The Gourmet Detectives

My husband and I were given a gift certificate to the murder mystery dinner and neither of us were especially excited about going. We are both theater professionals and tend to enjoy more intellectual theater. We were however pleasantly surprised by the evening. We were sat with several other strangers at a large table and had a good time interacting with both the other guests and all of the actors. The singing was not great, but somehow they made the mediocre voices part of the characters they were portraying. We are both vegetarians so we ordered their vegetarian lasagna which was rather tasty. Way too much dressing on the salad, but we asked for another one without dressing and that was decent. I would suggest pre-ordering the dressing on the side. The food in general was decent banquet food, but the presentation on the entrees was very plain and unappealing. The drinks were fantastic, great bartender who knows his stuff...only complaint there was getting our drinks a bit faster. We probably would have ordered one more round if we didn't have to wait so long in between cocktail service.
The actors were great and they did the food service and stayed in character the whole time. The entire table seemed to really enjoy the evening. If you don't go with a group, I would recommend requesting a table with other couples. It was great fun meeting new people and enjoying the show with them.

Pros: Actors, Drinks

Cons: Slow drink service, Food Presentation

Posted 08/24/08

I've been to a couple of "murder mystery dinner shows" and Gourmet Detective was definitely the funniest, most professional and slick organization. They have their act together, no pun intended. My favorite part is that the actors are costumed, in a different time period (the one we saw was in the 40's) and they are in character all the time, which is pretty cool. It's amazing they are hysterically funny when they are mingling with the audience. The story is definitely about the mystery. It's funny, dramatic, etc, but because the characters hang out at your table between scenes its your chance to interact with them, very fun. Anyhow, we had a great time and it seems like they deserve a nod for the positive.

Posted 02/24/08

My husband and I were looking for a cool thing to do for Valentine's day and bought the package for the dinner, show and hotel. The hotel (Irvine Marriott) ended up being the only saving grace of the whole evening. The food was at best mediocre, the show was absolutely boring. The seating was too cramped and the whole evening I kept thinking, I spent all this money for this??

Please spend your hard earned money elsewhere; this is not worth it!

Posted 02/19/06