Posts for 'food' Category

This week the fast food chain Quick - the number two burger chain in France after McDonald's - announced that 22 of its outlets would serve halal meat only. It has been trying out the idea at eight restaurants for the past nine months, prompting criticism from some politicians and intellectuals concerned that the secular values of the French Republic are being betrayed.

Halal food is big business in France, and is growing fast. With the largest Muslim population in Europe at about six million, France's halal market it is already reckoned to be worth 5.5bn euros (£4.5bn) - twice the size of that for organic food. While the burgers served at Quick are genuinely halal, experts have doubts about much of what is sold elsewhere. Rachid Bakhalq, the owner of a halal supermarket in Nanterre, a suburb to the north of Paris, says the market is swamped with bogus products. He told me "80% - most of the halal products based on meat - are not halal at all.

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Thai food always offers some healthy options and Mike Thai in Mesa, Arizona makes it tasty.  The staff is friendly, professional and very informative about all things having to do with Thailand.  The servers provide thorough explanations of how they prepare their authentic curry dishes.

The spice scale is the usual 1-5, but for the real deal get "Thai hot".  A friend who traveled to Thailand recently said that Mike Thai is authentic, so rest assured, the servers know what that means. A delicious, mild soup accompanies each lunch entrée, simmering with fresh crisp vegetables and small pieces of chicken and tofu.

A variety of vegetables, peas, carrots, celery, cauliflower, and onions are featured in the soup. For a healthy main course, green curry is cooked with coconut milk, eggplant, bamboo shoots, green beans, green curry paste, and Thai basil, served with white rice.  The curry blends nicely with the rice and veggies so it’s not too spicy, and the usually strong curry flavor doesn’t overpower the taste of the fresh vegetables, especially the fresh basil.

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Waaaay back in the dark days before Midnight Sun, I was a food critic. Bet you didn't know that. Yes indeed, for about two years, I was the takeout food columnist, and I also reviewed restaurants for The Sun's annual Dining Guide. That was back when we had a Dining Guide.

It's been a while since I regularly wrote food reviews, and I was ready for another challenge. So when Kate Shatzkin, the editor of the Taste section and the blogger extraordinaire behind Charm City Moms, asked me to write about corned beef and cabbage (the piece came out today), I jumped at the chance.

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Gumbo, a dish of African origin, has become a symbol of culinary pride for New Orleans.In its simplest description, a gumbo is a thick, brownish soup containing a mixture of rice, vegetables and meat or seafood. It is a ubiquitous fare in family gatherings in New Orleans and Louisiana. There may be some variations on the basic ingredient but there are two unchangeable rules that make a gumbo a gumbo:

 first, it must always contain rice and second, it must be always thickened with something. The roux, which in culinary terms means “a mixture of flour and fat cooked together and used for thickening sauces” was said to be the based of most New Orleans cuisines, particularly the gumbo.

Pinoy foodies can now have a taste of authentic gumbo at the Gumbo Restaurant located in three branches in Metro Manila (Mall of Asia, The Block, SM City North EDSA and Robinson’s Manila).

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Food and beverage manufacturers will today voluntarily introduce a code of conduct, vowing not to advertise products to children unless they promote a healthy diet and lifestyle.They hope it will counter calls for tough laws banning junk food advertising targeted at kids.

Companies participating in the Australian Food and Grocery Council's (AFGC) responsible children's marketing initiative will commit to targeting children under 12 "only when it will further the goal of promoting healthy dietary choices and healthy lifestyles".

The initiative will apply to all television, radio, print, cinema and internet advertising "where the audience is predominantly children under 12", or where the program "is directed primarily to children".In August, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) released research showing there was little evidence of a link between junk food advertising and obesity levels in children.

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When you're after classics with flair, then CBD International Cuisine is the place to dine. A 24-hr, a-la-carte restaurant serving Asian and Western cuisine, the food presentation and exposed kitchens (there are two of them) will have you salivating as soon as you walk in. Choose from all your favorite international cooking styles and cuisines: from soups, salads, pizzas and pastas, plus standouts like mussel pots and chef specialties of the day.

Starting off with a soup, there are the poached prawns in hot-and-sour bouillon for the spice fans, or the Porcini, Chanterelle and Morel mushroom soup with crème fraiche for those wanting the familiar, but with added rich and quality ingredients. Whilst the latter is quite bland, the former is a clear and healthy broth with a touch of spice and three meaty prawns, without the need to mess around with the shells.

For appetizers, try something from their seafood selection. The tomato tartar and smoked salmon, laced with green chive dressing, is a gorgeous red-and-orange packaged combination of finely diced tomatoes wrapped in smoked salmon that smells and tastes as fresh as it looks.

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The Marssa, a public fish market, is located in the northeast of the coast of Tripoli, around 5 km far from the city center. You can arrive to it by car or by other means of transportation. It is one of the three oldest known fish markets in the city.

 In the past, it was called "Al Hofra", which means the hole; because its ground is somehow lower than the surrounding area. Another reason for this name is that it is said that some fishermen worked quarries in the upper area next to the beach to temporarily live in them during the fishing season. There is a small cliff inside the sea that helped them protect their boats against storms.

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ASK Sunita Mahesan, the owner of Rumahku, what brings people together and she would say that it is a great meal.

The 42-year-old bachelorette, who has been running Rumahku for three and a half years, would certainly attest to the fact that the decor in her two restaurants would also fits the ‘muhibbah’ concept, too.

On entering the outlet in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, for instance, one would notice the colourful sarongs which she uses for tablecloths.Then there is the other outlet in Petaling Jaya, located across the road from University Hospital, which is actually a house.

Diners here get to enjoy the different ambience of Chinese, Indian and Malay influences as the theme changes from one room to another within the charming single story bungalow.But it is through the menu that the diner will really experience the multicultural facets of the Malaysian taste bud, as I found out during an afternoon at the Rumahku restaurant in Brickfields.

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The name of any restaurant is crucial and Cail Bruich West has now joined other West End eateries (Òran Mór, Blas and a new Dumbarton Road café, Sith) in using the ancient tongue to scream their Scottishness and, paradoxically, their modernity.

No longer are folk embarrassed by their roots, and Gaelic no longer means bearded old geezers in thick cable jumpers listening to fiddles in remote villages with unpronounceable names.

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Food intolerance is on the rise but getting the right diagnosis can be tricky, writes Paula Goodyer.When it comes to food intolerance, dietitian Linda Hodge suspects most of us sit somewhere between two extremes: at one end, the cast-iron stomach that can eat anything; and, at the other, the highly sensitive stomach that reacts to many foods. But the reason more people now seem to lean towards the sensitive end is that our food supply exposes us to more of the chemicals that trigger food intolerance than in the past.

"It's not just that our food supply now contains more artificial or added chemicals - processed foods - but also because we now have a large variety of fruits and vegetables all year round, many of which used to be available only for short periods. Summer fruits and vegetables, in particular, contain natural chemicals, like salicylates, which can upset some people."

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