THE NIBBLE Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
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Archive for Restaurants
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March 4, 2008 at 7:47 am
· Filed under Fish/Seafood/Caviar, Ethnic Foods, Gourmet News, Restaurants
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Now, your surf clam can surf over to you via
conveyor belt. |
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Is America about to experience conveyor-belt sushi in a big way? Known as kaiten-sushi, a branch of the largest chain, Sakae Sushi, has made the leap to America (“leap” is an appropriate analogy, since the company logo is a frog on a lily pad—although no frog sushi is served). The premiere is the launch of a goal to be, ostensibly, the first successful sushi chain in America. The company, based in Singapore, has 40 sushi restaurants there, and 20 in other countries—none of which offers the market potential of the large and sushi-hungry American public. |
| The high-tech restaurant should also appeal to the experiential dining desires of Americans. There’s a patented interactive menu at each table, enabling patrons to create custom orders, as well as a hot water tap to refill cups of green tea. There is three-tiered pricing—three different colored plates, priced at $1.90, $3.90 and $6.90, depending on the value of the contents. In a bit of architectural irony, the two conveyor-belt restaurant, totaling 97 feet of rolling sushi, sashimi, soups, salads, dumplings, ramen, yakitori and other bites, is located in the venerable Chrysler Building, one of the country’s most dignified architectural landmarks. It’s an easy location for anyone to get to, right across the street from Grand Central Terminal, at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Taking the train into town? Drop in for some sushi before heading to your destination. The speed with which consumers can get their sushi from the conveyor belt gives new meaning to the term “fast food.”The chain was established in Singapore in 1997 with the goal of offering affordable Japanese food. In New York City, which is not known for conveyor-belt restaurants, it will certainly be the king of kaiten. The restaurant, located at 405 Lexington Avenue at 42nd Street, is open 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner, from 7 a.m. to midnight. A 24-hour delivery service will be offered. For more information, visit Sakae-Sushi.com or telephone 1.877.SAKAE-USA. |
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March 2, 2008 at 8:36 am
· Filed under Gourmet News, Restaurants
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| It was only a matter of time, but now at least two social networking sites have sprouted up, aiming to be the MySpace and FaceBook for the restaurant industry. Restaurant owners, managers, chefs, servers, vendors, and yes, foodies are invited to communicate in virtual communities such as BiteClub.com (love that name!) and FohBoh.com (insider lingo for Front Of House, the service staff, and Back Of House, the kitchen staff). At this time, Bite Club is more intimate and clubby, with a feature that enables participants to vote on the quality of each person’s post—if it isn’t good, it gets sent to the bottom of the lists so the good posts float to the top. Every site should employ this technology, so we don’t have to plow through those endless, vapid posts like, “Great idea, Brad.” “Yeah, I liked it too.” “Me too.” |
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Are you a restaurant professional, or do you want to hang with them? Head to the virtual communities on BiteClub.com and FohBoh.com. |
| FohBoh has sub-groups from Pizza Lovers to Branding to Wine Lovers to Atlanta Area Wine Network. (Will somebody please tell the Bartender’s of Boston that they need to fix their punctuation?) If you’re a restaurant professional or a restaurant enthusiast, check ’em out. |
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February 19, 2008 at 7:01 pm
· Filed under Gourmet News, Restaurants
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The best restaurant city in the world has no Eiffel Tower. Photo of Tokyo by Yoichiro Nishimura | SXC. |
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Zut alors! By a huge margin, Guide Michelin, the French-owned restaurant-rating bible, has declared the finest food city in the world to be not Paris, not New York, not San Francisco…but Tokyo. Gastrotourists, get ready. It’s more than twice as long a flight, but if you want to eat the best, head east. Way east. Seven out of 10 foreign tourists in Japan say the food is the primary reason for their visit. But only a portion of the cuisine is Japanese. Michelin’s rating system is taken so seriously (and the stars are so good for business) that chefs spend their entire careers and fortunes chasing three Michelin stars. One of France’s most famous chefs, Bernard Loiseau of La Côte d’Or restaurant (in the Côte-d’Or region of Burgundy), committed suicide in 2005 following a downgrade by the Gault Millau guide and believing he was about to lose his third Michelin star (which, sadly, proved to be an erroneous supposition; the restaurant still has its three stars). |
| Tokyo has eight three-star restaurants. Five of them serve Japanese cuisine, three are French. You won’t be surprised if you watch Iron Chef, but one and two stars were bestowed on restaurants that serve Chinese, Italian, Spanish and steakhouse cuisine. The commonality with the top spots in Paris and New York is that you must reserve a month in advance and expect to pay a minimum of $200 per person. Do the math and you won’t be surprised why Tokyo has the most Michelin-starred restaurants. Michelin counted 160,000 restaurants in Tokyo (191 Michelin stars), compared with about 20,000 in Paris (98 Michelin stars) and 23,000 in New York (54 Michelin stars). Read the full story in the Washington Post. |
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December 7, 2007 at 3:59 pm
· Filed under Restaurants
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| Celebrity chef Bobby Flay is launching an upscale hamburger chain called Bobby’s Burger Palace. So far, leases for three units have been signed, and leases for five more units are in the pipeline. Flay plans to open five to 10 units a year. His business partner, Lawrence Kretchmer, made the announcement but did not provide specific locations of the three signed leases, but said that there is one under development in New Jersey and another in a Long Island mall. Top restaurant architecture firm Rockwell Group is designing the stores. Flay also owns Mesa Grill restaurants in Manhattan, Las Vegas and the Bahamas. Let’s hope the food meets Flay’s personal standards and he creates the burger chain of our dreams. We were so disappointed with our first two attempts at Wolfgang Puck’s chain restaurants, we feared to go back for a third meal. While you’re waiting for a Bobby’s Burger Palace to open near you, check out the burger-making tips in THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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Flip us a good burger, Bobby! |
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December 6, 2007 at 5:27 pm
· Filed under Meat & Poultry, Restaurants
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| Last night we had dinner at The Tasting Room in New York City, a highly-acclaimed (and justly so) restaurant in SoHo. It’s a charming, friendly place where you can eat fine cuisine in a casual ambiance (exposed brick walls, flattering lighting), served by an eager and knowledgeable staff. Chef Colin Alevras and his team focus on innovative American cuisine created with the freshest local ingredients, and paired with American wines. Everything we had was delicious, but the eye-opener was a dish of Heirloom Red Wattle Pork. Tender like filet mignon, reddish-pink like rare beef or lamb (Red Wattle meat tends to be a little darker than most other pork) and very juicy. Although though the meat is lean, it was the most flavorful pork we have ever tasted, and we can’t wait to have it again It was roasted and served simply, with a jus and a mélange of grilled collard greens, carrots and braised Korean radishes.Here is information about the breed, from SlowFoodUSA.com: |
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Red Wattle hog and sow. Photo courtesy of SlowFoodUSA.org. |
| The Red Wattle hog is a large, reddish hog with a fleshy, decorative, wattle attached to each side of its neck that has no known function. The origin and history of the breed is considered scientifically obscure, though many different ancestral stories are known. One theory is that the French colonists brought the Red Wattle hogs to New Orleans from New Caledonia Island, off the coast of Australia, in the late 1700s; from there they went to Texas. As they are hardy and adapt well to the land, the Red Wattle quickly became a popular breed in the U.S. Unfortunately, as settlers moved west, the breed began to fall out of favor because the settlers came into contact with breeds that boasted a higher fat content, which was needed for lard and soap. Red Wattles were left to roam the hills of eastern Texas, where they were hunted to near extinction, until a Mr. H.C. Wengler came across a herd in the dense forest and began breeding them into what they are today. Five years later, in a similar encounter, Robert Prentice found another herd of Red Wattle hogs in eastern Texas, which became known as the Timberline herd, after its wooded origins. Of all the heritage breeds, the Red Wattle is at most risk; there are only four families breeding them. So, buy this wonderful meat at HeritageFoodsUSA.com. You can learn more about the Red Wattle and the other heritage pigs, the Duroc, Tamworth, and Six-Spotted Berkshire. |
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December 1, 2007 at 10:33 am
· Filed under Gourmet News, Restaurants
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According to a survey of more than 1,200 chefs across America conducted by the National Restaurant Association, the hottest restaurant trends are small plates (including tasting menus of small portions for main courses, dessert, wine flights and other alcohol beverages) and alternative-source ingredients—local produce, organics, sustainable seafood, grass-fed and free-range meat and poultry and alternative red meats (buffalo, ostrich, venison).
- Ethnic cuisines continue to be strong, with fusion ethnic cuisine, flatbreads, Asian entrée salads, Asian appetizers, Latin American cuisine, ciabatta bread and Mediterranean cuisine rated high on the list of hot items ranked by the chefs.
- In the alcohol department, craft beer, energy-drink cocktails, martinis, flavored martinis, mojitos, artisan liquors, organic wine and specialty beer (seasonal, spiced, fruit, etc.) are all among the top 20 hot items. Also hot: signature cocktails, food-beer pairings and beer sommeliers, as well as food-wine pairings and wine sommeliers.
- Among non-alcoholic beverages, flavored and enhanced waters have taken the lead over espresso and specialty coffee. |
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Sustainable seafood is hot—like this line-caught black cod from Nantucket Wild Gourmet & Smokehouse. |
| - Among trends in preparation techniques, braised food is considered more trendy than pan-seared, sautéed and grilled items. Also hot: deglazing/reductions/sauces.That’s what’s hot. So what’s not? Last year’s hotties—bottled water, fresh herbs, exotic mushrooms and whole grain items—while still popular, have dropped out of the top 20 hot items. Rated “most passé foods” are fruit wine, star fruit, low-carb dough and tofu. The National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises 935,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets and a work force of 12.8 million employees. For more information about the survey, visit Restaurant.org. |
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November 26, 2007 at 1:07 pm
· Filed under Gourmet News, Restaurants
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The next time you’re at a theme restaurant—perhaps a Hard Rock Café, Jekyll & Hyde Café, Johnny Rockets, Medieval Times or Planet Hollywood—remember David Tallichet, the founder of the genre.* He passed away last month at age 84, and his story was told recently by The Wall Street Journal. Back in the 1960s, he designed restaurants as Polynesian islands, New England fishing villages and French farmhouses barricaded with sandbags to protect against German bombardment (you’ll see why in a moment). His Proud Bird restaurant at the Los Angeles International Airport had headphones at each table so diners could listen to control-tower chatter. His company, Specialty Restaurants, grew to revenues of $185 million at its peak in 1980. Almost all of his restaurants were in Southern California.
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Medieval Times—the ultimate theme restaurant.
Where else can you eat with jousting knights and horses? |
| A Texan who piloted more than 20 B-17 Flying Fortress missions out of England during World War II, he stayed on active duty in the Air National Guard for a decade after the war. A later visit to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington inspired him to begin collecting war planes. He purchased or salvaged about 120 planes, going on expeditions to salvage wrecked or abandoned planes. He kept some and sold some to other collectors (so next time your significant other or roommate complains about your teapot collection…). In the early 1970s, the collection spawned a series of aviation-themed restaurants, 94th Aero Squadron, with a World War I-era setting. Since everyone wants to be famous these days, we’re waiting for the Red Carpet Restaurant, with “screaming fans” who beg for your autograph and “photographers” who snap bulbs as you walk up a long red carpet to the front door. You’ll get complimentary Champagne sent to your table from management (well, the cost will be included in the price of dinner) and “fans” that keep interrupting your meal for photos and autographs. Too bad that Mr. Tallichet, the king of Southern California theme restaurants, is no longer around to work on this one.*Other theme-oriented restaurants existed before then—for example, Trader Vic’s was founded in Oakland, California in 1934 and today has 30 restaurants worldwide. However, it began as a fine Polynesian restaurant with Polynesian decor. A theme restaurant, is one in which the food takes a back seat to the concept of the restaurant, and customers are attracted by the theme. |
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November 18, 2007 at 5:53 pm
· Filed under Gourmet News, Restaurants
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Grant Achatz flight of hearts of Palm at Alinea in Chicago. See the rest of the Cuisine Gallery at AlineaRestaurant.com. |
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If we won the lottery, we’d take our main squeeze and our four best friends on a tour of these top temples of cuisine, named by Forbes Magazine as the 12 most expensive restaurants in the world. Order the right wines, and your tab can double. We’ve been to four of them, and can attest that the cuisine is worth every penny. We’re starting our trip in California and working our way east around the world.
- CALIFORNIA (Napa Valley): The French Laundry. This small, modest wood building was once a French laundry. You can eat Thomas Keller’s nine-course tasting menu indoors, or, weather permitting, in the much lovelier garden, where some of the vegetables and most of the herbs you’ll eat are grown. The $240 tab includes gratuity. |
- NEVADA (Las Vegas): Joel Robuchon. M. Robuchon is perhaps the greatest chef we have been privileged to experience. We are both desirous and fearful of trying his Las Vegas venture—dying to see if the $360, 16-course tasting menu can be even 50% of what the great chef produced at Jamin in Paris, and fearful of carrying around the disappointment for the rest of our life if it isn’t 90%.
- ILLINOIS (Chicago): Alinea. We have been a huge fan of chef/owner Grant Achatz since his days at Trio in Evanston. But to show his kinship to the rest of this list, he worked as a sous chef at The French Laundry and as a crew member of El Bulli (see below). His $195 tasting menu, 24 courses, is reminiscent of his El Bulli mentor, Ferran Adrià.
- NEW YORK (New York City): Masa’s. Just a stone’s throw from THE NIBBLE offices, this sushi bar experience of a lifetime is described by the Forbes article as costing $400. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that is the bare bones minimum: there are a la carte extras suggested by Masa Takayama that you won’t want to miss. Thirty courses and four hours later, our tab was $600 per person. It money were no object, we would visit Masa more often, for delicacies we’ve never seen (or even heard of) before.
- CANADA (Montreal): Toque. We’re not sure how this restaurant got on the list: a seven-course seasonal menu is $92, $147 with wine, making this a pretty inexpensive option in this company. We could fly there and back for dinner and spend less than we spent at Masa, down the street from us. The locavore menu serves Quebecois-style entrees such as roasted guinea fowl, leg of suckling pig).
- ENGLAND (London): Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. The flagship restaurant of the brash but telegenic celebrity chef is tiny (just 44 seats) and elegant. The seven-course tasting menu here is $224—the priciest dinner in London. With all of his media and business interests, it’s highly unlikely that the main man will be in the kitchen.
- FRANCE (Paris): L’Arpège. We first dined here in 1989, and it was hot stuff then—but chef Alain Passard did not publicly condemn red meat in 2001. Fresh-picked greens from his organic garden 150 miles southwest of Paris are delivered every day in time for lunch service. You’ll pay $495 for the nine-course tasting menu—or more if we don’t shore up the dollar.
- SPAIN (Las Roses): El Bulli. Ferran Adrià is our hero. He invented molecular gastronomy (there would be no foams without him), and keeps pushing the button. The restaurant is only open six months of the year; Adrià and his spend the rest of the year inventing new dishes at their Barcelona “kitchen lab.” It may be the toughest reservation in the world, but the faithful will angle for them and pay $270 for the 30-plus course tasting menu.
- ITALY (Rome): La Pergola. A rooftop restaurant atop the Rome Cavalieri Hilton atop the highest hill in town, with views of St. Peter’s Dome. La Pergola is the only three-star Michelin restaurant in Rome (and the Cavalieri Hilton is the only three-star hotel-restaurant in all of Italy). Chef Heinz Beck’s nine-course tasting menu runs $285.
- INDIA (New Delhi): Bukhara. Specializing in tandoor cooking, entrées like marinated leg of spring lamb range from $28 to $50, which is huge in India, where an anesthesiologist earns $15,000 a year. And, pricey though the menu and location are, there’s no flatware unless requested: diners are encouraged to eat with their fingers, the local tradition.
- JAPAN (Tokyo): Aragawa. O.K., now we’re talking money. Warned that the tab would be at least $550 at this “exclusive but modest little steakhouse” in Tokyo’s Shinbashi District, we look forward to steak, steak and more steak, the only entrée. Kobe, sourced from only one local ranch, is served simply with pepper and mustard—and trust us, it needs nothing at all. One problem we anticipate: is there a No Smoking section?
- AUSTRALIA (Sydney): Tetsuya’s. An émigré from Japan, Tetsuya Wakuda has created the best restaurant in Australia, sporting innovation fusion cuisine. The degustation menu, a 10-course minimum, is $195. This wraps up our global restaurant safari, but we think we’ll stay in Sydney for a week to eat at Tetsuya’s a few more times. |
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October 26, 2007 at 4:44 am
· Filed under Gourmet News, Restaurants
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Our goat cheese Caesar salad by Uber Chef Michel
Richard was memorable…but the room by David
Rockwell Associates made it even more so. |
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Lunch fun, anyone? Through November 2nd, everyone in the Big Apple can take ephemeral joy in the pop-up restaurant concept from Bon Appétit magazine. Featuring fine casual cuisine from some of the nation’s top chefs, who also participate in daily demos and tastings, it’s a foodie vacation. Get to work early and break for a long lunch; watch the presentations as you enjoy your soup, salad and dessert. Or, just pop in for a quick sandwich or a cup of coffee and a brownie, and catch one 15-minute demo. Come back the next day for a completely different experience. If you can’t stay to watch, you can get your food to go. |
| The Café enables food enthusiasts to taste the casual fare of great chefs, see them give demos in an intimate arena, get up-close with Q&As and book signings. (The Supper Club portion is booked for private evening events). Each day, there’s a selection of noteworthy fare from chefs Govind Armstrong, Cat Cora, Emeril Lagasse, Giada De Laurentiis, Michael Mina, Michel Richard, and pastry chefs Claudia Fleming, Wil Goldfarb and Pichet Ong. There’s a free walk-around tasting on the balcony overlooking the room: Woodbridge Winery is pouring its current releases, Häagen-Dazs is sampling its excellent Reserve ice creams and Ghirardelli chocolate is offering Intense Dark chocolate line samples that go nicely with the Woodbridge reds. We had a great first day, and hope to get back as often as we can before the Café disappears into memory at the end of lunch on November 2nd. Pop in at 221 West 57th Street between Seventh Avenue and Broadway, weekdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Warning: the Daily Specials were sold out by 1 p.m., so earlier is better. For more information and a schedule of events, visit BASupperClubandCafe.com. |
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