16 Dec Farewell to Friends at Cured at The Pearl
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. – Benjamin Franklin
The end of the year is near and now we must say goodbye and good luck to one of our interns, Jaron. The only way to send an intern off properly from Embark Marketing, is will great food, so we decided to take Jaron to Cured at The Pearl. This past semester we involved Jaron with our business to help him achieve his goals for post graduation. The Embark Marketing intern team had a blast creating fun videos, learning how to manage multiple social media accounts and much more! Jaron even made a video about his experience!
Being all about food and bev what better way to celebrate Jaron’s experience and graduation then lunch at Cured?! We all decided to pick a restaurant in San Antonio that the team has not yet experienced and Cured won! 
Ok, we decided to go “tapas” style and order a custom charcuterie board and a Pressed Portabella sandwich, that we spilt three ways. The Cured charcuterie board has the option of choosing either three, six or nine of their cured meats served with Brewer’s crackers, pickled vegetables and paired with homemade sauces and marmalades. We choose six different types of meats: Apple Jalapeno Pork Rillettes, Whipped Pork Butter, Local Lamb and Citrus Terrine, Lardo, and the Smoked Duck Ham.
Wow, look at how beautiful this dish is! We had know idea how to dive in but thankfully our server, Jeff, was amazing and explained each meat and sauce presented on the plate.
Unfortunately for Jaron, the pickled vegetables were not his favorite to try. Remember… he doesn’t like anything pickle related (something we learned while making him try a pickle back shot for National Pickle Day.) Everything was delicious though, we had to order something else to try (remember we mentioned the Pressed Portabella sandwich?!) 
We love portabella mushrooms! The way the chef prepared this sandwich made us love them even more. Pressed with roasted peppers, pesto, swiss cheese and arugula and served with a quinoa and avocado salad we thought it would be the perfect meal to stop by and grab for a quick lunch! This looks like a vegetarians dream!
It just wouldn’t be fair to experience only the food and not the hand crafted cocktails Cured has to offer. Before you judge us we know it’s only lunch time but it is Friday…so we thought it would be ok to start our weekend just a few hours early. We all tried something a little different, one drink being fresh and light, another with coffee and smoked flavors and the heaviest of all a porter.
This pretty lavender cocktail is the Lazy Bee, and it was fantastic. Simply made with gin, lemon and a lavender infused honey was all it needed to refresh the palate after each bite. Our smoked cocktail, Hecho en Mexico, was their home brewed coffee and Del Maguey Mezcal. If you love coffee and mezcal, how could you not order this? The man of the hour ordered the porter, the Cutthroat Porter from Odell Brewing company to be exact. It’s funny how before this internship Jaron knew the basics about beer and now has slowly evolved into a beer snob from writing and experiencing the various beer tastings our clients have hosted.
Last but not least, dessert. We all decided on the Fall Harvest, a squash macadamia nut cake topped with a pinole-mezcal ice cream and then drizzled with a raisin-banana vinegar sauce. WOW. Just wow. There are few words to describe this treat from above. 
We couldn’t have asked for a better time at Cured or a better way to say goodbye to our beloved Jaron. Lunch was filled with laughter and reminiscing over all the fun and hard work over the past few months. Jaron will be greatly missed from the team and we can not wait to see what amazing things he has planned for his future! We love you Jaron!
