Since there are a lot of people who like to cook here, I assume everyone also watches their fair share of cooking and food porn shows. I lean more toward the latter a la No Reservations and more recently Ugly Delicious, and I read a couple food magazines, so inevitably I end up daydreaming about what my restaurant would be like. This of course ignores all the hard work and financial risk and focuses on the menu and interior design and what neighborhood I’d want it to be in. It’s always a fun lil fantasy. Focus: What would the menu of your restaurant be? What are classics that you do particularly well, unique dishes you’ve come up with, or something in between that are go-to meals that always make you think “damn, I should TOTALLY open a restaurant, I’m basically a chef”? Would it have a specific focus or be more like a random collection of dishes that somehow go together? To reign it in a little, maybe 3 appetizers, 3 soups, 3 salads, 5 entrees, and 3 desserts max. (Or whatever categories suit you if I’m missing something obvious) Here’s mine: Spoiler: Menu Appetizers -vegetarian summer rolls -freshly baked bread with Brie, green apple, and honey -skewers with pork belly, basil, and watermelon (I’ve only made this once, last summer, but I both can’t stop thinking about it and don’t make apps often enough to do a more common third) Soups -matzo ball soup -chicken posole -borscht in summer, corn chowder in winter Salads -caprese -cobbish salad (chicken, hard boiled eggs, avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, blue cheese, lettuce) -bougie salad (chicken, green apples, craisins, goat cheese, spinach or arugula) Entrees -roast chicken with potato side of the day and seasonal vegetable (super simple but I’m pretty sure I make the best roast birds in the world and this is my ultimate comfort meal) -falafel, tomatoes, cucumbers, black olives over Israeli couscous with garlic dill yogurt sauce (I wasn’t really a fan of falafel and then I tried making it myself and now I’m obsessed with it) -kale, tomatoes, white beans, artichoke hearts over polenta -mussels with a white wine saffron garlic tomato sauce over linguini -ginger chicken ramen with egg and bok choy (yes, technically also a soup but ramen is undeniably an entree) Desserts -chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting -chocolate raspberry cake -pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (Full disclosure, I also have an ulterior motive here where I love hearing about what people cook for themselves to help give me more ideas for myself) Alt Focus: If you’re more of a cooking show person, what would your cooking show be?
Focus: I have a couple of ideas that I always imagine. One is more of a food truck idea, a British Indian Restaurant styled Naan Burrito wraps. Basically just making a bigger, thinner, Naan and wrap up the westernized Indian dishes, your Chicken Tikka Masalas, Vindaloos, Madras'es, and Saags, with rice. I mean you basically do it already when you eat at Indian places, just making it a Chipotle sized burrito, as a on the go meal. I could get some viral buzz going by claiming that Im culturally appropriating the Colonial British, who appropriated Indians. The fact that I am lilly white will make the faux outrage that much better. Ive also gotten big into sausage making, there is already a sausage focused "Wurst Bar" in Cincinnati, they don't actually make their own sausage though. I'd like to do something like it but have the making front and center. Im thinking some all in one style sausages that have other major ingredients besides the meat, like Boudin with rice. Im tinkering with a breakfast sausage with eggs, hashbrowns, cheese, and breakfast sausage, Krogers makes one but it is bland as fuck. This would also be a brewery too. The booming hipster area downtown, OTR, is under served, I think, with few ice cream shops of note. Im in between a traditional kid friendly "creamy whip" and an adult based "boozy ice cream" shop with artisinal offerings. Be fun to come up with boozed based ice cream dished. One of my grandmas favorite treats was Creme De Minth and vanilla ice cream, which is fucking good. Also, a build your own choco taco bar. Since the area is very LGBT friendly, I'd have a signature cone that is a seven flavored rainbow sherbert.
I have a love affair with frito pie. I've always wanted to open a restaurant that just served different types of frito pie. Different styles of chili, different chips, different cheeses and toppings. A few recipes on the menu, but then of course you can do it a la carte. Want turkey chili extra spicy with homemade tortilla chips and aged asiago? Funny you asked!! Of course you could then do a "deconstructed frito pie" and serve them nachos.
10/10 would want to eat Indian burritos from NaanChalant every day for lunch. It sounds disastrously messy but so good. I feel like I'm best at salads. Maybe it's because so many people phone it in so it's easier for salads to seem better by comparison? But anyways, here are a few of my favorites: Baby kale with pork belly/bacon, asparagus, mustard shallot dressing, and a poached egg on top Arugula with roast beets, avocado, candied pecans and goat cheese with sweet balsamic dressing Herbed lentils with radishes, carrots, haricots verts and feta Fava, wax and green bean salad with walnuts, pecorino cheese and lemon dressing Watermelon and feta salad with quick pickled red onions, balsamic and a little mint if you're feeling fancy
Hunt Cook Eat. A mix between all those survivor shows, and a hunting/fishing show. Get dropped off in a remote location, except you have a gun and a small fishing rod, and you gotta make a restaurant-quality gourmet meal. Butcher the game/fish by hand, and garnish it with what's available around the area. I'd quit my job to do that in a heartbeat.
My cooking show is Bachelor Chow. It's a cooking show that showcases recipes that can be done with an absolute minimal kitchen. It's for young dudes who want to be able to feed themselves/get laid despite their near total lack of equipment and skills.
My restaurant idea is a food truck also. I make my own pasta and I think it's silly how expensive Italian restaurants can be. Great pasta dishes are often very simple and should be cheap to make. So I'd make a bunch of fresh pasta the night before and figure out three dishes for the next day. Nest the pasta into single servings and freeze them overnight. Then just cook every dish to order. Fresh pesto penne, bolognese with bucatini and linguine with tuna and peppers would be my main rotating dishes. I feel like someone has to have done this already, just not in Cincinnati.
I came up with the idea for a pizza place called "Leftovers", where the menu changes all the time and the pizzas are all dinner themed. Meatloaf and mashed potato pizza. Lasagna pizza. Chicken pot pie pizza. You get the idea. My wife and I used to make our own pizzas with whatever we had in the fridge all the time. Some were total flops, but some that we thought wouldn't be that great actually became our favorites. Delmonico potato pizza with crumbled bacon and a Sriracha-honey-bbq sauce is awesome.
We have a food truck here that does exactly that. Naaco Truck, and it's amazing! I've always thought having a restaurant that held an offal dinner night would be awesome. Braised oxtail pasta or osso bucco. Tripe with garlic and butter. Peposo with Beef Shank and garlic Feijoada Sweet Breads Pork Hock, red beans and rice Chicken Liver Pate
In college, I always talked about wanting to have a pizza oven in a food truck, so I could deliver fresh baked pizza. My buddies always told me it was too expensive to make it work. Then, I worked for a restaurant as a delivery driver, and customers regularly asked me if we delivered beer. When I said no, they'd always whisper back, "but, yeah, but can you get me some?" I did it a couple times, but not like this awesome news: Pizza Hut expanding beer delivery service. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pizz...st-arizona-california-110309602--finance.html I'm assuming that when they roll it out in Colorado, they'll have some perfect circle option. Since Yum owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, they will eventually deliver Pizza and Beer and weed. You have the pizza and beer at 8pm while watching the game, then bake afterwards. Then, you want Taco Bell at midnight. They just need to merge it with Uber or Waymo somehow.
And Yum! Brands fucked Pizza Hut's quality and customer experience into the ground, so have no fear that they will screw it up. Father-in-law is an Italian chef and hes given me a ton of pointers on different recipes. I would just do an Italian classics restaurant in the traditional style of doing pasta and meats as two separate, distinct courses. Chicken Parm, Veal Osso Bucco, vodka sauces, etc. The portions would be oversized and you would always have to take some home. If you cleaned your plate, your picture goes on the wall of honor. The restaurant would be called Guinea Pig.
Yeah I’d love to see a cook what you hunt show. The iron chef take on cooking what’s on hand is great.
I'd watch that. I'd watch it, especially if it was partly a game show to see how badly they cook at first. Seems like you would get sued by the folks that made Futurama though.
I didn't do my homework, this exact idea is already done in OTR. Damn hipsters having the same idea and the drive to actually accomplish something in their lives.