Restaurants - - Page 7

by ES Guest

Opening a Restaurant? Prepare for a Bumpy Ride

Who hasn”t thought about opening their own restaurant? The idea of creating your own little world where people come to drink, eat, and laugh at each other”s ill-timed jokes is intoxicating. Everyone has an idea of what the perfect restaurant should be. Among some amateur insights we often overhear:

“They need to hire more waitstaff.”
“This restaurant needs to run more happy hour specials.”
“Twelve dollars for an organic burger? That”s ridiculous.”
“Why aren”t there more attractive waitresses?”
“A thirty minute wait. This place sucks!” (although lines are usually an indicator of restaurant quality).
“You know what would be sweet? If there were HD screens on the table so we could watch football while we”re eating.”

The restaurant industry is one of those things where everyone has an opinion. Just because you eat out a lot doesn”t make you qualified to run a restaurant. If you spend your whole day on a computer you”re not going to suddenly call Hewlett Packard and start offering suggestions on how to make their screens better or how to improve their track pads. Why do we feel the need to offer advice to waitresses and complain incessantly when we”re unsatisfied with our restaurant experience? Opening a restaurant isn”t as easy as people think. Here are some reasons why close to 60% of restaurants close within three years of opening.

by Emily

San Francisco: Land of a Thousand Brunches

I recently went to eat some food – uh, I mean, visit some friends – in the Bay Area. Kidding, of course my friends are first priority, but obviously any time you”re visiting San Francisco you would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn”t take advantage of its awesome culinary scene.

One thing SF does really well is brunch. Not only brunch, but boozy brunch (and honestly why are you going out to brunch if you”re not planning on drinking?), particularly mimosas. Search SF Yelp for “bottomless mimoas” and you”ll get over 100 results. Preach! No self-respecting bruncher is gonna stop at just one mimosa, let”s be real.

Just as mimosas are an integral part of brunch, eggs benedict is the brunch dish to beat. It”s indulgent without being completely devoid of nutritious ingredients (eggs! They”re good for you!), and it”s just a liiittle too complicated to want to cook at home on a regular basis, so you feel justified paying $13 for someone else to whip up that hollandaise. When getting brunch in the city that overflows with brunch, where to find the best benedict? Here you go:

by BS

Artsy Salad of the Day

The best salads have fried food in them.

Egg roll salad. East Side King. Austin, TX

in Food Travel / Photos / Restaurants 1 comments

by Emily

Restaurant Seating: the Ultimate Musical Chairs

Welp, here’s my favorite thing I’ve found on the internet all day. Choosing the Right Seat: How not to get stuck next to someone that sucks is a delightful infographic (if we’re using the term “infographic” loosely) by San Francisco designer Alex Cornell. His observations and advice are spot on. If you are in a two-table large dinner situation, you’re basically 100% cursed to sit at the sucky table next to the boring people who aren’t drinking. It’s the Murphy’s Law of dining out in big groups.

You can check out the full-size graphic here.

in Rants & Raves / Restaurants 1 comments

by Emily

Artsy Photo of the Day

Thai food isn’t all yellow curry and rice noodles. The fantastic Sway in Austin makes a creative stir fry with chicken, Nashi pear, brussels sprouts, mushroom, chive, Thai basil and red chili.

in Photos / Restaurants 0 comments

by BS

The Endless Road Trip: Copenhagen, the Prettiest Food in the World

So, I could tell you guys all about my recent trip to Denmark, and all of the ways that Copenhagen totally deserves its status as the darling of the local-foraged-organic food movement. But really, there’s no need to say anything about the food here, because all you have to do is look at it. Seriously—how the hell do they get all of their food to look so goddamn beautiful???

As previously mentioned on ES, these people know how to make a freaking sandwich for serious. These avant garde smørrebrød (how cool are øs?) are from Aamans sandwich shop, which actually just opened a branch in NYC. Left: smoked salmon with flower-pickled carrots(!),smoked cream cheese, shallots and watercress. Right: New potatoes with tarragon emulsion, chives, radish, and crisp potato chip strands.

They taste even better in the park! Venison pate with juniper and schnapps, plus apple/celery salad and “bacon-nut crunch.” Sirloin with horseradish, remoulade and crispy onions.

If you thought Danish people aare all fancy foodies, you may be surprised to know they loooooove hot dogs. Artisan, gourmet hot dogs, obviously, with helpful signs that graphically explain that they come served in standard buns, weird fransk buns that have the ketchup or mayo stuffed inside, or on a plate.

We went plate. Can’t resist more crispy onions.

in Bacon / Cheese / Featured / Food Travel / Photos / Red Meat / Restaurants / Sandwich 1 comments

by tvff

Fast Food Review: Taco Bell's Cantina Steak Burrito

I’m an unabashed Taco Bell fan. It’s in my rotation of Friday night takeout options and I even braved the wilds of Orange County for the opportunity to visit their test kitchen and see where the magic is made. I’m pretty regular in my routine. I usually stick with a basic burrito, maybe a taco and almost always a beef Baja Chalupa, although I do occasionally swap it out for the not-on-the-menu-but-available-if-you-ask-nicely Volcano Beef Chalupa.

I have to take my hat off to them for the success of scientific breakthroughs like the Doritos Locos Taco, though that sort of thing always struck me as gilding the lily a bit. But what about a new product line that wasn’t a gimmick—one that stressed high-quality and fresh ingredients? That’s where the Cantina Steak Burrito comes in.

Taco Bell’s introduction of the Cantina menu was intriguing. A trip to your local shopping center will make it clear that Taco Bell is facing competition, so it was only logical that they would fend off the challenge and take advantage of the public’s desire for a more sophisticated option. So, after seeing my wife order it on a few occasions, it was time for me to see if Taco Bell had found the sweet spot between their affordable options and the higher-end products offered by its fast casual foes.

in Red Meat / Restaurants / Sponsored 3 comments