Chobani dinner, at Room Restaurant

It's easy to be a bad PR person: send e-mails addressed to the wrong name; write press releases littered with spelling errors; jokingly nudge and wink whilst saying "give us a good review" (this actually happened. I'll name no names, but I will say they were not written about after that). There are so many ways to do PR badly, so when - as a blogger - you come into contact with a lovely PR person who takes a genuine (or appears to, anyway!) interest in you, it's a refreshing change.

We were lucky to be invited to a dinner by those who fell into the latter category last week. Perhaps it's something to do with working client-side (as opposed to in a PR farm aka 'agency'), or the fact that both were food bloggers themselves: the representatives of Chobani - Amy and Christine - were glowing examples of how to do PR well. 

So, you might read on and think "oh but they were schmoozed, that's why they're writing about this brand", so I'll be honest: I bought in to the brand. Buying into brands - despite working in marketing - practically defies my entire value system. But I did it: I bought it. Read this story and tell me you haven't bought into it a little bit too. 

Chocolate Marquise, Hazelnut, Yoghurt Puree

I was also impressed by the way Chobani chose to market their yoghurt to us (if you didn't click through to the above link, that's what Chobani is by the way, a yoghurt company): instead of sending us a few free samples, which might have warranted a tweet at the most, they worked with Room restaurant to create a dinner using their range of yoghurts. 

To begin, we were treated to yoghurt cocktails. Slight problem for me as - unless it's a White Russian - I'm not a 'creamy' cocktail kind of gal. The option I chose used their apple yoghurt, almond milk and honey vodka, and slipped down pretty easily. I even had another. I couldn't see a whole night spent on these, but it was much better than expected.

Now, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Room's prawn cocktail starter is pretty much my favourite starter in the history of Manchester. They tweak it ever so slightly with each menu change, but the use of tomato jelly, tempura prawns, spiced crab and an apple crisp always makes its appearance in there somewhere. It's SO GOOD. I would sincerely recommend visiting Room just for this dish.... and to give it a 'Chobani' theme, they created guacamole with the brand's yoghurt. There was literally just a dot of this so I can't really comment further on how the yoghurt worked here. There's no picture so go see it for yourself!

Please could I have some more watercress?

The yoghurt played a much bigger role in the next dish however, as the Bearnaise sauce to accompany the Sirloin steak had been made with Chobani instead of butter, I assume. I rarely eat Bearnaise sauce as I find it far too rich, so making it with yoghurt really worked for me; for the exact same reason, it didn't work for Jamie. I think it's safe to say that Chobani will take a lot of sales from those who want a lower calorie option (this ain't J!). 

For pud, I definitely had food envy: Jamie's treacle tart with Chobani yoghurt parfait was delicious, and the best use of the yoghurt in the menu. My 'Chocolate & Milk' (marquise, hazelnut, Chobani puree and ice cream) was indulgent and most definitely enjoyable, but I don't think ice cream works with chocolate ganache-style desserts. For me, ice cream should melt into a soft base: the two textures working together - but with something like a marquise, I find that when combined with ice cream the textures end up battling against each other. Not unpleasant, but not the best pairing.

Treacle Tart (so-so) with yoghurt parfait (AWESOME)

So, the lucky ladies at Chobani are continuing their brand activation with a series of these dinners across the UK, simultaneously rolling out the brand to supermarkets, er, near you. It's a tough market for the company here - when Hamdi Ulukaya began Chobani back in 2007, there wasn't a lot in the way of competition - but the same can't be said here. Judging by his status as Ernst & Young's World Entrepreneur of the year, I can't see him (and his passionate colleagues) letting that stand in their way.

P.S. Anyone else think that yoghurt is a weird word? I've got that thing when you write a word too many times and it just starts to long misspelled however many times the OED tells you otherwise.