Category Archives: trends

Create:Eat – a collaborative dining event in Edinburgh

Posted on August 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

For those of you who haven’t heard yet……where have you been?! The dining event of the year is taking place in Edinburgh, October 2012. Mymonkfish food chum Aoife Behan explains more about her latest project – Create:Eat….

Create:Eat is a collaborative dining event, featuring the very best of everything. The idea is simple, take twenty-five collaborators; designers, chefs, mixologists, food and drink producers, food and drink retailers, artists, chocolatiers, coffee experts, photographers and film-makers. Ask each of them to donate a skill or an item that will contribute to a spectacular dining experience. Joining these people at the table will be another twenty-five paying guests whose contribution will have ensured that this amazing and unique dining experience takes place.

Create:Eat is the brainchild of Aoife Behan and Carol Soutar. They had an idea to put together a spectacular dining event which would showcase the talent in food,drink and design in Edinburgh. But the challenge would be to do it with out any upfront investment so they decided to crowdsource the all the elements required. After a request for collaborators on social networking sites, Aoife and Carol were overwhelmed by the responses.

With a venue secured, Trinity Apse, and the twenty-five collaborators in place; from multi-award winning Chef Neil Forbes, to artists such as Alice Dansey Wright, a truly mind blowing event awaits its guests. However, rather than selling tickets the usual way, Aoife and Carol have decided to crowdfund the event; offering tickets as a reward for pledges.

“We felt that this is more in line with the collaborative ethos of the project. We want our guests to feel that they are part of the event, that they have had an important role in making it happen and we plan to give them the night of their lives to thank them for their pledge”

http://www.pleasefund.us/projects/createeat

For those that like to take a gamble, there are Create:Eat canvas bags that can be purchased for a pledge of £20. In one of the fifty bags available are two tickets to Create:Eat on 19 October.

The response to the project so far has been overwhelmingly positive, as a result Aoife and Carol are planning further Create:Eat events.

The Create:Eat dining event will take place on Friday 19 October 2012 at 7pm. At Trinity Apse, Chalmers Close just off the High Street, Edinburgh. Aoife and Carol are asking for £100 pledges in exchange for tickets- our www.pleasefund.us page is live now.  The pledges will allow them to pay for the production costs and expenses involved in staging an event of this scale.

Read all about the project at www.createeat.com

facebook.com/createeat
@create_eat

Create:Eat logo – thanks to Cristina Spiteri

Create:Eat shield illustration – thanks to collaborator Hannah Bloomfield 

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Posted in edinburgh, events, pop-up, trends

FOODIES FESTIVAL EDINBURGH, AUGUST 10-12, 2012

Posted on August 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Photo credit: mymonkfish.com
We are very excited about this weekend’s Foodies Festival at Inverleith Park…although after the summer we seem to be having the Monkfish wellies are at the ready…. As well as all the usual food-tastic happenings at the festival this year you will see and experience Street Food Avenue featuring some established street food vendors and some newbies too. To drum up the excitement of the Street Food vendors and their ‘food trucks’ we’ve been out and about interviewing a few of them to see what makes their food so ‘street’…

First up, Toni from the Backyard Company, Wales…

Inspired by his Grandmother’s cooking in rural Jamaica Toni set up the Backyard Company in Newport, Wales which embraces traditional Jamaican cooking methods using only the finest and freshest ingredients.  With great success at last year’s Foodies Festival Toni is coming back for more and is hoping to tickle your tastebuds with his authentic Jamaican Jerk sauces. Toni’s ethos is to use the best quality ingredients he can source from his local suppliers and farmers (with the exception of a few Jamaican spices…) and all of his recipes are based on his grandmother’s principles.  With absolutely ‘no additives’ your food conscience can rest easy. ‘Our products do not contain any nasty bits like additives, colourings and preservatives. Its De Real Ting!’.

On the back of his festival success Toni will soon be opening his first restaurant, the ‘Duchy Jamaican Jerk Shack’ which will be based on a traditional Jamaican Shack. It’s the first of its kind in the UK and Toni said that it will be something quite different and will deliver ‘real, proper, good food’.  Hurrah for that, sounds amazing. Please say hi to Toni this weekend, he loves a good banter and audience participation for him makes his festival weekends worthwhile.

In the meantime find him on Twitter here @TheBackYardComp and Facebook here Backyard Jamaican Jerk Sauces

And at this weekend’s festival you can see Toni present a Food Masterclass each day at 5:15, be there!

Next, JP from Elephant Juice Food Company, Edinburgh…

JP Campbell set up the Elephant Juice Food Company in January 2012…fed up with his job in corporate insolvency and with a love for all things ‘food’ he invested in ‘Dumbo 1′ a 1974 Citreon H van from France and his soup company was born…

Serving soup in the early days JP has now branched out to breakfast and dinner service, something which hopefully the Edinburgh Festival goers will embrace. Based in George Square he has a permanent pitch and has already built up a solid trade of locals who support him and the lovely Dumbo.

What’s different about JP’s business is it’s ethical philosophy of ‘one feeds two’ and this is at the heart of the company. Elephant Juice Food Co partners with organisations running grassroots projects intended to develop individuals suffering from severe poverty in order that they can become self-sustaining. JP will be in Africa this September to see where some of his money has gone – read more about it HERE.

So, what can we tell you about the food, let’s cut to the chase! Ms Monkfish was lucky enough to sample several of JP’s soups including Wasabi Pea (not too hot, the spice was just right), Haggis and Sweet Potato (a really good thick soup, just what we like) and Nacho Pot – not so much a soup, more of a meal in a pot, a lovely hearty chilli cooked with Crabbies Ginger Beer. All ingredients are sourced locally and bread is baked by Breadwinner. There are 4 soups on offer each day and JP is now offering 2 dinner options. Check the website for up to date menus. Considering JP only set out on his soup journey this year there’s no doubt about it, his soups are very good. To prove this point he’s hosting a Food Masterclass at this weekend’s Foodies Festival – you can see JP at 3.15 on Saturday and Sunday at his class ‘ Scrumptous soups and ethical street food’.

JP is very enthusiastic about the Street Food scene and hopes that Elephant Juice will be the start of a healthy interest in Food Trucks in Scotland. As avid supporters of underground dining and experiential dining we’re fully behind this too, come on Scotland, time to get your trucks on!

Join JP at the weekend and follow the Elephant Juice Food Company on Twitter @ejfoodco and on Facebook Elephant Juice Food.

And for more info about the Foodies Festival this weekend click below, let’s hope the sun has got his hat on, a Monkfish in wellies just ain’t a good look…..

Photo credits: Toni Smith, thanks to Toni Smith; Elephant Juice Food, thanks to JP and Corinna Campbell.

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Posted in edinburgh, events, Masterclass, out of the kitchen, pop-up, reviews, trends

KINFOLK – A SHARED INTEREST IN SMALL GATHERINGS

Posted on August 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Here at Monkfish Towers we love discovering new ways of dining out and thanks to Mr Monkfish we’ve been reading the ‘Kinfolk’ blog this morning. For those of you who share a passion for of all things ‘underground’ when it comes to eating experiences you’re definitely going to like this.

Yes, it’s beautifully stylish and might be trying a little too hard for some of us but if it provides you with a wee bit of inspiration for your next dinner party then that’s good enough….. Enjoy…and if you’d like to see more of what the Kinfolk are up to then click HERE.

‘Kinfolk is a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings. We recognize that there is something about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year holiday extravaganza, that anchors our relationships and energizes us. We have come together to create Kinfolk as our collaborative way of advocating the natural approach to entertaining that we love.
Every element of Kinfolk—the features, photography, and general aesthetics—are consistent with the way we feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and less contrived. Kinfolk is the marriage of our appreciation for art and design and our love for spending time with family and friends.’

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Posted in trends

THE SUPER (DUPER) MARKET, NYC

Posted on July 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

Ms Monkfish has a penchant for the phrase ‘super duper’ so stumbling across this today in the NYTimes Magazine was a little find. Not only does it coin the phrase ‘super duper’ it is in fact a food market chock full of cool food vendors from in and around NYC. Some from Brooklyn, some from Manhattan and others from California Bay. Only open for this weekend it’s literally ‘popping up’ then ‘popping off’ again. Soooo wish we lived in Manhattan today.

The Super Duper Market concept is that of Paper magazine’s Kim Hastreiter, who says that she’s gathered the ‘best of’ everything under one roof. The best olive oil, the best noodles, the best ice cream… Here’s a few of the vendors…click pics for links to their websites…




I’m thinking we should have a Super Duper Market over here…anyone interested? Mail Ms Monkfish pronto!

The Paper Magazine Super (Duper) Market is at 410 West 16th Street. Open Friday (11 a.m.-4 p.m.), Saturday (11-6 ) and Sunday (11-4)

All photos courtesy of tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com

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Posted in pop-up, trends

CASTLE TERRACE, SCOTTISH RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR 2012

Posted on March 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

We like to think we’re ahead of the food trends here at Monkfish Towers and we know that’s what keeps our fans happy ;) …. So, when we declared Castle Terrace the ‘Monkfish Restaurant of the Year’ in early 2011 little did we know that we would be a whole 12 months ahead of the impending accolades.

A week ago our favourite fine dining ‘hangout’, Castle Terrace, was crowned with the coveted award ‘Scottish Restaurant of the Year 2012‘. Not only that (like that’s not enough), they also earned the title of Most Innovative Restaurant of the Year. 

Phew, top notch. Huge congratulations to Dominic Jack, Chef Patron of said ‘hangout’, still on a high from his Michelin star in October 2011. This boy is on a roll…

And just to prove that we’re not chef groupies and that we do actually eat out at the places we rave on about here’s a photographic journey of our recent ‘long lunch’ where the lovely Dominic treated us to a few extra courses to line our hungry tums.

We’re not the only ones raving on about Castle Terrace, you can read our fellow food bloggers ‘The Critical Couple’s’ review of Castle Terrace HERE. They awarded Dominic their own Michelin star (two in fact) long before he was crowned with one in October.


Castle Terrace Restaurant on Urbanspoon

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Posted in edinburgh, press, reviews, trends