Restaurant Junkie

“Saru Jayaraman: Before You Eat Out...Learning About America's Lowest Wage Earners.”

This video is long, but if you work in the restaurant industry, I urge you to watch it.

Three years of headlines about the health of the restaurant industry.

In academia, textbooks are considered tertiary sources. But my gut tells me that most people read them as primary sources. It’s part of the process of maintaining and exerting authority. While reading through textbooks, some things are left understood, when they shouldn’t be.

While it can be difficult for a book to stop at every statement to prove a premise, it’s dangerous if you don’t. Textbooks…

After reading that -- read this:

How It's Made - Pre-Packaged Sandwiches

Why are Ham sandwiches and Egg Salad sandwiches cut so differently?

Why Do People Open Restaurants? Part 1, is it money?

A few years ago I purchased a textbook about the restaurant business. I’m a bit of a nerd, and I was curious. I’m in the middle of reading chapter one, and I’ve already come across an issue.

It’s the following quote: “The restaurant is a potential money factory.” (more…)

Duck Fat Fondue: A recipe. Not for the faint of heart.

This is a recipe of sorts, but perhaps it’s better described as a manifesto: Get Good Duck. Canada is in the process of going “full duck.” This headlines from The Globe and Mail says it all, “Canadian duck producers to double output to meet growth in demand.”

Canada has always been duck territory, along with goose, it’s a prime element of Quebec’s foie gras industry. The French and Chinese are…

"The Unbearable Joy of Bún Riêu," good eating, and a thank-you to @Suresh

Within the last year, I sat in a popular Pho joint in Boston and listened to a woman complain to her server that the menu said, “Bun” but that what she got was soup. She was furious. She was expecting a bun, like, a pork bun.

This made me very sad. (more…)

Is Butter Chicken Roti Official Dish of Toronto?

What’s inside here?

When it comes time for my Tuesday lunches with Kelly, I’m trying to adjust my perspective. There is a part of me that wants every bite in Toronto to prove a theory (more like a wish) that it’s a city packed with veiled grottos full of pulchritudinous people eating coquettish comestibles. (more…)

A few weeks after my arrival in Toronto, I had a discussion with Kelly about checking out restaurants. After some discussion, we decided that Tuesday’s would be the day she would guide me to some of her favorite spots.

We decided to start with a British pub. In 1534 the colony of New France was established. It then transferred to the UK in 1763. In 1867 Canada confederated, but it remained a…

It’s never “just” lunch. No one eats in a vacuum. (Except for dust mites.) (more…)

Kelly was a college friend who drifted out of my life and then drifted back in. She rebounds excitement like a rubber band engine, zipping around, bringing in everyone nearby. She’s also encouraging to a fault. When I pop off on some disposable non sequitur, she engages in it, usually catching me off guard. When I consider what to write in this blog, she is often the first person I consult. (more…

When it comes to food. She eats well because she cooks well. (more…)