Sustainability is a key part in our society right now as local foods are used more and more each year. Fine dining is using locally grown produce and being eco-friendly. This article speaks about a fine dining chef bringing gourmet and local foods to Fenway Park.
After reading this article, I immediately am stunned on how well he is doing at a baseball stadium. Not only does Chef Ron Abell bring local foods into the menu, he makes them "gourmet" even at the lowest scale, the concessions. Chef Ron Abell has created menus for Fenway Park's concession stands, restaurants, and luxury suites.
At the concessions, Chef Abell offers the usual hot dogs, burgers and hot dogs. In addition to these choices, he offers a "gourmet" lobster roll and fresh, local produce. The lobster roll is built inside an 8-inch hot dog bun and had lemon, mayonnaise, mustard, chives, and scallions on top. These rolls were sold from $17-23, depending on the area of the ballpark.
I thought that the flattened chicken breast was an idea that just does not sound appetizing. I guess the fans at Fenway think it is a great idea. The breast is flattened with a brick from the original 1908 Fenway Park. This does not seem HACCP to me and I feel as if it is a waste of time. To be honest, I find it pointless and dumb. The only thing that is good about this item is the organic chicken they start with.
Going from working at a fine dining restaurant for many years to serving up to 36,000 people a day is a bit of a change. Actually, it is a huge change. Personally, I used to work at a place that would offer plated entrees and now I am working at a place that serves 850 people for lunch on a buffet. This gets tricky when firing items to match the rushes and cooking on a bigger scale. I can only imagine what he goes through with having to serve tens of thousands of people on a few buffet line. Doing this while still incorporating gourmet, local items and keeping sustainability high.
Chef Ron Abell claims that baseball fans have more sophisticated tastes than ever before. That is why he is succeeding bringing fine dining, local and sustainable items into Fenway Park.
Oh, Andrew. Lighten up a little. They put FOIL around the chicken first! Gosh. But honestly, it's all just for show and I think the old brick is their idea of justifying the price of that piece of flat chicken. Oh, and its organic too. :)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this article. Who would think any given drunk person at a game would care about what they're stuffing in their faces? According to this, they do! And not only are they noticing a difference in the food quality, they're lovin' it!
"I'm just making it as good as it can be and as a la minute as it can be, which is a challenge around here"
Chef Abell mentioned also in the article that he's educating people, and I could appreciate that. It's nice to know that there are people who still care, genuinely care, and aren't just pumping out crappy food as fast as they can to make a [not-so honest] buck.
I really like his 'planet to plate' philosophy. That's pretty straight. Words to live by. I can't imagine having to feed anything like 36,000 people. That is just bonkers but Kudos to him because you definitely have to have a lot of gall to be running a show like that. If he wasn't before, he's definitely ballin' now.
Haha, no pun intended. I can't help it, I'm just hysterical. =D
ReplyDeleteI like the idea behind refining ballpark food rather than reinventing it. As Chef Ron Abell states, "we are not reinventing the wheel", which is correct. Baseball game attenders do not go to the stadium to get exceptional food, but they also do not all go there to eat hot dogs and drink beer. I think it is a good idea that they are offering almost the same style of food, but just better for you, and better ingredients. Abell also mentions that when you purchase local and fresh ingredients that you do not need to do as much to them to make them taste good, and i agree with this statement 100% as simplicity may sometimes be the best in this industry. Over complicating things may just result in failure, as most chefs now are referring back to the basics during this recession.
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