If there were any doubt about the popularity of Bravo's Top Chef, and the importance to your business of doing well on it if you're a contestant, a couple of current magazine issues would dispel it. I'm thinking of Entertainment Weekly (the holiday movie preview issue) and The Week, which condenses all the news in the universe into one thin magazine each week.

First, Entertainment Weekly's Shaw Report -- no, really, I subscribe to The Economist; my daughter gave me the heads up about this feature -- says the following:

"In: the Voltaggio brothers; Five Minutes Ago: the Simpson sisters;  Out: the Hough siblings."

Then in this week's The Week my review of Volt was condensed but given quite a bit of space. Somehow I don't think it was my brilliant writing that caught the eye of The Week's editors. (You may not be able to get to it with the link unless you're a subscriber, so I'll reproduce it here.) ...

Continue reading "More buzz for a (somewhat) local restaurant" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Have you heard about underground restaurants? The New York Times was writing about them over a year ago, so they aren't exactly news.

(I did a search to see if the Sun had written anything that I had missed. We hadn't, but one of the results was a story mentioning Subway.)

When I was looking at last year's list of this year's supposed trends from our restaurant consultants to see how many of them pertained (before I got too excited about next year's trends), I came across this: ...

Continue reading "Black market restaurants" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)
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Just when you thought it was safe to start reading Dining@Large again...I'm not done with the 2010 trends yet.

Remember the restaurant consultants' No. 7?

#7 THEY LAUGHED WHEN WE SAID “TONGUE”: Last year, some bloggers said we’d gone bonkers by predicting that tongue – beef and veal – would be hot in 2009. Well … here’s the Offal Truth: For 2010, it’ll be tongue (including lamb) and oxtail along with beef and pork cheeks, chicken gizzards, tripe, and other innards and odd parts. “In a pig’s ear,” you say? That, too, along with trotters. Savvy chefs are using these odd parts to offset downsized portions of expensive steaks and chops. You interleave a few slices of strip steak with slices of smoked tongue; you top a petit filet mignon with a nugget of wine-braised beef cheek; you layer some oxtail ravioli over a half-size portion of New York strip and … bingo! … chefs create added interest and eye candy while lowering their food costs. ...

I have seen trotters and beef cheeks on menus around here, but not very often. Tongue, I don't think so. ...

Continue reading "Hold your tongue" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)
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Are you ready for some buzzwords? (Sorry, my family watches a lot of Monday Night Football.)

Here are, as promised, the 25 buzzwords from international restaurant consultants Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co.

Now don't go telling me there are more or less than 25. I can't figure out why they labeled them that way myself. ...

Continue reading "25 food buzzwords for 2010" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
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I always like getting trend reports from international restaurant consultants, first because, as you know, I'm a sucker for trends and second, these are the things that may get foisted on us in the future because restaurateurs are paying these consultants big bucks to tell them what to do next.

Anyway, here's the provocative list I got in an e-mail from Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. Inc. of the 12 top restaurant and hotel food-and-beverage trends for 2010. ...

Continue reading "12 restaurant trends for 2010" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
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While many people at the Sun laugh at me as I try to come up with new and exciting Top 10 Tuesday topics that aren't so arcane only four people will call up the list but don't totally compromise my principles (Top 10 Crab Cakes, the Winter Edition), Editor Amanda actually sent me six excellent topics.

Of course, four of the six we've already discussed here, but not this one: Things with Eggs on Top. ...

Continue reading "Dishes with an Egg on Top: Trend of the Year?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (51)
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While we've been discussing the Chicago Tribune's 10 worst dining trends, others have, too. Serious Eats had harsher things to say than anyone here did in an entry called "The 10 Worst Food Trends? Really?"

As the note at the end of the post says, the writer, Michael Natkin, really got his knickers in a twist over some of them.

"This list is basically just a bunch of populist rabble-rousing, bashing of supposed elites who have become too effete to enjoy the pleasure of simple, rustic food. The only problem is, these creatures barely exist," Natkin says. ...

Continue reading "A blogger/chef strikes back " »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
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I'm still working my way through the terrible trends, or at least the ones that affect us locally. No. 2 is "The Chef as Media Whore."

Remember, these are "in order of annoyance."

That surprises me. There are a lot more annoying restaurant trends I can think of.

Here's what the story on the decade's bad dining trends said about this one:

They cook, of course. They also sell shoes and star in reality shows. Sometimes they cook. Rocco DiSpirito, a mid-decade pan flash, is arguably the finest example.

"There are celebrity chefs who manage to stay chefs and run excellent restaurants," said [Tim] Zagat, "but there are times when you wonder what a chef is supposed to be doing. TV brings people into their restaurant. But when do they find time to cook?" ...

Continue reading "The chef as media whore" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
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When I first published this photo maybe a couple of years ago, I vaguely remember some readers wondered what it was. Now if I published it without comment, I think people would say, "Wow, that charcuterie looks great" and want to know the particulars and where it was from. For the record, it's Clementine's charcuterie sampler: (clockwise from the bottom) pork garlic green onion lager sausage, tomato ginger marmalade, house-cured duck breast ham, chicken liver pate with rye whiskey, and coriander honey red cabbage jam. ...

Continue reading "Local charcuterie" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)
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Maybe you had to live through the worst excesses of nouvelle cuisine to be wary of restaurant preciousness. Is it my imagination, but are we at the beginning of a trend again?

Just the fact that the amuse bouche is back in style suggests we are. ...

Continue reading "Restaurant preciousness" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)
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We've talked about restaurant kitchens oversalting food before, but I bet you've never looked at salt from this point of view.

Instead of salt on food, how about food on salt?

These are blocks of pink primordial ocean Himalayan sea salt. ...

Continue reading "Food your salt " »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
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I was thinking yesterday that everyone and his dog are jumping on the farm-to-table bandwagon. I'm not complaining about the concept, obviously, just the phrase.

Pretty soon to distinguish itself, a restaurant will have to offer only exotic foods using cooking techniques from other continents.

Then I got word of the Toyota Hybrid Farm to Table Tour, one of the stranger things to come out of the current fascination with local and seasonal. ...

Continue reading "The Fabulous Farm to Table Tour" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)
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I can't believe not one of Dining@Large's 3,060 entries has addressed the sous vide phenomenon. I guess it's sort of crept up on me.

I've been seeing at least a few sous vide dishes on the menus of practically every new restaurant I've reviewed lately, and I just assume readers know what it means when I refer to it. That's probably foolish.

Or maybe Top Chef has educated most of you. ...

Continue reading "Sous vide comes to Baltimore" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)
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Continue reading "Trend alert!!!" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (31)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Iced coffee is the summer's trendy drink. I wouldn't know this except when Gailor moved in for the summer the first night she brewed coffee to have iced the next morning.

OK, I said to myself, hot new trend.

Sure enough, when I got to work that day there was an e-mail from the National Restaurant Association announcing that iced coffee is hot. Not only that, USA Today did a trend story on the drink.

In the past year, iced coffee has become so popular it's overtaken iced tea as a breakfast drink in restaurants. Wow, who knew anyone drank iced tea for breakfast? I missed that whole trend. ...

Continue reading "Iced coffee is hot" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)
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Part of my Sunday morning ritual is to go through the coupons in the paper to try to cut out enough of them for things that I would buy anyway so that I actually make up the cost of Sun for a week. (I do get an employee discount.)

Of course, I then forget to use them when I go to the store.

Anyway, today I came upon one for Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think mayonnaise should be made with olive oil. And I'm someone who loves olive oil. I just don't think a store-bought mayonnaise should be tarted up. ...

Continue reading "Olive oil: hot new flavor trend" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
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Mintel, a company that tracks global trends (my kind of company), has exciting new findings about the three major food groups: ice cream, coffee and alcoholic beverages. Is there a more irritating word, by the way, than "beverages"? I feel like a flight attendant using it. But that's what the company was tracking.

Anyway, Mintel found that seven in 10 men prefer plain flavors of ice cream like chocolate or vanilla.

Actually they might as well have said "like chocolate," because have you ever known any man, or for that matter woman or child, to prefer vanilla? (Unless, of course, it was vanilla disguised as "rainbow," which only fools kids under four.) ...

Continue reading "Ice cream, coffee and alcoholic drink trends" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (56)
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VB6 was the Word Spy Word of the Day in my inbox yesterday. It stands for Vegan Before 6 (p.m.), the idea being that you eat a vegan diet until then but afterward eat whatever you want for the rest of the night.

I could do the vegetarian version of that, and often do, but not the vegan. I like milk and yogurt and cheese too much.

Oddly, I had run into the concept for the first time just a couple of days before on Mark Bittman's blog, but now I can't find the entry to link to it. ...

Continue reading "Hot new trend: VB6" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (32)
Categories: What's Hot
        

OK, I was a little grumpy yesterday. But at the very end of the day something delightful happened that lifted my spirits.

I got a press release from the National Restaurant Association about the Hottest Menu Trends in 2009, compiled from a survey of more than 1,600 professional chefs who are members of the American Culinary Federation.

You know how I love trends, especially involving surveys where the methodology is a little, um, suspect.

Do you remember the fun I had torturing you with these survey results last year? THIS YEAR THERE ARE 208 HOTTEST MENU TRENDS. And we're going to spend many delightful hours together going over them. ...

Continue reading "Just when you thought it was safe to eat in a restaurant again..." »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (32)
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According to the March/April issue of the magazine Imbibe (maybe "Drink" was already taken), on newstands now, a hot new trend is restaurants' pairing food with cocktails. I'd certainly be willing to try it, but I'm not sure I could taste the meal after awhile.

Sometimes a multi-course dinner is prepared to complement a particular spirit, and sometimes a cocktail is created to pair with a particular dish, such as a rye whiskey sour that goes with teriyaki pork belly and something called the …Fields Forever cocktail served with goat cheese crostini drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Both of these are from an Atlanta restaurant, Eugene, and the drink recipes are including in the article (although I'm more interested in the recipes for the pork belly and the crostini).

This "trend," if that's what it is, has had at least some representation in Baltimore. Taste in the Belvedere Square area has done scotch dinners, and the Wine Market in Locust Point sometimes features cocktail pairings.

Here's the recipe for the ...Fields Forever cocktail (those three dots are part of the name) that goes with the goat cheese crostini: ... 

Continue reading "Cocktail and food pairings" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)
        

In honor of BYOB week (well, yesterday's Top Ten was Top Ten BYOB Restaurants), I took note of a list of Trends We Love from the Restaurant Awards 2008 issue of Los Angeles magazine that my daughter sent me. The last one is "No corkage fees."

It seems to me we're going the other way in Baltimore. As I said yesterday, I don't remember that BYOB restaurants used to have corkage fees, although restaurants with liquor licenses always did. In any case, no corkage fees obviously isn't a trend in this area; but if it's happening in California, it could be heading our way.

Here are the other trends they love -- and we would all love. (Actually, I don't care about the ice cubes.): ... 

Continue reading "Trends we love" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
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I almost hate to tell you that locavore has been designated the Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. I would have said Food Trend of the Year, OK, but Word of the Year?

I already hate the word. It makes me crave some out-of-season ingredient shipped in from Tunisia. 

I'm sure you can guess what it means even if you haven't heard the term; but in case not, it's someone committed to the whole seasonal, local farms, sustainable agriculture, eco-eating trend that we've talked about endlessly, particularly with places like Dogwood and Woodberry Kitchen opening up. (And many restaurants were doing it before them without as much fanfare.)

That got me looking around for stories about other food trends we'll be seeing in 2008.

There are no surprises, but here are some of the things I came up with: ... 

Continue reading "...And a look forward" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
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Wilbur Reeling sent me a link to his blog Quintessential Cuisine. I had just been surfing the net doing some research on the hot trends coming up in 2008 (see tomorrow's post), and one of them was oysters.

I know they don't sound very trendy, but I have noticed seafood restaurants offering more varieties lately. And this I didn't know: There are more and more places now where you can order oysters online.

Anyway, Reeling's photos taken at local places will make you hungry for them.

(Photo courtesy of Wilbur Reeling) 

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: What's Hot
        

With the end of the year, we come to the end of the What's Hot & What's Not list. Not the literal end; we have 134 more. But the rankings are getting more and more meaningless so I'll give it up.

For those of you who are late to the party, I won't even try to explain. You'd better just check out the What's Hot category to the right of the page.

As for the list itself, I'm not sure what "sushi cuisine" is as opposed to sushi, but I'm surprised to see it so far down the list, with 49 percent of the chefs surveyed thinking it's hot, 23 percent saying it's passe, and 28 percent labeling it a perennial favorite.

The biggest relief to me on this list is that only 6 percent of the chefs think fresh herbs are passe. Please don't make me eat in their restaurants.

And how can anyone in his or her right mind think that cheese, gelato and fresh pasta are passe?

Continue reading "The end of What's Hot" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Here we are, back with the What's Hot & What's Not list. At this point if you aren't up to speed, just click on the What's Hot category to the right to see Nos. 1-40. The list was made up by asking chefs which foods, drinks, cuisines and techniques were hot, which were passe and which were perennial favorites. Those are the percentages after each item on the list in that order.

The most interesting to me of these ten is No. 48, sous vide (51 percent of the chefs surveyed thought it was hot, 38 percent passe, 11 percent a perennial favorite).

Right, perennial. My mom used to do it.

Sous vide, or vacuum cooking, in case you haven't heard the term, uses airtight plastic bags, a long cooking period, and a water bath at relatively low temperature to maintain the integrity of the food better.  The problem is that botulism can develop in the absence of oxygen, so nonprofessional cooks have to be careful. Actually, professional cooks have to be careful, too. Here's the Web site if you want to know more.

Come to think of it, No. 43, dragon fruit (pictured), is kind of interesting, too. How could 38 percent of the chefs say it was passe? 

Continue reading "Don't try this at home, kids" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Calm down. There's no way I can continue to torture you with this What's Hot & What's Not list into 2008. But until then...

Here are the next ten, Nos. 31 through 40. if you missed the first 30, God forbid, the easiest way to find them is to go under Categories and click the What's Hot link. Remember the numbers following the item refer in order to percentage of chefs surveyed who think the food, drink, item or cuisine is hot; percentage who think it's passe; and percentage who think it's a perennial favorite.

The most interesting one of these ten to me is No. 40, the slow food movement. No, it's not just chewing each bite 30 times before you swallow. Here's the link to the Slow Food USA Web site, which will explain it in much greater detail than I can.

Also, note how vegetarianism is inching its way up. I'd be happy if restaurants simply served larger portions of vegetables with their meat entrees, but I guess too many customers leave them on their plates so that won't happen.

Let me know if there are any of these you'd like us to discuss further. And, Eric, I checked and "authentic Chinese" didn't make the list.

Continue reading "It's baaaaackkkk" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: What's Hot
        

I guess something finally snapped when JL read my last 10 of the 194 What's Hot & What's Not list. Or maybe it was the gastropubs. In any case, he sent me this e-mail: ...

Continue reading "Everybody's a trendmeister" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: What's Hot
        

I see that Entrepreneur.com has named "gastropubs" as one of 2008's up-and-coming trends.

These are pubs with fine-dining chefs, the first of which in the U.S. was supposedly the Spotted Pig. It opened three years ago in New York City. I think originally you had to start with an actual pub and keep it the way it was except for the food, but no longer. (See photo of the new Victoria Gastro Pub in Columbia to the right.)

There are several reasons I'm puzzled by the whole gastropub thing (nothing against Victoria, which I'm sure is a lovely restaurant).

First, the name, supposedly coined in London in 1991, sounds too much like a Victorian cure for some unfortunate intestinal ailment. You know, like it's the kind of place that has Pepto-Bismol on tap instead of Coors.

Second...

Continue reading "So come up with a better name already" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 4:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
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Yes, still working away at the National Restaurant Association's Top 194. (The fact that there are 194 continues to bug me. Couldn't they have come up with six more?)

At this point, it seems to me, the list is starting to get somewhat meaningless. OK, some of you are probably arguing we're past that point.

To recap, 1,282 chefs were asked to rate every item, cuisine or technique as "hot," "passe" or "perennial favorite." Not sure whether you could do both hot and perennial favorite, but something like braising would surely fall in both categories.

Anyway, the numbers after the next ten reflect those categories in that order, so that 57 percent of the chefs think "alternative meats" like ostrich are hot, 35 percent that they are passe, and 7 percent that they are perennial favorites. The best way at this point to see the discussion about the 20 above these is to click on the What's Hot category on the right of the blog's main page.

Here are Nos. 21 through 30: ... 

Continue reading "Just when you thought it was safe..." »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Eric commented on the Asian entree salad trend under You Can Run..., which got me thinking about what made a salad an Asian entree salad. Just adding some soy or edamame won't cut it.

An industry Web site lists Asian chicken as one of the five "on trend" salads (along with house, Caesar, grilled chicken and Southwestern). Its example of ingredients...

Continue reading "The Asian entree salad trend" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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...but you can't hide. The year is waning and we have 184 more restaurant trends to get through. If you missed the top ten, here's the link to my earlier post, What's Hot & What's Not.

Remember, 1,282 chefs were asked to rate each food, drink or technique as to whether it was hot, cool or passe, or a perennial favorite. That's what the three percentages are after each item on the list. So, for instance, in the case of ethnic fusion cuisine (No. 11 in terms of hotness on the list), 64 percent of the chefs surveyed thought it was hot, 29 percent, passe, and only 8 percent that it was a perennial favorite.

The most interesting one to me in this ten is the Asian entree salad. I don't know why exactly, it just doesn't seem like much of a trend in itself, but 66 percent of the chefs surveyed don't agree. Asian entree salads are HOT.

Here are Nos. 11 through 20:...

Continue reading "You can run..." »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Fairfax asked under my What's Hot & What's Not post yesterday "What's a 'grass-fed item'?"

So young, and yet so wise.

This was No. 8 on the list of things chefs rated as hot. However, 26 percent of the chefs, all in New York, thought grass-fed items were passe; and here I wasn't even sure what they were. I mean, I buy grass-fed chicken and grass-fed beef, but "items"? ...

Continue reading "No. 8: Grass-fed items" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: What's Hot
        

Faithful readers will know that I love trends. I also think they can be kind of silly. (The joke around here is that if you find three examples, it's a trend.)

Restaurants seem more susceptible than a lot of businesses to trends, so I was delighted to get a copy of the National Restaurant Association's survey of 1,282 chefs, members of the American Culinary Federation.

They were asked to evaluate 194 foods, methods of preparation, cuisines and drinks as "hot," "cool or passe" or "perennial favorite."

I'll give you the top ten today...

Continue reading "What's Hot & What's Not" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: What's Hot