Those
of you who are regulars here at One Great George Street may have noticed that
we have an additional section in this years Catering Menu, with the inclusion
of bowl food for the first time.
Recently my team prepared a tasting session
for the sales and events team, this is one meeting everyone turned up for and
on time.
Bowl food is, of course,
hardly the new kid on the block as far as food innovation is concerned, so why,
you might ask, have we never featured it before? To be honest the only reason
it hasn’t made it onto the menus in the past is because I personally didn’t
really know how I felt about it as function food.
What did I think I hated about bowl food?
1) Definitely concerns over practicality. What do you do with your glass while
you are eating, as you need two hands to do so?
2) What happens to the empties in a busy room?
3) Do we want to invest in the equipment and where do we then store it?
4) Will we always have enough service space?
5) Will it be a two minute Fad that would fade away?
What I now love about bowl food?
1) Our sales team have been telling me that it is a constant request
which has proved to be correct as I can tell from our catering figures and how
busy my team are.
2) It’s a creative chef’s dream because of the huge potential in pure food
terms by being able to create small and tasty dishes with very few
restrictions.
3) It’s perfect for networking events which we are a popular venue for.
4) You can try a ’little bit of this’ and ’little bit of that’.
5) It’s cost effective if you are on a tight budget in these difficult times
and cannot afford one of my 7 course fine dining meals, as impressive and
fabulous as they might be.
So this year I finally put my ambivalence to one side and with the aid of my
two senior chefs, Joanne Dingwall and Charlene Basan, created a brand new menu.
Now
that it’s done I can’t remember why I made such a song and dance about it, and
I have gone from being lukewarm to super excited about the whole concept.
Back to my pots and pans. Until next time……..
Any comments? Email conferencenews@mashmedia.net
