any good caterers in DC area?

[slt002]

any one heard of marco polo or superb cuisines catering?

[Indy 67]

Marco Polo as in the restaurant located on Rte 123 in Vienna, VA? If so, this board has had two threads that mention Marco Polo (URLs below). The reaction has been quite lukewarm. In the first thread, the restaurant was described as "okay." In the second thread, the restaurant was described as "average." How these restaurant opinions translate into the catering service expectations I can't say.

Although this is not one of the caterers you asked about, I can add that I wasn't pleased with Federal City Caterers on a brunch project I was involved with less than a year ago. Two problems: quantity and taste.

We had barely enough food for the 40 person group, although 6 of that number were children and eating very little of the main dishes. One of the dishes was a casserole in which the gloppy sauce dominated the protein so what appeared to be a generous quantity was, in fact, too little.

I don't know if people took seconds. I certainly didn't since I was unhappy about the heavy-handed use of salt. I'm not on a low salt diet, so I don't consider myself particularly sensitive to salt. However, I considered one of the mains -- a smoked salmon cheesecake -- inedible because of too much salt and the casserole was a close second.

On the plus side, the day of the event, the employees were helpful and courteous and they left the house in immaculate condition.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/416991
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/340087

[ktmoomau]

My friends and I had an event catered by The Italian Store because we really like it and that went over really well. Might be a little causal though.

[keithdcil]

We really like the Italian Store too. Thanks for the great idea. Was it a full service catering or just platters?

[ktmoomau]

It was platters here is there website, we contacted them and got a couple things not on their menu too though.
http://www.italianstore.com/catering.htm

It is kind of a more casual thing to get. All of our formal events we have had at restaurants or clubs, so I don't have any good advice on more formal catering.

[bluechows]

Don't know about marco polo or superb but in the past I've used Windows Catering in Alexandria and they were very good.