…a waitress who had a giant spot with a head the colour of a pale yellow egg yolk. The only question was on which of us was it to burst. ‘Too much service in my opinion is practically worse than none. You don’t have any opportunity to enjoy the company of the people who you are with.’ The words of Michelle Garnaut, the former Melbourne restaurateur who launched M on the Fringe in Hong Kong in 1989 and M on […]
Recent posts
It’s Gordon’s fault
Created by OnePlusYou I’m surprised my score isn’t higher. Fuck it, I’ll have to try harder. Via Dipping into the blog pond
In the trenches: Waiters
INTHEBLACK > In the trenches Service is one of those funny things. Some companies care a lot about it and others don’t. But as far as the customer is concerned it can make or break a relationship. Nowhere is there a more concentrated microcosm of the good and the bad of customer service than the restaurant. You almost certainly have been exposed to it yourself. And you may have seen it on reality TV in Gordon Ramsay’s top rating Kitchen […]
Tell me your most useful and useless kitchen gadgets
Spot the crap stuff (and pic) in my status symbol kitchen.What kind of swamp do I inhabit? No, I don’t live in Elwood which is now merely stinking canals and is vulnerable to subsidence.I’m talking about the stinking, sticky slimy loathsome depths of depravity that my mind has sunk to meaning that I can’t even take a simple email on face value.My curt reply to his enquiries on the local food blogging scene no doubt left Michael Ruhlman, an opinionated […]
Nutrition gets on the menu
The Australian, Entrepreneur FOOD franchises are the fastest-growing franchises. On the league table of fastest growers, six are taking some sort of health angle on food: Sumo Salad, Big Dad’s Pies, Healthy Habits, Noodle Box, Pizza Capers and Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar. Tim Dixon, CEO of consultant Franchise Works, says the high street is so dense with food outlets that new ones need new angles. With long work hours and healthy eating becoming hot topics, they are obvious platforms for […]
13 ways for restaurants to get lucky in Google searches. Or why they must learn to love food blogs
If you haven’t noticed most people find your website or blog through Google. Yes, it may be through Yahoo! But until somebody comes up with something better Google is king. The reason why restaurants or any other small or medium sized business need to take notice of blogs is that very probably a blog will come higher up in search results than you. This is unless the Google search is for your website name alone. In reality, it may be […]
Coins worth more than their weight in gold
The Australian, Wealth – Gold report THERE are two stories about gold coins, no matter how you look at it. There are the bullion coins linked to the rocketing gold price. Then there is the price of numismatic or collectable coins, which are not directly linked to the gold price but which are outperforming. The underlying fact is that when anything goes wrong in the financial system, investors turn to gold and gold coins. There are other investment options, such […]
A right royal licence to mint money
The Australian, Wealth – Gold report THERE are many ways to buy gold and unless you want some complicated financial instrument the Perth Mint pretty much offers all of them, despite the fact that it owns very little gold itself. “We don’t own any gold, or virtually none at all,” says Perth Mint treasurer Nigel Moffatt. The reason it doesn’t own much gold is that it either borrows at an interest rate of about 15 basis points, holds it on […]
Turning clicks into cash
The Australian, Entrepreneur DARREN Rowse is an accidental entrepreneur. The Melbourne-based lay preacher has earned more than $700,000 from internet advertising since 2003 simply by working out what people want to read on the internet. Now he runs the B5Media Network of 320 bloggers with co-founders Shai Coggins from Adelaide and Jeremy Wright from Toronto after 18 months ago raising $US2 million in venture capital. Mr Rowse was an internet amateur when he started blogging in 2002 after a friend […]