The Sizzling Skillet Experience at AppleBee's

The best thing about cooking in home is hearing this sizzling sound of the ingredients getting infused together, under the heat of the fire... As if they are dancing in a rhythm so strong and fierce, yet so amusing and so folklorish.

When you are in a restaurant, you are are able to watch your food cooked "live" ..But can you really hear it? Hear this dance? Hear this sizzling effect?

Last week, I was in Apple bee's and they launched some exclusive and new menu items called : " The Sizzlers". All served on a 400C Creole-style skillet .
Good chance that I was able to try them before October . Luckily, the sizzling desserts are staying on the menu though!

Sizzling Steak

Sizzling Desserts (Video)

Cooked with Delicious and Good Intentions

We, the millennials, the tech savvys and social media addicts, are a nation of aspiring cooks! At least that's what most of us write on our Twitter bios, share on Pinterest boards, and post as Instagram photos, yet-honestly-we barely have time for cooking daily... Nevertheless, most of us rely on social media to choose food, whether through restaurants' reviews, recipe's blogs, or friends' comments about products. But our social media profiles can go beyond just sharing individual food photos, recipes and reviews. Social media has been rising as a crucial aspect in the communication between consumers and the food brands on one hand, and between consumers and health care practitioners on the other... 
How do food companies and food experts deal with social media?Well, that is what I explored and wrote about in Cloud961 issue number 5.

Download full issue here

Zero Calorie Meals and Zero Guilt

Steam: The Zero Calorie London Restaurant

A pop-up restaurant in London's Covent Garden is promising diners a 'calorie-neutral' meal in which guests will tuck into steam-cooked scallops, chorizo and beef fillet, but leave the restaurant having burned off every calorie. How is this even possible?

Between courses, guests will take part in stretching classes to aid digestion, sit on vibrating seat pads to increase calorie burn, and engage in full-on dining workouts to burn off the calorie count of dishes
Yes, dine and work out at the same time!

Here is someone who experienced dining there from Marie Claire!

This is how it goes:

Taken from Luxo.com

Read More about its unique way.

Pearl's Powder Interviewed in Le Commerce Du Levant

Le Commerce Du Levant magazine*, published its 2013 “Restos, bars, cafes”  special edition for the Food and Beverage Industry in Lebanon in July. ( Read Key Findings Below**)

Cover Page of the Magazine : Juillet 2013

 Luckily, Mr. Thomas Dayer, interviewed me back in April 2013. And I couldn't retrieve a copy of the magazine as I was out of Lebanon. Sweet enough, the media team immediately handed my part of the interview on the same day( yesterday) when I asked for it! :) So...Thank you ALOT! 

I was interviewed among Top Lebanese Food Bloggers such as (No Garlic No Onion, The Burger Tribune, The Permanent Hunger...etc)

Below is my part! .... Now you know a little bit more about me :)

Designing Restaurants for the Visually Impaired

Braille Language in Wimpy

What do you like to order Sir?

What would a visually impaired person answer to the waiter if he have not tasted the food before, if he was not accommodated with the menu? If it was his first time to the restaurant?

We eat with our eyes before we eat with our mouths..And sometimes even we have tasted the food before, if we dont see or atleast read about it, we would be confused to choose our lunch or our dinner.
Surely the sense of seeing is crucial in food choices.
Yet when we consider any visual disability as a difference, and not as a problem, it brings us very interesting concepts and ideas, especially in the food industry.

Some restaurant menus introduce Braille language to help customers with visual impairment. Braille language uses punctures on paper so that it could be read with fingers.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not require restaurants to offer Braille menus as long as servers or other workers can adequately read menus out loud. Reading menus is considered an adequate replacement and an option that meets the requirements of the ADA.

Munch Bakery: A Local Bakery with International Standards

This photo of Munch Bakery is courtesy of TripAdvisor

I heard rumors about Munch Bakery before I went there that It was a great bakery with good tasty cupcakes and fancy designed cakes. I checked the website before I visited to see their products. I was impressed by the logo, the interactive website, and the list of products in a very neat way that makes you want to order cupcakes even if they were "digital".

When I visited the olay/tahila branch at 10 pm during the week, I was impressed by the number of people there. The bakery was full and everyone was ordering something.

Presentation

Even the World's Top Restaurant is not Immune!

Top Restaurant in the World fails in food safety

When Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant that for the past three years has held the top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, was discovered to have suffered a norovirus outbreak, the media response — both mainstream and social — was vast, immediate and nearly gleeful. “Poisoning at ‘World’s Best Restaurant,’” reported France’s Le Point. “World’s Best Restaurant Hit by Vomiting Bug,” said Huffington Post. “Restaurant Leaves Bad Taste with Guests,” giggled the Financial Times.

Read more

Even the World's Top Restaurant is not Immune! 

Among the 15% on Tripadvisor!

I recently got the below email from Tripadvisor on the reviews I have submitted on restaurants, hotels and various attractions. Cant be happier to be among the 15% most read reviewers of all time ! :)

I will def. continuing reviewing places I visit and sharing with you ! Hopefully, be among the 1% as I fulfill my dream in traveling around the world and trying more restaurants! 

"Barriga llena, corazón contento "

 The Spanish title says : When the belly is full, the heart is happy

None said it better than the spanish! And trying their food was a prove for this!

But, wait, I really didn't go to Spain. But when you can't go to Spain, eat spanish food! Food does convey the culture of a country, the habits of the people and the inside culture!

I had the chance to apply this motto when I was invited to Phoenicia's Hotel Mosaic restaurant for Spanish week last May !

The food I had in Mosaic proved how much Spain is a melting pot, a pot that diffused a dynamic and gastronomic heritage.

Sunset Sea Dinner at St.Elmo's

St. Elmo's Logo!

"I am the sea. In my depths all treasures dwell. Have they asked the divers about my pearls?" the Egyptian poet Muhammad Hafiz Ibrahim.
I have always had a special fond to the sea, its mystery, and its untold stories..All because my name is pearl.  I had built a myth inside my head since I was a little girl that I was indeed from the sea. Lunatic? Maybe. but such mystical illusions do make the best stories later.Yes, I believed the sea was my  home, and to it I will return someday. Everything that reminds me of the sea makes me live this myth again..

This time it was not the sea itself, nor a ship, nor Corrine's Bailey Rae " The Sea" song, neither the Little mermaid movie, neither the famous sea navigator Jacque Costeau nor a small shell I picked up from the shore. This time the sea experience was from a whole restaurant that embraced the concept of the SEA from the floor to the ceiling , from the plate to the cup!

Zaytouna Bay

Rotten Meat and Rotten Laws!

Police Arresting 3 for rotten meat? ( Read more from Daily Star)
 Stunning news?
 Not really! In a country where chaos is the norm, I wasn’t surprised when I heard the news of spoiled meat. Not surprised, but sad. Why this negligence? Why this ignorance? And mostly why this lack of truthfulness?
Selling food after their expiry date is becoming almost a legal thing to do.
Although we do have a consumer protection that belongs to the ministry of economy and who is responsible in inspecting food suppliers, supermarkets and restaurants, it is still lagging behind. The inspectors are either not enough, or not doing their jobs properly, or ( I am not implying this on all of them), they are being bribed to hide the truth.


The head of Consumers Lebanon said to Zawya:"That these recent seizures of spoiled food by the Consumer Protection Office are merely a media stunt that only scratches the surface of the problems of food safety in the country!"

But the director-general of the Economy Ministry, Fouad Flaifel, denied that the recent confiscations were a media stunt, and said they were part of the daily work of the office.

I walked around Beirut in the weekend to check whether this news affected the public. It seems it didn’t. All restaurants were packed with cravers for food, Hamra was full, Downtown and Zaitona Bay.
( I also started a question on my facebook page : Pearl's Powder)
Trusting the place where we eat is very crucial. I personally prefer to eat my own food even if a restaurant has a good reputation.

Lists of these places have been circulated around the net, LBC group even posted them. Monetary fines were implemented on the owners but sadly, some were reduced as if the citizen’s health and life is not taken into consideration!  It seems we, humans are becoming a cheap item nowadays and no one cares if we get poisoned or died the next day.

Unless there is a death case, juridical system in Lebanon states that the courts usually do not sentence anyone to prison. And actually there was a death issue happened in summer(check previous post), and no one was blamed. There is always some kind of bribery or a political “help” that will save the restaurant or food supplier.

The food and beverage industry is a great source of income for the Lebanese and is a great attraction for tourism. Can Lebanon afford an economic loss because of this damaging reputation? Can’t laws merely be amended properly?
Why do politicians have to protect one illegitimate person on the sake of the whole population? 
It is the time for the Lebanese to stop pretending that nothing will happen to them when they eat spoiled food. Indeed, it is the time for them to become aware and demand clean food for the sake of their health and their economy before it is too late.

See also: My letter to the Lebanese Syndicate of Restaurants

Sea Food Night!

Featured and written by Strawberry Blu and Pearl's Powder

Shrimps Ratatouille! 

After the revamping of the luxurious Phoenicia Hotel Beirut’s Mosaic restaurant, the restaurant is aiming to take us on a voyage to a new country to visit the folklore, traditions, costumes and mostly taste the exquisite cuisine.
The week I and Cynthia ( from Strawberry Blu) visited was the French cuisine promotion with the 60’s Photo exhibition at Mosaic.

Roadster's New Menu Tasting

"Yes, I think I do. After reading a lot of overheated puffery about your new cook, you know what I'm craving? A little perspective. That's it. I'd like some fresh, clear, well seasoned perspective."  Anto Ego.

All foodies  know Anto Ego from Ratatouille and his renowned strict criticism. And all remember his famous line that If he didnt love the food, simply he wouldn't swallow it!  
Still he is a logical person . A perspective is what he only needed to judge Gusteau's! 
Well, I personally think that restaurants criticism is a 100% biased process as much as the food critique tries to hide this biased opinion.
Why? One single moment from Ego's childhood, transformed all his thoughts about the restaurant. Food critisim doesn't get born at the moment we taste food, it is a process that mingles together all our thoughts, memories, the people we are with , even the music we are hearing there....
It is a sensory "crumbling" .
All the neurons are moving and the signals going back and forth from the mouth to the brain, then from the brain to the stomach. Continuous set. One peculiar odor from the meal on the table, will shift everything, bringing memories, whether sad or bad. You will forget what you are criticizing and base it on mostly what you are feeling when you tasted this meal.
As much as food critiques will tell me that this is not the case and they succeed in isolating their feelings when tasting. I believe that this is useless. What is the purpose of  tasting  food without a memory to remember or build upon? Tasting food is not just a physical experiment to the tongues as much as it is a creation of new feelings and new tastes. Eventually, creation of new memories.
What brings you back to the same restaurant and order the same meal is what it had created the same time you tasted it.  The memory was stored in a special place in your brain and you want to enjoy it again and again. 

Restaurants have this mission to keep the same memory, unchanged, and untouched. This is quality. 
And once they change their menus or maybe a recipe, they are in a dilemma of making us unhappy. They will either lose us or they will succeed in repeating the same process of building an enjoyable memory again

And here I am talking about one of my favorite Lebanese Chain restaurants : Roadster's Diner*. Roadster's will always remind me of my college days when we used to ditch classes at AUB and go eat there and enjoy our times chatting.It will always remind me of the vividness of Hamra, its diversity and its noisy setting.

China: Through the mouth of the beholder

Perhaps noodles and chopsticks are the hallmarks of the China's cuisine, nevertheless this cuisine is abundant with plenty of  food items. Outstandingly, the cuisine had evolved throughout history due to ethnic, geographical changes and the different dynasties ruling the empire. It had been also shaped by eight distinct gastronomical schools. Therefore what the capitol of China , Beijing,  is bidding nowadays in its food markets, is different than what "china town" or the Lebanese (wanna be) Chinese restaurants are offering.
Let us visit Beijing through the taste buds of  Reina Yammine, who traveled there for her summer internship in a technology company.

Reina, Indulging in her Starfish 

Nothing is more memorable than smell

"Nothing is more memorable than a smell.  One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town.  Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.  Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once.  A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth."  ~Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses.

For me , entering a restaurant is not just a meal occasion, it's a sensual ritual for exciting all my senses, then my nerve buds, up to my neurons , then encrypting this stimulation into my memory storage area.
And if this ritual didn't happen, then the restaurant failed in making me a memory.
And if it failed in making this memory, this simply means : " the food wasn't great". And, although I am a food scientist ,  where one would assume that would be easy  for me talking about a restaurant , its menu and its food. But it is not. Because I tend to talk about almost all the factors that affect eating.  You will notice that as you read below.


The couqley bistro- restaurant  experience for brunch, was one of those vivid memories that had successfully been processed and stored. As you enter, you are overwhelmed with the smell of home  made omlettes and pancakes, and so you  evocatively remember the Sunday mornings where you used to wake up late , smell something delicious and enter the kitchen to see  your mother preparing for you,  your favorite breakfast: Pancakes.  Bringing back  this picture is worth it all. 

A Letter to The Syndicate of Lebanese Restaurants

The live grill ( See More photos Below)

A  successful  event was  organized by the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Cafes, Night-Clubs and Pastries in Lebanon . The event , " Feast For Change",   was the first official food & wine event in Lebanon’, and will continue to be annual. 

Remarkably, I liked the fact that for the first time an event as big as this was for  a charity for Monuments, specifically the beautiful old buildings in Beirut that are threatened to be demolished.  Lady Sursock Cochrane donated a percentage of proceeds of this event to her foundation for protecting natural sites and old buildings in Lebanon , APSAD.

According to Beirut Night Life :" The event, which was sponsored by Bank Audi, MasterCard, Vresso and Boecker was attended by Syndicate Board Members, as well as city’s top VIPs, socialites, ministers, media and owners of the following businesses who also generously offered to set up live cooking and beverage stations at the event:
BRGR Co, Couqley, Salmontini, Diwan Al Sultan, BO18, Al Falamanki, Shogun, White Coast, Leila, Mayrig, Cro Magnon, Eric Kaiser, Oslo, Hallab, Platinum Chocloate, Gou, Faqra Catering, Chili’s, Gabriel Bocti, Fattal, Enologia, Vintage, IXSIR, Chateau Ksara, Chateau Musar, Massaya, Diageo and Cin Cin."

As much as this event was greatly organized , we  watch  one week later , an attack on Lebanese Restaurants on Marcel Ghanem's TV  show ( LBCI  group), Kalam el Nas. The reports on this program showed  how horrific and disgusting it is to eat outside our houses in Lebanon.

Lebanese Myths about Food Poisoning Busted

After i watched this sad news on TV about the latest victim of food poisoning: a young man  on his day of  graduation , i thought of listing some of the Lebanese Myths or sayings about food , eating out poisoning cases.

A.    I got hit by the  " wind"  ( akhadet saf2et hawa)

You had dinner in a restaurant with your friends and spent the night back at home with nausea, followed by fever, vomiting and oh well, diarrhea.

You blame the AC in the restaurant or in the car or the air coming from the window in your room.

A living Dish

Wow i found this video showing how a restaurant is displaying his menu.
I find this very creative :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwxq-CNfQC0