The Greatest Food Culture Site Ever*
Just in case anyone thought that the Fidget Spinner craze had reached peak annoyance — the toy was recently used to plate food.
Houston restaurant Reef wants in on the trend, and recently used one of these ubiquitous spinners to plate a dish’s sauce. Say what you want about the spinner craze — but the meal actually turned out great. See it in action…
In the near future, words will have no meaning, replaced with the icons that we know as emojis. Realizing that word-challenged patrons will have a hard time ordering their food, London-based pop-up restaurant, The Little Yellow Door, is testing out a menu consisting of emojis.
Patrons are encouraged to order their meals using icons on WhatsApp. Thankfully, most animal-based proteins are accounted for in our emoji keyboard… although we still lack the ability to order waffles [sad face].
Hopefully, reviews of the restaurant will be nothing but happy faces and thumbs up. Smiling brown piles would be bad.
[link, via Mental Floss]
Why do we tip our servers? Is it because we genuinely feel better rewarding our waiter or waitress for a job well done? We have excess cash that we feel would be better spent by others. Or, the most popular answer… out of guilt.
Adam Conover of CollegeHumor brings us Why Tipping Should Be Banned. The short video provides some insight into what is essentially an antiquated and very American thing to do at the end of a meal. Besides tipping not making sense financially for the business owner or the customer, it provides unnecessary stress and math. Not to mention the dirty looks from the server who you just floated 11% to.
So, should tipping be banned? Please watch this, while we await angry comments from current and/or former restaurant workers.
[link]
If you’re unfamiliar with the restaurant-naming convention inspired by hipsters, I’ll break it down for you. It’s pretentious, tired, and there are many vintage tools and ampersands involved.
Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, Garrett Oliver, having the benefit of experience and geographic location to make such observations, has been having a little fun with the hipster-naming trend. The best part, besides the hipster-bashing, is how easy it is to use this branding-technique with whatever you may have laying around the house.
Try it with a few random items you have around and send a pic and name over. The best one will receive a vintage cleaver and a year’s supply of mustache wax.*
The first in my series of fictional hipster restaurant names, illustrated. Here, the Spoon & Kukri. pic.twitter.com/onnAXRzlHo
— Garrett Oliver (@GarrettOliver) January 3, 2015
The 2nd in my series of fictional hipster restaurant names, illustrated. Here, the Knife & Decanter. pic.twitter.com/bkDQG3jVck
— Garrett Oliver (@GarrettOliver) January 4, 2015
The 3rd in my series of fictional hipster restaurant names, illustrated. Welcome to Hawthorne & Cleaver. pic.twitter.com/oGvP97Yiau
— Garrett Oliver (@GarrettOliver) January 5, 2015
The 4th in my series of fictional hipster restaurant names, illustrated. Welcome to the Hand & Fork. pic.twitter.com/NRaUQtr7Mh
— Garrett Oliver (@GarrettOliver) January 6, 2015
The fifth in my series of fictional hipster restaurant names, illustrated. Welcome to Chopper & Ladle. pic.twitter.com/1dTqQemU8L
— Garrett Oliver (@GarrettOliver) January 7, 2015
The 5th of my fictional hipster restaurant names, illustrated. Welcome to Sword & Pillow. The food is inside… pic.twitter.com/1kz1yTYGN5
— Garrett Oliver (@GarrettOliver) January 8, 2015
*may or not actually happen.
[via First We Feast]
Boring 2-D restaurant menus are no way to order. And, none of them provide the nostalgia of those pop-up books you had as a kid.
Paper engineer Helen Friel recently designed and constructed a 3-D pop-up menu for the Art Deco Beaufort Bar at London’s Savoy Hotel. Turning the page reveals an in-your-face example of each cocktail offered at the bar.
They become a great way to feel like a kid again… before you start drinking heavily.
