Edible glitter, tainted onions and the evolution of American sushi

On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed their recent eating adventures. That included Pat’s visit to a Hampton Inn, home of the original waffle bar, created by the midscale hotel chain 40 years ago.  That historical milestone is being celebrated by the hotel chain and promoted by Paris Hilton, since Hampton Inn is a brand of her family’s hospitality empire, in the form of special pink waffles with edible glitter that guests can add. The hosts observed that there’s a lot of edible glitter on menus these days, because it’s fun and dazzling on social media and, one hopes, safe to eat.  It turns out that some onions being served by McDonald’s probably weren’t safe and allegedly sickened a number of people, resulting in one fatality. Pat and Bret discussed that turn of events. First, however Bret discussed his visit to a sushi restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, which he said was fine, just like a lot of sushi is fine these days, but not with the attention to detail that came with sushi in the past—the server didn’t even bother to explain what type of fish he had been served. Pat suggested that this is what happens when food like sushi becomes ubiquitous.  She had a chance to visit the newest location of Kernel, a heavily automated quick-service restaurant developed by Chipotle founder Steve Ells, and was happy to report that the formerly meatless chain is now serving chicken.  While Pat was at Kernel, Bret went to a preview of Hudson Club, a new restaurant in Midtown Manhattan headed up by chef John DeLucie. He particularly enjoyed oysters with an apple mignonette, and that was a nice segue to this week’s guest, Aaron Juvera, a level one certified oyster master and chef de cuisine of Southerleigh Fine Foods & Brewery in San Antonio, Texas.  Juvera discussed the oyster master certification program, Texas’s burgeoning oyster-cultivation industry and Southerleigh’s increasing use of lesser-known fish species. We hope you’ll tune in.