Our dinner club gatherings are always a super fun evening and last night was no exception. What’s better than great friends, delicious food, and a fun theme? Oh how I love theme parties! Themes just give you something to work with and ensure everything flows from the food to the décor to the drinks and even the music. As you can see I enjoyed decorating our table to reflect last night’s Mexican theme, and when our guests walked in we also had mariachi music playing to help set the tone for the evening.
Want to Save this Recipe?
Enter your email below & we'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you'll get great new recipes from us every week!
Now let’s talk about the food! One of the things I love about our dinner club is that it’s an excuse to go all out. It’s just not realistic for us to put together parties like this regularly, but when you know you’re scheduled to host dinner club once a year and the others will reciprocate it is well worth the effort. Here is what we served (and I promise to post some of the recipes next week!):
Appetizers
Sopes – Two Ways:
1. Homemade Refried Beans (yum!), Pico de Gallo, and Sour Cream
2. Guacamole, Crumbled Mexican Cheese, and Cilantro
First Course
Shrimp and Cucumber Ceviche with Fried Plantains
Second Course
Pork Carnitas Tacos with Homemade Corn Tortillas and Tomatillo Salsa
Chili-Lime Watermelon
Dessert
Mango Margarita Pops with Flavored Mexican Chocolate
In addition to the food we also served margaritas (on the rocks), wine, and Mexican beer. And luckily it didn’t take too many drinks before everyone decided to try on their Mexican mustaches (pictured on place cards below)!
Entertaining Tips
Along with all of the fun of course comes a lot of work. When hosting such an elaborate event we aim to do the following:
- Plan the menu weeks in advance
- Practice new recipes that we’ve never made before so we can make any necessary adjustments
- Purchase all groceries at least two days in advance
- Set up table and decor a day or two beforhand
- Prep cook the day before as much as possible including chopping, making sauces, preparing garnishes, etc.
- Welcome guests into a clean kitchen, which means running partially full loads of dishes early in the day
No matter how prepared we try to be though there always seems to be room for improvement whether it is having all your prep cooking completed before guests arrive, being showered and ready on time, having your kids settled, or ensuring each dish is served promptly and at the perfect temperature. We by no means pull all these things off flawlessly at our events, but we certainly have fun trying!
The Sopes link no longer works.
P.s. I love your site :)
Love the ideas! Please post the recipes!
Wow. This looks so amazing! :)
Awesome party, I love the decorations! Nice job on the sopes, I love the guac + cheese + cilantro combo, mmmm! :D Also mango margarita pops?! Must.try! :)
Actually the other sopes (the refried beans/pico de gallo/sour cream ones) were the biggest hit out of the two options! And yes the margarita pops were a big success…just blend 2.5 cups mango, 1/4 cup lime juice, 1/4 cup tequila, 1/8 sugar or other sweetener and freeze! PS – Thanks for the sope idea/recipe!! :)
I love the dinner club idea! Would you mind sharing more details on how the club works, ie: how often, how many folks, how you decide on menus and most importantly, what do you do w/the kids when it’s your turn to host?
The food looks and sounds great, can’t wait for the recipes to be posted.
Thanks.
I don’t mind sharing at all! We LOVE our dinner club…it’s always such a fun night. There are 4 couples (8 adults) and we all have kids so babysitters are a requirement unless it is your turn to host. For our turn last week we didn’t invite everyone over till 7:30 so it was only a half hour or so of our girls running circles around us then I just briefly walked up the stairs to put them to bed for the evening. It worked out just fine, and I secretly liked that my daughters could see a little bit of us “entertaining” since I like to do it so much (and hope they will enjoy it as adults as well)! Our girls were super hyped up about the fun decor and dinner guests :) We actually left everything up and had a Mexican family dinner with the leftover food and leftover decor the next night! Anyway though there are 4 couples in the club and we get together every other month. So you have a two month period to schedule it at your house and then in-between rounds we all go out to dinner together, which is super fun too. When it is your turn to host you control EVERYTHING…including the theme (which I like to keep a surprise), the menu, the drinks, etc. There is no need to bring a bottle of wine when you know the dinner will be reciprocated by everyone that is there. This allows you control and the ability to do wine pairings if you want, etc.
Love this! Everything looks super delicious – definitely makes me want to make some Mexican food for dinner…maybe fish tacos?
Yum! This looks like so much fun! I love theme parties!
I love it!:) My hubby is Mexican and we are spending the summer in Mexico- your party sounds PERFECT! Love the sopes- my kids’ favorite snacks!:)
Looks great! Do you think you could post the recipe for the little bean sopes? They look lovely and I’m trying to figure out what they’re sitting on. :)
They are actually linked to the recipe (where it says sopes above). They were a big hit!
Thanks for the inspiration. That sopes recipe looks delish. I think I’m going to have to try those sometimes over the summer.
I’m curious over the fried plantain, I’ve had some at a local restaurant and it tasted delicious. It’s not something I’ve tried to cool yet however.
Fried plantain is one of my favorites, ripe or unripe. My mother was from Central America and we grew up with those as treats. I don’t know why I don’t buy them more often!
The sopes were a hit! This was the first time I’ve fried plantains, and I am not sure if picked ones that were ripe enough. I think I should have practiced that one a little bit more first.