Umami Products For a limited time, and while supplies last…
Umami proudly brings the wonders of the fifth taste to your own kitchen. Umami offers a curated assortment of unique specialty food condiments that have been either created or hand selected by Umami Burger founder Adam Fleischman. Enjoy!
* Umami Ketchup$7.50
* Umami Dust – Sold Out$9.00
* Umami Spray$15.00
* Red Boat Fish Sauce$10.00
* HAK’s BBQ Sauce$8.00
* Umami Master Sauce$7.00
* Gindo’s Spice of Life Fresh Pepper Sauce$10.00
Celebrity chef Emiril Lagasse who has garnered more attention in the past from his flippant chatter than his unremarkable cooking, has possibly found his métier in E2, a new, casual dining and take out restaurant he has opened in Charlotte, N.C.
Starbucks has opened their first Evolution Fresh store in Washington State after acquiring the brand a few months ago. Evolution Fresh plans to build on its product line-up with new seasonal and core juices that are never heated through high pressure processing.
“Evolution Fresh™ store introduces customers to a unique, premium juice and food experience. Combining fresh, natural ingredients with culinary and globally-inspired recipes, each order is personalized and handcrafted to create delicious offerings – including wraps, salads, soups and more. Evolution Fresh is also offering vegetarian and vegan offerings – to help customers get the most out of life, whether in-store or on-the-go”.
“After cold pressing and squeezing the juice, an innovative technology called High Pressure Processing (HPP) is used to retain more of the flavors, vitamins and nutrients of raw fruits and vegetables”. Whatever, that means?
Whole Foods stores will simultaneously be cracking open 300 wheels of authentic Parmigiano Reggiano. It occurs at 3:00pm eastern time on Saturday, March 10th, and samples will be offered.
McDonald’s and Hormel have joined The Humane Society’s push to phase out the use of gestation crates which, confines pregnant pigs to an area slightly larger than themselves, where they cannot move for the entire pregnancy. And while they’re at it, Hormel should consider banning their product Spam as well.
Olive Garden is “Italian inspired”, but at the mercy of its provincial, unsophisticated diners.
The Olive Garden is subjected to the whims of the people who eat at Olive Garden, and the chain has no choice but to bend to their wistful, suburban, and tyrannical needs. That means value (a $6.95 unlimited soup, salad, and bread-sticks lunch special), overcooked pasta, frosted plastic salad bowls, and avoiding confusing words like “gnocchi.”
Olive Garden Headquarters knows that their diners have limits: “Capers, with their salty, pickled flavor, are too unexpected for many customers, says a spokeswoman.”
And the restaurant chain will do whatever it takes to make customers happy: “At Olive Garden, pasta is served soft, not al dente or slightly firm, the traditional Italian method.” Is it authentic or not? “We don’t use the word authentic,” said the president of Olive Garden. He prefers the term “Italian inspired.”
The chain does indeed take “inspiration” from Italy: Chefs at Olive Garden HQ went on a trip to Northern Italy and had “a fresh-torn pasta dish with olive oil, garlic and herbs.” Somehow that dish was “reverse-engineered” into “baked pasta romana—a mix of lasagna pasta, rich cheese sauce, spinach and either a beef or chicken topping.” Originally it was chicken with roasted tomato sauce, but diners didn’t find it “cravable.” And the chain pushes the limits of gastronomy: “Earlier this year, a pear and Gorgonzola ravioli with shrimp went too far.” The chain deemed the dish too “culinary forward.”
And all Olive Garden wants to do is update the damned dishware, but they can’t. The frosted, “semi-translucent, plastic, flower-shaped salad bowl” that delivers unlimited refills has been in use for decades, and every time Olive Garden tests new bowls, diners revolt. “There is a lot of love for that bowl,” said Dan Kiernan, executive vice president of operations for Olive Garden. This is hard to believe in today’s marketplace, although it must be true and the company wants to keep their customers happy at all cost.
Link to: Olive Garden article Wall Street Journal
Culinary Tidbits . . . Contrary to circulated Tweets McLobster will not be going mainstream across the United States. At present, locations are sporadic, and limited to a few New England states.
This Veuve Clicquot trailer is definitely not a “taco truck”. The mobile food truck and adjacent champagne lounge (Veuve Clicquot is the official champagne of Design Miami), Veuve Clicquot has hired gastroPod’s chef Jeremiah who will prepare a brief menu of accompaniments for the champagne that will pop-up in key locations in Miami from Tuesday, November 29 through Friday, December 2.
· Tuesday, November 29: Design Miami Pavilion, 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
· Wednesday, November 30: Art Basel Outdoor Art Exhibit, 7:00 p.m. to midnight
· Thursday, December 1: The Stage in the Design District, 38th and 1st Ct, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
· Friday, December 2: The Stage in the Design District, 38th and 1st Ct, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Naturally Different: Naturally grown, Humane certified, Sustainable ranch, Vegetarian fed, No antibiotics, No hormones
A new concept Hamburger chain startup from Florida with franchising options available. More information
Chef Richard moved to Los Angeles in 1977 and opened his own patisserie shop Michel Richard to great praise on Robertson Blvd. He then traveled back and forth to France mostly dining, learning and cooking in three-star Michelin-rated restaurants. In 1987 he opened Citrus, where he found the flexibility to adapt French cuisine to the tastes of Southern California.
Citrus started Michel Richard’s culinary journey in the United States. Just after it opened Citrus was voted The Best Restaurant in the United States by Traveler’s magazine and then in 1988 he was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s “Who’s Who” in American Food and Wine. A year later he opened Citronelle, offering a menu similar to that of Citrus, only with a fine dining atmosphere and a view of the Pacific located in the Santa Barbara Inn Hotel.
He then went on to open Bistro M in San Francisco, and Citronelle in Baltimore and Philadelphia. In 1994, he opened Citronelle in The Latham Hotel in Washington DC. In 1998 he moved from Los Angeles to Washington DC to devote full-time attention to Michel Richard Citronelle. But Chef Michel was destined to go to the west once again. Recently he has opened a large 24 hour restaurant at Ceasars Palace Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. It boasts an extensive bar menu and two Happy Hours in a 24 hour period.
