Well, not really…but here’s a picture of Josh and me at del Toro on the FLOR website! We’re in the third photo from the top. No, we’re not club-crawling see-and-be-scenesters or camera hos — I’d received an invite from Domino magazine (strange, since I’ve never even picked up an issue, let alone subscribe to it) to an event sponsored by them and FLOR at the WP’s newest tapas lounge. Our first del Toro experience wasn’t all that and we hadn’t planned on returning — good food but rather steep prices for the small portions, erratic service, not our type of crowd — but hey, free food and open bar, so why not?

del Toro’s location is a familiar one to us; it was formerly occupied by MOD, a contemporary American spot with an eye-popping retrofuturistic interior — think lots of colorful, geometric, bubbly plastic. It was a laid-back, friendly place where we were semi-regulars for five years, and we were sad to see it go. But I was confident the space would be transformed into something worthy of the Alexander empire, and indeed it’s a flamboyant beauty, a cacophony of color and texture.

I fell in love with the back lounge, draped seductively in bold, lush reds and as curvy and alluring as an inorganic object can be — no small tribute to Gaudi. The front lounge is equally inviting, a jigsaw puzzle of earth-toned yet vibrant FLOR tiles on the wall, and in fact it was the designer Suhail‘s provocative and liberal use of FLOR that prompted the company to showcase its products at del Toro.

Because of its glamorous ambiance, del Toro attracts the same type of crowd, and they represented themselves full-force the evening of the FLOR/Domino event. Casually decked out in a snug black long-sleeved t-shirt, dark Earnest Sewn jeans, navy blue Sauconys with a powder blue swoosh, and a black rabbit-fur scarf (my one pathetic attempt at nonchalant glamour), I felt woefully out of place as I elbowed my way through a willowy wall of platform-stilettoed size-zero blonde PR/marketing/interior design gals and their beaus who fell into one of two camps: twenty- and thirty-something investment banker types trying to look all hipster, pitifully ignorant that money can’t buy authentic thrift-store poorness, and silver-haired foxes, otherwise known as sugar daddies.

“Let’s go,” my five-foot-two rice-fed (but buxom!) black-haired self said to my six-foot-four decently dressed but non-Hugo Boss-suit-wearing husband. “These are totally not my people.” He ignored me and shouted “Hey Chris!” to someone across the room. It was Chris Guillen, photographer extraordinaire, who shoots for the nightlife section of Chicago magazine and also happened to be our wedding photographer. He’d been hired by FLOR to shoot the event, which is how we ended up on the website. Let’s just say if it weren’t for his friendly presence, I would’ve fled the scene and missed out on the fabulous free food and drink.

We muscled our way to the very back, which turned out to be surprisingly uncrowded — there was actually quite a bit of room left on the long leather bench, the only seating in the house that night, as the rest of the tables and chairs had been removed to accomodate the party. This turned out to be a brilliant move — lots of breathing room, nice people, a comfortable place to sit, tables on which to rest your drinks (NV Cristalino brut rose cava for me — fun and easy), and, most importantly, it was right by the kitchen entrance. We had first dibs on the food.

Servers passed an assortment of appetizers, two of which distinguished themselves above the rest in terms of taste and presentation. The lomo embuchado were cute little lollipops of razor-thin sliced cured pork loin and Manchego cheese wrapped around tangy diced apples, and the patatas bravas were so whimsically rendered I laughed out loud. Instead of the typical plateful of fried potato wedges finished with a few squirts of mayonnaise, these were formed into a neat row of tater tots, each with a creamy aioli-filled center. Napoleon Dynamite definitely would have approved.

It’s a funny thing what free food and unlimited open bar can do to you; by the end of the evening, Josh and I decided that del Toro was lots of fun after all and we’d probably come back maybe if it was a weekday and we had the place to ourselves (read: peace and quiet and no beautiful people) and weren’t very hungry. As tasty and adorable as the nibbles were, they were just that, and afterwards we ended up trekking over to Francesca’s Forno right down the street for some heartier fare. And we weren’t opposed to bringing in a group of our friends next time to mix it up a bit.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the goody bag, and a pretty good one at that. The best freebie was a stack of four FLOR tiles cut down to 4″ by 4″ squares, perfect for coasters. And, of course, there was the requisite issue of Domino, which is basically a Lucky magazine for housewares. Nothing will ever replace my Living Etc., but Domino, if you ever want to invite me to a party at del Toro again, I’m there.