Episode 2 iFoods Weekly show

Here comes the second installment of the weekly iFoods show that wraps up the latest from the internet food world. You can see the full version here and you can also download directly as a podcast from iTunes. Don't forget to add a video comment over at the new iFoods blog.

New Weekly Video Show Added to the New Blog!

Hey guys,

We've just added the first episode of a new weekly food news/reviews show onto the new iFoods blog here

We really hope you enjoy it and please give us as much feedback as possible, constructive criticism and just outright criticism will help us make something interesting for everyone.

There will be more additions to the new blog over the next few days so keep posted.

Is Tastespotting making a comeback?

A news flash has just arrived from Tastespotting! As most people at this stage know it was suddenly and unexpectedly shut down last Friday the 13th (coincidence?), with nothing but a post it note on a bare site to say goodbye. Much speculation followed as to the reason of their overnight departure, with copyright issues over the images on their site, or the infamous Tastespotting stalker being pushed as the likely reasons. This speculation has been quashed with 2 new notes, firstly assuring us that while there are legal issues, it is not copyright related, certainly has nothing to do with stalkers and that they hope to be back online soon! The second note is alerting Tastespotting lovers worldwide of a new addition to the NOTCOT family. Liqurious (Great Name!) is a tastespotting for drinks and it looks just as cool as tastespotting did. We wish them all the best and hope to see Tastespotting back up alongside it asap.

Very cool chef trick with egg

I'll let the video do the talking on this one! Never had this one in my repitoire but if I was being hyper critical I'd say he split the yolk!

Robotic Restaurant

This could only ever come from Germany....The first restaurant that has no waiting staff and instead relies only on mechanical delivery of the food. The system is incredibly impressive even if it is lacking in personality but I suppose what makes up for it the most is the fact that you will not feel obliged to leave a tip.

A Taste of Dublin

Around the world there are more and more food festivals that aim to act as a showcase for local restaurants and we had our very own version this weekend here in Dublin. These festivals are popping up everywhere with "A taste of Northern Ireland" and "A taste of Cork" coming soon. I wasn't able to attend this year as I had a busy couple of days with iFoods and attended a wedding in the country over the weekend but to be honest probably wouldn't have gone anyway. For those of you not familiar with the concept you buy a ticket (the cheapest of which would set you back a whopping 25 Euros) and are then asked to pay for all the food on top of that again. For those of you not familiar with Ireland and the rip off prices that we are forced to pay here this would be a classic example of the exploitation we are forced to put up with.

I got back to Ireland last year and missed last year's festival as we were filing the iFoods.tv videos which was a shame as I heard amazing reports about the festival with people universally embracing it as a fantastic idea. This year however the tide seems to have turned as I spoke to several people who attended the event and were not impressed and all mentioned the steep prices and minuscule portions they were served up. On the flip side I also know 3 people who had stands at the event (I will not go in to the details of how much it costs to hire a stand but I'll just say it is not for the faint hearted)and the general feedback was that they would be watching the level of business garnered from the event very closely and would probably not take a stand next year. Most people probably think the restaurants are cleaning up and making a fortune at the event but the reality is the festival takes a large % of all sales making it more of a PR event for the restaurants involved rather than a money making exercise. As one of my friends said "it is only normal to get pissed off when paying 8 Euros for 6 chips and a small sliver of fish after paying in to the event". With the economic winds changing and people growing tired off rip off Ireland will the festival continue to thrive and continue to be the cash cow the organisers hope it will be? I suspect it will but they may have to restrucure prices and think about their customers rather than trying to stuff their pockets.
Below is an intro video to this year's festival

Frog's heart served up still pulsating

After my post last week on live fish I was sent a few emails with links to other videos that will be even more disturbing to you if you find even sushi a step too far. The first is of a fish moving on the plate and the second features a Frog being sliced open and it's organs being eaten while they are clearly still warm and practically living. Is this a step too far? Would you try it? Warning please do not watch if you are in any way sensitive or would consider yourself a fan of the RSPCA....


For More Cooking Videos Click Here

Break from the Norm

Normally I try to share something funny or give you some interesting news on iFoods.tv but today there is a break from the norm and I am just going to share a link. You must click here to see the best food pictures I have ever seen! 100% the best food pics I have ever seen!

An Edible Anus

I think the title of this post and the pictures do all the explaining. This could only have come out of Belgium, I just wonder what the world is coming to!!

Funniest Food Picture Ever!

Due to the fact that my email address is pretty easy to access on the internet I end up getting sent about 100 spam emails every day of the week which can be incredibly annoying and I usually delete them without even glancing at them. I did however open one by mistake today and saw this photo which totally cracked me up! Hilarious!

The Mixed Grill Experience

Due to the power of modern technology I am posting today from Starbucks in Piccadilly Square in Manchester. I have been working here for the entire day and have literally been through the entire menu with caramel hot chocolate being the latest. The good thing is that if I miss my aeroplane back to Ireland later the amount of caffeine I have consumed will enable me to swim across the Irish Sea instead.

The blog has been quiet for a couple of days and I would love to say it was down to hard work but it was actually due to the fact that I was playing golf on the beautiful Mount Juliet Course near Kilkenny in Ireland. The game of golf included a free meal which after a 7 mile trek I was looking forward to immensely. To my surprise an old classic that has totally gone out of fashion appeared on the menu, The Mixed Grill. Now just the name brings back memories of an age gone by with old smelly hotels from the 80s springing to mind. The Mixed grill was as much a mainstay on menus of the past as risotto, eggs Benedict and sundried tomatoes are abundant in our restaurants and bistros these days. Despite other exciting choices on the menu I thought I would dip my feet back into the water and see if it had somehow evolved into the new and improved Mixed Grill of 2008.

The good news is that it has! I'm not sure if it was the novelty or the plush surroundings or the fact that I had walked half way across Ireland but I needed a real mans dinner and that is what I got! Stick your sundried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and slow roasted peppers up your arse; I want lamb chop, slow roast shoulder of pork, bacon, sausage, fried egg, and lots of bread all on the one plate from now on! It was a plate full of meat, it was hot, it arrived promptly and it did exactly what it said on the tin! I must commend such a prestigious hotel and their chef for having the balls to put something so outdated on their menu and making it a huge success. Even though I wouldn't eat a mixed grill everyday of the week I just wish more chefs would cook classics like that instead of hiding behind their bottle of walnut and coriander oil. Am off to get some sort of coffee flavoured lunch now!

Food Network Chef Sacked in Disgrace

Top Chef Robert Irvine who for a number of years had a show on the food network called Dinner:Impossible has just been sacked in disgrace for lying about his CV. In one of the funniest and brazen episodes in celebrity chef history he basically made his whole CV up and blagged his way on to the biggest food network in the world! Among some of his most outlandish claims that have since been exposed as tall tales are...

-Claiming he made the cake for the Prince and princess of Wales at their wedding.

-Claimed he was given a knighthood for his services

-Cooked for a series of US presidents

He made a career out of all these lies and the tall tales had grown so much over the years that he ended up writing his own autobiography and even launching a company producing merchandise bearing his name. Now I really must saw this is one of the funniest stories to come out of the cooking world in a long time and to be honest with you he deserves the career he has had! Anybody that good at the bullshit deserves a job on TV and the fact that nobody in the states even bothered to check up on a little thing like a knighthood is something I find hilarious!

The end of TV cooking

I had a very interesting conversation with one of the top TV producers in Ireland a couple of days ago and the general gist of it was that the glut of cookery programmes on television was coming to a tipping point. You can't switch the TV on these days without some sort of cookery show with practically every format under the sun being rehashed to saturation point. He said that networks were cooling on the idea of commissioning new shows and although there remained success stories out there a lack of quality was starting to appear. For every Kitchen nightmares and Masterchef there is a Guerrilla Gourmet and a food poker but lets not forget that we have come a long way in the last few years from the starting point of Ready Steady Cook as a daytime show. The new raft of TV shows has thrust cooking into a new light and made it a "sexy profession" again which is a good thing however I am glad that the powers that be are addressing the problem.

MasterChef 2008
One of the 100s of shows on TV is masterchef which I have been following for the last few weeks and it is exactly the sort of show that exposes all the wonderful aspects of cooking. The standard was outstanding for amateurs and I can assure you that some of the food they were producing would not have been out of place in a Michelin stared restaurant. Producing that standard consistently for large numbers of people is a totally different challenge but the contestants were excellent and admired by all the quality chefs appearing on the programme including 3 star Michelin chefs from France. An excellent advertisement for the profession of cheffing.

Cheeseburger in a can, WTF?

Horrific news this week from Germany as two new products are unveiled taking standards of food production to a level I really never thought we would reach! This sounds like something I am making up but believe me it is true, I would like to bring to your attention the cheeseburger in a can and powdered red wine that you have to mix with water! What is the fecking world coming to? A CHEESEBURGER IN A CAN???? If this company makes 1 penny from this I will have lost all faith in mankind! I can just about see the case for the wine, say perhaps you are trekking accross the poles and fancy a tipple, rather than carrying a box of wine just tuck the sachets into a pocket. Does it actually contain alcohol? Can you choose between a Merlot and a Bordeaux? Oh dear oh dear, what were they thinking. I was going to write about what a disaster the burger in a can is and what the world is coming to etc etc but to be honest I really don't think I need to, it's pretty feckin obvious that it is a lamentable tale and the video below with Johnothan Ross sums it up pretty well! I just wish I could have been in the board meeting the day somebody suggested the burger in the tin and it's merits were being discussed! Perhaps they signed the deal and sipped a few sachets of wine to celebrate!

World's Best Food Country (3rd Place)

3rd Place
America

This is a selection that I know before writing is going to cause a lot of debate especially from people who have not travelled to the USA before! America is one of the most stereotyped countries in the world and that doesn't change when it comes to food with most people probably thinking about burgers, chips and hot dogs as they read this! The reality I am happy to report is totally different with some of the world's best food coming from the states these days. Yes you will find burger joints and junk food easily but you will also find these in the other countries on the list. America is like a huge melting pot of cultures and what that produces is some of the most unique and diverse culinary treats that you are ever likly to find.

Forget the burgers! When i think of America I think of the great diversity of New York and it's 1000s of restaurants, or the clean and vibrant cooking happening in Los Angles, or the rich and souful food of the south, or quality Tex Mex at it's best, or the trendy food in Miami etc etc. See America is like 10 countries rolled into one with lots of different flavours mingling together to create a huge variety and choice of dishes. If you add to that mix some of the world's best produced ingredients along with some very highly trained chefs you have the perfect mix for a country to make it in at number 3 on this list! I just know a lot of people are going to disagree with this and have a preconcieved idea of American food all being served in Hooters but I also know that the people who are thinking that are the people probably have never been to the country to sample it's delights!

Food Network Slip up

I remember being in the states watching this live and I still think it is one of the funniest freudian slips I have ever seen on TV! The best part is that she just tries to keep a straight face and play it off! Priceless!

World's Best Food Country

5th Place
South Africa

I have been lucky enough to travel all over the world tasting amazing food and am often asked what the best I have ever tasted is so the only way to answer is to list the top 5 based on flavour, consistancy and local produce. This will run over the next few days with the big winner being announced on Friday!

This might come as surprise to a lot of people as this country is probably better known for it's wine than it's culinary ability but believe me for those of you who havn't been lucky wnough to visit this gem of a country yet there is a beautiful range of gastronomic treats awaiting you if you do make it there! The country not only has huge Oceans surrounding it packed with incredible fish but has vast acres of incredibly fertile land that is not only perfect for growing wine but also everything thing from osterich to warthog! I must say that the cuisine does lean towards meat quite heavily but there are always plenty of seafood options.


The other best thing about SA is that it is like a huge melting pot of cultures with African food sitting alongside the best of Indian, Chinese and Western cooking. What has happened over the years is that there is natural fusion cooking that has developped rather than just some random chef throwing wasabi on parsnips and calling it fusion! The fusion element actually works really well here to the extent that some of the best curries I have ever had were in Durban and I think it must have a lot to do with the quality of ingredients the chefs are workig with.

The best thing about SA is that it is a country well and truly on the rise from a culinary perspective as they have had bigger battles to fight over the last century. Now that there are a new crop of chefs coming through and torism is booming the quality will only rise along with their ranking on this list in the future.

See Position 4 tomorrow!

The World's Smallest Restaurant

I was in a bar in Dublin a week ago that is the "city's smallest bar" which got me thinking about the world's smallest restaurant and with valentine's day fast approaching I think i might have just found the perfect romantic getaway. Turns out that it is a quaint little place just outside Pisa in Italy with one table called "Solo per Due" or "only for two" in English. Now it would appear that the gentleman who runs this place has elected to keep the seating arrangements as they are either because he wants to keep an incredibly high level of service or just that he is plain lazy! Space is certainly not an issue as the "restaurant" is situated in an old 19th century building with lush gardens and ample room to squeeze at least another 12 tables in!
There is one major drawback and to be totally honest it is one that I expected from an establishment so small and that is the price! A meal for 2 and I would assume this is the sort of place where you would need a date rather than sitting there listening to yourself breath will set you back a whopping 500 Euros! I suppose it is pretty unique and you are never gooing to have to worry about other diners, getting rushed out for the 9 o'clock sitting or the waiter confusing your green slad for a bloody steak but 500 Euros would be a lot to pay in a fine Michelin starred restaurant never mind trekking up the hills to sit in Marco's living room and have him grinning at you like that!

Plastic Bag Tax

Nothing annoys me more than the sight of people loading 20 plastic bags into the back of their SUVs as they carry out their weekly shopping! I am lucky enough to live in a country where we have a forward thinking government who several years ago introduced a 22 cent environmental tax on plastic bags which has cut their use by 94%. If you take into account that the UK alone use 10 BILLION consumer shopping bags and that they take on average 500 years to decompose in landfill sites you see the scale of the problem that we are up against!
So if the model in Ireland is so successful and drastically cuts the consumption of these horrible bags why has it not been embraced in other countries sooner? Are the big corporations lobbying to keep them? I am no politician but it’s not hard to see that cutting use by 94%, raising additional money in tax whilst changing the mentality of the consumer all in one fell swoop has to be a very good thing! These bags are causing immense harm to the environment and it needs to get to the stage where it is a social stigma akin to wearing fur to be seen carrying a shopping bag and the best way to change people’s habits as usual is to hit them in the pocket!

Google Chefs Rock!

I have a hunch why Google have become one of the biggest companies in the world in the blink of an eye and it doesn't just have to do with the incredibly effective technology they provide us all with for free. It's the age old adage that if you look after your staff they will look after you and google has found a way straight to their staff's hearts by providing them with daily restaurant standard food totally for free! It has been clear from the start that Google have had a passion for food and that this comes from the top with Co-Founder Sergey Brin recently commenting on their search for 2 new executive chefs "These two chefs will play an important role in managing the company's growing appetites."

With an ever expanding workforce and staff from all over the world how many companies would be able to offer dishes like this in their corporte cafeteria...Ahi Tuna & Avocado Poke, Eggplant Ratatouille, Pollo en Huerto, Seared Day Boat Scallops in Green Coconut Curry Sauce, Arugula with Dried Apricots, Sautéed Wild Mushrooms, Spinach Lentil Dal and Tropical Shrimp Bisque soups, Hazelnut Shortcakes with Plum Compote, Chocolate Coconut Cheesecake and Creamy Lemon Macadamia Nut Cookies?

I really do applaud Google for trying to make their staff so happy and even though the end game is probably the bottom line they have certainly found their way into a lot of their staff's hearts! A lot of companies could learn from this but my guess is that they would never be forward thinking enough!

You just have to watch this video to get a better idea of how it all works. The good news for the rest of us is that they all seem to be putting on tons of weight!