Ming Tsai Breaks It Down

Ming Tsai is a true mogul. Chef, author, television host/producer, designer, retailer, humanitarian….the list goes on. He may actually be involved with more projects than Diddy!

Ming’s innovative East-West cooking style has made his restaurant, Blue Ginger, one of the top spots in Boston for over 10 years. We recently caught up with Ming and he was cool enough to share his ultimate meal for dishKarma.

As Ming ‘zooms’ around describing different dishes and great chefs, he breaks down a true ultimate meal crawl. This is when each dish in an ultimate meal can be found in the same area, thus making it possible to actually experience the meal in one night. The ultimate meal crawl is also the premise for our dishKarma video podcast, but we’ll save that for another post.

Have you tried any of the dishes in Ming’s ultimate meal?

dishKarma Week 1

It’s been one week since the official introduction of dishKarma and we’d like to thank everyone who has contributed their questions, suggestions and favorite dishes. We’ve heard from friends, family, foodies, famous chefs, fellow marketers and more! It’s been great to get so much positive feedback and we look forward to sharing the next phase as we continue building out the concept.

"It’s fun to think about sitting down to your ultimate meal, but what’s the big picture vision for dishKarma? "

With your help, we’re going to build a comprehensive user driven database of the best individual dishes in the world. The search functionality will enhance as the database grows, and dishKarma will become a valuable resource when traveling or simply looking for the best place to find a specific dish in your neighborhood.

On a personal level, the more dishes you contribute, the more specific and relevant dinning suggestions you’ll receive. This is how we all truly benefit from spreading the dishKarma.

Currently we’re learning about your favorite dishes through videos and Twitter polls, but soon we’ll be rolling out a Web application that will more formally capture your ultimate meal. More on this in the coming days….

I can’t think of a better way to close out week one then with an ultimate meal video from our favorite wine connoisseur and all around marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV! Gary serves up an eclectic mix of dishes, but stays impartial and leaves the locations up to us. Where is the best place to get each dish Gary orders in his ultimate meal (crudo, Olympia oysters, sweets breads, foie gras)?

Welcome home, it's your party!

It’s been 15 years in the making, but phase one of dishKarma is finally complete. Our new Web site formally introduces the concept and invites everyone to share their ultimate meal.

This was truly a team effort and we’d like to thank everyone that has been involved in the project thus far.

We’re hard at work building phase two, but for now please check out the site and sign up for the email list so we can notify you of our progress. Also, follow on Twitter, add the Facebook page, Digg the site, tell a friend or send up a smoke signal.

Don’t forget to upload your own ultimate meal and help spread the dishKarma!

Stay tuned and stay hungry…

The 5 Faces of Food

I had dinner at a great local spot the other night and on the wall were 5 posters that were hand written - each with one of "The 5 Faces of Food." They are: Hunger, Flavor, Nourish, Nurture, Heal.

I thought a lot about these 5 Faces of Food as I read this article posted on Bloomberg this week about the U.S.'s Priciest Eateries. The article talks about 7 of our finest, priciest restaurants including Masa where you'll pay $450 for a prixe-fixe sushi menu and French Laundry of Napa Valley where a dinner for 2 will easily cost $1500. The dining rooms are still filling up, but now it's easier to get a reservation. Hmm, wonder why?

Let's rewind to the original 5 faces of food: Hunger, Flavor, Nourish, Nurture, Heal. I don't see price on this list?

Plate of the Union

With the inauguration just days away, stories about the legacy of Bush and the promise of Obama are everywhere. The other day I pulled up the MSN homepage and found a great article on presidential eating habits. The ‘Plate of the Union’ calls out various White House chefs and the specific dishes they prepared for each commander in chief.

Bill loved burgers, Kennedy clam chowder, H.W. was addicted to hot sauce and apparently Nixon had fresh yogurt flown in daily from California.

I’d love to see someone post the ultimate White House meal. Anyone ever had the honor of dinning at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?

Arrested Development

It's finally Friday and this is a big weekend for dishKarma. The team has been hard at work on a Web site that will provide an initial introduction of the concept and allow us to begin building the dishKarma community. Although we're trying to limit the features and functionality of this site, it has inevitably grown into much more than just a splash page.

At this stage the team is separated into a few different groups. Some of us continue to think big and ask for the world, while the developers push back and make sure we understand the implications of each suggestion. In response to a recent request, one of our developers laughed and told me he had 'centralized' the code on the site. There was a chuckle among the other basement dwellers, but it was way over my head. Was John trying to tell me something?

Tweet Tweet

Dishkarma is now on twitter! Okay, we've been on for a couple weeks, but wanted to get our page to look the part of a web 2.0 property before we started putting it out there -- props to Brett H for taking care of that! Who knows what it would have looked like if BR80 and griffijw tried messing with it.

Just a couple notes on twitter if you're not already involved (click the word notes for the wikipedia definition). That reminds me, we should put dishKarma on wikipedia...hmm, I'll have to figure that out. Look for a post on that in the near future.

Anyway, follow us: http://www.twitter.com/dishkarma -- we'll be updating you with important news on our launch progress, inviting you to be a part of our city crawls, talking about our favorite finds and asking ridiculous questions like: What was your first dish of 2009? We've got some cool followers already that I'm sure wouldn't mind an extra link: kyork20, Sully, juliaroy, yorkd and Shogrrl2 (if we offended anyone, let us know!!)

What was your first dish of 2009, anyway?

Holiday Treats

It's no myth that the average person gains 7 lbs during the span between the November and December holidays. Why shouldn't we at least be enjoying and recording what we're eating? Don't forget to jot down all of those guilty pleasures that you plan to run off as part of your "New Years Resolution."

We hope you've had a great holiday thus far and would like to wish everyone a healthy and prosperous 2009!