Video Ads on iFoods

How do we pay for the videos and keep all the great features at iFoods free? Simple, advertising! Now banner ads can be a bit annoying and can sometimes make sites ugly so we have a better solution! Video ads! First ads start running next week and here is a little sample of what they will be like. Let us know what you think and if you would prefer banner ads or 10 second video ads before an iFoods video. As always we on iFoods we'll listen to what you guys, the users, have to say!

Bitter Orange Marmalade: Recipe

You know how sometimes a whole crop of citrus is destroyed due to frost or unseasonably cold weather? If my mom had her way, none of that fruit would go to waste. My mother is the queen of finding a use for everything. I suppose it's a kind of variation on turning lemons into lemonade or utilitarianism.

Sadly her amazingly prolific orange tree took quite a hit this year. And while she questions if the tree will survive, she went ahead and harvested the seemingly inedible fruit and made absolutely delicious marmalade out of it. She may not have actual Seville oranges, but she certainly has a solution for unripe oranges. Their tangy sour bite is mellowed in the marmalade but brightens up your morning English muffin, toast or scone.

My mom's recipe came from the Complete American Jewish Cookbook, a book I don't have, but she made a few changes to it. I'd never made marmalade before, but having a recipe that didn't require pectin and processing jars made me game to try it. Making your own marmalade means you can make it as thick or thin as you like and as sweet or bitter as you like. Around here we like it plenty bitter and a tad thin so it spreads easily. While bitter oranges are a very seasonal item marmalade is happily enjoyed all year long.

Bitter Orange Marmalade
(more a formula than a recipe)

Ripe or unripe oranges
Sugar

Wash and dry the fruit. Cut unpeeled into quarters lengthwise then slice very thin crosswise. Measure fruit, place in a large pot and add twice as much water. Let stand overnight.

The next day, bring to boil covered then uncover and simmer 1 hour. Let stand 24 hours.

Measure the fruit and liquid and add no more than 1 1/2 cups of sugar per 2 cups of fruit mixture. Boil until it reaches the consistency you like, probably between 10 and 20 minutes or so, it will thicken slightly as it cools.

Sterilize jars in whichever method you prefer. (I wash them with soapy water then fill them halfway with water and microwave for about 5 minutes, until the water boils, remove with potholders and empty them just before filling.) Pour marmalade into hot jars and seal. If your jars do not seal airtight, just keep the jam in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Brilliant Gordon Ramsey Videos

Last week I showed a 50 second video of Gordon Ramsey on Boiling point 10 years 8 years ago and it shocked some people to see the transformation in the man. Today just under the surface of the swearing lunatic personality lies a very polished media savvy superstar chef who know how to work his audience. These videos show just what he was like back in the day and just how he has changed! You will never see a better insight into how a real restaurant actually works than watching these clips, magic!

iFoods Coming out of BETA

After 5 months of non stop testing and a brand spanking new design we are ready to come out of BETA on Friday and become fully fledged members of the internet fraternity!
As you can see from the screen grab below we have implemented text recipes to help all our users who are slowly making the transition from cookbooks to Video recipes, a sort of hybrid recipe if you will! Add to that profile widgets, embeddable YouTube videos and lots of other exciting additions and we have a great little place for foodies to hand out!
There are still a few last minute tweaks to be made and we are implementing some new features as we speak to help keep our users as happy as possible! Let us know what you do and don't like and hope you enjoy the site.

La Havana, George's Street, Dublin Review

After travelling the world several times over working on super yachts and tasting some of the best and most diverse food on the planet there will always be a special place in my heart for Cuba, it's people and especially strangely it's food. The reason I say strangely is that for those of you not familiar with the Cuban political situation lets just say that Tesco's or Wallmart don't exactly have a shop on every corner. There are pretty much 2 ingredients that you will see with every meal in Cuba and they are rice and beans.Even ingredients like chicken and beef are rare commodities so to say that Cuban Chefs have very little to work with is an understatement. What they do turn out and the passion they have while earning next to nothing blows my mind. Now at the other end of the scale was La Havana on George's Street in Dublin which is one of many Cuban inspired restaurants popping up around the world.

La Havana sits on George's street in Dublin in what must be the the area most densely populated with restaurants in Ireland. We arrived by pure chance on a busy Saturday night looking for some fast food and lured in by the offer of jugs of mojitos and to be honest that is about as good as it got! Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect to be served poor quality rice and beans but I never saw chorizo once in the 3 weeks I spent eating out in Cuba but it featured 6 times on a limited and boring menu in La Havana. Not only was the chorizo heavily featured on the menu it also happened to be the nasty cheap variety that I suspected came straight out of a packet pre-sliced and my suspicions were confirmed when i saw a chef opening a packet as I walked by the kitchen! Now in fairness my sister can open a fecking packet of sliced meat, cut some bread and put it on a plate and she is only 10 but she doesn't charge me 10 Euros and call it tapas! You know what else wound me up? The prawns. Now I'm sorry but if you are going to serve prawns in a so called tapas bar its very simple; peel them, fry them in garlic, chili and lemon, toss in parsley and charge me what ever the hell you want to. When I go out I like to concentrate on conversation and drinking cocktails and resent the fact that I have to spend 10 minutes of my precious time peeling greasy tasteless prawns that some lazy chef has thrown on a plate and called them tapas!

One thing that I do have to mention is that the service was fantastic and one of the waitresses chased me down the street twice after I left my scarf and phone at the table so even if they havn't trained their chefs properly the staff have certainly know a thing or two about Cuban hospitality.

So if you are thinking of going to La Havana or any other poncy place claiming to be a Cuban Tapas bar this weekend I say don't bother and save up your money instead and go to the most magical country in the world!

Epic Roasthouse & Waterbar Opening Party

Last night's party at Pat Kuleto's two new restaurants along the Embarcadero was more like a New Year's Eve party than a typical restaurant opening. For one thing, the party was for two restaurants, not just one. Epic Roasthouse is headed up by chef Jan Birnbaum and is his contemporary take on a steak house, but I suspect there will be a lot more on the menu than beef. Waterbar its next door neighbor is a seafood restaurant with spectacular views and live fish tanks. Chef Mark Franz is co-owner and Parke Ulrich is executive chef.

For starters, the party began at 4 pm and roughly around 6 pm the two restaurants and a tented piazza in between was at capacity and a line began to form. Waiters headed out in the rain to serve nibbles to the estimated 250 people waiting to get in.

Local chefs including Roland Passot, Joanne Weir and Joey Altman were there, as were two past "villainous" Top Chef competitors. For those who follow the TV show I can say that in person Marcel is quite friendly and does not come across as egotistical. Tiffany lived up to her on-camera persona. After asking if I could take her picture, to which she said yes, I innocently asked what she was up to, she snapped "I'm talking to my friend, if you don't mind." Yikes! Wouldn't it have been just as easy to say "I'm opening a restaurant in LA, thanks for asking." If you're Tiffany, I guess not!

The band featured the amazingly talented 17-year-old daughter of one of the founders of the band the Doobie Brothers. And yes, her father did join her on stage for a set of Doobie Brothers hits.

As for the food and drink, there was plenty of wine and a fennel infused gimlet garnished with orange slices was the signature cocktail. It went particularly well with the seafood at Waterbar. I snacked on crisp salt cod cakes with aioli, fried risotto balls with a green olive tapenade, a sea bass ceviche on shrimp chips, steelhead trout tartare and ate more oysters than I can can count. There were also shots of a seafood soup, little prosciutto sandwiches and slices of pizza to feed the crowd.

At Epic there were meatballs, spicy tender pork ribs and a divine flaked salmon appetizer served on flatbread. Desserts created by Emily Lucchetti were also standouts. Luscious tiny panna cotta cups were topped with pineapple and granola, creamy brownie sundaes were my favorite along with endless cookies, sorbet and crispy apple pastries. While at Epic a Chinese dragon made it's entrance, in San Francisco this is considered good luck even if your restaurant isn't Chinese.

To top it all off, there was a fireworks display set under the Bay bridge! Pat Kuleto is known for his over-the-top fantastic interiors and partnerships with some of the best chefs around, turns out he also throws one hell of a party.

Most shocking food video ever

I was sent this this food video today and must say they really have gone for the shock factor! It's from canada and am guessing that the TV regulators must be pretty liberal there as there is no way you'd ever get away with that on this side of the pond! Actually when i was about 20 i saw a guy do excatly the same thing with a pot of soup but he missed the face and only burnt his arm and chest so i suppose it does happen, just that am not sure i want to see it on TV as i sit down to my dinner!