Christmas cocktails by Cocktailicious
15-12-2014
We read more and more about winter cocktails, innovative cocktails with tea, coffee or other strange combination and newly opened cocktail bars. On the website Cocktailicious cocktail lover Caroline writes about cocktails, including 250 different recipes and various cocktail bars. For the Holidays we want to suggest the recipes for the Christmas Spoom and the luxury Christmas punch to surprise your guests.
The first cocktail shaker that composes a unique ‘Hospitality Trends cocktail’ for us will be awarded with a spot in our hall of fame!
Check the recipes for the Christmas Spoom and the Christmas punch (Dutch).
Winter garden in Amsterdam
15-12-2014
How do you use your outdoor area during the cold days? Do you transform it into a cozy winter garden or do you prefer a skating rink on the roof terrace? For three months Restaurant & Bar Herengracht changes its outdoor area into a winter wonderland. With heaters, fire places and a semi-roofed terrace it is a nice place to be during these dark days.
The Winter Garden Amsterdam
The Winter Garden is open from late November till late February 2015. There will be three matching winter events, each with a cool theme.
Typical wintry
At the terrace the temperature will be a few degrees higher than on the streets. Not only the ‘heaters’ cause these higher temperatures, but also by the nose warming winter cocktails, mulled wine and hot chocolate served from the special outdoor bar. Typical wintry snacks and dishes like homemade pea soup, cheese fondue and game completes this winter concept.
Three special winter events
The winter garden will set the stage for three events at Restaurant & Bar ‘Herengracht’, which is located near the ‘Koningsplein’ in Amsterdam. The first event will be hosted in Christmas spheres on 20 December, the second event highlights the theme ‘let’s go wild’ on 24 January with wild boar on the spit, the final special is a huge cheese fondue party.
Robots manage restaurant
12-12-2014
A restaurant owner in China completely replaced his staff by robots.
Robots manage restaurant
Recently we wrote an article about flying robotic waiters in Singapore. The flying robotic waiters are created to help the waiters with difficult tasks. Lu Dike from China has a different mindset and lets robots serve his whole restaurant. The restaurant is located in Zheijang, a province in China. Lu Dike is convinced that it will save him a lot of money in the future. The robots are able to formulate 40 sentences which allows them to take orders from customers and transmit the orders to the kitchen. The robots have sensors that prevent them from bumping into something.
Mealworm spread
11-12-2014
Green Kow is a Belgian company that launches products based on bugs (mealworms). They came up with vegetable spread that contains 5% mealworms.
Mealworm spread
At the trade fair of Health Ingredients Europe 2014 the Green Kow presented mealworm spread. The vegetable spread is full of vitamins, proteins and mineral salts. This is all because of the mealworms that are incorporated. Besides the vegetable spread has a high nutrition value, the production process of it is more efficient and less polluting because of the breeding of bugs instead of for example chicken.
Products
The Green Kow has four types of spreads. There are two salty and two chocolate spreads. The spreads consists of carrot-mealworm, tomato-mealworm, dark chocolate-mealworm and milk chocolate-mealworm. The salty spreads are available at the organic shops in Belgium. The chocolate spreads will be added soon. The recipe for the mealworm spread is created by Belgian two star Chef Sang-Hoon Degeimbre.
Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza
9-12-2014
Pizza Hut Launches Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza In Australia.
A lot of pizza inspiration
This Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza is a great addition to our article: 10 times pizza inspiration and inspiration for Dutch pizza makers. On the other hand the pizza makers from Australia could be inspired by the pizza from Domino’s Pizza with sausage in the crust and with sauerkraut. Recently, we also spotted a pizza with 99 cheeses. The inspiration for this pizza comes from the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ movie where they try to seduce a Ninja Turtle with a fictional pizza with 99 cheeses, although described in the movie as a ‘culinary impossibility’. World champion pizza maker, Johnny di Francesco from Melbourne proved them wrong and made one.
Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza
The pizza crust is made of melted mozzarella cheese layered with smashed Doritos and sprinkled with cheddar cheese. So kind of like a pizza meets nachos! Another example of combining everyone’s favorite fastfood items! Pizza hut serves this crunch at different pizza’s. Would you like to taste a Doritos crunchy crust pizza? Or should we start a social media campaign to bring this crust to the rest of the world?
Self-skimming beer glass
8-12-2014
The innovative self-skimming beer glass from FndF is marketed by Triple S International. The self-skimming beer glass has a slightly bevelled edge, resulting in skimming being unnecessary and the lager always gets a firm head of foam. The design can be delivered in glass as well as in plastic.
The benefits of the self-skimming beer glass
The company explains the benefits of their innovative glass on their website. They created a list of benefits for the consumer, catering and the breweries. The main reason to start using this glass for your guests is the fewer hygiene risks due to a skimmer in stagnant water. For the hospitality industry the biggest advantage is that anyone can tap well in this glass, especially during peak hours. You also have less loss caused by bad tapping.
Nominated for the Horecava Innovation Award 2015
Like the Breathometer Breeze, these glasses are also nominated for the Horecava Innovation Award 2015 (The Netherlands). The glasses are just like the Breathometer nominated in the category ‘Equipment and Services’. Voting is possible here.
The Tree Lighting Party by The Pierre New York
5-12-2014
Last weekend I happened to see a tweet of hotel The Pierre New York which invited its followers to The Pierre’s Holiday Tree Lighting Party. The Pierre New York, celebrates the lighting of their Christmas Tree by offering their guests a free cocktail if they take a little toy for charity!
We have recently written an article about the Christmas trees at the Claridge Hotel in London. For several years already they invite great designers to decorate their Christmas trees. They also organize a Tree Lighting Party just as the large department stores in London, New York and the ‘Bijenkorf’ in the Netherlands celebrate their ‘window lighting party’, since a couple of years.
Combine the Tree Lighting party with charity
The Pierre New York Hotel is trying to tempt guests to take along a toy for charity. A couple of years back I read about parties in Hollywood where Christmas trees decorated by celebrities were auctioned for charity. Nice idea to create a similar auction with your local celebrities!
^ Marjolein van Spronsen
The Frozen Butcher
4-12-2014
Last weekend we’ve tasted two new hamburgers from The Frozen Butcher, the Iberico Burger and the Angus certified Burger. We really loved their taste! On their website we learned that The Frozen Butcher has a whole range of burgers aside from the Iberico and Angus burgers; a Wagyu burger, a US beef burger, a lamb burger and an organic burger.
Frozen in time… Fresh on your plate
The burgers are immediately frozen after production by using special freezers to guarantee the true butcher’s quality. This technology enables them to produce without artificial preservatives, colouring agents or other additives.
SIAL Innovation Award 2014
At SIAL Innovation 2014 the Frozen Butcher won the award in the category Meat Products. The jury, made up of independent experts, selected the concept as winner because of the premium meat quality, the clean design of the packaging and the valorization of the country of origin.
Serve your guest a burger to their liking
Great way to use these burgers in a burgerbar; your guests can pick their own meat, each with another taste, another origin and another story! Give your guests a choice in buns and ingredients and let them design their favorite burger at your restaurant. ^Marjolein
Flying robotic waiters
2-12-2014
By end-2015 autonomous flying robotic waiters will be deployed at 5 outlets of the Timbre Group in Singapore. Infinium Robotics Pte Ltd chief executive officer Woon Junyang signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Edward Chia, managing director of Timbre Group, on 31 October this year.
Prototype
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong observed an autonomous flying robotic waiter serving food during a demonstration at Singapore’s National Productivity Month 2014 Launch Event at Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Seeking productivity-related government grants
The costs are high but the flying robotic waiters could be a solution for the labour-crunch in Singapore and the robotic waiters do allow human waiters to focus on higher-value tasks such as explaining the menu, upselling and getting feedback from customers. At this moment both Infinium Robotics and the Timbre Group are seeking productivity-related government grants to help offset deployment costs.
The flying robotic waiters at work
Do you want to know more about these robots? CNBC did an interview with the owner of Infinium-Serve and had a demonstration in the studio.
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.
