Strategies for Special À La Carte Recipes, Upgrading Them into Premium Recipes
For the food markets in Thailand, à la carte dishes are the main menu items for most people. Often times, the question, “What are shall we have?” is answered by one à la carte order or another such as fried rice, rice with pork and Thai holy basil, noodle soup, egg noodles and others. Moreover, as they are familiar menu items or what some criticize as “thoughtless” menu items, à la carte dishes have become stuck in price traps and cannot be sold at very high prices. This is because people think of them as ordinary menu items with nothing special about them.
However, these ordinary menu items can be easily transformed into value-adding menu items that provide great selling points for the restaurant, and some restaurants can even transform them into highly profitable main courses. Thus, we offer you with some guidelines on how to transform à la carte dishes into outstanding dishes that add value and boost profit.
Who would think that rice with pork and Thai holy basil could become a stand-alone main course menu item? There are more and more restaurants selling only rice with pork and Thai holy basil. Not only that, even the most ordinary-looking rice with fried pork has been used by restaurants to generate extraordinary sales inside the restaurant and through deliveries. These ordinary menu items were successful because they were transformed with greater value, added backstories and given unique and special appearance and prices, making them into signature dishes.
Guidelines on Upgrading À La Carte Menu Items into Extraordinary Dishes
- Enhance the Ordinary with Ingredients
In upgrading ordinary à la carte menu items to look more special, the ingredients used also have to be special and distinguished. For example, for the meat used in food preparation, think Phu Phan Kurobuta pork, served with backstories of the pork and royal initiative projects. Just use unique distinguishing characteristics and stories, such as Wagyu beef with Thai holy basil, salmon with Thai holy basil, crab with Thai holy basil, and your recipes will be extraordinary.
- Enhance the Ordinary with Diversity
Even though you are offering just à la carte dishes, you can increase diversity by providing more and non-repetitive options and avoiding thoughtless menu items. For example, you can offer all kinds of Thai holy basil dishes and not just Thai holy basil with pork, chicken and beef. Moreover, you have to offer both ordinary menu items customers are familiar with and “wow, wow” menu items customers don’t expect. Doing so will give you selling points customers can pass on to others through word-of-mouth.
- Enhance the Ordinary with the Appearance of Your Servings
With unique ingredients and selling points, now the containers and utensils along with the appearance of your servings must also be extraordinary. You could use huge trays, clay plates, plates made from zinc panels or even elegant ceramic dishes. Just make sure that what you use appear outstanding and add value to your menu items.
- Enhance the Ordinary by Offering Sales-Boosting Toppings
With à la carte menu items, entrepreneurs can boost sales by offering all kinds of toppings. Just a little bit of creativity will make your toppings special and increase your profit. For example, you could offer rice with fried pork and pickled egg yolk or rice with Thai holy basil and twin sunny-side-ups. Otherwise, you could offer standard toppings such as Chinese sausage, white pork sausage and other sausages. In addition to increasing sales, they can also be used to make great set menus.
Most restaurants already offer à la carte menu items, so if entrepreneurs want to make their à la carte menu items more unique, they can apply these guidelines. The keys to making your dishes extraordinary are appearance, contents and backstories. These days, offering delicious food isn’t enough. It’s also necessary to offer appearances that customers won’t be ashamed of taking pictures of to post for their friends to see. For anyone looking to open a restaurant that offers only a single kind of à la carte dishes, know that one accompanying benefit is easy management, as only a few ingredients are used and less manpower is required. For example, a restaurant offering only rice with fried pork can employ just two employees to prepare everything. A self-service system can be put in place to help cut business investment and operating costs. These are very attractive qualities of à la carte restaurants.
