FOOD FANATICS FOOD FOOD PEOPLE MONEY & SENSE PLUS Ramen Road Trip! Take-out Trends Catch the new wave Austin is big on weird, A new way to-go, What’s on fire, of noodles, page 7 page 47 page 49 page 17 FOODFANATICS.COM WINTER 2013 SPIN THIS SPIN THIS Power greens flex their salad muscle WINTER 2013 PAGE 12 WINTER 2013 THE NITTY GRITTY ON THE NEW SOUTH PAGE 22 FOOD FOOD PEOPLE Ride the Wave Chefs Like You 7 Diners are jumping on board for ramen, 38 There’s a fine line between the hottest noodle from coast to coast. insanity and passion? You must be talking about COVER STORY these top toques. In the Green 12 Pump up salads with some garden Glutenless Gluttony variety to rake in the green. 44 Go after gluten-free and find ways to not overdo it. Piece of Cake 18 Giving chocolate layer cake some Road Trip to Austin personality is a makeover worth trying. 47 Our resident Food Fanatic takes us to the weirdest city in Texas for an inside Southern Exposure look at the local flavor. 22 The culinary South reconnects with its roots, finding appeal down home and beyond its borders. Download the app on iTunes or view the magazine online at MONEY & SENSE FOODFANATICS.COM Team Take-Out 49 Make the main menu jealous. Show carry-out some extra love and watch it prove its worth. Cook This How? 54 Play this game for some insight on the best grill. Your Face Goes Here 56 Any restaurant can extend its brand with merchandise or food products. Just be prepared to work it. Super Punch 60 Why bartenders are stoked over these bowls. IN EVERY ISSUE YOU KNOW YOU WANT ME— FOOD CHOCOLATE CAKE THAT’S TRULY Trend Tracker 17 You, too, can be an industry know-it-all. DESIRABLE PAGE 18 FOOD PEOPLE Staff Meal 33 Make someone else do the work—tap the line and other staff for comida prep. MONEY & SENSE iHelp 53 Seriously, you still think a website is not important? Better read this now. Beyond the Kitchen 55 A music curator can hit just the right note for your restaurant. Ask the Food Fanatic 59 Quit your crying and let us solve some shared complaints. The PR Machine 63 Make the daily online deals work for—not against—you. By the Numbers 64 Proof that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. ➼ View the magazine on iPad Download the Food Fanatics app from iTunes to your iPad and on the web ➼ foodfanatics.com at FoodFanatics.com US FOODS ADVISORY BOARD President and Chief Executive Officer John Lederer Chief Merchandising Officer Pietro Satriano Chief Operating Officer Stuart Schuette Who are these people? Vice President of Marketing Marshall Warkentin Any effort worth its salt comes from a team. The braintrust includes those Brand Director/Executive Editor who conceive, create and publish a magazine, not to mention Jennifer W. Johnson all the chefs, managers and other industry pros who FOOD FANATICS FOR US FOODS John Byrne, Minneapolis give us the time of day. Some are called out here. Todd Pearson, Austin, Texas PUBLISHING PARTNER Feedback We welcome your Carly Fisher went to school to become a comments. food photographer but left writing about Publisher Please email us at: it instead. She’s written for Food & Wine, James Meyers [email protected] Saveur, Fodor’s Travel, NBC and others, Executive Vice President Write us at: Doug Kelly occasionally conjuring up her photo skills for Food Fanatics Magazine snapshots from her recon missions. Outside Chief Content Officer Imagination Publishing Karen Budell 600 W. Fulton St., of work, she worships her grandmother’s Suite 600 Managing Director, Content Chicago, IL 60661 cooking and enjoys crossword puzzles, Cyndee Miller Unless otherwise specified, homebrewing and desserts. Senior Art Director all correspondence sent to Nicole Dudka Food Fanatics is assumed Content Director for publication and becomes Laura Yee the copyright property of US Foods. Ari Bendersky dreamed of creating collec- Editors tions of music to sell on TV, but after making Carly Fisher Advertising Information Kelsey Nash countless mix tapes, he realized that his skills For rates and a media Content Strategist kit, contact Elizabeth Ervin were better suited to writing. When he’s not Cecilia Wong at (312) 382-7860 or email [email protected]. listening to music, he spends his days as the Account Director director of content for Abe’s Market, an online Elizabeth Ervin Food Fanatics is the go-to marketplace for natural, organic and sustain- Production Director source for the foodservice Kelley Hunsberger industry and anyone truly able products. He’s the founding editor of passionate about food, food Photographer people and improving the Eater Chicago and has written for numerous Tyllie Barbosa Photography bottom line. Issued quarterly publications. and hand-delivered to read- Contributing Writers ers, the magazine is a US Paula Andruss Foods publication produced Ari Bendersky by Imagination Publishing, Kate Bernot Inc., 600 W. Fulton St., Suite Peter Gianopulos 600, Chicago, IL., 60661, Margaret Littman is a Nashville-based Margaret Littman (312) 887-1000. journalist who loves to write, interview people Fareeha Molvi For more information on Helen Rosner US Foods’ Food Fanatics who are passionate about their work and eat Sharon Palmer initiative and program, visit Regina Schrambling food that other people prepare for her. She www.usfoods.com Lauren Viera All rights reserved. © edits the Start It Up section of Entrepreneur Erin Walgamuth Kristi Willis magazine and has written for many national food and hospitality publications. In her free As one of America’s great food companies and leading distributors, US Foods is Keeping Kitchens Cooking and making life easier for time, she is stand-up paddling in all 50 states more than 250,000 customers, including independent and multi- and eating road food along the way. unit restaurants, healthcare and hospitality entities, government and educational institutions. The company offers more than 350,000 products, and proudly employs approximately 25,000 people in more than 60 locations nationwide. US Foods is head- quartered in Rosemont, Ill., and jointly owned by funds managed by Regina Schrambling has been writing about all things Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. food and drink for nearly 30 years but is best known for Gastropoda, the acerbic website she started in 2002 after fleeing a second stint at the New York Times as deputy dining editor. She tweets obsessively and blogs, hoping for a following as large as her social media savvy Siamese cat, Wyl-E. 9300 W. Higgins Rd. Suite 500 Rosemont, IL 60018 (847) 720-8000 4 FOOD FANATICS | WINTER 2013 You’re only as good as your last dish FOOD so you better turn the page for more Mean Mian Ramen by any other name would be just as hot as chefs weave hearty and complex flavors into bowls of comfort ➼ ANOTHER HELPING “We probably have a cou- ple hundred people come in for ramen a night,” says Bos- Instant Karma ton-based, Chef-owner Ken The styrofoam-like bricks Oringer, who offers a late eve- of instant ramen aren’t entirely absent from this ning, ramen-only menu three noodle craze. At Uni, Chef times a week at his 50-seat Ken Oringer serves crushed restaurant, Uni. chunks of store-bought Ramen has been a long-time ramen dusted with their dream for the chef, whose ICTURE THE NOODLE aisle of an accompanying seasoning fine dining destinations never powder as a bar snack. PAsian grocery: that rainbow patchwork of felt quite right for the soup’s cello-wrapped bricks and bowls, and acres Beyond Ramen laid-back vibe. But when he of instant meals. Udon, soba, ramen—all just Ramen reigns but soba renovated Uni last spring to a and udon aren’t exactly slightly funkier aesthetic, he waiting for a hungry college student or cash- slouches. Talde in New York saw an opportunity. strapped snacker to add hot water and call it serves chilled vegetarian From 11:30 p.m. until 2 a.m., buckwheat soba piled high Oringer cranks the music and a meal. with texturally contrasting seasonal vegetables, which watches the dining room and A new wave of Now forget that image completely. sells just as well as Chef bar fill with slurpers. “It’s a lot For decades, the popular picture of Japanese Dale Talde's ramen. For of industry people getting off winter, he features pickled work at midnight,” he admits, noodles is filling noodle culture has been dominated by flash- greens, mushrooms, roasted but the spot also attracts plen- squash and crispy potato ty of young people and has a fried wavy bricks and their sodium-bomb chips. USE a craving for foodie following. seasonings—the very opposite of the hearty, Mellow Yellow And the crowd keeps com- something hot warming, complex flavors of which they are a The most popular ramen ing back for more. While pale facsimile. At last, that image is changing: tends to be the slightly wavy plenty of his late-night cus- yellow noodles. Their canary tomers are first-time visitors and steamy. a new crop of Japanophile restaurateurs are hue doesn’t come from egg lured by $10 bowls of savory yolk but from kansui, an broth, many return during bringing the authentic soup out of cramped alkaline water. The desire so far Uni’s non-ramen hours for its ramen bars and into airy dining rooms where YOUR Anti-DIY refined, market-driven take seems insatiable their clientele can’t seem to get enough. Because it’s labor intensive, on sashimi.