Optimism is contagious, share it at Brew Some Good
12-8-2011
An effort from coffee brand Maxwell House in Canada, serving free coffee, positive stories and performances by musicians to the people of Toronto at their Optimism Café. Open for the month of July, and part of their “Brew some good”campaign, (with tv adds etc.). With the campaign they are trying to make Canada feel more glass half-full and in the meantime building brand awareness. At the Optimism Café musicians and artist appeared. Take a look at their website with a video explaining set up of the campaign. The add above is the optimistic result of the campaign.
Frozen Pints
12-8-2011
Frozen Pints, icecream made of different kinds of beers.
Fresh baguette dispenser
12-8-2011
{youtube}XpWZk3ucWrw&feature{/youtube}
French baker Jean-Louis Hecht has rolled out a 24-hour automated baguette dispenser, promising warm bread for hungry night owls, shift workers or anyone else who doesn’t have time to pick one up during their opening hours.
A great invitation
11-8-2011
The owners of the foodhall Eataly in New York do invite President Obama to visit. They have a banner hanging in their foodhall with the invitation to come and toast at his 50th birthday with a 1961 Barolo. An original way to invite a President! A beautiful food hall by the way where you can eat Italian food and buy it!
Inspiration from 2010: Not far from the tree
11-8-2011
Spotted in august 2010, but it’s a good initiatif! In the parc where we walk our dog, a lot of prunes are rotting away. And of course our labrador (^Marjolein) eats them till he gets sick, if he gets the possibility. So this project in Toronto could work! They launched a project last year to prevent local grown fruit to perish. Volunteers pick fruit in the gardens of people who do not want to do this themselves. One third of the fruit is meant for the owner, one third goes to the volunteers and one third goes to charities in the area.
Museum for divers
11-8-2011
Vandenberg: Life below the surface, an art gallery at a underwater shipwreck. Austrian Photographer Andreas Franke did use strong magnets to attach 12 digitally layered images (in 3 millimeter pexiglass) at the starboard side of the former military ship Vandenberg. All at a depth of 93ft offshore at Key West, Florida. We saw statues under water in Mexico but this is a new gallery. The website of the project will be ready end of august 2011.
The Ticketometer
11-8-2011
The Ticketometer works as follows: the artist announces his or her show on the site by entering the city, date, ticket price and (essential for the use of Ticketometer) the “set-off point” (minimum number of tickets needed to sell to make the show profitable). The concert or festival is promoted and fans purchase tickets through Ticketometer. Once the set-off point is reached the artist confirms the event, and fans are charged. If the set-off point isn’t reached no harm! A couple of advantages: transparant, risky towns are worth a try, negotiations with venues are more transparant. Benefits artists, fans and venues.
Tea-time by Pengtao Yu
11-8-2011
“Tea-time”, designer Pengtao Yu created a simple but yet convinient set combining tea leaves, water and steeping time. You put tea leafs and hot water into the first part of “Tea-time”, twist the timer to set the steeping time and the tea slowly trickles down to the bottom beaker. The timer/filter hold back the leaves and your cup is ready to sip.
The America Eats Tavern and ketchup
10-8-2011
At America Eats Tavern, opened July 4th 2011 in Washington, Chef José Andrés applies his innovative style to the American cuisine. America Eats offers a new take on American classics and celebrate native ingredients and some long forgotten dishes, from burgoo to oysters Rockefeller. With recipes and stories collected through extensive research, and with help from the National Archives and a culinary advisory council of chefs, the menu showcases the fascinating history of America one plate at a time. As we read in the New York Times José Andrés is also serving different kinds of ketchups (like blueberry, red currant, yellow tomato and mushroom). Picture of the different kinds of ketchup with the article in the New York Times.
Find guests through a Twitter scan service
10-8-2011
Reach.ly is a new service focused specifically on finding potential new guests. Reach.ly monitors Twitter for mentions of planned trips and allows hotels to reach out to visitors who are heading their way. It’s a free service which begins when hotels register with the site via Twitter and indicate which cities they’re interested in. Reach.ly then begins to filter Twitter traffic for them, and presents it in a manageable number of tweets. Hotels can communicate with the potential guests at the Reach.ly interface. According to Reach.ly 9% did make a booking en about 20% indicated that they appriciated the contact. Interesting?
Luxury resort Amphibious 1000 in Qatar
10-8-2011
Another interesting hotel will appear in Qatar soon – hotel resort “Amphibious”. the hotel is designed by the Italian company Giancarlo Zema Design Group. The hotel complex will include residential buildings, offices and marina with modern bay. In the central tower will house a restaurant that offers exotic dishes in addition to stunning panoramic views. Guests can stay in the 80 semi-submersible suits, which were called “Jellyfish.” The rooms have wonderful open views to the underwater artificial reefs. On the territory of the hotel complex will be used only electric vehicles and small aluminum boats with hydrogen engines.
Pie per inch
9-8-2011
Auberge Saint-Gabriel, with Chef Eric Gonzalez, serves his version of lemon pie per inch. The pie is cut at the table, and tastes delicious.
Baked Alaska
9-8-2011
Although an old-fashioned dessert Baked Alaska remains delicious and we don’t understand why it isn’t served more often! Steakhouse Harbour Sixty in Toronto serves it with all the right ingredients and at the table! At all the tables they served it while we were there, it looked like a small party!
From last year: Never again wet shoes
9-8-2011
Spotted last year but they would have been very usefull last weekend at Dancevalley in the Netherlands, the shuella. These sleeves fit over any shoe, boot or pump, and easily fit into any handbag. See the shuellas here.
Great outdoor adcampaign by Sapporo Beer
9-8-2011
This summer Japan’s legendary beer, Sapporo, has created urban spectacles in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal that let participants transform their shadows into giant legendary Japanese characters including a sumo wrestler, a geisha and a samurai. We saw people standing in line to performe in the act and put the commercial on their facebook!
Happenings in the Netherlands
9-8-2011
A map on the website, showing all the real time events, concerts, happenings in the Netherlands.
The ICoffee machine
8-8-2011
Do you want to impress your guests with pseudo barista skills? Then use the iCoffee machine. Via bluetooth you can send an image to the iCoffee machine. See how designer Huang Guanglei iCoffee machine works at the website of New Tech Reviews.
The Rotisserie Channel by Swiss Chalet
8-8-2011
BBDO Canada has launched a campaign for Swiss Chalet in february. Swiss Chalet is known in Canada for their roasted chicken. They started a The Rotisserie channel, where one can watch rottisserie chicken 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The mere announcement created a lot of free publicity, it was broadcasted in several newsshows, they were trending topic on Twitter, etc. While we Europeans are buying fireplace CD-ROMs – in America and Canada they have a fireplace channel and of course the step to Rotisserie Channel is smaller then.
A great way to serve bread!
8-8-2011
We really enjoyed our dinner at Auberge Saint-Gabriel in Montréal, and all the show elements they use were an inspiration for Horecatrends. For example the bread is served, delicious warm, with a bow around it! It’s served on a shelve with knife in it.
Great design at Auberge Saint-Gabriel
8-8-2011
Auberge Saint-Gabriel in Montréal, has a lot of space which is designed in an original way by designer Bruno Braën. For example the first thing you see upon entering the restaurant is a huge spine of a whale hanging in the center of the restaurant. They also have a grass-covered expanse that becomes a picnic and play area for the young at heart, and two genuine stuffed moose joined at the neck—the antithesis of a moose trophy on the wall—serve as a lamp. At their website you’ll find more pictures.
Walk this line…..
8-8-2011
As we are confronted in the Netherlands with a lot of festivals during the summer, today we serve you this idea to get some extra attention for a festival through social media. The Beercompany Zlaty Bazant created an original and simple checking alcohol tester – The Line. By this they created a buzz about their product and the festival. Agency: Istropolitana Ogilvy Bratislava
Pictures as restaurant reviews
5-8-2011
Adam Goldberg is not a restaurant critic, nor is he involved with food professionally. He is a software engineer who has a passion to eat and share his culinary experiences. He does that by taking pictures of his meal and share those with his followers on Twitter, Facebook and his website. Most of the visited restaurants are at San Francisco, New York and Paris. And there are many more self-styled restaurant critics who are not professionally giving reviews and have a lot of followers. It’s a development we haven’t yet seen in the Netherlands. But do you have our Illucensies in Amerika?
Even on a Dutch Beach: Massages
5-8-2011
One can take a massage at the beach in front of restaurant Bries in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. This to make your relaxing beachday complete. It’s a new service given at a few beachrestaurants in the Netherlands like Club Zand in Castricum and beachrestaurant Doen in Scheveningen. Yoga at the beach is seen more often in the Netherlands but the massages is a new development.
Even on Dutch beaches: Massages
5-8-2011
One can take a massage at the beach in front of restaurant Bries in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. This to make your relaxing beachday complete. It’s a new service given at a few beachrestaurants in the Netherlands like Club Zand in Castricum and beachrestaurant Doen in Scheveningen. Yoga at the beach is seen more often in the Netherlands but the massages is a new development.
The Next Generation Meal Planning Solution
5-8-2011
Intel and Kraft Foods have collaborated on a virtual display concept intended to help shoppers decide what they should have for dinner. The Next Generation Meal Planning Solution incorporates sensors that use anonymous video analytics software to detect the age and gender of the person standing in front of it to determine which recipes may be a good fit based on collected demographic information.
