Specialty food stores & 4 reasons why they succeed!

As I wrestle my way through the small busy lanes which make up Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji Market and trek along the historical districts of Takayama, I realized one thing about the food businesses in Japan; They don’t try to ‘do-it-all’ instead they have mastered the art of specializing in a single product or a single concept.

A beef offal stew specialty store at Tsukiji Market

Two specialty stores really caught my eye; the first one was the exceedingly popular Inoue Ramen at Tsukiji Market, they served up the most affordable ramen noodles with heaps of fresh spring onions, bamboo shoots and a generous 4 slices of rolled pork!  The second speciality store was a little more obscure; Tucked away around a view-restricted corner in the small town of Takayama was a little kiosk selling Hida beef stew and grilled Hida beef tongue, for the uninitiated, Hida beef is right up there with Waygu and Kobe beef, but in my opinion is a little more artisanal because it’s a lot less commercialized.

Hida beef specialty store in Takayama

So I started thinking, what makes these speciality F&B businesses so successful and why is it so rampant in Japan?? Here are my 4 reasons.

1. Reduces customer risks and affects their decision process
   A specialty store greatly reduces the customers risk, he/she knows that the product being sold there is most probably a good one (also justifies why there’s a massive line outside each store at any one time) . So becoming a specialty store immediately transforms the staff in the business into experts in the field… and everyone trusts experts don’t they?
2. It’s easier to market and plan processes for just one product
   Planning the production process and inventory for a restaurant with multiple concepts can become a nightmare. Specialty stores have the advantage in managing inventory and managing expectations of supply and demand, less time consuming and less to do. It is also easier to focus on optimizing processes and marketing a specialty concept. 
3. Training procedures are lessened and less skilled workers are required
   The very nature of a specialized product means that production processes are also specialized and can be easily managed and replicated, this means less training requirement for new staff and a lower requirement for skilled workers, thus, reducing staff costs.
4. The Japanese have intense pride in their products
   The Japanese are so fervently proud of their product, from the way they choose raw materials to the handling of the final product. Their care for every production process can be felt in the final product and their level of skill which goes into the product resonates into the consumer. Adding value and providing the customer a sense of euphoria (to an extent).

Inoue Ramen store at Tsukiji Market

So should more and more business specialize instead of diversifying their skillsets into multiple concepts? I think so, I have always been a strong believer in specializing in a certain skillset and only expanding into other peripheral skills, it just makes business sense.

What do you think? 

Premium pasta vs Regular pasta - which is better?? (Rustichella d'Abruzzo vs San Remo spaghetti)

Rustichella spaghetti vs San Remo spaghetti

There has long been an age-old debate between the varying qualities of pastas on the market, aside from fresh pastas (which we will not be covering today), there are 2 main variations of dried pastas; Those which are extruded using a bronze die and those which go through a teflon coated die. The bronze cut method is the original extrusion method, this technique renders a rough consistency on the surface of the pasta and takes a longer time to process, and this also means it’s more expensive but in theory, should allow sauce to cling on easily. So the debate boils down to food cost, economical VS premium, does it really make a difference in pasta? 

We decided to put two prominent brands of pasta through 3 grueling tests to find out if there’s any real difference. It’s Rustichella d'Abruzzo vs San Remo – Let the battle begin!

The mouth-feel test – Testing texture
In this test we boiled the pastas in salted boiling water according to the directions as started on the packaging. We cooked the Rustichella pasta for 10 minutes and the San Remo pasta for 13 minutes. The objective was to reach the perfect al-dente stage, that’s when the texture is nice and springy on the outside and the center of the pasta is still a tad crisp. Overall both pastas performed well; with Rustichella just edging forward as the consistency from exterior to interior was just perfect!
Verdict – Winner: Rustichella d'Abruzzo

The wall test - Testing tradition
According to old grandmother cookery stories, in order to tell if the pasta is ready for its sauce, you need to throw it against a wall and if it sticks its ready to go. So we decided to throw both pastas against a wall and see if they stick…. Well… we found out that they both stick… so we ended up with 2 packs of pasta on my walls and a horrendous mess to clean up afterwards.
Verdict – Draw!! They both stick!

The sauce test – Consistency and taste
In our last test, we tossed the pastas with a simple beef ragu, plated it up and dug in. I discovered that the Rustichella pasta indeed does have a much better mouth feel that the San Remo pasta. Another point to add is that the Rustichella pasta, although cooked for a shorter time, swelled up more and that enabled some of the sauce to permeate flavours into the pasta. In terms of sauce stickage, it was not immediately noticeable, however over time, and with more and more agitation it was clearly apparent that the ragu enjoyed clinging to the rustichella pasta more.
Verdict – Winner: Rustichella d'Abruzzo

In conclusion, if you have some extra money to spend on groceries I strongly recommend buying premium pasta, although regular pastas come pretty close and do also taste superb (especially with perfect slow-cooked beef ragu), they just lack that extra dimension which can transform your meal from splendid to spectacular. 

Table-side presentation - Top 3 benefits and future food trends

I must admit when I started the restaurant, Platypus Test Kitchen, with my business partner. I had no idea that we would eventually serve soups table-side at such casual cafe. But I am so glad we jumped in and presented some of our soups in this manner.

My Leek,potato & crab bisque in action

The first soup I did ‘tableside’ for the restaurant was a very luxurious Leek, potato and crab bisque; I designed it such that my kitchen could prepare individual components separately, then when an order came in, they would quickly fry up a crab fritter, set it at the bottom of a bowl and top it with a small salad of micro coriander and chilled crab meat. Upon reaching the table, the server would then pour the creamy bisque into the bowl to encapsulate the fritter.

So why did we do it? Well, it just made business sense to serve it that way.

1. Components can be prepared individually - reducing food wastage increasing kitchen efficancy Certain components can be stored in the chiller, some can be frozen and some items, well namely salads, have to be prepared a-la-minute. Having that in mind, it makes no sense at all to prepare the entire dish at one shot; kitchen efficiency comes with the management of processes and streamlining the assembly of food.
2. Marketing and vial appeal of the action After introducing the leek, potato and crab bisque to the restaurant, there was, very quickly an increase in orders. Customers would be delighted by the experience of their soup being poured ‘table-side’ and they would tell their friends about out it. Granted, we did have alot of customers just ordering soups for about a week. However, this brought about new hype to the restaurant and new customer loyalty to the business.
3. It just looks pretty darn good I don’t know anyone who would dislike presentation in this manner, especially if it costs the same price as other similar dishes.

So there we have it, increased efficiency in the kitchen, a reduction in food wastage, great marketing potential all from introducing a table-side presented dish and it looks so impressive and good. What’s not to love?

The final presentation of the bisque

This is not just limited to soups; gravy's, sauces, foams and even a sprinkle of gremolata (combination of chopped parsley, garlic and lemon zest)  at the table-side can instantly add flare to your meal! So table-side presentations are here and are here to stay!

What do you think of table-side presentations and what are some of your experiences with them?

Visual food menus - Do restaurants menus need to evolve?

One of my pet-peeves about restaurants, especially fine dining restaurants is the lack of visual displays on their menus. Sometimes the consumer needs some help to visualize the food before they can make a decision; this is especially so when menu items include rare and uncommon ingredients. I have toyed with this idea for many months at my own pasta restaurant and there are significant advantages to add pictures and convert restaurant menus into visual ones.

I am not saying businesses should scatter a flurry of photos all over their menus, but rather utilize photos and illustrations to effectively explain their food in a tasteful manner.

Beautiful visual menus at casual and high-end restaurants in Tokyo and Kanazawa

From my experience developing a visual menu:

1. Speeds up the consumer decision process Customers can, almost immediately, zero in onto the food items they desire. This really saves time, during the ordering process. Little is left to imagination and the consumer gets what he/she orders if the photo is not over exaggerated. The less time customers spend thinking means the restaurants will have more time to turn tables.
2. Increases service staff productivity One of the biggest problems I faced when running a pure pasta restaurant was having to explain what each dish was to my customers. “what is in this pasta” or “how do the noodles look like” were questions asked on a daily basis. Creating the visual menu rendered these questions redundant and enabled my wait staff to continue with their work more efficiently.
3. Manages customer expectations With a what-you-see-is-what-you-get style menu customers know exactly what they will be getting. I've learnt very early that a purely contextual menu can be a double-edge sword, and it all boils down to presentation. Customers can be delighted or very disappointed when the food arrives.

My first purely visual menu

So should every restaurant change their menu’s to a visual one? Personally, while I like the concept of a fully visual food & beverage world, I really doubt the higher-end restaurants would bite into this concept; especially so if they have seasonal or tasting menus which change very often.

So I’d encourage more casual dining establishments with somewhat fixed menus to go visual! Even fine-dining restaurants might want to consider keeping a nice visual-menu on hand for those hard-to-handle customers.

Left (non-visual) Centre (partially visual) Right (fully visual)
How my menu evolved over time.

One last consideration about visual menu’s is that restaurants really need to do it right; there’s no point to have a visual menu if the photos are tremendously better than the actual food or vice versa. So remember keep it real and your customers will thank you.

Are visual menus the menus of the future? How would you react if there were more photos on restaurant menus?