Corn Cobs as yellow submarines
16-3-2015
The barbecue season is almost there and what tastes better than corn on the cob? The Spredo, a dual-purpose butter and salt dispenser is fun and easy to use. It makes your corn cob look like a little yellow submarine!
The Spredo is designed for corn cobs
The dual-purpose butter and salt dispenser is designed by Avichai Tadmor for Monkey business. It’s playful and designed for the Beatles fans ;-). The Spredo’s curved bottom is shaped to rest flush on a cob’s surface. It comes with two compartments: one at the bottom for the butter and another at the top for salt.
Art in the Plate
9-3-2015
On the occasion of Art Brussels (from Saturday to Monday 25 – 27 April at the Brussels Expo in Heysel), Bowery restaurant celebrates his passion for art. Chef Maxime Maziers and his team created an exclusive menu ‘Art in the Plate’, which will be available in a limited edition.
Restaurant & bar Bowery
Bowery Restaurant & Bar is located in the heart of Brussels and is part of the creative space of Smets Premium Store. A unique location that offers a mix of fashion, beauty, design, art and gastronomy. Bowery consists of three rooms with a refined and cosmopolitan decor combining design and contemporary art.
Maxime Maziers
Chef Maxime Maziers offers a modern, seasonal cuisine with special attention to the quality and flavors of the product. With passion, determination and sophistication Maxime Maziers brings these products to a higher level to offer his guests a gastronomic experience in the Bowery.
Art in the Plate
The limited edition is available on Friday 24 April and Saturday 25 April. As chef Maxime Maziers is as creative as the designers of the restaurant, ‘The Art in the Plate’ should be great! We are particularly interested in pictures of his dish ‘The Apple of Bowery’. So if you are near Brussels on these dates …..
Cooking at solar power with the GoSun
27-2-2015
GoSun is the portable solar cooker for your nature outings and picnics.
About the GoSun
The Gosun crowdsourced through Kickstarter is available now. The GoSun manages to integrate its sun-powered technology in a highly-portable form factor, making it convenient to bring along. Designed for environmentally-friendly cooking, the stove uses nothing but sunlight as fuel, allowing you to cook a variety of food items, provided the sun is peeking from the sky. But you can use it next to your barbecue to make bread or prepare vegetables.
The GoSun is 2 feet long with a 2.25-inch diameter, it’s clad in the shape of a tube. To use, you place the food inside the cylinder-shaped cooking chamber, open the lid wide, and face it towards the sun. The mirrors retain the heat from the sunlight it catches. The only obstacle for the use of the GoSun is no sun, which might make it a problem in The Netherlands. Up to three pounds of food can be cooked at a time. The GoSun can be used for steaming, baking, frying, roasting and boiling.
The GoSun is trying to break the cycle of poverty
The GoSun is trying to save lives, protect the environment and empower communities around the World. Today nearly 3 Billion people cook with dirty fuel sources, such as wood, dung or charcoal. As a result, the second leading cause of death on earth is smoke inhalation related illness. With every 5 device sold, the people behind the GoSun donate 1 device to change the way they cook at poorer parts of the world. Check this video about the stove and their plans.
Creating great meals in the GoSun stove
As you can see in the video above they asked well known chefs to help them with creating new dishes with the stove. In the video above, the famous chef José Andrés is working with the GoSun.
Instock Toko & Truck on the barricades against food waste
19-2-2015
Instock comes up with a new take away shop (Instock Toko) and a mobile food truck (Instock Truck) to reduce food waste. The first initiative of Instock, a pop-up restaurant in Amsterdam, opened in June 2014. Like in this pop-up restaurant, the food served at the Instock Toko & Truck are made from products that otherwise would be wasted.
Instock Toko & Tuck
At the new take away shop, Instock Toko, they will offer warm meals, salads, soups and juices every day. They don’t work with a standard menu as the meals are made from the harvest of the day. Customers help to reduce food waste by buying a meal at the Instock Toko. The take away shop will open the doors tomorrow (20 February 2015) in Amsterdam.
The Instock Truck is an old Mercedes Benz fire truck that has been turned into a green food truck. With this truck, the Instock team is able to make people aware of the food that is being wasted throughout the Netherlands. The food truck will be participating in several festivals this summer.
Food waste
Research shows that about 30 till 50 percent of our food is wasted. Throw away food does not only costs money, but also the energy consumed in the production, packaging, transportation and food preparation gets lost. Selma Seddik, Bart Roetert, Merel Laarman and Freke van Nimwegen, four employees of the Dutch supermarket chain ‘Albert Heijn’, came up with a plan to reduce food waste. While under employment at ‘Albert Heijn’ they got the opportunity to realise their plan. Now cars are driving along a number of AH supermarkets every morning. At those supermarkets they collect all the products that cannot be sold anymore, for example bread that’s one day old or fruit, vegetables and potatoes in a packages with damages. We wrote earlier about the pop-up restaurant, so if you want to know more about their pop-up restaurant, read this.
The Apothic Crush letter generator: you’re my crush for Valentine!
4-2-2015
Writing somebody a love letter for Valentine is difficult! But what if a pro did it for you, would you dare send it to your crush? As owner of a restaurant or hotel you could use the tactic this winery did! They made a limited-edition red wine called Apothic Crush and help with writing a love letter.
The Apothic Crush letter generator
The Apothic Crush Letter Generator is now online. So think about somebody you want to write a love letter and go to the Apothic Crush letter generator and answer a few simple questions. A computer operated by a handful of poets will take your longings, your emotions and deepest desires and translate them into an electronically delivered, handwritten letter you can give with a bottle of Apothic.
About the limited edition wine Apothic Crush
The people behind this initiative make wine. Red wine, more specifically, smooth-drinking limited-edition red wine called ‘Apothic Crush’. Tasting notes include: chocolate, caramel, luscious red fruit and endless possibilities to combine with food.
Inspiration
Why not create a possibility to have poets writing poems or love letters to go with an original invitation for a Valentine’s dinner at your restaurant or a night out in your hotel? Ask a couple of insights and create one of the greatest gifts you can give to your loved one, a poem or love letter.
The Crushi is crunchy sushi
12-1-2015
Jeroen van de Velde and Martijn Klein are the designers of Crushi. Crushi is sushi with a crunchy, tasteful layer.
Crushi
The crunchy sushi is a snack with fresh ingredients and has a low amount of calories. This makes the crunchy sushi a responsible choice. The crunchy sushi doesn’t contain artificial colours nor flavours.
Crushi is created at the kitchen of restaurant Inspired in Utrecht (The Netherlands), and is based on two different foodtrends: sushi and fingerfood. The crunchy sushi will be launched at the Horecava 2015 from 12 till 15 January. The California Crushi will be presented and consist out of: surimi, wakame and Japanese omelet. Later on there will be more varieties.
Restaurant recipes from Amsterdam at Bilder & De Clercq
9-1-2015
The restaurant recipes and ingredients from well-known Amsterdam restaurants are soon available at Bilder & De Clercq shops. From 22 January onwards the dinner-shops at the Clercqstraat and Ceintuurbaan will sell a new signature dish from a restaurant in Amsterdam. The step-by-step recipes come with the necessary ingredients measured in the right quantity.
Participating restaurants
The first three participating restaurants are Envy, Par Hasard and Americano Bar & Kitchen. The following participating restaurants that share one of their restaurant recipes are revealed after the launch. The shop creates a brilliant crossover with the Amsterdam restaurant industry and vice versa.
About Bilder & De Clercq
Bilder & De Clercq was set up by Roger Leopold and Diederik van Gelder. Both live in Amsterdam and daily had to contend with the question “what will I have for dinner tonight?”. Finding the right dishes and ingredients was a frustrating quest that they want to end for everyone with their shop.
Inspire with restaurant recipes
At the dinner-store it’s easy to get inspiration for the right dinner with 14 different dishes available, there is always plenty of choice. The right quantities are exactly measured. Each week, three new dishes are introduced and now monthly restaurant recipes with ingredients will be available as well.
Espressobar
Next to dinner inspiration, Bilder & De Clercq sells hand-made bread and a wide variety for breakfast, lunch and drinks as well. With a few tables and an espresso bar shoppers can enjoy a cappuccino with carrot cake while having a break.
The vending machine of the future
6-1-2015
The Luce X2 Touch TV vending machine uses facial recognition and could deny you an unhealthy snack if you gave the machine an insight in your medical records and the product could harm you. The future of vending machines in hospitals and schools and offices?
The future is near with this vending machine
The Luce X2 Touch TV vending machine is created by Italy-based Rheavendors and recently launched in the UK by Smart Vend Solutions, the machine features a touchscreen display to select an item just like a standard vending machine. However, customers with an account can go through a facial recognition check – to approve the snack (or not) before it’s delivered.
In the last two years, Rheavendors developed the facial mapping software for the machines to allow or disallow products based on the user’s age, gender or dietary needs. For example, if the machine is configured to identify an individual with a nut allergy, it will then prevent the user from ordering a particular item with traces of nuts.
Smart Vend Solutions managing director, Malcolm Standage, about the vending machine: “Now touch screen technology, cashless payment systems, Smartphone integration and automatic dispensing is shaping the future of the industry and we want Smart Vend Solutions to be positioned as a specialist in this marketplace. Through our exclusive partnership with Rheavendors, we are determined to explore unprecedented avenues and endless possibilities in vending. Launching the very first full production facial recognition technology represents an advancement which will bring unlimited benefits to businesses and consumers across the UK.” If you want to know more, contact their office.
Inspiration from Retail
10-12-2014
What could the hospitality industry learn from the ‘Future of Retail 2015’ report of PSFK? Rehab Studio Ltd. has made a video with a number of recommendations from the report. The recommendations include:
- Retailers will be challenged to create custom tailored experience for every shopper.
- They need to create the technical ability to embrace this personal experience.
- The stores will increasingly need to focus on the fact that they need to be a hub for community involvement. That’s one of their benefits over online shops.
- Checkout must be faster and more easy; paying mobile could just bring that!
Inspiration from retail to the hospitality industry
Especially for larger catering and fastfood companies there are a number of recommendations in the movie of the rehabstudio Ltd. that can be inspiring for the future. Could it work for you if you would receive personalized lunch suggestions by ‘La Place’ if you regularly eat there?
For restaurants in smaller villages, it is important to be the community hub. More and more services disappear from the smaller villages, so you could start operating as collect point for the mail, the dry cleaners and so on. As long as a large part of your potential guests does visit your restaurant on a regular base!
The catering is of course faced with new payment methods, such as paying by mobile. However, many bar, restaurants and café still only accept cash payments! The video ends with a hospitable gesture: home delivery of the groceries! Why doesn’t the hospitality industry turn this around… Why don’t they deliver a custom-made meal at the home of their guest?
Designer table StayAwesome No.1
1-12-2014
StayAwesome is a young company that is constantly searching for original products to produce and to launch on the market. In this way they would like to create an awesome lifestyle for people.
Designer table StayAwesome No.1
StayAwesome No.1 is a designer table that people can use at the park, in the garden but especially on the beach. For the design of the table, StayAwesome joined forces with designer Rogier Daamen. The designer table looks like there is a shovel stabbed in the sand. Besides that, the table looks original, the table saves a lot of space and makes sure that food and drinks do not end up in the sand.
Production
StayAwesome works together with Inmade, that is a producer within the prison system in the Netherlands. It is a factory located in Alphen a/d Rijn where prisoners are responsible for the production of StayAwesome No.1. The prisoners are given the opportunity to improve their lives. StayAwesome No.1 is currently the only one of its kind and soon available in their webshop.
