Dr. CKPFIXIT says...
  • The main elements to look out for in good coldroom construction is the door construction spec, panel joinery method, water impervious-floor construction and panel protection against impact injury especially when using colourbond. The use of a jet air curtain wired to a door switch significantly increases room air temperature maintenance and energy efficiency.
  • It does not take 1 person, but a team of professionals to create a successful restaurant concept……. The creativity culminates from the combinative efforts and the deductive processes of a team of FNB consultant, restaurant interior designer, lighting consultant, kitchen designer, VAC consultant and signage and graphics consultant. The right team is required to score the top goals……
   
Quote  

  "Don't take a butcher's advice on how to cook meat. If he knew, he'd be a chef"

- Andy Rooney

Website relevant to foodservice facilities design

Pacotize with Pacojet   

         Making ice cream and sorbet the conventional way used to be a tedious process. With Pacojet, recipes can be prepared any time and stored frozen until needed. Conventional preparation requires the peeling of the fruit then pureeing and straining it through a sieve. This is a time consuming and labor intensive process. With Pacojet, preparation is much simpler and faster. The fresh fruit is simply diced (no need to peel apples, pears, tomatoes etc. if skin is edible) and filled directly into a beaker which (after toping with juice or sugar syrup) is sealed with the lid, then placed into a freezer where it is left to freeze at -20°C (-4°F) for 24 hours. 
        Exposing peeled fruits to ambient air causes oxidation. Preservatives/additives/taste enhancers or stabilizers (commonly found in commercially-available mixes) are not needed. Pacojet processes food in its deep frozen form . A high speed blade “shaves” an extremely fine layer with each revolution, processing each portion in just 20 seconds to produce a creamy fine layered textured end product. The result is an incredibly smooth and creamy sorbet at an ideal serving temperature between -7ºC to -12ºC. Pacojet enhances/intensifies the natural fruit aroma. It also lets the chef control the sugar and fat content without sacrificing taste. Since Pacojet processes the food in a frozen state without breaking the freezing chain, processed beakers, that were only partly used can be safely put back in the deep freezer and re-pacotized the next day or whenever needed. And it is completely hygienic and safe. 
        The principal parts of the Pacojet are a table top base unit with a motor, a 1 liter chrome steel beaker and a titanium coated blade. Sometimes, it could be mistaken for a coffee maker.

Source : www.pacojet.com  

Meal Assembly Kitchens   

        Ever heard of restaurants that assemble a personalized meal for you in a matter of hours? Well, that’s the concept of catering adopted in several parts of US now. These restaurants are called “Meal Assembly Kitchens”. Basically, a dozen family dinners can be prepared for you to take home and freeze it until needed. This concept works on the following premise: You pick your meals from a monthly menu, then go in and assemble your meals to your own liking. All the ingredients have been prepared for you, and easy-to-follow recipes are located at a menu item station. Another attractive point is that you don’t have to clean up! You have the flexibility in creating, or more accurately, ‘customizing’ your meals to your liking. If you have a particular aversion to anchovies, you can leave them out, or if you just cannot have food without green pepper, you can have as much as you want. Restaurants with this concept often have kitchen staff who can work with you to get your meals tasting the way you like them. 
        When a customer arrives for a session, the staff has all the ingredients for the menu-items fully prepared. All the customer has to do is follow the simple recipes and assemble each meal to their taste. In short, the customer is the master-chef of the restaurant, and the staff members are the sous-chefs. Menu items are assembled in freezer bags or aluminum pans, depending on the meal type.
Another option is for the assembly service to be carried out by the restaurant staff, and the customer has only to do two things: Pick the recipes from the menu and pick up the assembled meals already frozen. From a customer’s point of view, one does not have do any grocery shopping or even any cleaning up of the mess left behind after a session. In addition, one would also save on the purchase of an apron.

Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/9/prweb440493.htm

  		 

 Meat Slicers

The slicer has been timelessly used in preparation and commissary areas for over a century (first introduced in 1898 by W.A. Van Berkel). By recognizing the laborious task of cutting fine meats in large quantities, his invention had addressed the ideas of portion control and uniformity in every given slice. Nowadays, due to technological advancements, there are many different types of slicers available with a variety of options.
The basic construction of slicers consists of a carriage, corresponding blade and a base frame. Good slicers can produce accurate, thin cuts without deforming the bottom of your product (be it meat or cheese). They're also easy to clean and sharpen, have a large hollow ground (concave) blade. Slicers are available in 2 modes of operation: Manual slicers require the operator to manually move the carriage (with food) back and forth against a rotating blade. Automatic slicers are particularly useful for operations requiring a large volume of bulk sliced product.  
        An important feature to look for, especially if you require a lot of thin sliced meats, is an automatic indexing carriage. The indexing carriage automatically pushes the product against the knife at each slice to assure a uniform thinly sliced meat. Slicers fall into two categories: Gravity feed machines have the blade positioned at an angle. They are less expensive, have a small footprint, and are very versatile. Vertical slicers make a cleaner slice but cost more. They are more suited for large generic food slices. Due to the different products that are sliced, the power drive mechanism plays an important factor. 
        There are two types of drive systems on the market today: Gear drive - With a gear driven knife motor, the gears mesh into one another resulting in a direct transference of power; hence, more torque. Belt drive – Considerably cheaper than a gear drive version. The sliced product might slip or stretch due to the heavy cyclic loading.

                                                  		 

  Wine Cellars - Overkill and Overzealous?

        The current trend in most hotels is to have a wine cellar at the main restaurant. Most times, this cellar is located at the 3-meal restaurant which is commonly referred to as the All Day Dining restaurant. This same concept is frequently practiced in some major restaurants. In the context of hotel restaurants, the wine cellar referred to here is not the underground storage room for barrels and bottles of wine that one normally associates with wine cellars. The type of wine cellar referred in this article is the type of wine cellar normally housed in a glass partition with the intention of attracting the restaurant’s patrons and providing a suitable environment for the patron to actually choosing his or her desired bottle of wine and even sampling it. The size of this wine cellar varies from restaurant to restaurant depending on the theme. Generally, the size does not exceed a 25 square-metre area. These wine cellars utilize cooling systems to maintain the area within at the appropriate temperature and humidity. 
          Although a properly designed wine cellar can be a point of attraction for many restaurants, this article ventures to argue the point that this concept is an overkill and often the result of overzealous designers, that sacrifices the revenue-generating seating area for aesthetically-pleasing structures. A worthwhile point to note is that the design temperatures in these wine cellars must suit the type of wines stored, or else, if kept for a period longer than required, the wine will turn rancid and lose its desired taste. Thus, inaccurate conditioning of the air temperature inside the cellar renders the contents of the cellar in a precarious condition. There are other ways to display wine in tighter spaces but with equally-attractive results. 
         Wine display cabinets, which take up less space is definitely a more viable option. These display cabinets come in myriad designs with sometimes amazing customer pulling-power. These wine display cabinets can be made of glass, or a veritable range of veneer, such as mirror-finish stainless steel, timber, etc. These cabinets are not only aesthetically attractive, they are also performance-engineered to maintain the freshness of wine according to the type of wine, such as red, white or even champagne. With restaurant seating-area at a premium these days, operators would be wise to pursue this form of wine display instead of wine cellars. Based on this concept, the bulk of wine would still be stored in a Walk-In Cold room in the Back of House, while there will be a variety of wine display cabinets at the restaurant that affords the patron the opportunity of selecting the desired wine. Operators can use the space made available to increase seating, while maintaining the concept of display-and-attract in a more prudent manner.