Favorite night snack worldwide
Buzzfeed made a video with an overview of the most populair midnight snacks after going out. The Netherlands isn’t mentioned, what is our most populair drunken dish?
Buzzfeed made a video with an overview of the most populair midnight snacks after going out. The Netherlands isn’t mentioned, what is our most populair drunken dish?
The most northern part of North Holland gets its own local market under the name of ‘De Kroon van Holland’ (translated as The Crown of Holland) on 3 and 4 May . For tasty snacks from the region, local gems and local quality produce visitors can go to Anna Paulowna. During the weekend there are several demonstrations and workshops. There is for instance a BBQ workshop by Andy McDonald from ‘Echte Stokers’ in Schagen, Andrea van Lieshout teaches you how to create delicious dishes with Texel Asparagus and Ans van den Burg shows how to make real Wieringer Shrimp croquettes. Both Saturday and Sunday closes with a local produce dinner. Sign up for the workshops via www.facebook.com/kroonvanholland.
On 12 and 13 May 2014, the first Dutch fair by and for bartenders will be held under the title “The Perfect Serve Barshow”. The Westerliefde and WesterUnie in Amsterdam are the stage for seminars, tastings and competitions with ‘guest experience’ as communal interest. A sneak peek in the program shows that Steve Okhuysen, bartender and owner of Old Fashioned Cocktail & Absinthe Bar in Ghent, Belgium will tell about the mythical Absinthe and Andrew Nicholls will elaborate on the diversity, quality and versatility of rum with the Authentic Caribbean Rum label. See the full program here.
Not every restaurant is happy with guests who post food photos on Social Media. The photos are often blurry or improperly exposed whereby the dish looks unsavory. To give guests the opportunity to shoot professional photos, restaurant El Burro in South-Africa placed a portable light studio in the restaurant. Guests can choose various colored lights and once they have chosen the perfect mood lighting, they can take a photo and upload it on Instagram with #dinnercam. The device is developed by MWEB Wi-Fi network. Guests receive a free copy of their photo.
To promote the buffet, caterer Albron uses Magneet Visual® signs at Center Parcs. The sign works with a magnetized sub layer and a top layer with printed images on PVC-free foil that contain an iron coating. At Albron Center Parcs two layers of Magneet Visual® are used, one with a chalkboard-look, the second consists out of outline cut products that can be manually adjusted. The system is developed by BSB Reclame.
Ten Dutch top chefs will work together during the Gastromarket ‘Food from Heaven’ on Thursday 29 May and Friday 30 May. Ten top chefs from ten restaurant in The Hague will serve ten dishes at Michelin star level, in combination with music and a food market. Participating restaurants are: Zwetheul, Savelberg, Calla’s, Hanting, Brasserie NL, Savarin, Villa la Ruche, Des Indes, Pearl and Brasserie Brut. A ticket costs € 100,=, you can find more information here.
In May Haagen-Dazs will introduce two special ice cream flavors in Japan. The ice cream brand comes with the surprising flavors carrot-orange and cherry-tomato. These ice creams contain only 8.5 percent milk fat and are a lot healthier. We already know juices with the flavor carrot-orange so why not ice cream? With these flavors the brand responds to the current hype of healthy food.
Looking for a new job? Do you love brunching for free and Aperol Spritz? The ‘Aperol ® Brunch Society’ in America is looking for a new ‘Chef Brunch Officer’ (CBO). The CBO will visit several restaurant hotspots to taste the Aperol Spritz cocktail and makes sure the staff makes the right Aperol Spritz cocktail. The recipe: 3 parts Prosecco, 2 parts Aperol and 1 part soda. The CBO will visit restaurants twice every weekend, all summer long, gets a free brunch with friends and get paid for it! To apply, people need to upload an Instagram video of 15 seconds with #Brunchforaliving @AperolUSA and tell why they have to become the new Chef Brunch Officer. Click here to see a number of applications. Nice inspiration for restaurant owners: as restaurant you can invite a regular guests to taste new dishes.
To create a good image of a hotel, a video is often used. A great way to promote the hotel is by a drone, like the video above. A drone can capture angles and views of the hotel that couldn’t be captured before and is relatively inexpensive to use.
#Throwback Thursday. We started in August 2007 with horecatrends.com / hospitalitytrends.eu, in July 2009 we posted an item about the Slow Cow drink from Canada. This brand advertised with the slogan: “This can contains a one week vacation”. A drink with soothing ingredients to relax, so the opposite of energy drinks. The drink has been working since 2008 to conquer the world from Quebec, Canada. On their website, they even posted that the drink will be sold in more than 50 countries in 2025! So they do think that the world really needs to relax.
On 5 May people in Amsterdam eat together during the “Freedom meals”. In restaurants, parks, homes and on the streets of Amsterdam thousands of citizens share tables. Various organizations and initiatives connect people through food. There are five StreetDinners organized by Bite Me throughout the city, where fifty volunteers cook in ten kitchens and collectively serve it for the visitors of these local events. Next to that, a huge dinner is organized at the IJ (1000 pax) and in several other local dinners are organized in the districts, see this link (Dutch) for an overview.
In Utrecht there is a discovery center developed by ‘Initiatief Domplein’ together with the municipality of Utrecht and the ‘Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed’ (National Heritage Board). The DOMunder is located beneath the Domplein and it’s a place where visitors learn more about 2000 years of history through Roman, Carolingian, Romanesque and Gothic remnants in about 75 minutes. With a special flashlight, visitors can explore archaeological findings. The DOMunder is open for visitors from 3 June onwards.
In Rotterdam, the collaboration between Bjorn van Dijl and ‘Schmidt Zeevis Rotterdam’ resulted in culinary hotspot ‘Salt & Tasty’. The restaurant measures a hundred square meters and has a large outdoor terrace as well. Salt & Tasty is located opposite to the new Rotterdam Central Station, at the Kruisplein. The refrigerated display is daily filled with fresh fish by Schmidt Zeevis and there are various salads and sandwiches available in the restaurant.
Today, Earth Day is celebrated around the world. This day positive attention is requested for global issues surrounding nature, the environment and climate change. With the main focus on reflection and enjoyment. In the hospitality industry, we are seeing more and more examples of less food miles, organic and local products, but also the processing of ‘forgotten’ vegetables and meat such as rooster, goat and goose. In addition, we have the debate about whether or not to serve tap water (in Europe). Yet we still see that ‘special’ water is served from glaciers from the other side of the world ….. But you can also make “special” water in a simpler and more sustainable way. Last weekend I served my ‘special’ waters at our Easter dinner. Several courses, with each course another water. I just used tap water and added herbs, lemon , rhubarb and beetroot, depending on the taste of the dish. Nice and simple. And just like wine, it’s nice to see if the taste actually blends well with the food. The water with beetroot / lemon and mint tasted great with the starter of smoked eel and the water with rhubarb was very subtle which combined well with dessert. A nice sustainable gesture; the water from the tap and the herbs and vegetables from nearby! And even for those who do not drink alcohol, it’s a party! My suggestion for Earth Day.^Marjolein
Traders Hotels has launched its digital newsstand ‘PressReader’ in 15 hotels in Australia, Asia and the Middle East. Guest only have to connect with the Wi-Fi network and don’t need an account or log in. Through the ‘PressReader’ they get unlimited access to more than 2,500 global newspapers and magazines in 60 languages from 100 countries. They can read a newspaper or magazine at any time of the day, from anywhere in the hotel: a great gesture from to hotel to its guests.

The Great Wolf Lodge chain in the United States provides RFID wristbands to their guests. These were used as room keys and in-house charge accounts before. But nowadays, these wristbands can be used to transmit photos, taken at the so-called Paw Posts in the park, to a Facebook wall. Share your offline experiences online.

Spoontrip is an international platform for a variety of activities around gastronomy and wine. The webiste is based on a crowdsourced concept and offers everything from workshops to meet-and-greets to gastronomy-themed holidays.

The Hush Pod, designed by Freyja Sewell of the University of Brighton, is the perfect way to hide and escape in public spaces.

Before going on a holidaytrip, the question rises ‘what to do with the plants’? The Isla Azul shopping mall in Madrid understood that “serving is the new selling”, and offers visitors a hotel-service, Hotel Para Plantas, for your plants. During your holiday you can leave your plants at the hotel, and the they will take care of your plants.

Coffee biscuits inspired by the logo’s of a city or tourist spots, designed by Eleni Gianopulos.

After having checked all your lists, still forgot something to bring with you on vacation? No worries, the holiday department store is there for you in times of emergency. The store can be found found at various campingsites in France this year.

An amusing marketing campaign developed by ‘Access Agency’ with lifesize inflatable Mini’s at the beach. They are introduced with the clever slogan ‘ Going topless this summer’. Click here for more photos.

Looking for a taxi is becoming a lot easier. Through this Get Taxi-app you can order a taxi, see what the estimate time of arrival is and leave reviews behind. The app will be available in the UK, Israel, Russia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Check the video.

This handy water meter is directly mounted on the faucet or a bottle. The concept design is very useful in the kitchen and will save water. If the amount of liters could be fixed beforehand than it would be perfect.

Parmesan cheese shaped in a pencil with pesto, chili and truffles filling. The cheese can be sprinkled over the food with the included sharpner. The stripes on the ‘pencil’ measure portions and even Calories. Only disadvantage: the 500 sets were sold out in two weeks.

These solar light trees, designed by Omar Huerta, are not just installations of solar-powered street lights, but they grow plants on their branches as well by using a hydroponic system.

Chien Bleu Travel is, according itself, the first travel agent in the UK which is specialized in the real dog-friendly hotels, cottages and other stay accommodations. Dogowners can consult this travel agent for the several accommodations, but can request whole packages as well.

A stylish coffee maker with cup dispenser. Designer Sueng Jun Jeong makes ‘traditional’ coffee making at the office appealing again. The name P-Cup is a contamination of paper cup + pickup and paper cup dispenser + coffee maker.

Candy and snack maker Perfette Van Melle has introduced a new salty snack in India. The style of design would be noted as well in our supermarkets. Check the advertisement video.

The developers of Punchfork combine the strength of social media with delicious recipes. By searching various food blogs (like 101 Cookbooks, The Pioneer Woman, Epicurious, Serious Eats, Food Network and The Kitchn) and measure reactions they unveil the popularity of the recipes. The site is real time updated so new recipes are usually online in a few minutes.

If the question “What do we eat today?” is a daily ritual, check out these seven plates. They can provide direction with their characteristic shapes for specific meals. Designed by 5.5 Designers, who probably aren’t fan of sauces.

An eco tip for hotels; use the water supply as an energy source. This radio gets its energy from built in micro turbine.

The food trucks are very popular in America these days. With the use of Twitter and Facebook the (potential) customers are updated about the location of their favorite truck. Because these social media offer limited sales tools, CloudSource Labs has developed FoodTruck FastPass. This special Android app makes it possible to keep statistics, it allows to offer online ordering and supports group discounts.

50 fans of the Facebook of Domino’s Pizza and Ben & Jerry’s where invited for a family picknick. Both companies aimed to create a larger online community by organizing a lotery. During the picknick the fans got to to taste the new salads of Domino’s and the ice creams of Ben & Jerry’s.

Waste materials are used for this Tubohotel, located in Mexico, and features 20 hotelrooms transformed out of concrete pipes. This hotel is designes by architects of T3arc. The hotelroom consists of a queen-size bed, desk light and a van. The pipes don’t allow bathroom facilities, but they have created two communal bathhousses onsite which features private showers.

From Tuesday the 19th of July there is a weekly dinner club at Mediamatic with products that have passed the expiration date. The organizers want to create more attention for the use and misuse of expiration dates and therefore show that it’s possible to cook with products that otherwise would be thrown away. Bring expired products after RSVP and get in for free.

The website love.holland.com collects all online images from Twitter and Mobypicture that are tagged with, for instance, #love010, #lovebrabant or #lovemadurodam. Every photo with #love… is categorized per province, city or special place of interest. The website is developed to promote tourism in The Netherlands and lanched by ‘Nederlands Bureau voor Toerisme & Congressen’ (NBTC) and Mobypicture.

GO Marketing is designing and developing a floating island in the harbour of Rotterdam in corporation with IOU Architecture. The island features two floors that measure a total of 1.700m2. It will offer visitors a swimming pool, whirlpool, park, restaurant, sauna, Turkish steambath and more. The island is mobile, made of recycled materials and provided with the latest energy saving technologies.

Refilling your water bottle for a better environment. That is the idea behind the Hydration Stations on the international airport of San Francisco, passengers can find behind the security checkpoint. This is introduced by Virgin America to reduce the plastic bottles handed over to the security agents. Virgin America swag shop offers special branded water bottles.

CityLemon is a new online restaurant guide, where you can find the most unique restaurant concepts, compiled by website users, locals and several bloggers. Of both Dutch and European cities, a restaurant top 10 is represented. But no more than 25 restaurants per city can be found on the website.