Feed your appetite with food search suggestions
25-3-2015
Suggesto.be is based on a simple principle. On this website you have an online overview that makes the menus, dishes, breakfasts and brunches of the affiliated restaurants accessible. Those who fancy a particular dish, can get food search suggestions from the website and find restaurants that match their appetite.
Food search suggestions based on your appetite
Tim Prys, initiator of suggesto.be: “It is more than just an online menu. The suggestions of restaurants you don’t always find online. Those menus become very accessible on my website. Today it is a must to inform people about what you have to offer, without having to consult dozens of individual websites. Currently a large number of restaurants and brasseries in Hasselt are part of my project. However, the intention is to expand to (Belgian) Limburg and Flanders on the short term. The period in which we achieve these objectives depends, of course, on the growth of users.”
Prys is convinced that Suggesto.be has the potential to become an indispensable tool. “The feedback from both the restaurants and the users is very positive.”
Inspiration: we have often indicated the importance of the accessibility of your menu. It seems strange that these are often hidden in PDF format on most restaurant websites. This young Belgian startup puts these data in the spotlight. You can contact Tim Prys through tim.prys@suggesto.be
Going to the loo is a party at the Toilet Xperience!
25-3-2015
At the festival ‘Extrema Outdoor’ visitors can enjoy the ‘Toilet Xperience’ this summer. Going to the bathroom in a small festival village, with the accompanying animation.
Scoop toilet Xperience during the festival Extrema Outdoor
Visitors of Extrema Outdoor (Houthalen (Belgium) from 22 to 24 May 2015), will be able to enjoy the Toilet Xperience. It’s the first festival in the world to host the Toilet Xperience. Visitors will receive a VIP treatment, with the cleanest toilet seats, 3D images in the toilet cubicle, urinals that turn into a video game, so you can play a game with your urine! In addition, you can buy small festival gadgets. All this in an odorless and silent space. Visitors of this festival are the first place to enjoy this Xperience and no longer need to use dirty and smelly rows of toilet booths. After Extrema Outdoor the Toilet Xperience travels around Europe.
Signature cocktails or mocktails, with a spoonful of jam
24-3-2015
Are you already busy determining your terrace menu? Will you serve the popular cocktails and their non-alcoholic alternative, the mocktail? It might just be the 2015 hit, bartenders on the terrace shaking signature cocktails and mocktails. Latest trend in cocktails: serve a spoonful of preserves with your cocktail.
Cocktails and mocktails are hot
This past year we especially noticed a rise in the cocktails with beer in America. But mocktails are on the rise in popularity as wel. Women like to quietly sip on a cocktail and for girls who aren’t allowed any alcohol yet, a mocktail is a delicious and trendy alternative.
Various liquor brands invest in bringing cocktails to the crowd, last year we spotted the cocktail truck from Grey Goose Vodka for example. This is the most intimate cocktail bar in the world on four wheels (a Citroen H van) and part of an advertising campaign.
A cocktail with a spoonful of jam
The jam cocktails are being served in Madame Geneva, one of the most popular cocktail bars of New York City. It’s located in the back of restaurant Saxon + Parole of chef Brad Farmerie. According to the guys behind Tasting Table, the cocktails with jam aren’t even on the menu but they are so popular that the bartenders often make them on request. They are simple to make, vodka, sugar syrup and lime juice with a spoonful of jam to top of it. The jam taste is up to you, ‘choose your own sweetness adventure’. Because of the thicker consistency of the preserves, you’re able to decide whether you want to sip your cocktail quite sweet (keep stirring) or just only dip the jam, making the taste of the vodka more important. Take a look for a recipe by bartender Brett Hughes (working at Madam Geneva) at the website of Tasting Table.
That’s one way to avoid taking the stairs, take the slide!
24-3-2015
Rapidly from the second floor to breakfast? At The RedDot hotel in Taiwan you can take a slide! Hotel guests go back to their childhood, smiling on their way down.
The slide in the RedDot Hotel
General Manager Stephen Wu of the RedDot hotel in Taichung City invented the slide, inspired by the open slides at Google headquarters. Costs: 100,000 US dollars for the 30-meter stainless steel tunnel slide. The slide consists out of 102 stainless steel parts! Watch the video for more great details in the RedDot hotel like the barber chair in the lobby and the neon lights art… Which hotel in The Netherlands is going to install a slide?
Dutch Street Food app
20-3-2015
‘Reizende Sterren’ introduces a street food app for the Netherlands. Soon the food trucks and festivals throughout the Netherlands can be found through the street food app.
The ‘Reizende Sterren street food app’ provides an overview of Dutch street food
entrepreneurs, food trucks and other mobile kitchens. The recent pilot with food trucks by the municipality of Amsterdam shows that it’s the perfect timing for such an app. In addition to visibility at festivals and events, users of the app can see where food trucks are located in the city, at designated spots on the street.
The launch of the ‘Reizende Sterren street food app’ will take place in May 2015
The street food app for consumers
• Free to download from the App Store (Apple & Android)
• Overview with foodtruck entrepreneurs, product information and their signature dishes
• Push notifications of promotions, recipes and tickets
• Current events calendar
• Information about festivals, markets, events, parties, permanent pitches
• Real-time locator with GPS
• Link with social media
• Consumers rating system
Statistics Data
With a consumer rating system within the app, it is possible to collect valuable data about consumer behaviour and appreciation that can help in the development of street food in the Netherlands. The street food app will collect data from every festival / event / food truck and ‘Reizende Sterren’ will provide an annual (public) overview of relevant information via an online analysis map.
The Happy Pig Pancake Shop
20-3-2015
The Happy Pig Pancake Shop is a unique store in downtown Amsterdam. In the shop you can find pancakes and Belgian waffles made from certified organic ingredients that are freshly cooked.
The Happy Pig Pancake Shop: Shop with breakfast bar
In the shop they make good old-fashioned Dutch pancakes and Belgian waffles with delicious fillings and toppings. The focus is on certified organic ingredients. Cooks prepare your dish right in front of you. Besides the pancakes and waffles they also serve organic coffee, tea, chai latte, hot chocolate and fresh orange juice. They have a breakfast bar, and if the weather is nice, you can sit on one of the benches outside. Of course you can also have your pancake for take-away as well. In the shop you will find organic snacks, drinks, coffee, honey and chocolate.
The Happy Pig Pancake Shop in Amsterdam
Andrea Steinmetz, owner of The Happy Pig Shop, at the Rosmarijnsteeg in Amsterdam, notes that it is very busy since the shop opened in October last year. She has especially noticed that reviews on TripAdvisor have much effect on the people coming in. On her website she placed a prominent button from TripAdvisor:
Bravo: The Happy Pig Pancake Shop Amsterdam rated “excellent” by 25 travelers.
Our colleague Armand Sol experienced the influence of TripAdvisor himself recently, he wrote a blog about it (in Dutch). Inspiration: Is your business established in an environment where international guests pay a visit, ensure that are good reviews on TripAdvisor. A friendly request for a review can provide new guests though this channel.
3D printed snack with edible soil
19-3-2015
Project designer Chloé Rutzerveld creates a bridge between new production and traditional cultivation with the “Edible Growth” project. The 3D printer produces a food soil. Printing food with a 3D printer is not new anymore but printing edible food soils with seeds and spores is. The soil and the seeds and spores grow into living edible balls.
Edible growth
Rutzerveld studied Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE). For the Edible Growth project she works together with the TUE and knowledge institute TNO. The technology is still in development, the software, hardware and assembling the ingredients has yet to be optimized. Edith Growth, however, has had a lot of international attention.
The technology is used to optimize the natural processes and to make the soil and plants grow together into the final product. During the growth the structure, smell and taste changes and intensify. Like, for example, a blue cheese.
3D printed snack with the edible soil
It’s a new way of producing food that connects nature, technology, science and design. The whole food chain will reduce considerably and the concept brings consumers closer to their food. It facilitates growth and reduces the ecological footprint with less food miles, it also reduces waste and freshness is in your own hands.
Cold coffee from a bottle
18-3-2015
Jits Krol and Robert Nijhof penetrate the hospitality industry with their Batavia Dutch cold coffee. The cold brewing method from the Dutch East India Company era is now also available in a bottled series.
Jits: “In June 2014, we quit our jobs to enter a world full of specialty (ice) coffees. Batavia Coffee is a company with only one mission; To transfer our passion for Dutch Coffee to the Dutch people. ”
The cold coffee method
The method owes its name and origin to Dutch traders in the Dutch East India Company era. The brewers made their coffee with cold water back in the days, to make it sustainable and to cool off in the tropics. With this method they introduced coffee in North East Asia, where Dutch Coffee is still very popular.
Origin
Alike wine the origin of the coffeebeans has an influence on the taste of it. Coffee has a lot of diversity in taste influenced by the region where the coffee is grown, the climate and the type of plants used.
Diversities
The Batavia Coffee is available in three variants. An Ethiopian Limu (with hints of chocolate, caramel and citrus), the Colombian Santuario (a powerful and spicy coffee where nuts, roasted peanuts and flowers can be distinguished) and the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (a fruity coffee which has hints of melon and passion fruit).
Ingredients
The ingredients for a good Dutch Coffee are quite simple. Ice cold water and freshly roasted and ground coffee. Sugar, dyes, or E numbers are not needed, the coffee is naturally sweet and can be stored for 4 months if refrigerated.
Book about wine adventures + B(u)y the Barrel
13-3-2015
Jacqueline van Liere, owner and wine-food-specialist of restaurant & foodbar SchultenHues (*) in Zutphen (The Netherlands), is going to write a series of wine books, together with wine importer Robert Benier. The series is called ‘The Great World of Amazing Wines’ and Jacqueline and Robert write about their travels around the world and they show us the amazing world of wine. During the journey, big chefs will be visited, to prepare and taste the most favorite wine-parings with them. Back in Zutphen, the wine will be tasted with Peter Gast (chef and owner of restaurant & foodbar SchultenHues), friends and colleagues.
In the first book of the series a dish of Peter Gast will be combined with a few wine-discoveries. Besides that pretty pictures, rare wine pairings and a great story about the wine-maker Martin Steinmann.
B(u)y the Barrel
Jacqueline and Robert are going a step further…. They want you to taste along with their discoveries! That’s why they create their own, quirky, wine in every country they will visit. They create the wine with one of the nicest and best winemakers from that country. There will be created one rare ‘barrel’, which has maximum of 600 bottles. These rare bottles are exclusive available. The first wine is made of the Chardonnay grape and are vinified on the Schloss Sommerhausen in Franken, Germany. Created by Jacqueline, Robert and Martin Steinmann. There are different offers, such as one of a bottle + book but you can also order 6 bottles. You can find the offers here.
Popup Melksalon
13-3-2015
A milk bar (de MelkSalon) will pop up in Amsterdam. The MelkSalon is a temporary pilot and design room where the value of milk will be rediscovered. From 1 to 30 April at the Oude Spiegelstraat 6.
The Melksalon brings consumers, dairy farmers, dairy processors, designers and scientists together, to rediscover the value(s) of milk. Amongst other things they will organize lectures, design sessions, movie nights and walking tours. The full program is available here (unfortunately only in Dutch). With as highlights some Milk Talks and design sessions under the guidance of experts, an Old Amsterdam Milk Tour and some dinners with catchy titles such as Milk Unchained! And Milk Multi Culti! The dinners are in cooperation with Gilbert Kolff. The pop-up Melksalon is both a shop and a milk bar where you can walk in to taste special kinds of milk.
Why a Milk bar?
Around 1900, the streets of Amsterdam knew many milk parlors, where inhabitants could buy a glass of milk of local farmers. Today we buy milk in the supermarket, but milk still holds an important role in the Dutch history, (food)culture, economy, innovative spirit and in the countryside. Yet, many know little of this rich influence of milk. Milk in the supermarket has become an anonymous bulk product. At the same time there is a strong public debate about the consumption of milk, the impact on the environment and landscape, and the price one pays for it. With the pop-up MelkSalon they want to remove milk from the anonymity, and start a dialogue about the meaning of the product for our culture and society.
The pop-up Melksalon is an initiative of Sietske Klooster and Food Cabinet and is supported by the Dutch Dairy Association, The Milk Story, Triodos Foundation and the Committee Agricultural Innovation North Brabant.
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