Monday, September 15th, 2008 | Special | Peter
Gobbl Late Night Comic Strip
Check out Gobbl Late Night. Click to view larger size.
Written and drawn by Michelle Sung.
Thursday, August 28th, 2008 | Restaurant Insider | Cindi
Insider: Taeko of the Gohan Society
Photos Courtesy of the Gohan Society. All Star Chef Charity Dinner at Matsuri.
From the designer behind Whimsy & Spice’s branding to a rising young chef with a love for private dining, Gobbl works to bring our readers an inside glimpse of the restaurant world from many an angle. Today’s Insider brings you the perspective of the executive director of the Gohan Society, Taeko Takigami. Though founded only a few years ago, the Gohan Society has quickly become a noteworthy force, holding master classes for prominent chefs as well as organizing high profile events like the Tofu Competition earlier this summer.
Gobbl: How and when did the Gohan Society begin?
Taeko: Our founder, Saori Kawano, has a business selling restaurant equipment. As a Japanese person doing business in the US, she wanted to do something for the US. She thought it would be best to do it in the restaurant industry because that’s what she was very familiar with. She founded Gohan, a non-profit organization, about 2.5 years ago. In the beginning, we really relied on her contacts for our events – chefs like Michael Romano and Jean-George. It’s funny – 25 years ago, Chef Jean-George just walked into her business store and became one of her clients. Like Jean-George, many of our chefs have long term business relations with our founder.
Gobbl: What inspired you to join the Gohan Society as its executive director?
Taeko: Before becoming the executive director of the Gohan Society, I was always in either publishing or public relations. In those capacities, I worked with both American and Japanese clients as a business coordinator. Later, I met with Saori who was thinking about this idea of a Japanese culinary society. Maybe it had something to do with age or my dreams to do a non-profit but I took the job. The contacts and networks I had made, through my career, I was finally able to use these contacts for something meaningful. I really thought I found a launching spot for my life. We are now very good friends and work very hard to achieve our goal.
Gobbl: What were some of your past events?
Taeko: The Tofu Cookoff is an example. Housefoods was having so much difficulty getting the chefs for the competition, and the Gohan was asked to help contact chefs. The competitors (Wylie Drufresne of WD-50, Erik Battes of Perry St., Edward Higgins of Insieme, and Akinobu Suzuki of Sakagura) all agreed immediately. Michael Romano on our board of directors took a role as a judge.
We also worked to introduce Kaga cuisine and we wanted to introduce the cuisine to people who have influential power so we planned a dinner at the Japanese embassy. We invited the guests like Jean-George, Eric Ripert, and Michael Romano, and George Sape, a lawyer who is known as a fine wine collector. He has 16,000 bottles in his collection. We wanted him to know about the sake collection. It was a very exclusive dinner.
Photos Courtesy of the Gohan Society. [Left] Guest book signed by Jean-George [Right] Eric Ripert being interviewed by the press.
Gobbl: What are your future projects?
Friday, August 22nd, 2008 | Miscellaneous | Cindi
Special: Call for Gobbl Feed Interns
This fall we are looking for additions to the editorial staff of The Gobbl Feed. The Gobbl Feed will continue to feature daily entries on the New York restaurant scene, offering readers fresh, insightful information about the most interesting eateries in the city.
Go to www.gobbl.com/internship for more information!!
Good bye & take care,
Pierce & Cindi
Friday, August 22nd, 2008 | Miscellaneous | Cindi
Gobblin Around: Our Favorite Celeb Chef Blogs
Photos Courtesy of Avec Eric.
Celebrity chefs these days seem to do everything but cook, including updating their blogs regularly. The Feed brings you some of the most entertaining of celebrity chef blogs.
Eric Ripert shows you how to cook butterflied shrimp and rapsberry clafouti (among mannny other things) in a toaster oven and an awesome French accent. [Avec Eric]
Tom Colicchio, the bald headed chef on Top Chef, teaches you how to cook good food and shares deep philosophical thoughts … [Eat Drink or Die]
After a 1 star review of his new soba restaurant, Matsugen, Jean George Vongerichten (of Spice Market & Perry Street) calls Adam Platt mistaken. Not quite the Jeffrey Chodorow full page ad in the Times (after Bruni’s 0 star review) but still … [Jean George Vongerichten]
Friday, August 22nd, 2008 | Home Grub | Cindi
Home Grub: Excerpts from the Healthy College Cookbook
Eating out every day isn’t always an option, especially with restaurant bills piled up in a corner. So for these nights-off when picture taking duties and heart stopping bills don’t dance in your head, take some inspiration from Gobbl’s cookbook profiles. Each week, we’ll take inspiration from a great restaurant and come up a tasty three course meal. This week’s restaurant? The Frank Bruni acclaimed Scarpetta.
All recipes today are excerpted from the popular cookbook, “The Healthy College Cookbook”. A revised version of the cookbook, with 100 new recipes, will be available in February of 2009. Look out for free copies from Gobbl!
Appetizer
At Scott Conan’s new venture, you might opt to order the Tuna Susci (with marinated vegetables and preserved truffles) to start. The Gobbl Alternative? Tuna with tomato, onion, and parsley salsa (makes 2 servings).
Ingredients & Instructions:
1 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
1/4 small red onion, finely chopped
1/4 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tuna steak
1. Combine all of the ingredients except the tuna in a small bowl and mix well. Chill.
2. Preheat the broiler. Place the tuna on a baking sheet or broiler pan. Broil to desired doneness, 5 to 8 minutes per side. Serve with a scoop of the chilled salsa.
Read more >>
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 | Gobbl Rank | Pierce
Gobbl Rank: New York’s Best Pizzerias
At Gobbl we know that New Yorkers are dead serious about their pizzas, whether it be the plain and unpretentious slice that the city has become famous for (boasting flour infused with the city’s tap water and a very simple mozzarella) or the more straight-forward and flavorful Neapolitan pie, prepared with olive oil, fresh San Marzano tomatoes and dollops of Mozzarella di Bufala. Even New Haven-style hybrids like Frank Pepe’s have made their way down from the north and Sicilian deep dish pizzas have alos solidified their followings in a city that can’t ever get enough pizza.
With this in mind, Gobbl set out to concoct a secret formula to rank the top twenty pizzerias in New York City. As always, we’d like to get your feedback. Let us know if we left your favorite pizza joint off the list, and of course let’s see some debate. Pizzeria rank after the jump!
Read more >>
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 | Restaurant Insider | Cindi
Insider: Jenna of Whimsy & Spice
All Photos Courtesy of Whimsy&Spice
The Brooklyn based duo of Jenna and Mark deliver sugar and spice and everything nice. Made by the finest, all natural ingredients available, their much lauded confections highlight the perfect marriage of spices and sweets. Jenna, an award winning graphic designer in charge of the company’s branding and packaging, took time from her busy schedule and her much too adorable girls to chat with Gobbl about Whimsy & Spice’s beginnings, rise, and beloved marshmallows.
Gobbl: Your adorable blog, Sweet Fine Day, partly chronicles the ups and downs of starting up a business. Can you elaborate on this process?
Jenna: We decided to start Whimsy & Spice shortly after Mark left the restaurant world 6 months ago. He had been working as a cook and Pastry Chef in NYC for over 12 years. We decided to pursue it head on after having talked abstractly about our own business for many years. I never thought that we would start our own business so soon while our kids were so young, but sometimes there are signs in your life that you can’t ignore and all signs were indicating that this was the right time. It was not without risks since we now both work independently and we would no longer have at least one steady paycheck, but this also fuels the drive to succeed in business – because you have to- meaning that this is not a side-venture for us. We came up with the name rather randomly, but it wasn’t a name that clicked immediately, particularly since we had tossed around names that were a little more urban and grittier. The name grew on us though and it actually helped form and strengthen the conceptual core of the products – infusing spices and herbs in sweets - so the process came about a little differently. Our name actually informed the direction of the products and not the other way around.
Gobbl: What do you think has propelled your business forward the most (so far)?
Jenna: The business came together at a rapid pace, but there were several factors that really helped push it forward. Since Mark had been in the restaurant industry for years, all that experience just clicked into place. Baking in large, commercial volumes is not like baking a batch of cookies at home. There is a certain efficiency that comes with experience so he knew exactly what to do when it came time to plan and bake our first large batch.
On the packaging and marketing side, it helps that I work as a designer and art director for a living. It’s immensely satisfying to be able to have an idea of the visual branding that you can execute yourself, without having to rely on a third party. It’s saved us a lot of time and money. This is where our respective skill sets combine perfectly because baking is only 1 part of running a company.
The venue that launched our business was the Brooklyn Flea, which we had only 2 weeks to prepare for when we were given the green light to join on opening day. Eric Demby, one of the organizers, was a huge early supporter of ours and we will always be grateful to him for helping promote us whenever the opportunity arose. Because the opening day of the Flea garnered so much interest and press, we were able to ride on the coat tails of that. It also gave us a lot of exposure to future press opportunities, like Daily Candy, that we may not have been able to get ourselves, or at least not that quickly and without much effort on our part.
Gobbl: Aside from the Etsy online store and the Brooklyn Flea, where else are your products sold? Are there plans for a bakery or confection store in the near future? Are there any other big projects looming in the future (say a cookbook)? Read more >>
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 | Take Five | Pierce
Take Five: Best of the BYOB
Photo Courtesy of Wendy Longo
Here at Gobbl we know that eating out can be a serious matter for your wallet. New York is an expensive place to eat, not to mention the staggering effect that markups on wine and liquors at most restaurants can have on your pocketbook. Therefore, we’ve concocted for you a Take Five of the best Bring Your Own Booze (BYOB) establishments that Manhattan has to offer. So, grab a bottle of your favorite go-to drink from home and head out to one of these spots for a good meal and a great time.
Read more >>
Monday, August 18th, 2008 | Special | Meredith
Special: Travel the Boroughs for Food
Photo Courtesy of [Left] Loreley Restaurant and Biergarten, [Right] NYTimes
The end of summer is rapidly approaching but there are still some adventures to be had! Gobbl suggests buying a one day metro card and traveling the boroughs for some of the best that the so-called “Empire State” has to offer.
Breakfast - Egg
The lines may be long, but the wait is worth it, say fans of the Williamsburg staple Egg. It’s easy to forget an hour long wait for a table once you take a bite of their amazing french toast. Wash that down with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and make sure you try the biscuits and gravy, a dish that’s often difficult to find in New York. A breakfast at Egg is the perfect way to wake up on a sleepy Saturday morning, and prepare for a day of gastro-traveling.
Egg 135 N. 5th Street, Brooklyn
Lunch - De Mole
The search for good Mexican in New York is an arduous and neverending one. But if you’re willing to travel to a relatively deserted area of Woodside, Queens, De Mole will be more than satisfying. The food here is authentic, but the service and ambience is much better than most others (even the restaurants in Mexico!). The moderately-priced burritos, enchiladas, and tamales are delicious. Best of all: you don’t need a passport and plane to get here quickly, just a Metrocard and the 7 train. Take note that this restaurant doesn’t have a full liquor license–make sure to bring a bottle of tequila so your server can make you a margarita.
De Mole 4502 48th Avenue, Queens
Read more >>
Thursday, August 14th, 2008 | Take Five | Pierce
Take Five: Fall Restaurant Openings
Photo Credit: Manhattan Skyline by David G. Kelly
As the dog days of summer fade away, making way for the changing leaves of autumn, New York’s culinary world also undergoes a number of changes, including the opening of new restaurants, the revamping of menus, and the shifting of culinary staffs. Gobbl is proud to highlight for you a few of the new restaurants that are slated to open later this year in New York City.
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