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What is Halal Food, Exactly?

Aug 15, 2012

If you’ve ever gone to a grocery store, you may have noticed on packages of meat, the word, “halal.” If you’re not of the Islamic faith or not acquainted with it, you may wonder what does halal mean?

 

Halal food is the type of food that followers of Islam must eat in order to follow Islamic dietary guidelines. This includes types of food and how the food is prepared. For example, a halal diet ensures that:

  • no pork products or pork by products be eaten
  • no blood or blood by products products be eaten
  • no alcohol is consumed
  • no birds of prey be eaten
  • no carnivorous animals be eaten
  • animals cannot be dead before being slaughtered
  • the slaughtering of animals must be done in the name of Allah and the method must conform to halal procedure
Halal Guys
Halal Guys catering sign

 

What is the halal method for slaughtering animals? One of the key points in slaughtering animals is to do it as humanely as possible; this is done by “using a well sharpened knife to make a swift, deep incision that cuts the front of the throat, the carotid artery, wind pipe and jugular veins but leaves the spinal cord intact. The animal is positioned in order to have its blood completely drained (if size permits) and left to exsanguinate.

 

More about the method here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal

 

Around the world, in grocery stores, restaurants and butcher shops, halal foods are becoming increasingly available. D’Cost Seafood restaurant chain based out of Indonesia is one of the most recently certified hala restaurants. Are you searching for halal food products? Check out this great site: http://www.zabihah.com/ and if you’re wondering how your restaurant can become halal certified, contact Synergy Consultants.

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D’Cost Seafood Distributing Boxes of Food to Homeless

Aug 10, 2012

D’Cost Seafood, seafood restaurant chain headquarted in Indonesia, has recently begun the distribution of 2,000 boxes of fried rice for 2,000 homeless people in Jakarta in its D’Cost Peduli or “D’Cost Care” program. This program will continue daily through early September.

 

Synergy is honored to have work with such a great and charitable organization. More on this here.

 

View Day 1 photos below:




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IKEA introduces its own Beer

Aug 09, 2012

If you’ve ever frequented IKEA, you’re  probably very familiar with the food department (Swedish meatballs, anyone?). Now after you’ve shopped your heart out and worked up an appetite and thirst, you can grab a cold house brewed beer made especially by and for IKEA – no assembly required! Choose from Ol Mork Lager (dark lager) or Ol Ljus Lager (regular lager). Sorry, but the IKEA beer is currently only available in the UK. Read more about this here: IKEA Now Brews And Sells Its Own Beer

If you think about it, IKEA isn’t the first major retailer to brew its own beer. Only a few years ago, mega store Costco began to brew their own beer under the Kirkland brand.

What do you think about this move from IKEA? Do you think they will be successful with their new beer? Do you see this product as an offering in the United States?

 

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Are digital menu displays suitable for your restaurant?

Aug 08, 2012

Technology has always played a pivotal role in business, including restaurants. These days, it’s not unheard of to order your favorite meal from an iPad or wait for your pager to buzz when your table is ready. Now if you’re seeking  an efficient way to display your menu, you might want to look into digital menus displays.

 

Depending on your restaurant type, digital menus may or may not be a good fit. Let’s take a look into the pros and cons of the digital menu to help you make a better-informed decision.

 

Digital Menus: Should I invest in one for my restaurant?

Pros:

  • Easy to read for your guests
  • Capacity to display more menu items
  • Display clear, enticing, digital photos of your food offerings
  • Change daily specials or prices with ease
  • Display more than just men items: website, social media sites, nutritional content, video etc.

digital menus

Cons:

  • There may be too much content displayed which could cause information overload for your guests
  • May give off too much of a  “modern” feel depending on your restaurant’s theme (e.g. digital menus may not work well with rustic Old Italy interior design)
  • Initial start up cost may be outside of your budget

 

Do you have questions regarding digital menu displays? Do you want to make sure you make the best and most cost efficient choice in how you choose to display your menu? Contact Synergy Restaurant Consultants to for an initial consultation.

 

 

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Celebrating the Olympics with Food: Exploring London Cuisine

Aug 03, 2012

London is the lucky city that has been honored with hosting the 2012 Olympic Games and millions of visitors have been flocking there to celebrate. Tourists will enjoy the games, the sights, the sounds, and the taste of London. It is only fitting, then, that we pay homage and highlight London’s best foods and restaurants.

Another fine British dish on a Sunday
Sunday Roast, Image Credit: Gene Hunt

Tasty must-have meals in London

  • Fish and Chips: A classic, simple yet delicious traditional UK dish: deep fried fish with a crispy batter and chips (thick cut and fried potatoes or what Americans like to refer to as “fries”). This About article lists restaurants with the best fish and chips you can find in London.
  • Shepherd’s Pie: Talk about comfort food! A savory meat (usually lamb or mutton) pie with a crust of creamy mash potatoes. The Ivy Restaurant in London has great reviews for their shepherd’s pie.
  • Cornish Pasty: Or simply, “pasty,” this dish is comprised of minced steak, vegetables and seasonings wrapped neatly in a pastry dough and baked; it’s the perfect light meal and it’s portable, too! You’ll likely find a West Cornwall Pasty shop around the corner in London – this chain offers many varieties of the pasty with different fillings and flavors.
  • Sunday Roast: If you really want to feel authentically British, you will definitely want to savor in a English style Sunday roast which typically includes roast meat, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and vegetables. Depending on the meat you’re devouring (pork, beef, chicken or lamb), you’ll enjoy it with an accompanying sauce such as apple sauce, currant jelly, horseradish or mint sauces. Yelp reviewers are raving about Bacchus Pub and Kitchen’s Sunday Roast.
  • Trifle: End your meal with trifle; layers and layers of sweet goodness, the trifle is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth. What’s in in it? Usually sponge cake, gelatin, custard, fruit and whipped cream. There are even some variations that soak the cake in port or sweet sherry. Check out the dessert menu of any restaurant if you’d like to try out an English trifle.

May the Games be merry and your belly, too!

 

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What in the world is clean eating?

Jul 28, 2012

“Clean eating” does not refer to avoiding barbecue sauce to find its way around your face or making sure you’ve got your lobster bib on during seafood night! No, clean eating refers to a budding health movement in the world of food and cuisine. So, what is it exactly? A recent USA Today article dives into the topic by defining clean eating as, “The term generally refers to the eating of food as close to its natural state and point of origin as possible, and the movement is a reaction against the health problems caused by our growing fast food-oriented diet.” Read more about it here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-07-24/clean-eating/56456224/1

 

Buzzwords such as “organic,” “all natural,” “local,” all come into play for those seeking to eat clean foods. But there are a lot of other factors that need to be considered if you want to participate in clean eating.

Tips for eating clean:

  • look for organic, or all natural foods
  • avoid processed foods
  • avoid chemical additives
  • whenever possible, choose local
  • seek in-season produce
  • eat lean meats, whole grains, and don’t forget your fruits and vegetables!

 

Clean Eating Magazine Video: Types of fish and how to prepare them

 

Because clean eating takes conscious effort to avoid processed foods, dining out and and fast-food eating can be practically non-existent for the clean eater. But these days, innovatively healthy restaurants are making eating wise tasty, affordable and easy. We’d like to give special mention to LYFE Kitchen, the healthy “fast-food” restaurant that serves up organic (whenever commercially available), hormone and antibiotic free,  sustainable, local, responsible, healthy food. And there’s pretty much no arguing that eating clean doesn’t get any better than eating farm fresh foods. So if you don’t feel like cooking and want to eat as close to nature as you can, farm-to-table dinners offers guests wholesome farm fresh meals and you don’t even have to life a finger (except for a fork, of course). This epicurious article lists their top 10 Farm-to-Table restaurant pick, from coast to coast.

 

We’d love to hear from you! Are they any particular restaurants that you like that cater to your clean food diet?

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Surf & Turf Burgers meat beef and seafood: Odd Couple or Delicious Duo?

Jul 24, 2012

Summertime calls for cool drinks and mouthwatering burgers, and boy do we love a good burger! What makes a great burger, you ask? The keyword is “fresh”: freshly ground beef that’s still juicy when cooked, freshly cut toppings (crisp lettuce, juicy tomatoes, onion etc.) and oh yeah, a great fresh bun to keep everything together. Now, being food experts and all, we know a good burger when we taste one and we know many restaurants like to add a bit of their own signature flair to one; that’s perfectly fine and when done successfully the results can be very rewarding!

 

So when we started noticing surf and turf burgers gaining more exposure, we had to wonder what people thought of this new trend. Now, if you’re not familiar with surf and turf food (aka surf  ‘n’ turf), it simply refers to cuisine that contains the combination of seafood (surf) and meat (turf). Still scratching your head about what exactly is a surf ‘n’ turf burger? We have noticed various combinations throughout our food expeditions; beef burgers with lobster, shrimp, scallops and even softshell crab!

 

Do you think the surf and turf burger combo is a match made in heaven, or do you believe burgers taste best unadulterated? You might want to try out some of the following surf and turf burgers before making a decision.

 

Joe’s Surf  ‘N Turf Burger @ Joe’s Crab Shack: “A big, juicy peppercorn burger topped with crunchy popcorn shrimp, crispy onion strings and our own spicy sriracha remoulade sauce. You can’t get this baby at a drive-thru.”

 

Surf ‘N Turf Burger @ Smithfield in NYC: “Ground Black Angus, sweet Maine lobster, poached asparagus.”

 

Bacon Wrapped Scallop Burger @ Umami Burger San Francisco: “Scallop patty topped with crispy pork belly, sweet chili sauce and yuzu-garlic aioli.”

 

Surf & Turf Burger @ EAT in Honolulu: “Our Kauai Beef Patty topped with a Whole Crispy Softshell Crab, Fresh Avacado, our Specialty Sauce”

 

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July 2012 Newsletter

Jul 22, 2012

Greetings!

As the summer heats up and travel season sets in, we hope all of you are experiencing an uptick in sales.

This month, we’re looking in more detail at one of the trends we mentioned last month: the blurring of lines between bars and restaurants. The increasing casualization of the restaurant industry, coupled with more interest in quality beverage programs, has led to some game-changing developments in the way customers and operators alike define eating and drinking establishments. We suspect that benchmark sales-mix ratios between food and beverage will also be changing with the times, and we’ll keep you posted.

What shouldn’t ever change is your focus on operational efficiencies. Our associate Patricia Liu addresses one area that sometimes gets lost in the hustle-bustle of more obvious issues, like scheduling and menu cross-utilization. To wit, is it time to look at your cook’s line and how well it functions? Patricia shares some tips for tuning it up.

Finally, there’s an article on what to do about the whole gluten-free trend, a situation we know many of you might have hoped would simply go away. Well, it’s not—but we have some advice for you.

To your success,

Dean and Danny

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Blurring the Lines 2.0

By Joan Lang

Amid the ongoing casualization of dining out, we’re seeing a new category of establishment: bars on the verge of being restaurants.

Rather than the gastropubs, urban taverns and other spots that were more restaurant than bar—which started colonizing the industry around the turn of the most recent decade—this new lot are essentially bars that happen to serve serious food. It’s a subtle difference, to be sure (to paraphrase the now-famous ruling on porn, you’ll know it when you see it), but it’s a significant one.

Phil Vettel, writing in the Chicago Tribune earlier this year, opted to call the new segment “nitropubs,” a linguistic mashup of nightclub and pub: scene-driven and alcohol-fueled, but also possessed of a respectable kitchen.

The trend may well have started, as these things are currently wont to do, in the outer reaches of hipster Brooklyn, at such places as Fort Defiance, owned by mixology maven St. John Frizell. The distinction of ownership is important, since many of these new bar-first/restaurant-second spots are owned by the growing cadre of celebrity bartenders who are going on to open their own places. The ratio of liquor-to-food sales probably favors the former rather than the latter (thus affecting licensing and other issues in some areas), and so may the local customer base. And hours are often a lot later than the local competition’s.

Like that aforementioned ruling, examples may be more instructive of the trend than any description.

• Vitell gives a shout-out to Maude’s Liquor Bar, in Chicago, who very name is a tipoff. The specialty cocktail list ($12 a pop) includes selections of Sparkling (St. German Fizz), Shaken & Stirred (a classic Aviation) and Smashes (Smokey Violet), plus an extensive selection of champagne and other bubbles. The menu is a bistro-style amalgam of oysters, tartine sandwiches, escargot and steak tartare.

• In Portland, Maine, the hottest address this summer is LFK (the name stands for Longfellow Fellowship of Knights, a reference to the bar’s location on hip Longfellow Square), owned by a pair of you entrepreneurs who have run bars in the town before, This time, however, they’vc got a menu that includes not only burgers but also mac-and-cheese, lamb koftas, and New England baked beans with braised pork belly.

• Across the country in the other Portland there is the brand-new Oven & Shaker, which gives equal billing to pizza and cocktails. Pitched as a “modern urban saloon,” O&S is owned by an experienced chef-bartender-restaurateur triumvirate and features a “Shaker menu” (e.g., the Pepper Smash: fresh mint, aquavit, maple syrup, “freshly pressed” lime juice and “freshly extracted” pepper juice) and a selection of wood-oven artisanal pizzas and “Finger & Fork” foods as fried chickpeas and lamb lollipops.

• Lest you lose sight of the “This & That” naming patterns of the genre, there’s the brand-new Pitch & Fork “everyman’s tavern” on Manhattan’s Irish-bar-intensive Upper East Side, with porchetta au jus, pig foot “trotter tots and crispy fried rabbit legs, and carefully curated spirits and cocktails. There’s also the anxiously awaited Gin Palace by Death & Co.’s Ravi DeRossi, which features a liquor-first menu where Gin & Tonic on tap and White Negronis (gin, white vermouth and Salers aperitif) take precedence over Scotched Eggs, pasties and samosas.

Interested in hearing more about current food trends, or in receiving a proprietary trends newsletter customized to your own menu and concept ? Contact Synergy Restaurant Consultants.


Kitchen Line Tune-Up

By Patricia Liu, Senior Culinary Project Manager

When was the last time you analyzed your cook’s line to make sure it was at its best? Just like a car, a cook’s line needs regular tune-ups for optimal performance. One important area for a cook’s line tune-up is around service efficiency. What often happens is that a cook’s line is initially laid out for efficiency when the restaurant first opened, but over time, that set-up gets modified piecemeal by different cooks or to accommodate menu changes. The resulting line is no longer set up for peak performance.

Chefs in the open kitchen - Cumulus Inc
Chefs in the open kitchen – CC by Cumulus Inc by avlxyz, on Flickr

There are several areas of efficiency that should be regularly checked. One critical aspect is providing everything a cook needs within close reach—the less he or she needs to move or walk to make the food, the better. A general rule of thumb is that a cook should have everything in reach within one step in any single direction. As much as possible, ingredients and plateware should be within easy grasp, with minimal reaching up high or bending down (e.g., into the low-boy refrigerators). Sometimes, rearranging the line requires thinking outside the box. For example, are there areas of the cook’s line counter that can accommodate a small tabletop insulated well or ice bain marie, to bring items closer to the cook’s grasp?

An often-overlooked issue is how far a cook needs to travel to put a completed plate in the pick-up window. One client had a relatively efficient set-up for the cook’s line in terms of producing the food, but the overall line was situated so that the cook often needed to walk to the other end of the line to place plates in the window. This meant not only potential for food shifting on the plate during transport to the window but also lengthening ticket times, as well as higher labor costs due to the extra steps walked to put the food up.

Part of tuning up the cook’s line set-up is ensuring that the ingredient containers are the appropriate size. Are there ingredients that require more frequent refilling than others? Are there ingredients that require refilling in the middle of the rush? If so, that ingredient may require a larger container. On the other hand, if an ingredient requires less refilling than others, consider putting it into a smaller container. It will keep the ingredient fresh longer and free up room for other items or to compact the line. Pay attention to how often ingredients need to be refilled, so that the proper amount of ingredient back-ups can be stored close by.

Having an efficient cook’s line set-up not only means less time to produce a dish (translating to lower labor costs and lower ticket times), but also less frustration for the cook. In addition, the time savings means more time for the cook to prep the station or just keep it tidy and clean.

One of Synergy Restaurant Consultants’ core service offerings is performing in-depth assessments that cover 13 major areas of operations, one of which is the cook’s line.



Get Your Gluten Out

 

In December we cited gluten-free offerings as one of the game-changing trends in the industry for 2012 and, sure enough, the momentum keeps growing.

What started out as a small niche within the special diets spectrum has come to represent a mainstream opportunity for foodservice: The numbers may be small, but demand for gluten-free products cuts across an increasing swath of the population.
Some data to consider:

• While celiac disease affects about 1% of the U.S. population, according to the National Institutes of Health, as many as 10% have a related and poorly understood condition known as non-celiac gluten intolerance (NCGI), or gluten sensitivity

•  According to one gastroenterologist, half of the approximately 60 million people in the U.S. who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are probably sensitive to gluten

•  The Hartman Group notes that some marketers believe as many as 15-25% of the U.S. population is interested in gluten-free products, with digestive health, nutritional value and help in losing weight being the top three motivations

•  The U.S. market for gluten-free foods and beverages has grown by 30% a year since 2006, says Packaged Facts, to $2.6 billion in 2010, and is projected to top $5 billion by 2015

• References to gluten-free menu items have jumped more than 60% between 2010 and 2011, according to a study by Technomic
Small wonder that the ability to offer gluten-free options has become such a driver for new-concept menus like those of LYFE Kitchen, Burger 21, and Unforked.

 

Established chains like Bertucci’s and Chevy’s, meanwhile, have been upping the ante on their own gluten-free initiatives. Bertucci’s new executive chef, Jeff Tenner, has paid considerable attention to items that would not only advance the brand’s appeal and utilize its signature ovens, but would also be gluten-free, such as pesto grilled salmon and roasted eggplant pomodoro.

 

Independents and chef-driven establishments are in a position to drive gluten-free menus at well. At cult-favorite Keste Pizza, in New York City, there are no fewer than six gluten-free pies on the menu, the result of pizzaiole Roberto Caporuscio’s obsession with creating the perfect crust. Gather, in Berkeley, features many items that are both gluten-free and (not coincidentally) vegan or vegetarian; chef-owner Sean Baker is determined to prove that food can be both sophisticated and inclusive.

 

Still, it pays to be conservative. In announcing the availability of its new gluten-free crust, Domino’s notes that the product is not recommended for those who actually have celiac disease.

Rules of the Gluten Free Road

• Wheat flour alternatives such as rice flour, cornstarch and potato flour can be used in breads, pizza dough, desserts and in thickenings

• Watch the cross-contamination. For instance, if you offer fried items with both conventional and gluten-free profiles, maintain a separate fryer for gf. Separate prep areas if possible, and sanitize thoroughly when you can’t

• Work with a local bakery to find gluten-free bread, hamburger rolls and desserts, since this specialized form of baking is often beyond the means of the typical foodservice kitchen

• Whole grains including rice, quinoa and buckwheat make for deliciously healthy side dishes, breakfast cereals and more

• Be cautious about prepared products such as soups and soup bases, sauces and condiments; gluten may be hidden within

• Experiment with corn and rice pastas to find a substitute for semolina or wheat pasta; you may need to develop different sauces to complement the texture and flavor of these alternatives

• Train staff, both front- and back-of-the-house, to be sensitive to all special dietary needs; servers at BR Guest restaurants in New York City are trained to ask whether a restriction is because of an allergy or preference

• Include as much information for diners on the menu as possible, and post ingredients where staff can find them easily in order to answer questions

• Consider using stickers, special wrappings, notices on electronic tickets and other measures to flag gluten-free items to avoid mix-ups


Tip of the Month

Resources for Gluten-Free Menus

If you’re thinking of experimenting with gluten-free menu items, you may need to do a little legwork. The Celiac DiseaseFoundation and the National Foundation for Celiac Awarenessare two good places to start; NFCA even offers foodservice training.
It’s also not a bad idea to look at gluten-free recipes to get an idea what the various issues and options are. Try the seminal blog Gluten-Free Girl and Cooking Gluten-Free!, which includes a number of recipes from working chefs.
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Enjoy wood-fired pizza at home

Jul 21, 2012

You may know we have a reputation for being a bit pizza-obsessed, traveling thousands of miles in search for the best pie on earth (including the birthplace of it all, Italy)! That being said, we enjoy keeping up with pizza trends and experiencing new trends is akin to opening presents on Christmas day– we simply cannot contain our excitement!

 

kettle pizzaWhat’s the secret to a delicious pizza? We could tell you but then we’d have to kill you! Okay, okay, enough with the pop-culture references. Joking aside, one huge factor in creating sensational pizzas is through the the cooking process, namely, the oven. Some of the best pizza we’ve tasted emerged piping hot from a wood-fired oven.

 

So when we stumbled upon this neat grilling accessory that allows you to cook real wood-fired pizza in your home, we knew had to share the tip! Kettlepizza is very cool, indeed. It transforms any kettle grill into a wood-fired pizza oven. Temperatures with the device can heat as high as upwards of 750 degrees F with a base of charcoal and hardwood!

 

See how it works in this video:

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Showcasing your Restaurant on Pinterest

Jul 14, 2012

The new age of the Internet has provided massive marketing opportunities for all businesses particularly through the use of social media. We all know and love websites like Facebook and Twitter for restaurant promotions, branding and customer engagement but if you haven’t joined Pinterest yet, you may be losing out on valuable exposure.

 

One of the latest social media sites to take storm, Pinterest has garnered immense popularity with over 20 million users and recent data analysis performed by  Shareaholic show that Pinterest is now beating out Bing, Twitter and Google (Google referral) for referral traffic. So what exactly is so unique about Pinterest that it’s competing with the Web’s behemoths?

 

Pinterest is a social media site that allows people to organize, post and share things they love online by “pinning” websites and photos onto virtual “boards.” Much like Twitter, people can follow others’ activity and share things they like by “repinning” (just like “retweeting) someone’s pins; but unlike Twitter, Pinterest is visually captivating due to the primary use of photos in the layout.

 

Imagine the viral possibilities you have when you use Pinterest for your resaturant as a part of your social media engagement.

 

Example of Pinterest Boards

Pinterest for Restaurant Marketing

Pinterest for Restaurants: Simple Tips

  • Take beautiful high resolution photos of your dishes, restaurant (interior, exterior), and guests
  • Create different boards such as “Greek cuisine,” “noodle dishes,” “delectable desserts,” “cocktails” or “healthy food” and pin photos accordingly
  • Write blog posts about your restaurant and pin those and any other web pages from your main website
  • When pinning a photo of a dish, write a good description along with the name of your restaurant.
  • Use hash tags in descriptions, just as you would on Twitter
  • Pin special dishes like the soup of the day
  • Pin special events that take place at your restaurant
  • Be an active Pinterest member and engage with other users; follow others, repin and like other pins

 

Following these simple tips can help you get you started with one of the most popular social media websites in the world today.