Menu Construction / Communication (I dream of serving hung beef in a bikini, too!)

Today opened with a round of 'In the News', lead off with the dining section of the NY Times. What I brought to the class was from the Times, but not the dining section -- it seemed a restaurant named 'Winter' took a full page color ad out in the front section of the newspaper, opposite the first National page. This is a restaurant that changes both it's decor and menu to reflect the season, and clearly is trying to appeal to business people and the wealthy, not the more food-oriented people who read the dining section. According to Richard, in this economy, spending that kind of money on that kind of ad is clearly a desperation move, especially since it is not a new restaurant.

Speaking of the economy, the NY Post ran an article called 'Unhappy Meal', about how executives downtown are downsizing their lunch budgets by eating fast food instead of something more elegant. A lot of classy news outlets picked up a story about a Latina former Hooters girl who is suing Hawaiian Tropic Zone because she claims they wouldn't hire her because she sounded too 'ghetto'. I quote,

"It was kind of like my dream to work at the [Hawaiian Tropic Zone]," she said. "It's the bikini, I guess."

The restaurant is spread across three floors and 16,000 square feet. It features a two-story waterfall, a setting that "tantalizes the senses" and menu items such as hung barbecue ribs and crispy chicken lollipops.

Denied the dream of serving hung beef and chicken pops in a bikini? Surely, sueing for a million dollars is aiming too low!

Finally, Richard closed with a tidbit from Fox News, in which 7 Japanese diners are sent to the hospital for eating grilled testicles of a fugu, the famous poisonous blow fish. If you're going to put POISONOUS FISH TESTICLES IN YO MOUF, you had it comin'. Uh, no pun intended.

The next part of the class was dedicated to correcting the menu Richard handed out, revising it on all levels, from design and arrangement to the parts of the descriptions and spelling and grammar.

The majority of the class was dedicated to 'communications', more specifically, communicating yourself to others in a direct way. This took the form of public speaking. We were given a couple of minutes to jot notes, a couple of minutes to practice and give feed back to two others, then each one of us got up in front of the class and discussed our favorite foods - what, why and how we make them.

Some of the students, particularly the younger ones, were remarkably poorly spoken, clearly uncomfortable speaking in front of a group, and more to the point, selling themselves -- if we're going to sell a biz, we got to sell ourselves. A few liked foods they never even considered making themselves, like beef jerky or waffles (!) One was vague but passionate about all food Italian, a few named foods that were favorite only when their mother made them.

I was feeling ill (and as it turns out, after class I would call in to work ill and stay at home for 3 days recovering), but I got up there and started with a joke. "As you may of already guessed, my favorite food is also waffles." (Everyone knows I'm pizza-focused, got a good laugh, oh, you just had to be there) I warned them that I'd try to keep this quick, as I could babble all day. I started with, "Pizza is my favorite food for the sole reason that my mother was a horrendous cook." That got a 2nd laugh, no faces were turned away from me. I had them. I spoke of how ordering pizza from the shops of Italian-dominated Staten Island were wonderful reprieves from my mom's puke chicken and leather omelets. How making them evolved over my life from heating up Stouffer's French Bread pizzas to buying pre-made dough. And then I went into a little detail about retarding dough, making raw sauce and floating pools of buffala moz on a limpid red pool. I paused, and fielded more than a handful of enthusiastic questions. It was really cool. I sold it! (My enthusiasms, that is. If I was trying to extract money from their pockets, who knows.) And I'm happy to say that 3 other student in this group of 20 named pizza as their favorite food, though that had nothing to do with me.

The class ended with a photocopy of LI Robert DeNiro's restaurant's menu, a pizzeria restaurant. The exercise is to take this large menu, chop it up and rearrange it so it flows better. To be continued on Wednesday, as there is no class on Monday. Peace out, peeps!

Menu Design (Unappetizing Demons)

The class started with a video, which if I was 25 years younger, would HAVE been heaven. Now, mildly interested but I can do this at home, dude. The program was a 'deconstructed' look at the bones of a restaurant, many angles which we have looked at in the first few weeks of classes. Lots of factoids were thrown at the watcher: people eat out 218 times a year on average, old and secondary cuts of meat are held for customers who order their meat 'well done', in Holland their Department of Health requires the restaurant's report grade posted for all to see, which resulted in less than 50% of their restaurants getting an A to over 75%. (Here in NY, a customer has to request the DOH report to see it.) Over all, it was informative and to the point, considering a lot of the ca-ca out there fronted by twits like Rachael Ray.

The next part of the class was a review of a chapter in our text, "Management By Menu", which provided illustrations to Richard's review of rudimentary principles of graphic design and typography. As a person in charge, even if you're not an expert, you need to share a vocabulary with your 'consultant', which is restaurantese for freelancer.

Richard presented each table with a handful of menus and we critiqued their design and layout. We lucked out and got a WTF kind of menu from a place called Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens, and if you think their name is a mouthful, you should see the menu. It looks elegant, but the natural colored paper is a poor contrast to the black ink. There is a large box about their food philosophy, that just rambles and sounds like a cranky old man trying to be funny. The descriptions go on at length, making dumb jokes, and the sections have cutesy headers like "Things You May Want to Eat Before You Eat Something Else" (that's appetizers, to us unwacky folk) And most inexplicable of all, there were random sketches of demonic characters all over the menu, which wasn't explained and didn't seem to have anything to do with the theme of the place. After, we find out it's a California joint -- ah, that explains it!

To close out the class, Richard handed out a graphic design disaster. Tomorrow, the last day of menus.

Menu Design (You Don' Mess With the Sushi Chef)

Monday morning started with odds and ends, students recounting their culinary experience from the weekend. Russian Pam Anderson went to a neighborhood joint near her home in the East Village, and found it both filthy and delicious. Slovack Ricky Martin seemed hung over as he recounted a business meeting at Daniel recently -- as good as the hype. English Rose gave us the heads up that Martha Stewart would be visiting four restaurants on 10th street this week on her show, and passed around an article from the Daily News about a sushi chef on his way to work when he got cut off by some yob. They pulled over, and sushi chef went all sushi on his ass with his 12" sushi knife. What that had to do with English Rose's weekend is beyond me.

Northfork Gal went to Tabla in the last week, and had a good experience with their Restaurant Week specials. I recalled a story for the class about how I used to go there relatively often for period when I was, errr, wooing various women n' stuff. After getting married, I was there with a friend out of town and a guy in a suit comes up to the table and asks for me by name. I nervously acknowlege that it's me, and he thanks me, as a rep of the restaurant, for being a loyal customer -- it was my 10th visit -- and the chef had a special course for me. Richard thought it could of been done in a quieter and less intrusive way, by just sending out the course and acknowleging the reason on the bill. Oh well.

The majority of the class was dedicated to menu design. First was a discussion of the general types of menus. All menus fall into one of the following categories, but they are not mutually exclusive either -- some combine them, some have different menus for different times of day, week or occasion.

• A La Carte: Literally 'from the cart', customers order individual items with individual prices at well.
• Prix Fixe: Set number of courses at a set price. Choices within course.
• Menu Fixe: Set number of courses at a set price, with set dishes. Usually at a catered affair.
• Degustation: A tasting menu of many fixed small plates, usually representing the thoughts of the chef.
• Table d'Hote: "Table of the Host", whatever comes out of the kitchen is what you eat.
• Cycle Menu: Menu cycles through a rotation over a period of days, weeks or months. Typical of institution with a captive population, like schools, prisons and corporate cafeterias.
• Du Jour Menu: Changes every day, without repeat
• Limited Menu: Few items. Used to be just fast food, but more upscale restaurants have focused on smaller menus. NYC French restaurants used to have 30+ entrees, now a days limit to less than half of that. Red-sauce lower-end Italian joints will still have something like veal or chicken 10 different ways each, on a large menu.
• Meal Period Menu: Multiple menus per day.
• California Menu: All meals at all times, like some diners.
• Party Menu: For specific events, like the super bowl.
• Buffet Menu: Less formal. The diner chooses food quantity and plate presentation.

Next we had an exercise with a menu from a restaurant called Le Cherche-Midi, where Richard served as maitre-d years ago, and has since closed. It was a hand-written thing that had an unusual French menu - rustic regional food of the provencal region. There was an a la carte menu and a fix prixe menu whose content was almost identical, except for the structure. Why? In the summer when things were slow, if someone wanted to come in just for a drink and an appetizer, no problem, things are slow. In the winter where there usually was a line to get in, some shmoe sipping a drink for an hour would cost the restaurant, so the menu guaranteed these people would not come in.

The rest of the day, I kind of tuned out -- it was a very basic primer in graphic design, about the importance of font, lay out, highlighting, serif vs. san-serif fonts, stuff that really takes a few months of hands on work to really appreciate, here summed up in under an hour. Sorry, readers, I was too tired to pay attention!

Writing a Menu Entry (The Joy of Cooking...Raccoon)

Thursday is the day for 'In the News', and today it took up almost half the class. Upfront and center was the Bruni's review of Daniel, a slavish 4-star ode to a beautiful space and pretty food. I questioned Richard about Bruni's view of the service as incredibly present and detail oriented -- surely the staff knows who he is and caters to him? It seems Bruni has a legion of less high-profile foot soldiers who also hit up the restaurants at other times to help confirm what the reviewer interprets.

It seems Gordon Ramsey has a 3rd show being imported, the F-Word. According to Richard, celebrity chefs control a lot of what the public think about food and dining, but the danger in that is that the celebrity chef industry gives control to a lot of non-food experts. Case in point: according to polls, the highest paid chef in America today is....Rachel Ray, a woman who isn't actually a cook.

We reviewed this blurb about the recent closing of NYC's Fiamma, a bellwether of bad economic times to come for a lot of fine dining establishments. Another story from the Times shows a restaurant which needs $6 million gross minimum to stay open it's first year, and based on it's model and the times, is absolutely doomed. Richard briefly told an anecdote, but held back some details because he hopes to have the main character come in and speak to us. It seems some South American baker wanted to open up a second location in NYC. By hiring the wrong people, the budget want from $1.25 mil to over $5 mil -- which is a tough nut if your selling cakes and coffee. On top of that, the lease for the space which all this money was spent on was improperly negotiated and ended up with a 1 year lease! Suffice to say, the place didn't stick around.

Richard left us with a story from the Kansas City Star: Raccoon: It's What's for Dinner, most appropriate after last week's NY Times feature on squirrel. Who knew that the 1938 1st edition Joy of Cooking contained raccoon dishes?

Next we broke into groups for another menu entry workshop. Every student was supposed to write three menu items from their concept restaurant. My concept is in flux and will try to write it this weekend. Pastry didn't write anything, and Northfork was absent today. Chicago gal's concept is for a neighborhood authentic Mexican eatery. I won't go through the whole process, but I'll show you one entry, along with Richard and the class's work on it:

Mole Negro: Braised Chicken Breast smothered in traditional Mexican mole sauce (an unsweetened savory sauce of herbs and chocolate.) Served with our traditional rice, refried beans and choice of corn or flour tortillas.

And the commentary: Braising is not the best method for cooking chicken breast -- it will be tough and dry, and will fall apart. Either offer multiple parts of the bird or change the method. It says it's 'smothered' in sauce, while 'smothering' can be read as another, contradictory method. No parentheticals. Don't repeat the word Mole from the name of the dish, just describe the sauce. And if we're aiming for authentic, you must be accurate -- Mole is about the chocolate, but also very much about the chiles. As much as you may want authenticity, it may be compromised to suit your clients -- if you're opening shop on the Upper East Side for Ladies Who Lunch, then whole chicken breast and tamed spices may be in order. The language of the sides miss some opportunities to show value -- "refried beans", what, from a can? Or some marvelous concoction brimming with smokey pork and cooked for 36 hours?

Slovak Ricky Martin's 3 menu items were a notable disaster, notable not for the technical side of their composition, but their content and contempt for the average eater. Beef tar tar with quail egg, goat cheese croquettes with panko, petit lobster rolls -- small dishes for twits. Raw ground beef with raw egg may be the one 'out there' dish on a more comforting menu, but then lumps of goat cheese? Blechchch!

Richard finished up the class with listing the main food groups of a dessert menu. They are:

• Chocolate
• Fresh Fruit
• Cake (texture)
• Pastry
• Creamy
• Crunchy
• Hot/Cold (can depend on season)

A good dessert menu will hold all seven of these groups, but doesn't necessarily have to be 7 dishes -- they can overlap. Something like Chocolate Hazelnut Cake has chocolate, cake and crunchy all in one. There should be a variety in the level of sweetness -- a fruit and cheese plate would be on one end of the spectrum, while a pecan pie would be on the other.

Next week, we delve further into the details of writing a menu.

Writing A Menu Entry, Continued (Mobbed Up)

The class started with Richard opening up the floor to stories from the students, a.k.a. 'odds and ends'. Russian Pam Anderson went to One if By Land, Two if By Sea with her husband and unsurprisingly were impressed by the 'romantic' decor but underwhelmed by the just-good food. Baseball Cap Kid, with out a hint of irony, told us about he and his girlfriend ordered from TGIFriday's, and when he drove over to pick it up, he had to walk through a crowded bar and get the attention of a bartender, just so he could retrieve his order. According to Richard, similar places like Applebees have a curb-side pick up service to avoid such silliness. On top of that, the order was packaged in an nondescript paper bag.

Queens Restaurant Lady said her restaurant recently installed cameras in and around the dining room, and has noticed the front of house staff spending more time in the dining room and engaging the customers. Some discussion came of this, with Richard explaining that it perfectly legal for the owner of a public space to video monitor (and/or audio monitor) people with no expectation of privacy. Bathrooms, where it is expected to be private, is another topic.

Most of the rest of class was dedicated to a menu writing exercise. After reviewing the basics of a menu entry (temperature, method, main ingredient, part and modifier), Richard distributed bits of paper with a basic concept on it. Each table were to write four menu entries based on this concept, then the rest of class would guess the basic concept from only reading the menu items.

One table got "upscale feminine",  another "moderate masculine". We got "moderate/themer". There had to be a fish & mayo dish, a beef and onion dish, a chicken and mushroom dish, and a shrimp and herb dish. Here is what my table came up with, along with criticism from Richard and the class. Apologies to all the Italian Americans out there, it was based on the Outback Steakhouse attitude, but literally only 5 minutes to write the menu....

• Sleeping with the Fishes: Swordfish Milanese resting peacefully on a bed of greens and a side of garlic aoli. Does the target market understand what 'Milanese' means? Maybe make it make Italian with "polenta-breaded or something. Aoli is French, not Italian, perhaps "olive oil Mayonnaise" would work more. What kind of greens? "Greens" is just abstract.
  
• The Goodfella's Beef:  Braised Osso Bucco & Balsamic-Glazed Onions over Egg Noodles. What's the braising liquid? Italian wine like Chianti would make sense. Egg noodles not Italian - name the noodle, like parpadelle.
  
• Omerta Chicken: Chicken Rolatini Riddled with Ricotta and Mushrooms. Needs method -- baked or fried? Needs a sauce or liquid. 
  
• Wiseguy Scampi: Tough but Tender Shrimp sauteed with garlic butter and oregano with linguine

Richard noted that we were consistent in naming the dishes -- naming some but not others would be awkward, and the names clearly communicated the theme. No, I will not be opening a mob-themed restaurant anytime soon, though it makes me wonder what the menu at the 'Bada Bing' topless bar in NJ contains...

We finished the day with the basic menu food groups, and preconceived notions people bring to them. These are not the reality of these groups, just the baggage people bring to your spot and influence their view of your menu:

• Beef: filling, expensive (depending on cut)
  
• Veal: lighter, luxury, more expensive, smaller portion, cruel
  
• Pork: fatty, boring, cooked well done
  
• Poultry: boring, safe, easy to over cook, light, lean
  
• Lamb: gamey & complex, less digestible
  
• Game: interesting, variety, a talking point
  
• Offal: challenging, ethnic, variety
  
• Fish: healthy, lower in calories and fat, expensive, fresh
  
• Shellfish: expensive, fresh
  
• Vegetable: healthy, boring
  
• Pasta/grain: less expensive
  
• Dairy/Fruit: usually breakfast or lunch
  

Any good menu will need 7 food groups represented to offer a good variety.

Writing a Menu Entry (Carl Jr's Toilets NOT Bullet Proof)

The morning started with a review of food-related stories in the news. The NY Times featured a story about the French food critic Francois Simon, supposedly the model for the evil cartoon critic Anton Ego from Ratatouille, and how he cooked in a kitchen for a few days and allowed volunteers to critique his cooking (they were as vicious as he, unsurprisingly). In Park Slope, the Get Fresh Table & Market announced they would start table service for breakfast and brunch -- interesting, because they're initial concept was selling pre-portioned and processed ingredients in kits and the like to take home and cook yourself.

The 2nd Ave Deli, a favorite of mine and my father (and my friend Yana), is opening a new location on 1st Ave on the upper east side to be closer to the old folk clientele who complain that even their new location on 33rd and 3rd is too far. At least between 1st Ave and 3rd Ave, it averages out to 2nd! Richard closed the discussion with a few wacky stories, ending with a man who accidentally shot a toilet to pieces at a Carl Jr. in Utah as he was getting off the pot. It seemed he had a license to carry concealed, but not the common sense to keep the safety on while taking a crap!

We moved on to a menu work shop. Richard distributed a random menu to each table, and then we brainstormed and presented what we felt we knew about the restaurant strictly by the menu. My table got Outback Steakhouse, a pretty extreme example. The top of the cover has a drawing of what looks like a bouquet of tombstones, with the tag "Home of the Bloomin' Onion". Friendly, casual, tongue-in-cheek, between the 'G'day Mates' and the kangaroo, no Australian cliche will be left behind. On the inside, between the "Aussie-tizers" and the hand written typeface with a lot of exclamation points, this is clearly a "fun" child-friendly and child-like theme restaurant, with Crocodile Dundee as a key cultural touchstone. And yes, they will throw whatever you want 'on the barbie'. Ick.

After the break, we got into the nuts and bolts of writing a menu entry. A menu is the primary marketing tool of a restaurant, among other things -- and more often than not, there are no pictures, just written descriptions. To paraphrase an old saw, writing about aromas and taste is a bit like dancing about architecture.

Richard busted out some dos and don'ts. DO: Provide variety in method, ingredients and flavors. DON'T: use subjective terms (like a "USDA Prime" steak vs. a "tender steak"), mix and match within one menu item -- it's low rent and renders the item nebulous.

Richard gave the example of Burger King introducing "Extra Crispy Fries" a few years ago -- a massive flop. How crispy is extra crispy? Better to call the product "twice-fried fries" or something, promising a method rather than a final subject experience.

Any menu item can be built from a selection of five basic elements:

• Temperature: the most optional, as many times people can assume
• Method of Cooking: always, unless understood. A cake is not a 'baked cake', but if a piece of fish is deep fried, you better say it.
• Main Ingredient: Introduce early on to establish value. "Grilled Shrimp with Pasta" is high value, but if the dish is a mound of pasta with some grilled shrimp on top, "Pasta with Grilled Shrimp" will less likely make the client feel ripped off.
• Part: "Chicken Breast Panini" adds value to what is considered cheap meat. "Chicken Scrap Stew" does not.
• Modifier: What makes the dish special, especially needed for classic dishes.

There are two kinds of modifiers:

• Complimentary Modifier: Goes along with the natural property of the main ingredient. ex. white fish with lemon -- both are simple & clean.
• Offset Modifier: Contrasts with the main ingredient. Ex. Duck L'Orange -- duck is gamy and fatty, the orange is fresh, sweet and acidic.

Richard further expounded on the different elements, showing how some words mean the same thing but sound more expensive. Chicken Breast vs. Breast of Chicken. Pan-fried vs. Sauteed. Chicken with Mushrooms vs. Organic Farm Raised Humanely Treated Hen with wild oyster mushrooms and truffles.

Class closed with a lecture from career services and the resources available to the student body. Monday is a holiday, people, so we'll continue next Wednesday. See ya!

Field Investigation Recap / Introduction to the Menu

The day started with each group getting up in front of the class and discussing the restaurants were were assigned to investigate. To recap, we were split into five small groups and sent out at the end of last class to check out local Italian eateries in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.

The content of the discussion centered around the three tenants of the concept statement: Design, Service, Food. From determining what these three elements were about, we took educated guesses about what these places did to be competitive; Chelsea has a LOAD of Italian eateries, multiple spots on each block. Here is a quick breakdown of what we looked at, and in italics how it differentiates themselves.

• Da Umberto -- high end prices, clubby, hard to notice. Quiet date spot
• Olive Garden -- illusion of a bargain, family-friendly, familiar to commuters and tourists. Safe & unchallenging
• Le Zie -- Ugly decor. Inexpensive. Interesting, fresh menu. For locals
• Il Bastardo -- Modern with nice traditional touches. Space to socialize & drink. Not-so-quiet date spot
• Bar Baresco -- Very wine oriented, lots of small plates. Sit for a snack and a drink

My team covered the last one. The presentation in class was a bit of a practice in public speaking, and I ended up speaking for us. Since we were there when it was closed, my wife and I had lunch there yesterday. The food was good, but we were offered wine and opportunities multiple times -- at one point my wife mentioned her pregnancy to politely get the waiter to back down. That caught the attention of the class, a few murmured congratulations. Huh. There is something to this public speaking thing. After that little pregnancy-aside, they seemed more alert to my comments about the design of the bathrooms (individual rooms with mirrors on three walls for checking yourself out), the large backroom (which according to the waiter, used to be a disco back in the day) and the slightly loud Euro-disco music in the dining room (which would of probably evoked a stronger negative reaction from an older clientele.)

Second part of today's class was an introduction to the menu. As mentioned earlier, one of our texts is called Management by Menu, whose pretense is that all planning, design and strategy in starting and running a food service operation is determined first by the menu. Richard proposed the question: What does a menu tell you about a restaurant.

• kind of food served
• level of dining
• clientele targeted
• service level (depending on how simple or complex dishes are determines the amount of training both front and back of house staff need, as well as how much staff)
• preview of the atmosphere and decor
• beverage selection
• operation information
• expectations of how much time the client will spend (a snack joint is a quicker turn around than a fixed menu with 6 courses)
• determines your equipment (a grilled steak will require a steak and....a grill)
• food & beverage cost
• space needed (expensive restaurants tend to give more wiggle room to each diner than a fast casual, which will pack 'em in)

A well designed menu is a key to success, in both it's content and graphic design. Richard quickly sketched two menus on the board. One was the proportion of an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper, the other was long and thin. The first had two dense columns of squiggles, the later a few small bunches of squiggles punctuated by spaces between them. From these basic sketches, we could infer that the first was from a lower-end place that could accommodate snackers and drinkers to a diner with a broad appetite, while the later was probably on the higher-end, demanding more of a commitment from the client in terms of time and money.

The class ended with another round of the mission statement workshop. Jazzman was absent, Pastry still hasn't written one, so we reviewed Northfork's statement again first, the coffee and gelato cafe in Long Island's Northfork. We bounced around the idea of the clientele's expectations -- if they are up there going to wineries, well, that's not kid friendly. Perhaps take the concept of the winery and transpose the coffee and gelato product on it? A flight of small tasting cups of coffee, matched with a flight of small tastes of gelato?

Then we got into mine, the first time it underwent the scrutiny of my fellow students, who seemed to dig it. While defending it and explaining it more thoroughly to Northfork, she said she started getting hungry for pizza -- I guess that's a compliment to me, that my enthusiasm got her motor running. Richard joined us and chimed in on my concept, giving some pointed (but always kindly) advice and pointers. I won't go into it here, but he did hint that opening a restaurant to create a reputation to market a pizza product on might be the way to go. I'm not surprised, as opening a restaurant is the whole gist of the program. However, there must be a way to make a reputation in pizza in ways other than just opening a storefront....maybe hooking up with a celebrity chef? Partnering with a known restaurant? Associating with another brand? His comments made me think, and will revise and add notes for tomorrow's class.