I recently read an article on how sweetgreen is where millennials are power-lunching!. I hadn’t been in a few years so decided I needed to check out this bold assertion in person. Five lunches later, I’m done.

Here’s what I found

I was excited to try sweetgreen’s three new Fall menu items. All sounded delicious especially the Curry Cauliflower (and it was!).

I also tried one of their bowls and one of their regular salads.

Two out of five menu items were delicious. Three were blah.

To me, that isn’t a ringing endorsement for the menu side of things.

The store itself is clean and easy to navigate and the staff is great.

And I appreciate the calorie listings although skeptical of them since in preparing your salad, they ask you how much salad dressing you want, i.e., light, medium or heavy (and we all know the dressing is where the calories lurk). They also offer a delicious-looking bread that I am sure is not included in the calorie count either. I asked my server about it. She was startled by the question but thought it was a good one!

Scroll down for more on sweetgreen’s hits and misses

Phase 1 of what will be a huge 150,000-square-foot underground, multi-level food hall opened this Friday. There were a few start-up hiccups while I was there but it’s going to be absolutely awesome.

The food vendors I saw were fantastic. I can’t wait to go back and do some noshing.

Standouts for me personally included:

• Essex Pearl (fishmonger/seafood)
• People’s Wine (by the chefs/owners of Contra and Wildair)
• Schaller & Weber (German-style smoked meats and sandwiches)
• Moon Man (southeast Asian dessert spot)

However, I expect The Grand Delancey to be the biggest attraction. It’s an upscale beer hall with over 50 beers on tap PLUS they invite you to order in from any of the food hall vendors. Judging by what I saw on opening day, the Slice Joint (serving you guessed it, pizza by the slice), Schaller & Weber and Ends Meat (from Sunset Park Brooklyn) will be the big winners among the beer crowd.

Bottom Line.

I’m definitely coming back here soon. I especially want to have oysters at Essex Pearl and some wine at People’s Wine.

When people ask why retail is collapsing, I say visit a food hall. Noshing has replaced shopping and food halls have replaced malls.

But I’m also starting to worry that we might be getting close to a tipping point. I mean how many food halls can NYC accommodate before they start cannibalizing each other?

I hope I’m wrong because nothing is better than a good food hall – and this one is a mere ten-minute walk from my house.

Scroll down for a walk-thru from opening day.

The big news continues to be plant-based foods, especially fake meats and non-dairy milks. I’m not a big meat-eater but when I do feel carnivorous, I’m going to go for the real thing not an impostor. However, I do LOVE vegetables and very excited to see them showing up in everything from ice cream to breads to gnocchi.

Here are 5 trends to keep an eye on for 2020

1. Ube Ice Cream

This Filipino purple yam ice cream has been my favorite since I first tried it back in 2017 at Soft Swerve on the Lower East Side. My current favorite restaurant, Wayan, also serves it for dessert.

It’s also been carried by Trader Joe’s since earlier this year. And it’s available at Jollibee, the Filipino fast-food spot, with over 1200 outlets around the globe. There are 3 in the NYC area.

Scroll down for more.

Apple growers are calling the new Cosmic Crisp a gamechanger. It’s the hottest new variety of apple to be launched in 20 years, a hybrid between the Honeycrisp and the Enterprise. It will be hitting grocery stores on December 1st.

It’s the largest launch of a single apple variety ever and it’s backed by a $10.5 million marketing budget. Apple growers have high hopes for it.

The Cosmic Crisp is also the first apple bred in Washington State, which is surprising since the state grows the majority of United States’ apples.

Growers are hoping the Cosmic Crisp will be as popular and generate the same kind of sales as the “Moneycrisp” (their nickname for the Honeycrisp).

Thanks to katu.com I’ve learned there’s actually a lot more to apples than meets the eye, e.g., Washington State grows 12 billion apples each Fall and growers need a license to buy the trees. They also have to pay a royalty on sales of the fruit.

Scroll down for more info on the four billion-dollar apple market.

Two friends recently told me they were cooking more at home – primarily to eat healthier and for convenience. They suggested other people were doing the same. It made me curious.

So far, zero evidence this is the case. In fact, the exact opposite:

What I did find is that people aspire to do more cooking. A small study conducted by Peapod (the online grocer) in 2018 found:

• Three-quarters of the survey respondents prefer a home-cooked meal to going out (but doesn’t say who would cook it for them).
• The top reason for cooking at home is to save money.
• Wednesday is the most popular day for Peapod users to cook at home and also the most popular day to use a meal kit which I don’t consider home cooking but 60% of millennials do (vs. 30% of boomers).

Meanwhile, a study by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) earlier this year found people are cooking less than ever before.

• Millennials eat at restaurants or bars 30% more often than any other generation.
• They also allocate less time to meal prep – only 13 minutes per day, which is an hour less per week than Gen X—and when they do head to the grocery store, they spend more on prepared foods, pasta, and sweets than any other age group.
• Biggest finding: the very definition of home cooking has changed. If you buy a prepared meal at the supermarket, bring it home and put it on a plate, that seemingly qualifies as “home cooking.”

Based on my lifestyle and that of people around me, few of us are cooking (even when there are kids in the house). I’m seeing lots of ordering in and lots of take-out.

For me, cooking has been relegated to a rainy weekend activity. It has to be super easy with as few ingredients as possible, e.g., baked salmon with a salad – all in, can’t take more than 30 minutes. I’ve gone so far as to toss old recipes that I used to love because they are just too complicated, take too darned long and are too caloric.

I cook, at most, once a week. I am, however, at Whole Foods every other day picking up fruit, salad, yogurt, milk, etc.

Interestingly, my partner, Brad, cooks for himself almost every night when he gets home from the studio. At 10 pm he’s in the kitchen whipping up a storm making pasta, homemade sauces and most recently, pad thai. It’s all relatively simple but wow, does it ever make a mess of the kitchen.

Read on below for more on the massive growth of food delivery (WORTH A READ!)

Fast-Casual is where it’s at when it comes to restaurants. Full-service’s days are numbered. Have you noticed?

It’s how Millennials want to eat – and it’s more cost-effective!

I foresee us increasingly turning to casual eateries – a trend set in motion by Millennials who have made the Sweetgreens and Ippudo Ramens of the world, their favorite restaurants. It’s also a trend that’s been driven by the growth and popularity of food halls.

The newest and trendiest fast-casual eateries make up for their limited service by offering innovative, flavorful menu concepts, reasonable prices, and hyper-stylish, Instagrammable environments.

This past week in NYC, I encountered four new concepts – all within a few blocks of each other.

I do have to point out that many of these concepts will have a relatively short lifecycle (remember the Poke trend?).

This shift in the restaurant biz will be fueled by serial entrepreneurs who make it their business to stay ahead of the curve on emerging culinary and restaurant trends.

Scroll down for details on four new concepts.