A Christmas tree on your plate
Inspiration for on the Christmas plate. Do you have special ‘Christmas’ dishes that you want to share with the visitors of Horecatrends? We love to hear from you! Send pictures to tip@spronsen.com.
Inspiration for on the Christmas plate. Do you have special ‘Christmas’ dishes that you want to share with the visitors of Horecatrends? We love to hear from you! Send pictures to tip@spronsen.com.
For building this large Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house, and amount of 7.200 eggs, 22.304 pieces of candy, 820 kg butter and 1360 kg sugar with a total of 36 million calories were used. The house is built by volenteers to raise charity for the St. Joseph Hospital in Texas and will be part of the Guinness book of records as the largest gingerbread house ever.
We recently received the press release ‘Christmas without bulging’ by the Diabetes Foundation. A study shows that the majority of the Dutch people are less eager to eat healthy in December. The Diabetes Foundation concluded this based on search trends in Google. In January people start Googling on ‘healthy recipes’ and ‘diet’ but in December those search terms are hardly used. According to the Diabetes Foundation, a missed opportunity, because delicious and healthy food at Christmas is possible indeed.
The director of the Rijksmuseum opened the light artwork ‘Lightbattle’ on December 12. In the bicycle tunnel of the Rijksmuseum, where hundreds of cyclists pass through every day, a red and a blue team can compete with each other during a battle. The cyclists colour all lights win. The winners get a spectacular light show. The Lightbattle uses the energy of the cyclists and can be viewed until January 19. The Lightbattle is an idea of Venividimultiplex and developed by InventDesign.
Uniqlo has introduced a new app with a combination of food, style and music. Six emerging chefs from the US have developed a total of 24 recipes with everyday ingredients and cooking techniques. The recipes are inspired by the autumn/ winter collection of the brand ‘LifeWare Philosophy’. Every chefs wears an outfit that features the colors and textures of the dish, the outfits can be purchased through the app. The app also has different cooking sounds and a timer.
A cheese lover? Then you should definitely visit eatery ‘Grilled Cheese Spot’ in Santa Ana, California. The eatery only serves sandwiches with grilled/ melted cheese. Ranging from Spanish Manchego cheese to Gouda cheese. You can make the sandwich the way you like. With the build-your-own-menu you first choose a type of bread, then a cheese, two types of toppings and optionally a sauce. You can also order a soup, potato chips and onion rings as side dish.
Hotel Mitland and Nimeto, a creative commercial intermediate vocational college, have a long collaboration history in Utrecht. Every year the Nimeto students decorate the hotel, restaurant and the bowling alley in Christmas atmospheres. Mister Wim Plijnaar is closely involved in the decoration, he is one of the four brothers that run the hotel. The example was suggested after a Tweet we sent about collaboration possibilities for hotels and garden centers for Christmas decoration.
Because of its 150 year celebration vermouth brand Martini opened a bar in fashion city Antwerp. The designers of Puresang created a room that is plastered in Mediterranean style, has a gold plated ceiling and organic structures that seem to blend in into each other. The design of the drinks menu is magazin-ish and will change regularly as a magazine is supposed to. See the pictures.
Want to serve a delicious cocktail during Christmas dinner or after? Baileys Chocolat Luxe asked three bartenders to create a winter cocktail with their beverage, they came up with the following. The “Rococo” was created by Bompas & Parr from England and is served in a highball with ice cream and raspberry. Liquor expert Missy Flynn from London came up with the “Chocolat Black Forest” and “Chocolat Mint” (with mint infused ice cubes). You can find all recipes here. Or turn a mojito into a Christmas mojito by adding a pinch of cranberry juice and cranberry’s. For the non-alcoholic cocktail lovers, Happy Drinks have some recipes on their site. Download our booklet ‘Christmas gestures‘ with more easily usable Christmas gestures.
This article is only available in Dutch.
‘Tosti Madness’ makes gourmet sandwiches. With the ‘Tosti Madness’ caravan and grill they visit festivals to serve the visitors fresh sandwiches made from organic and/or local products. They will also create a ‘Tosti Madness special’ with seasonal/region-specific products on request. They are always looking for new ways to prepare the sandwiches, such with a grill or on fire. ‘Tosti Madness’ also provides sandwiches to the hospitality business (mainly pubs) and provides catering. Last year they won the award for the best food truck concept during ‘Proefpark Haarlem’.
You go out for dinner with some friends but before you even know it everyone is playing with a smartphone, recognizable? Restaurant Abu Ghosh in Jerusalem started a campaign to reduce the use of smartphones during dinner. The owner Jawdat Ibrahim noticed that his guests were talking less with each other and were constantly distracted by their smartphone. Therefore guests are asked to turn off their phone during dinner. When they put off their smartphone they will receive 50% discount on their bill. Earlier we saw the ‘My phone is off for you’ campaign.
Cookie producer John Altman wants to crowdfund a total of € 9.000,- for an electric popcorn carrier tricycle. The tricycle is equipped with a mobile popcorn factory and will appear in Amsterdam parks and at events. The staff of the tricycle will consist out of ex-homeless people that reintegrate in the society with the help of the Rainbow Group. The crowdfund project has reached 78% of its goal and will close within 7 days.
During clarification of wine animal or plant protein can be used. Wine importer Yanflorijn focuses on importing wines that are free from the use of any animal products and serves vegetarian wine lovers with this proposition. In the near future Yannick Slagter and Floor Overgoor, founders of Yanflorijn want to grow their own vineyard in Holland.
Recently, a new joint opened up in New York City’s East Village that focuses solely on serving biscuits around the clock. You Americans reading this will probably think yummy, what a great idea! But for most of us Europeans it’s like, what is that? A cookie? No, biscuits are basically hearty scones that are traditionally served with fried chicken in the US. The founders of Empire Biscuit felt like this traditional side dish deserved some more limelight and opened up a 24 hours biscuit shop last month! At Empire Biscuit you can buy biscuits with many different fillings, depending on the time of day of course. This seems to spark a new battle in the cities’ culinary networks, because who makes the best biscuits? ^Leonie van Spronsen
With the new Vegman iPhone app you can search for vegetarian restaurants. Both the app as the community website are still under construction. At the moment there are over 1.100 restaurants in the database, 50 of those are in the Netherlands.
The Australian bar Shebeen, that will open soon, has developed a different way to donate for charity. Rather than requiring that patrons write a check or click through a donation site online, the bar simply asks that they drink an exotic beer or glass of wine. Each time they do, a donation is made to the beverage’s country of origin.
On Saturday 12 March, the first hundred percent biological fastfood restaurant ‘eat2Be’ in Holland has openend its doors. Eat2Be is a new concept with a menu that only offers biological products. It’s tasty, fast and responsible food in a modern and clean environment. Having a meal at eat2Be is good for yourself, good for the animals and good for the global environment.
The Australian bar Shebeen, that will open soon, has developed a different way to donate for charity. Rather than requiring that patrons write a check or click through a donation site online, the bar simply asks that they drink an exotic beer or glass of wine. Each time they do, a donation is made to the beverage’s country of origin.
The Australian bar Shebeen, that will open soon, has developed a different way to donate for charity. Rather than requiring that patrons write a check or click through a donation site online, the bar simply asks that they drink an exotic beer or glass of wine. Each time they do, a donation is made to the beverage’s country of origin.
A tram from 1927 is the new decor for the lunchroom ‘De Amsterdamsche Tram’ near the Amsterdam Sloterdijk station. The lunchroom wil open its doors the 11th of March.
Airbus Corporate Jet introduced a new cabin concept, called Phoenix, especially made for the Asian matket. The cabin contains a large circular table with six seatings and offers a karaoke area. Both aspects compose an imported part of the familial and business society of Asia.
Zite, a Canadian app for the iPad, is a personalized magazine, which automatically adapts to your whishes. Based on preselected subjects, Zite creates a custom build magazine with the news, movies, blogs, etc you are interested in. Also, Zite continues personalizing the magazine based on the newsflashes you read to create a tailor made magazine.
Running the same route every time will get boring after a while. That is why the Dutch women Willempje Prins and Leonieke Verhoog came up with figure running. By downloading this app you can create a figure while running.
On April 1st restaurant Niven Basics, the ‘little sister’ of restaurant Niven in The Netherlands, will open its doors. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays the space will be used for cookingclasses and Thursdays to Saturdays it is a restaurant. De formula is simple: guests can choose between two four-course menus for a fixed price of €37,50.
Illegal Burger, in Oslo opened in secrecy late last year. The fresh-looking burgerplace is only 43 m² and the heavily wood-paneled space looks a bit like a below deck of a ship, with the tight kitchen resembling a galley. First there were secret bars, now there are secret restaurants!
The Flemish brewery Hof ten Dormaal developed a beer with the bitter taste of chicory. Hof ten Dormaal failed to sell the beer to distributors, because people do not like the vegetable. Therefore, 90 percent of ‘White Gold’ beer is shipped to the United States.
FrinXX gives consumers in Germany the opportunity to buy each other a drink through online channels, even if they are not present at the bar. FrinXX users visit the site or log in via the Facebook app. You then choose the amount you want to spend and you pay by PayPal, iPayment or ClickandBuy. After payment, you receive a code, which you can send to one or multiple recipients via email, SMS or Facebook, along with a personal message. The code must be shown to the bartender and the drinks are paid for.
As we all know, plastic bottles and cans are incredibly unfriendly to the environment. At least you can now get your fix with the Eco Can. Eco Can is made of a biodegradable material called PLA and is totally reusable. They are double-wall insulated to keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot. The Eco Can is also microwave- and dishwasher-friendly.
The Tiger Blood energy drink tastes like fruit and contains 80 mg of caffeine.
To easily find a parkingplace or offering your parking place to others, use the Park Circa app. Members can spot available parking places and complete payment via the Park Circa mobile app.
Like many hotels, the Hilton Hotel San Diego Bayfront offers jogging-maps to guests. Unlike other routes, these routes are printed on Hilton waterbottles. Very useful when you are jogging in a city you’re not familiar with.
While travelling it is sometimes difficult to stay connected to the world wide web. That is why DoCoMo develloped and installed free wifi in 820 taxi’s in Tokyo.
Storytude developed, in addition to WHAI WHAI’s mobile guide, location-based stories of several German cities. Each chapter will be associated with a spot in the city. From April, Storytude will publish stories about Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne.
Purpose Energy is an energy company disposed of breweries. During this process, a large amount of methane they again for the brewery’s energy needs and thereby reduce emissions of the brewery.
Cocoa di Vine is a 14 percent alcohol fusion of Moscato, Torrontes and Pedro Ximenez. The wine has rich flavours of vanilla, caramel and of course chocolate.
The British design Agency created 33 different bottles of Chilean Winers each designed with a name of a trapped miner. The packaging for Chilean Winer is designed to resemble the Phoenix 2 escape capsule.
Concept in New York: a store that exclusively sells rice pudding. Like with ice cream, you can choose your own toppings.
This apartment building in Upper Castle, Switzerland is the world’s first to be heated exclusively by solar thermal energy. The roof produces twice the heat of what the building needs and will serve as a model for future projects.
Fortum is an electricity company in Sweden. Every year grafitti and vandalism to electrical junctionboxes cost the company over $1,5 million. Research shows that art in public places and a well maintained urban environment lead to increased safety and decreases vandalism. Fortum created the competition “Art on electrical boxes”. Anyone could upload their artwork and collect votes through social media. The artworks with the most votes were posted on electrical junction boxes throughout the city.