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Food Of The Feast: Cinco De Mayo

Cinco de Mayo may be here, but you may have no idea how to celebrate the holiday , or even know what it means. This Sunday is May 5th (and “Cinco de Mayo” literally translates from Spanish to English as “The Fifth of May”); will you and your restaurant be prepared?

There’s a little miscommunication about Cinco de Mayo; while the name is clear to most people with an errant grasp of Spanish, the full name in Puebla is “El Día de la Batalla de Puebla”, or “The Day of the Battle of Puebla”. The holiday is also not Mexican Independence Day, or the country’s most-important holiday. The battle at Puebla wasn’t a major strategic victory, but it was a major social victory, proving that the Mexican armies could hold off the French. America, at the time, was embroiled in the Civil War, so they decided to, at best, remain neutral on that warfront while they were fighting between themselves.

In America, celebrations of the holiday have gone from “national pride” to a victory in a war about 150 years ago to a celebration of all Mexican culture and pride, especially in areas of high hispanic demographics. Much like St. Patrick’s Day, for many it’s an excuse to drink heavily, party, and eat good food, although you won’t be pinched if you’re not wearing green on the Cinco.

How Can I Capitalize?

As Cinco de Mayo is not a religious observance, as long as things are done tastefully, the holiday can be a blast. Some simple things you can do include

  • Include Mexican-themed decorations, such as flags, in your restaurant.
  • Craft a custom, Cinco de Mayo-”inspired” menu. If you’re a pizza restaurant, it might be time to try out that “nacho and bell pepper pizza” you’ve been kicking around in

    • … Read the rest

Del Taco Taking The Dollar Challenge, Focusing On Fresh Ingredients

Del Taco has faced a tough battle against Taco Bell; while they have less locations and haven’t succeeded against the one-two punch of Doritos Locos Tacos and Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos, they have expanded back into the Atlanta area, and have not given up any sort of fight.

Nation’s Restaurant News reports that they’re trying a host of new items and price-points to find themselves more competitive. Additionally, they’ll continue to highlight their fresh ingredients, especially in the face of the “Cantina Bell” menu at Taco Bell that prides itself on being fresh and healthier.

Their new Buck & Under menu will offer

  • Mini Cheese Quesadilla
  • Value Bean-and-Cheese Burrito
  • Bacon Quesadilla
  • Crunchy Chipotle Beef Taco
  • Half-Pound Bean-and-Cheese Burrito
  • Double Beef Classic Taco
  • Real Strawberry Lemonade

The “New Tastes” menu ranges from $1.29 to $1.59, and will rotate

  • Bacon Ranch Grilled Chicken Taco
  • Chili Cheese Fry Burrito
  • Fiery Six-Layer Burrito

While these offer great values for the consumer, they really hedge Del Taco’s popularity with those focused on money; by offering a rare, sub-$1 item on their menu, they’ll definitely be a budget-conscious destination for many dinners and diners in this tough economy.

Could your restaurant use a bit of a budget-tightening maneuver to stay relevant? It may be a good idea to look at some of your more profitable dishes and sell “snack size” ones where you reduce ingredient usage for a reduced cost. These smaller portions can also work for a kid’s menu, in many situations, or as a lower-calorie item, depending on the ingredients and construction.… Read the rest

Free Surfing and Turfing At Panda Express Today

It’s a simple technique, and one required of the food industry: to get people to try your new food, you need to hand out free samples. Panda Express is taking that motto to heart with their new Samurai Surf & Turf dish today, offering a free portion of the dish today.

Their Samurai Surf & Turf product features marinated shrimp, red bell peppers, string beans, zesty “Samurai” sauce, diced potatoes, and finished with Angus top sirloin steak. As a premium entree, it’ll normally cost $1 more than the regulars.

To get the meal for free, you need to show them this coupon.

To make it, likely healthier (but not as cheap as free), Surf and Turf is a very variable meal that can meet whatever needs and desires you want out of a meal. The “Turf”, naturally, refers to land-based animals, traditionally cow, and the “Surf” refers to the any number of sea creatures that you find delectable, such as shrimp (as in the Panda Express variety), lobster, scallops, and more. The included veggies, sides, and more are all up for interpretation; you could theoretically have everything from a Surf and Turf sushi roll, hamburger, pasta, rice bowl, and more.

If you want to make the dish with lobster, you need to start busting out your lobster crackers.… Read the rest

Pizza Chains Using More Cheese, Kobayashi To Stir Sales


DEEP! DEEP!

CRAZY! CHEESY!

The Pizza Wars are being continuously fought on the front lines of quick dinners and party-planning for Americans across the country. Little Caesers and Pizza Hut, poorly around April Fool’s Day, have announced two new additions to the world of pizza for America.

Little Caesers is going deep-dish with their DEEP!DEEP! Pizza, topped with mozzarella and muenster, and actually comes as two smaller square pizzas to maximize the amount of corners pieces people can have, Serious Eats reports. The pepperoni variation is available as a Hot-N-Ready dish from 4-8PM, and runs $8 total.

Pizza Hut, on the other side of the crust, is offering Crazy Cheesy Crust pizzas, hot on the trail of their recently-introduced Sliders and OverStuffed Pizza. The Crazy Cheesy Crust pizza includes cheese pockets of provolone, asiago, mozzarella, fontina and mild white cheddar on the outer ring, with regular pizza on the inside, Huffington Post reports. This pizza runs for six weeks (having started April 3rd) and costs $12.99 for one topping. The pizza will, likely, not be a permanent addition to the menu.

Could Kobayashi eat the pizzas in record time? These pizzas might not have the variety of cheeses that France’s Domino’s does, nor reach the cost of the Japanese Domino’s does when it comes to a Kobe steak pizza, but benefit from actually being available in the states for a vaguely reasonable price.

Malaysia may have Pizza Hut’s American iteration beat when it comes to “things in crust or replacing crust”, though.

Or, you can just make your own.… Read the rest

How To Create A Secret Menu

What Are We Talking About?

Secret menus are of legend at multiple restaurants; some are truly secret and unadvertised, while others are mentioned and discoverable, just not on the paper menu in the restaurant.

Who Should Do This?

Any restaurant wanting more customers, more loyal customers, and a certain air of mystery attributed to their brand.

How Do I Create A Secret Menu?

  1. Talk to your chefs and staff. See what’s been made behind the scenes, what people have liked off the menu, or what people regularly request that isn’t carried on the menu (but doesn’t take a whole lot of work to customize).
  2. Gauge whether some dishes are economical on a larger scale than before. For the most part, you’ll want to make sure they’re using standard items in the kitchen and are cooked at appropriate temperatures for the purposes of health and safety.
  3. Decide on what you’ll carry, prices, and if any inventory shifts will be needed to make for it (hopefully, none).
  4. Decide on how you want to go about this menu. Do you want to have it hidden on the website? Do you want it to be purely word-of-mouth? Do you want the servers and waitstaff to appear reluctant about talking about it, or jump at the opportunity to spread “secrets”?

Never…

  • … buy rapidly-perishing items for just the secret menu. If you only use peanut butter on a secret menu “Elvis Burger”, peanut butter has a decent shelf-life and doesn’t take too much space (and in most cases, doesn’t even need to be refrigerated), so a jar of that isn’t out of the question, but only having lobster for a “Lobster Burger” would be absurd.
  • … put a “Secret Menu” section on the menu. That defeats the entire purpose. Put a little bit of a

    • … Read the rest

Twitter Thursday: Andrew Zimmern

He eats bizarre foods, but does he make bizarre tweets? We’ve collected some of Andrew Zimmern’s most-recent tweets regarding the food world he thrives in for your perusal. Get a look into the mind of a man who chows downs on things that would make your stomach turn.

… Read the rest

Twitter Thursday: Michael Symon

He’s an Iron Chef. He likes to Chew. He did a season of Dinner: Impossible. He’s Michael Symon, and he’s on Twitter to tell you his thoughts. We’ve collected some of the best food-related tweets to give you an insight into his world.