As restaurant consultants, our goal is to help you make your restaurant as
successful as possible. Sometimes, our clients aren’t sure exactly where
they need help or what needs to be done. Regardless of your specific
situation, it’s all about maximizing your restaurant’s efficiencies.

We help owners elevate their restaurants, from independently-owned, to
national franchises and chains, to the next level:

• operations
• menu development
• nutritional analysis
• supply chain management
• restaurant start-up help
• restaurant management
• marketing
• branding
• restaurant design
• quick service, fine dining, and chain

Synergy Restaurant Consultants: 25 years of restaurant success. Contact us
for more information on how we can help take your restaurant to the next
level of success in 2013.

Is your restaurant’s menu helping or hurting business? Let’s look at the two viewpoints, as customers and as business owners, to better understand this important restaurant topic.

 

When there’s too many items on menu

When you sit down at a restaurant, the first thing you’re presented is the menu. First, how does it look? Is it just a flimsy piece of folded paper? Or is it neat, laminated and professional? Does it include any nice photos of the restaurants’ dishes? Secondly, is it easy to browse and is it organized? Any guest will tell you that if they have to flip through a number of pages just to choose what they want, they will become easily frustrated. Also, how is the menu written? Is it descriptive enough?

 

All of these items play a huge role in creating an impression on your guests for good or bad. However, in this post, we’re going to focus on the number of items on your menu.

 

What can go wrong?

Your customers come into your restaurant because they are hungry! A menu that has a large amount of items can become daunting for a guest to read through. When they take long to peruse the menu, that in turn means it will be harder for them to make a decision. All this time spent on the menu means they will have to wait even longer for their food to arrive. And we all know that hunger and waiting can be a recipe for disaster.

 

Further, the more complex the menu, the higher the chances that your restaurant kitchen will not always have the ingredients on hand, or that it a chef is not quite experienced (or used to) cooking that particular dish; this can lead to poor quality or longer-than-normal cooking times.

 

As a restaurant operator, you need to respect the concept of simplicity and efficiency; ask your self if your restaurant kitchen staff and equipment can truly handle a large menu.

 

For information on how to re-engineer your restaurant menu for efficiency, contact Synergy Restaurant Consultants at 1-888-861-9212.

 

 

It’s almost that time of year where we say goodbye to Summer and prepare ourselves for crisp and cool Fall days. And when it comes to cooking, some of the best dishes are created when chefs utilize fresh, seasonal ingredients. Because we are passionate for great food, we’ve compiled a list of Fall fruits and vegetables and great recipes that will surely spur some inspiration in the kitchen.

 

 

Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza with Arugula, recipe by Cucina in Woodstock, NY. Figs are not the necessarily considered the popular fruits on the block but this soft, sweet fruit is plentiful and delicious in the fall season. Have fun contrasting savory and sweet flavors in this pizza recipe that is fully vegetarian.

Quinoa, herb & pomegranate salad, recipe by Olive Magazine. Light and nutritious, this recipe features the fall ingredient, pomegranate. Known for its tartness and intense flavors, pomegranate delivers even more with its natural antioxidant fighting powers. This is a great salad for the healthy crowd.

Sausage, Kale, and Lentil Soup, recipe by Rachael Ray. For those chilly days, what’s better than warming up to a hearty, wholesome soup? Incorporating kale into this dish adds loads of nutrition and flavor. Kale is hailed as one of the healthiest greens to eat since it naturally contains many vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals.

Broiled Persimmons with Mascarpone, recipe by Martha Stewart. Ready for a unique dessert? Choose some bright, soft, ripe persimmons and get started on this recipe.

 

Fennel & Fig Infused Vodka, recipe by Cocktails 2006. Fennel has an interesting flavor that tastes similar to anise or black licorice. This vegetable is used like an herb in various dishes. In this recipe there is the element of savory and sweet (from the figs). This cocktail may prove to be a hit with guests looking for a little something unique.
Fall produce (source: about.com)

• Apples
• Artichokes
• Arugula
• Beets
• Belgian Endive
• Broccoli and Broccoli raabe, rapini
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celeriac, celery root
• Celery
• Chard
• Chicories
• Chilies
• Cranberries
• Curly Endive
• Edamame
• Eggplant
• Escarole
• Fennel
• Figs
• Garlic
• Grapes
• Green beans
• Green onions
• Herbs
• Horseradish
• Jerusalem artichokes
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Leeks
• Lemongrass
• Lettuce
• Limes
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Onions
• Parsnips
• Pears
• Peppers
• Persimmons
• Pomegranates
• Potatoes
• Pumpkins
• Radicchio
• Radishes
• Rutabagas
• Shallots
• Shelling beans
• Spinach
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatillos
• Turnips
• Winter squash
• Zuchinni

A recent Wall Street Journal article entitled, Move Over Bacon: Foodies Just Want the Smoke, discusses the passing of one food trend (e.g. bacon) and the emergence of a new one — smoke!  We cannot deny the appeal of smoke-flavored foods, from the distinct taste to the pleasant aroma, smoked foods are definitely rising in popularity.

The beauty of smoke is that nearly any food or dish can be smoked; smoked meats, desserts and even cocktails have been featured at various restaurants across the nation. All you really needs is some wood chips (such as hickory, apple, maple, cherry, ash, alder, mesquite etc.), a grill or smoker, optional herbs and seasonings, and your own creative imagination!

A BBQ master may have his own smoking technique down pat and might swear on it, but there are various ways you can smoke foods so it’s important to understand all your options and the basics first. There are a few types of smoking, including dry smoking and wet smoking. Aside from knowing how to pair wood  chips and food, you’ll need to know at what temperatures you need to smoke your food and on what kind of grill or smoker. Check out this Better Homes and Garden Article on How To Smoke Food for details and good tips.

Smoked dishes

Looking for some inspiration in your kitchen? Check out these great smoked dishes served up by imaginative restaurant chefs:

• Cedar wood infused Tequila at Smoke Restaurant in Dallas, TX (Find more by checking out Where to Drink Smoked Cocktails)
• Roasted Alaskan halibut with turnips, almond, pickled turmeric and smoked butter sorbet from Blackbird Restaurant in Chicago, IL
• Chocolate smoked sea salt ice cream at Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco, CA
• Smoked gouda mac & cheese from Wine Wood in Grapevine, TX
• Smoked ricotta ravioli, tomato and soft herbs at The Dutch in NY, NY
• BBQ chicken and grilled corn made from mozzarella, jalepeno, scallions and smoked tomato sauce from the Westside Tavern in Los Angeles, CA

Do you need help with sprucing up your menu with some smoked flair? Contact our menu development team at Synergy to learn more about improving your menu to attract more guests.

For those of us less familiar with the foods of Asia, the words “fish” and “sauce” wouldn’t particularly sound like a tasty combination in the culinary sense. But if you enjoy savory and salty tastes such as soy sauce (think “umami”), we believe you may just start to warm up to fish sauce.

How do you make a sauce out of fish and bottle it up? Similar to how soy sauce is made, fish sauce is produced by the fermentation of fish (instead of soy beans) with salt and water added. Actually, anchovies are the  kind of fish that are commonly used to create the traditional Southeast Asian dark caramel-colored fish sauce you see at a restaurant or supermarket. As ketchup is the go-to condiment in America, fish sauce is as just as ubiquitous in Southeast Asian cuisines like Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian, and is also used in countries such as Philippines, Japan, Korea, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia. Interestingly, as common as fish sauce is in Asian cooking, history finds that it was actually the Ancient Romans who were found to have first utilized this condiment. In fact, Italian chefs today still use “garum” fish sauce in their dishes to add a strong depth of flavor.

 

This powerfully salty and savory sauce can be used in many ways, particularly to impart that fifth taste sensation, umami, to various dishes . We encourage exploratory chefs and foodies to try fish sauce in these ways:

 

• As a dipping sauce: if you’ve ever eaten Vietnamese egg rolls (chả giò) or any Thai dish, you’ll notice an accompanying fish dipping sauce. The Vietnamese prepared fish dipping sauce version is called “nuoc mam cham” and is actually sweet, salty, spicy and zesty since it incorporates water, lime, Thai chilies, garlic and sugar to the fish sauce. The Thai version, “nam pla prik,” is more concentrated and consist of simply fish sauce, lot of chopped Thai chili peppers, shallots (optional) and a splash lime juice (optional).

• In soups: instead of adding salt, experiment by adding a few drops of good fish sauce to your soup.
• In salad dressings or marinades: we found this delicious looking recipe for fish sauce chicken wings that uses fish sauce as a marinade

 

 

How to choose a good bottle of fish sauce

We found a wonderful recommendation from Kasma Loha-unchit of thaifoodandtravel.com on what to look out for when purchasing fish sauce. She states, “look for fish sauce with a clear, reddish brown color, like the color of good whisky or sherry, without any sediments. If the color is a dark or muddy brown, the sauce is likely to be either a lower grade, or one that is not properly or naturally fermented; it may also have been sitting on the shelf a bit too long. Good fish sauce also has a pleasant aroma of the sea, not an overwhelming smelly fishiness, and should not be overly salty.”

We want to help those curious chefs who aren’t afraid to step out of their comfort zone, with some inspiring recipes we’ve stumbled upon that utilize these great fruits and veggies that are in season starting in the month of June and lasting throughout summer.

So what’s in season coming these summer months? We found a great comprehensive list from Fruits & Veggies More Matters that include the following  foods:

Apricots
Asian Pear
Barbados Cherries
Beets
Bell Peppers
Black Crowberries
Black Currants
Blackberries
Blueberries
Boysenberries
Breadfruit
Butter Lettuce
Cantaloupe
Casaba Melon
Champagne Grapes
Chayote Squash
Cherries
Cherries, Sour
Chinese Long Beans
Corn
Crenshaw Melon
Crookneck Squash
Cucumbers
Durian
Eggplant
Elderberries
Endive
Figs
Garlic
Grapefruit
Grapes
Green Beans
Green Soybeans (Edamame)
Honeydew Melons
Jackfruit
Jalapeno Peppers
Key Limes
Lima Beans
Limes
Loganberries
Longan
Loquat
Lychee
Manoa Lettuce
Mulberries
Nectarines
Olallieberries
Okra
Passion Fruit
Peaches
Peas
Persian Melon
Plums
Radishes
Raspberries

See the entire list here.

 

Wow, now that’s what we call a great list! We always appreciate a restaurant whose menu shows they’re not afraid to think outside the box in terms of utilizing uncommon ingredients in a delicious way! Given our admiration for unique flavor profiles and fresh ingredients, check out these wonderful recipes we found from great cooks that use summer vegetables and fruits. For full recipes, see the link we provided from the original source. Happy summer!

 

Drinks

• Lychee Margarita: This adult beverage carries a tropical twist using lychess along with lime juice, triple sec and tequila.

• Passion Fruit Mojito: We were definitely spoiled at the W Hotel Bali in Indonesia with a delicious fresh passion fruit mojito. So we are pleased to find great recipes like this one that bring out the unique passion fruit flavor in a classic refreshing drink.

 

Appetizers

• Prawns with Watermelon Rind Dressing: who would have thought to combine watermelon and prawns?  This recipe actually uses the watermelon rind in the dressing since it’s astringent nature pairs well with the prawn’s richness.

• Figs with Blue Cheese and Honey: a simple recipe for a dish that packs on a lot of flavor.

 

Main Dishes

• Braised Eggplant with Tofu in Garlic Sauce: This tasty vegetarian Asian-inspired recipe from seriouseats.com highlights the eggplant and elevates the slightly flavorless tofu with a savory garlic sauce.

• Slow Cooker Blackberry Pulled Pork: When you think of pulled pork sandwiches, barbecue sauce normally comes to mind first. This recipe actually features a savory blackberry sauce!

 

Dessert

• Grilled Necatrines with Maple Creme Fraiche: Nectarines are juicy, sweet, tart and make wonderful desserts in the summer. This awesome no-bake recipe will be sure to satisfy your sweet-tooth.
• Watermelon and Honeydew Sorbets with Lemongrass Sauce: Amp up boring sorbets and use in-season melons and fragrant lemongrass!

By Leslie Miller Beverage Specialist, Synergy Restaurant Consultants

 

There are few items in the restaurant or bar that yield as high a profit as draft beer. When you take into consideration all the positives to draft beer:
• Fresh, high perceived value by guest
• Environmentally efficient packaging
• Low ounce cost
• No continuous stocking required, saves on labor and thief

 

It really makes sense to focus on delivering the very best draft beer possible.

 

When your bartender pours a beer, does it look like any of these? If so, read on for some pointers to tune-up your draft handling systems in time for big summer profits!

90% of Draft Beer problems are temperature related…this should be your first check.
• Ideal temperature range for draft beer coolers is 36 to 38 degrees.
• If stored at over 42 degrees, the beer will be foamy, sacrificing taste and freshness.
• If beer cooler is less than 36 degrees, beer will have little foam, less flavor and aroma.

Use this checklist to ensure you are properly handling your Draft Keg Cooler.

1.   Check beer cooler temperature daily with accurate thermometers and keeping a log.
2.   Always use clear plastic airflow air-curtains at cooler door to keep cold air in the cooler.
3.   Place kegs immediately in cooler upon delivery.
4.   Ensure cooler doors are promptly closed – remind employees and delivery rep’s of this policy.
5.   Ideally, the beer cooler is only for beer, however if shared keep these things in mind:
o Keep warmer items away from kegs.
o Never stack items on kegs.
o Keep kegs away from the cooler wall to allow airflow around the kegs.

Use this checklist to follow up on your Draft Delivery System

1. Confirm the cooler has a constant temperature between 36 to 38degrees and that all of the above items have been addressed.

2. Take the temperature of your beer when it is poured out of the tap… is it between 36 to 38degrees? Too warm = foam, Too cold = flat, over carbonated

o If too warm – what is the glass temperature? An unchilled glass can raise the beer temperature 4 to 6degrees.
o Too warm, the beer line system may not be properly insulated (hot spots) or refrigerated – have a professional check the glycol system
o If too cold – is the glass frozen? This can lower the temperature and deliver a flat taste.
o Dispensing unit can be chilling the lines too much – have a professional check the system.

Most importantly…Are you the first person each day performing a “draft beer line check” and taste a small amount to be sure the quality is the very best? You need to be…your draft beer program depends on it!

Look for future articles on best draft dispensing systems, beer clean glasses, best pouring methods, bartender beer competitions to engage them in perfect draft beer every time.

Are you a foodie? Let’s examine what the word really means. Merriam-Webster defines the term “foodie” as, “a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads.” So, to set the record straight, you technically can’t be a foodie simply because you like to eat a lot. And actually, a recent USA today article, “Foodies enjoy different tastes than the rest of us,” delves further into this citing that foodies actually prefer bitter, sour and umami (savory) flavors over the typical preferences of the general population, which favors sweet and salty tastes.

 

As restaurant owners, what can you learn from your average foodie and how can you use this information to help your business? We already know that foodies like to try new things, and their taste buds seek unusual flavor profiles. And even more importantly, it is also a good assumption that foodies are trendsetters – making efforts to try the new and often unexplored cuisines, proudly announcing to their peers and strangers (blogging, Yelping and Tweeting are a foodie’s best friends) of the daring, exotic, and crazy dishes they’ve so bravely eaten.  So look at your menu. What kind of dishes do you have that are worthy enough to entice this coveted target market?

 

Looking for menu ideas? Check out our list interesting ways you can add some foodie flair to your current dishes.

 

–          Make it hot: add some spice to your menu. If you serve burgers, for example, try dishing out a spicy-style burger by incorporating some habanero or Thai chili peppers into an aioli as a unique spread. Works for sandwiches, too!

 

–          Pucker up: twist up some menu items by adding a sour touch. Have a signature fruit cocktail? Try introducing exotic citrus fruit into it, such as yuzu, kumquats or loquats whose flavors are described as sweet and sour. Refreshing non-alcoholic sour beverages using these ingredients also work well.

 

 

–          Bitter is better. Try creating a kale salad with your chef’s special house-made vinaigrette. Bittermelon soup would be sure to awaken anyone’s tastebuds. And if baking’s your specialty, create an intense bitter dark chocolate cake topped, topped with chocolate covered coffee beans – a real gourmet treat.

 

–          The fifth taste: Umami. These flavors can be achieved by utilizing various ingredients such as soy sauce (don’t forget miso), fish sauce, fermented veggies (think kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut), mushrooms, cheese, seafood, beef, and pork. Check out StarChef.com’s list of top umami-rich ingredients for more ideas. Imagine the multitude of ways in which you can integrate these items into your current dishes.

 

Still stumped? Remember: the key is to think outside of the box! If you’d like to have your menu analyzed, contact Synergy Consultants.

Not generally regarded as a sexy ingredient to their other legume counterparts in the culinary world, lentils are often associated with hearty soups and healthy eats. While that is true, there is so much more that the lentil can be used for and in so many delicious and unique ways!

 

If you’re not familiar with the lentil, it is a legume whose pulse (also known as a pod or seed) has been eaten for thousands of years. Very high in nutrition and protein, lentils come in a variety of types and colors: brown, green, black, yellow, and orange. In addition to its ease and speediness of preparation, lentils are also great due to the fact that they easily absorb flavors of other ingredients and seasoning when you cook with them.

 

It doesn’t stop at soups

While we’ll never turn down a fine-cooked lentil soup, it’s important to note that there are many different lentil dishes worth cooking and trying! Lentil salad? Yes. Lentil curry? Delicious. Lentil veggie burgers? You betcha. The versatility of the lentil is quite impressive.

 

Huffington Post has paid tribute to the legume in their article, 17 Lentil Recipes We Love, featuring delicious recipes like French lentils with roasted roots, caramelized onions and thyme, green-lentil curry, lentils with red wine and herbs, lemony lentil salad with salmon, and grilled green bean salad with lentil vinaigrette.

 

It’s no secret that we absolutely love burgers (some may even call it obsessive; tomato, tomahto!) So here’s a great vegetarian lentil burger recipe video that you may enjoy!

What’s your favorite way to prepare lentils?

As much as you may wish there was a Margarita Monday, “Meatless Monday” is being served up around the globe in homes and restaurants alike. That’s right! Meat lovers, please don’t consider this day as a kind of punishment because in actuality, Meatless Monday is an international campaign and movement with the goal of increasing your health and helping the environment.

 

Founded in 2003, the program’s popularity and roster of participants continues to grow strong to this day. According to the Meatless Monday website, “Going meatless once a week may reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.” There is little questioning the fact that reducing the consumption of meat has many health benefits and not only that, it truly helps us move away from the mundane and experiment with new exciting flavors and ingredients in the kitchen.

 

You’re favorite celebrities, chefs, bloggers, neighbors and schools are already a part of the initiative. Notable names include Giada De Laurentis, Denise Richards, James Cameron, Russell Simmons, Marilu Hunner, Robin Roberts, Padma Lakshmi, Sir Paul McCartney and Jessica Simpson (just to name a few!). Many of these advocates share healthy meatless recipes with their audiences.

 

Watch more about Meatless Monday here

And lucky you, if you don’t know your way around your own kitchen, there are many Meatless Monday participating restaurants. The Tender Greens and Lime Fresh are among some chains that are participants.See the full list here.

 

Restaurant owners, have you considered joining the campaign? Share your Meatless Monday menu with us!