Environmental friendly food carts – lessons from the food truck scene in NYC
20-5-2015
The green MRV100 food cart from the company Move Systems, is coming to the streets of New York City this summer. The new food cart is cleaner, more quiet and the unit runs on compressed natural gas with a solar panel providing supplementary power. The food cart has the ability to charge from the electrical grid. It’s equipped with a point of sales system including the ability to pay by credit card and has electronic inventory control. The cart is equipped with a restaurant-quality kitchen with better refrigeration facilities than typical at most food trucks.
If you have ever been to New York City in the past, you will remember the great ‘dirty water’ hotdog carts with the pretzels and in more recent years the famous food trucks. There are as many as 8.000 mobile food vendors, serving all kinds of street foods. Most of these food trucks are relatively old-school. The vendors are cooking with propane gas and their trucks are diesel-powered dirty and noisy verhicles.
Lessons from the food truck scene in NYC
Amsterdam is just allowing the first food trucks in the city and food truck festivals like TREK are getting more and more popular. This might be the best time to start working with new, sustainable, food trucks. We recently spotted another new generation food truck by Peugeot, which will be present at the French Pavilion during the World Expo Milano 2015. Before we spoil Amsterdam with the charming but polluting food trucks, let’s look at more sustainable alternatives.
Pimento: ginger, chili, lime, tonic, no alcohol and refreshing!
18-5-2015
Pimento – they say you have to take a sip and experience the surprise of ginger and the shock of chili. Pimento is a unique and innovative beverage made in France.
It has a strong taste like an alcoholic drink, yet it contains no alcohol. It is low in sugar, very spicy and full of taste. The chilli peppers come from Jamaica and the ginger from China and Ivory Coast (Africa).
Mixing with Pimento
Plenty of bartenders have created cocktails with Pimento. The recipes are described here.
The main uses are as follows: Neat (on the rocks with lime) / Mixed with fruit juices / Spice Beer (Pimento + beer) / (Virgin) Spicy Mojito (Pimento to replace the sparkling water) / Hot Mule (Pimento + Vodka + lime) / Spicy ‘n’ Stormy (Pimento + dark/spiced rum + lime + Angostura) / Hot Bomb (Jägermeister + Pimento).
The drink seems to be especially delicious mixed with a dark rum and lime. Rums such as Captain Morgan, Sailor Jerry, Gosling, Brugal or Kraken are currently very on-trend throughout the world and their flavours are really enhanced when mixed with a good ginger beer. But it’s also a great mixer with Jägermeister, vodka or gin. Pimento is bottled in Saverne (near Strasbourg in eastern France) by La Licorne (Karsbrau – Karlsberg Group), one of the biggest French breweries. Their head office is located in Paris. In the Netherlands the beverage is sold through La Source.
Bonaire’s beer is here: Bonaire Blond!
18-5-2015
Bonaire Blond is island inspired and brewed with ingredients of Bonaire. The pale beer has a fresh hint of lime and an aromatic spiciness from Aloë Vera flowers that grow at the local Onima Aloë Vera Plantation.
Bonaire Blond
Bonaire Blond is an artisanal brewed pale beer with a double fermentation in the brewing process and a third fermentation on the bottle. The pale beer is made from Barley malt only and has a light yellow-gold colour. Bonaire Blond is fresh, tasteful and the only Bonairian pale beer with character. This beer has aged at least four weeks longer than normal, which enhances the flavour in every aspect.
Another great initiative from the owners of Restaurant At Sea
Bonaire Blond is an initiative from the owners of Restaurant At Sea (watch their story here), who thought it was a deficiency that the island did not have its own beer. Consumers responded very positive and therefore, they have decided to sell it at other places as well. The beer is now exclusively available at Jibe City Hang Out Beachbar, Little Havana, La Cantina and Restaurant At Sea.
In 2014 the owners of Restaurant At Sea launched a commercial for their own At Sea Cornetto.
New disposable packaging for wine: the Flex Keg
15-5-2015
The new disposable packaging Flex Keg for wine casks is a durable solution for any caterer. The Zeddams Wijnhuis in the Netherlands has developed a disposable container that is fully recyclable and lightweight.
The market for wine on tap is growing fast in the Netherlands. Until today the draft wines were always delivered in steel casks. According to Eddie Kempers, creator of the new packaging, it is about time for a disposable container that is completely recyclable and lightweight. “Compared to the new Flex Keg, steel casks have the disadvantages of weight, returning for deposit, risk of theft and high CO2 emissions in transport”, he says. “The new Flex Keg was born after two years of intensive research.”
The Flex Keg
The Keg Flex consists of a sturdy cardboard box that contains a plastic vacuum bag of 20 liters. The packaging is entirely made of recycled materials. The Flex Keg weighs only 800 grams and can be folded completely flat after use. The PET upper and lower lid and the plastic bag are recyclable plastic waste and the cardboard is recyclable paper waste. Sales Director Erik Zwart sees tremendous opportunities for the hospitality industry; “The savings on waste is huge, 27 bottles of wine aren’t used instead of the Flex Keg. This has an equivalent of 8 to 10 kilograms of glass waste!”
The wine from the Flex Keg
Zeddams Wijnhuis offers the Flex Keg with a choice of 6 accessible, recognizable wines which they import from Italy and Spain themselves. “In these countries the transport costs are low, which you can see back in the price per liter. The reseller will notice this directly.”, Erik Zwart says. The wine will have the same constant quality in the Flex Keg, there is no chance of oxidation because of the special packaging. The wine will stay perfect for 12 weeks after opening. With the method used you will never taste cork or find other impurities in the wine. In most cases is it possible to connect the Flex Keg to existing beer and wine tap installations, and no CO2 or nitrogen is needed! Zeddams Wijnhuis also supplies dispensing systems that can be tested for a trial period of two weeks.
Pair music with food and activate the fifth sense
12-5-2015
Former chef Barbara Werner wrote a book about pairing music with food and runs Musical Pairing pop-ups. She shows you how to create the perfect bite by combining all 5 senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.
Only BYOH at this event where they pair music with food
(BYOH) Bring Your Own Headset and Barbara Werner will teach you the essentials in assigning a numerical value to the food (FPN – Food Pairing Number) based on a mathematical formula. FPN is based on the primary ingredient (protein), the richness of the sauce, the weight (cooking method) and the heat index. You then find an equal numerical value in a musical piece (MPN – Musical Pairing Number), which is based on the following: primary instruments (musical family), beat, tempo and genre category.
What do you get when FPN = MPN?
For example: hot and spicy Mac & Cheese with as music: Coolio Gangsta Paradise. Vanilla ice cream with Pachelbel’s ‘Canon’. Tuna ahi with The Go Go’s or filet mignon with Pavarotti. Just BYOH to Barbara’s pop-up and enjoy all five senses. There’s also an app and a book on this subjet. A video of a pop-up get-together is to be seen here.
Spotted at a list of pop-up restaurants at the website of Fodor.
Pinkyrose: cool lemonade as non-alcoholic alternative
7-5-2015
Pinkyrose, the flamingo brand, is a fresh handmade syrup. No artificial substitutes like conservatives and preservatives are added. The juice, the spices, the herbs and the secret are all-natural and squeezed by hand. Great non-alcoholic alternative on your summer menu.
Cool lemonade in industrial oil tins
With more than 20 years of gastronomic experience, the Pinkyrose-chef was able to create four distinctive flavours: Straight Lemon, Spiced Lemon & Rose, Dark Caramel Sea Salt and Floral Ginger & Orange. Pinkyrose is the perfect basis for a sparkling soda, lemonade or cocktail. The syrups are delivered in nice industrial oil tins with great labels, recognisable by the famous flamingo and the handwritten flavour-signature.
The flavors of the fresh handmade lemonade
Straight Lemon tastes like taking a dip in fresh, flowing water on a hot summer day. A sweet and tart syrup with lemon and lemon grass.
Spiced Lemon & Rose tastes like taking a stroll in a Thai rose garden. A fresh and spicy syrup with rose-petals, red pepper and oriental spices.
Dark Caramel Sea Salt tastes like an exotic snack. A sweet salty syrup with caramel, sea salt and original spices like nutmeg and cinnamon.
Floral Ginger & Orange tastes like your favourite summer festival. A wonderful sweet and floral syrup with orange, various types of ginger and lavender.
Pinkyrose, fresh & serious syrups
Pinkyrose was born in 2013. The chef and the designer were looking for a non-alcoholic alternative. They decided to combine their gastronomic and creative forces to offer a titillating alternative.
The ‘Scoff-ee Cup’ by KFC
7-5-2015
KFC in the UK has unveiled the first edible coffee cup. It’s called the ‘Scoff-ee Cup’. The cups are currently under development but most probably available from this summer onwards.
The ‘Scoff-ee Cup’ is made from biscuit, wrapped in sugar paper and lined with a layer of white chocolate. The chocolate keeps the coffee hot and the cup crispy. The biscuit slowly softens as the chocolate melts which it does in the mouth and not in the hand. The ‘Scoff-ee Cups’ will mark the launch of KFC’s Seattle’s Best Coffee (made from fairtrade Arabica beans) across England. We did spot edible coffee cups before, like the milk & cookie shots by Dominique Ansel.
Food scientist created the ‘Scoff-ee Cup’
Food scientists The Robin Collective created the edible cup in partnership with KFC. The cups are also infused with different scents (Coconut sun cream, freshly cut grass and wild flowers), that are known to improve your mood. And that together with a great coffee, there’s no better way to start your day!
GPS-Bottles leads finders to the Heineken experience
6-5-2015
Amsterdam’s Heineken Experience has littered GPS-enabled beer bottles through the city which can lead curious residents and tourists to the beer museum.
Anyone picking up one of the bottles around Amsterdam will feel the bottle vibrate and see the cap light up as it activates. The in-built compass and rotating cap will then guide the finder through the city directly to the Heineken Experience.
GPS-bottles instead of flyers
The idea is to boost the visitors to the branded museum, which saw 730,000 visitors last year. Heineken teamed up with JWT Amsterdam to attract more visitors to their brewery. The custom-made Heineken bottles had an integrated GPS system designed to lead people who picked them up back to the Heineken Experience brewery.
Dirk Lubbers, manager of the Heineken Experience, said: “Handing out flyers is not very Heineken, so we wanted to play on the brand’s famous inventiveness, wit and pioneering spirit and create something that stands out for potential visitors. Our key differentiator is that we invite each visitor on a cultural and historical journey, enabling them to interact with the brand. This initiative is a great representation of our approach: innovative, dynamic, surprising, and always leave you with unforgettable memories.”
Grandma’s dishes served in pop-up restaurant
4-5-2015
Oma’s (Grandma’s) pop-up restaurant is a restaurant serving traditional Dutch dishes. The dishes are prepared by enthusiastic seniors who still have energy and want to remain active. Benefit: reintegration of elderly and guests can enjoy meatballs, green beans and other traditional Dutch dishes.
Six Commercial Economy students from Hogeschool Rotterdam came up with the idea to establish a pop-up restaurant for seniors. Nowadays the loneliness of seniors is a big social issue and that’s why the students chose to do something about it. The idea is that the seniors will make their traditional meals which will be served in the restaurant.
Grandma’s dishes
Grandma’s soup, meatloaf or stew, who hasn’t got a fond memory of eating that particular great dish from grandma? At Oma’s pop-up in Rotterdam, guests can taste these delicious and traditional Dutch dishes. These dishes were prepared by seniors that mostly cook only for themselves and love to create more social contact this way.
A day full of activities
The seniors will have a day full of activities at the Saturday that they make their dishes. There will be a workshop by a professional chef and in the evening the seniors are preparing the dishes. These dishes will be served in the restaurant and after a nice meal the guests will get the opportunity to visit the kitchen and have a conversation with the seniors. Maybe even swap recipes! The six students are hoping that after this day, the people involved will maintain contact with each other.
Ideal white shirt for restaurants
1-5-2015
A white shirt that can’t be harmed by dirty stains! Really? Elizabeth & Clarke, the producers of ‘The Unstainable™ White Shirt, ensure coffee or red wine stains are history with the shirt. Besides that, it also perfectly fits every (women) body shape.
Every now and then there are some projects on Kickstarter that gain the money needed fast and exceed it by far. The Unstainable™ White Shirt’ is one of those projects. It looks like the ideal shirt to wear when working. Especially when you are clumsy and regularly get stains on your shirt 😉
Made with nanotechnology
Because of the nanotechnology, all kinds of water and oil based products are kept off. Transpiration will even vaporize before it reaches the fibers. Water based products, oil based products and transpiration are easy to wash off.
Elizabeth & Clarke think they have invented an affordable and easily washable shirt, ideal for women. We are very interested in the cleanliness of the shirt in a real restaurant environment.
