Free Workshop! Generate Revenue Right with Health Foods Trends in Your Style

Free Workshop from Makro HoReCa Academy by World Class Chef Willment Leong.

“Food Trends and Creating Menus in Your Own Style”

This Makro HoReCa workshop invited Makro members to take part in activities to get an update on the powerful food trends of 2019 and presented ideas for creating simple trendy menu items. The event’s lecturer was Chef Willment Leong, the Chairman of World Chefs without Borders and founder of the Thailand Culinary Academy.

This event was well-received by Thai chefs working in Burma and Cambodian chefs who took direct flights, just to attend this workshop.

The Chef said that there’s a strong trend for arranging food attractively, so photographs can be taken and posted on social media. Restaurateurs are all interested in this, but they forget about focusing on food flavor, understanding their ingredients and distinguishing their menu items. Importantly, don’t forget the heart of cooking is understanding temperature and time.

A food trend is the interest of customers that rises and eventually passes. Restaurateurs should adjust their menu items to follow trends but should never mainly rely on trends to create their restaurants.

The food trends of 2019 seem to be health foods, since more people nowadays are paying attention to their own health:

1. Vegan food – food that contains only vegetables or legumes and no meats, milk or eggs.
2. Impossible Burger – a burger that contains no meat but smells and tastes similarly to beef and cheeses. It’s actually made from soy and potatoes.
3. Ketogenic diet – a diet devoid of starches, rice and vegetables and consisting solely of fats.
4. Dry aging – a process of drying meat by placing it in a fridge and letting the juices from the meat drain until the meat is dry. Meat is put into a special environment controlled refrigerator, and salt is added a little to remove moisture.
5. Less sugar menus items – sweet grass used as a sweetener rather than sugar.
6. Insect menu items – foods made from insects. Currently, people all around the world are interested in using insects to replace animal meat.
7. More ready-to-eat delivery meal boxes – a very powerful trend that requires attention to whether or not the food is suitable for transportation; it’s necessary to study transportation issues well.
8. Trade and menu labels and source explanations – certified foods with clear ingredient specifications.
9. Super foods – highly-nutritious foods that can be eaten instead of main meals or rice. Importantly, they have to be beneficial to the body.
10. Food for cure – foods that can treat illnesses or make our bodies healthier.
11. Ingredient replacement – alternative ingredients are used such as non-animal protein-providing ingredients like tofu, chia seeds, wild rice, etc. These are suitable for vegetarians and health lovers. Legumes are also used instead of regular starches. At the present, Thai foods that give Thai flavors without using animal meats as ingredients are very popular.
12. Food substitutes/powder – flavor powders are used to enhance flavors, and food preparation techniques are used to improve food appearance. Powders replace actual ingredients. Skilled chefs have currently begun to use these powders to develop and enhance the appearance of foods, making food appetizing and flavorful.

Restaurant trends currently popular among modern people:
• High-tech restaurants – a trend involving the process of making restaurants advanced and modern by using new technologies to enhance customer experience.
• Automated kitchens – the use of robots in food preparation. Because fewer chefs who are successful and could prepare great foods exist nowadays, robots are brought in to prepare food.
• Food Delivery 4.0 – drones are beginning to be used in food deliveries.

Ideas for Signature Dishes in Your Style

A signature dish is a menu item that stands out in the restaurant and gives the restaurant its reputation. It’s an important menu item, because it can effectively attract customers to the restaurant. The basic principles for creating a signature menu are as follows:

1. Specify the category of this menu item, e.g., main course, snacks, etc.
2. Specify a clear concept so you can decorate the dish in a consistent manner with the rest of your menu items.
3. Name the menu item and organize your menu to effectively communicate with your customers.
4. Make the menu item simple and uncomplicated so that restaurant employees can be taught to prepare it.
5. It must quickly servable and not take up a lot of time.
6. Always think of your ingredients first and specify a recipe to help specify your cost.

The following are some important things that need to accompany your signature dish:
1. Ingredients – Each ingredient must have a backstory. For example, the ingredient could be distinguished on the provincial or regional levels or even be premium ingredients imported from abroad. You basically need to describe the origins of your ingredients.
2. People system – You have to tell the stories about the people who invented the recipe or the background and experience of the chef who prepares the dish.
3. Preparation method – You need to describe preparation and cooking methods that are distinct from those of other places to show the attentiveness and delicateness of the food’s preparation. For example, you might say that charcoal is used to prepare it or that the food is stewed for two whole days, and so on.
4. Culture – You create stories about the food involving the unique cultures of different countries.
5. Seasons – Your menu item can change seasonally as different ingredients stand out.

The highlights of the workshop are four menu items with close supervision from a world-class chef such as Chef Willment Leong’s special sandwich. The sandwich appeared similar to a Japanese sandwich and used ingredients that are easy to buy, so everyone can make it! You could make one for yourself at home or add it to your restaurant’s menu, and it doesn’t take long to prepare it. Let’s take a look at how to make it.

Ingredients
3 pcs chicken eggs
Butter or olive oil
Dried long-tail tuna
Seaweed
Teriyaki sauce
Miso sauce, 1 tablespoon
Mayonnaise, 3 tablespoons
Togarashi (Japanese chili powder), 1 teaspoon
Sliced bread or hamburger bun, 1 slice (choose a thick slice)

Preparation Method
1. Make an omelet using the three eggs and set it aside.
2. Prepare the sauce by mixing 1 tablespoon of miso sauce with 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise in a container. Then add teriyaki sauce and 1 teaspoon of togarashi (Japanese chili powder) to the same container and mix well. You can add more chili powder to make it as spicy as you want.
3. Grill the sliced bread or hamburger bun on either one or both sides as you please. You could also add butter and olive oil if you want.
4. Place the grilled and crispy bread or hamburger bun onto a plate and pour sauce in a diagonal pattern onto the bread. We recommend rolling the eggs and putting them on the bread and then putting more sauce on the eggs. If you want the sauce to smell better, you can burn the sauce.
5. Decorate by chopping seaweed into little pieces and sprinkling it onto the eggs before adding sauce to it. Then place the dried longtail tuna next to the togarashi on the rolled eggs to make the meal more colorful and appetizing.

Tip
• Use a thick slice of bread or burger bun to enhance the dish.

Then there’s another workshop activity in which the participants formed groups to prepare food under the close supervision of Chef Willment Leong. The group that prepared food that looked and tasted most like the Chef’s received a prize.

Mr. Annathapat, the supervisor of Ban Jit Prapassorn Restaurant, one of the participants, said, “A useful seminar took place today because I personally am already a customer of Makro and got to meet with other entrepreneurs, and we exchanged our knowledge. I could also apply Chef Willment’s knowledge in my own restaurant.”

Great activities like these are organized year-round, so entrepreneurs who don’t want to miss out on these activities should follow the news on this website.