect from walking past on the street (especially if you are shielding your face from the weather.) My other minor hiccup was that while Alex did a great job of promoting the pig roast that you can set up for you and your 9 closest friends for $ 45 a head, I would have liked to have head more from The Lodge itself. While obviously the event itself serves as a promotion, I like hearing from the people behind the scenes as well.
Overall, we had a great time. We were well fed and happy to attend. FYI– The Lodge is having a Valentine’s Day special dinner — 4 courses for $ 99 per couple (and offers vegetarian choices as well) and we will be looking into that. Even if we don’t go to that particular event, we will definitely be back to The Lodge in the future.

This was my second Unilocal event, but the first one I’ve actually went to mingle at.
First off, the location is top notch. I’m a big fan of The Lodge, and it’s such a great venue to host bigger groups because of the upstairs bar.
Second, since I didn’t really know anyone, the event organizer, Alex L., introduced me to some other Unilocalers which was perfect – the girls were amazing and I think we ended up having the best table at the event, as our group grew we were all totally cracking up ;)
Third, the food was awesome! The Lodge has great vegetarian options on their regular menu, so they didn’t skimp on them at this whole roasted pig event either. While I’m not much of a meat eater, I do love seafood, and the apps of raw oysters and whole shrimp were fun. Then the main course with Mac and Cheese, grilled Brussels sprouts, and yam dishes were amazing. The biscuits had a lot of cracked black pepper flavor to them, but they were layered so perfectly and baked just right that it all really worked together. So the sides were a total win.
I let my husband have my share of the roasted pork, but because of the rare event of a whole hog, I had to try some. Also because there was dipping sauce, I love house made sauces. I’m not a pork eater, but the section I got was so guilty-​good that I’m glad I went for it. And the sauces were phenomenal! Everything was great; we left nothing on the plate.
I had so much fun, met so many great people, and had such good food, I can’t wait for the next Unilocal event!