Megabites vs. Megabytes

Late last week, Serious Eats posted an interesting article inspired by Eater, which was in turn inspired by a decision made by the owner of a NYC restaurant to ban photography inside the restaurant.

I have to admit that I’ve never personally had the Prairie oysters to be able to take photos of my meals in restaurants, but I’ve never really had a problem with others doing so (where else would all of the great restaurant-based food porn come from?).

UPDATE: Serious Eats has now posted a great follow-up article culled from CHOW’s Table Manners column, “How to Politely Take Food Photos in Restaurants.”  It includes this sage advice:

 

Don’t use flash, don’t move around the table too much, and don’t take so many photos that the dish’s temperature drastically changes by the time you get to eat it.

Sounds about right to me!

Brunch = brutal + lunch

Hidden in a sidebar to last Saturday’s G&M feature, “Brunch is hell” were Ivy Knights’ fantastic tips on “Being a better bruncher,” which included:

• Sticking with the menu,
• Ordering all drinks in one go,
• Making a reservation,
• Arriving all together (if in a group), and
• Ordering brunch like you would dinner, ie: with appetizers.

Great tips for customers, but if you’re looking for the real scoop on why “brunch in Toronto (is) so brutal for patrons and servers alike,” you’ll have to read the full story.   It includes some great quotes from restaurateurs and their staff, culminating with Brad Long’s over-the-top description of one particularly heinous brunch experience that would be very funny if it wasn’t also very likely true.

You can’t spell “flair” without “air”

Can you believe it’s been nearly three months since the 2009 CRFA Show? Nope, me neither.

As part of my nostalgia-tripping, I found this vid on YouTube, featuring the team from BartenderOne, who helped keep things hopping on the Cocktail Stage along with the legendary Dale DeGroff:

On BartenderOne’s main page I also came across a video posted just today, featuring a pretty neat contest in addition to some kick-glass flair moves. Here’s that video (if you have any difficulties getting it to play, just click on the “view on HD” icon that should pop-up in the lower right portion of the screen):

UPDATE: You can now access more info about the contest via these two links: bartenderone.com/competitions and bartenderone.com/vegasthrowdown.

BartenderOne’s Rob Montgomery, as you might recall, is the master mixologist behind CRFA’s Behind Bars. Check out his latest recipes today.

Soups, salads and apps feeling left out

A report recently released by Technomic in the U.S. reveals that Americans as less willing to order “from the left side of the menu” — namely, appetizers, soups and salads.

Some interesting facts from the May 21 news release:

• Nearly 60% of consumers are not fully satisfied with the variety of appetizers on the menu at full-service restaurants
• When asked for suggestions, 40% said they’d like to see more ethnic soups offered , with a focus on Asian and Mexican flavours
• Size also matters — four out of five (82%) indicated that appetizers should be shared, and 61% said that portions should be large enough to do so

A bigger questions is what motivates consumers to order appetizers in the first place.  According to Technomic’s Darren Tristano:

To justify spending on items from the left side of the menu, (consumers) want more value — dishes with unique flavours they can’t make at home, or are large enough to share or eat as an entrée.

I think my innate desire to see the underdog triumph means that I’m going to have to order a big salad for dinner tonight.

Pigging out in Chicago …

Serious Eats just posted a neat article about the 2009 National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show, which was held in Chicago last-last weekend (May 16-19).

The article takes a close look at some of the new products, equipment and gadgets that were on display at the show, and references the challenging economic environment the U.S. foodservice industry is facing.  To give you just one taste of how different things are on different sides of the border, this year’s CRFA Show saw a slight boost in attendance while the NRA Show saw attendance slide 24%.  But as the writer notes:

Despite the obvious impact of the economy, I was still blown away by the NRA Show. The variety of products was staggering. Sure, some of them are unnecessary and easy to mock, but if even a fraction of them help restaurants improve the quality of their food, then we all get to reap the benefits.

I do have to say that it was pretty cool to read that the writer’s favourite new product was the Pig Out Spit Roaster — a Canadian invention that made its debut at our show back in March.

Now if we could just land ourselves that seventh NHL team …