What Does it Take to be Shown in the Michelin Restaurant Guide?

Hong Kong is the food capital of the world.  You can find virtually anything to eat here.  Every year Michelin publishes their restaurant guide.  There has been some controversies with the guide because many say that the restaurant list doesn't represent the true restaurant scene in Hong Kong.  The list has been seen as bias towards Western restaurants serving non-Chinese cuisines.

At one point Michelin started to include more local Chinese restaurants in its list, but these restaurants refused to be named, claiming that they don't need any foreign authority to say that they are good or bad.  Regardless, the controversies do help to get these restaurants exposed in the media and people would take notice of these restaurants.  Promotion is free so take advantage of it.

A few weeks ago I visited a Michelin 2010 listed 2-star Chinese restaurant in the Langham Hotel:

We ordered a few dishes and it turned out that one of the dishes was incorrectly put into the order system by the waiter.  We said it's okay and would be glad to pay for it (we are a loyal customer and have been to Ming Court many times before).  The waiter immediately said in order to make up for his mistake, he would like to offer an expensive desert to us  free of charge.

In service marketing, this is called enpowering the frontline employees.  These employees have the authority to do whatever necessary under the circumstances to resolve issues with the customers.  This is almost unheard of in the local Chinese restaurants, since most owners tell their frontline staff that if you make mistakes, they come out from your paychecks.

Ming Court dishes are not that outstanding among all the available Chinese restaurants in the city.  However, not many restaurants will be able to match its service.  Keep in mind that the service is part of the marketing strategy a restaurant should have, since it affects the perception of the restaurant's brand.

Promoting Restaurants with Celebrity Endorsements?

There are two types of food critics here in Hong Kong: one is called Food Critic (食評家) and the other type is called Eating God (食神).  The term Eating God has become very popular after the release of Stephen Chow's 1996 movie called The God of Cookery:

The other day I walked by a restaurant and saw a picture of a well-known Eating God (he's known as the Young Eating God) with the restaurant owner posted on the front doors of the restaurant.  I cannot help but wonder if a celebrity says he/she patronizes this restaurant, will I be tempted to patronize the restaurant myself as well?

Celebrity endorsements used as a marketing tool for products and services are quite common.  Personally I never understand the appeal or effectiveness.  In the context of a restaurant business, would I intentionally go to a restaurant just because a certain celebrity endorses or visits it frequently?

Restaurants or food are different from other products or services in the sense that people have great differences on why they like to eat certain kinds of food.  The likeness factor is very personal.  Some people love spicy food but I cannot eat it.  So if my favorite movie star says he often goes to a particular curry restaurant, that's not going to affect me because I don't eat or like spicy food.  Nothing he says is going to change that fact.

What makes us like to eat a certain kind of food?  Is there any criteria for likeness?  It is very difficult to come up with a laundry list of reasons because everyone can have very different preferences.

A better promotion strategy for restaurants is to use social media.  When 10 friends say that this particular is restaurant is good, I will at least try it once and see what happens.  On the contrary, one person (celebrity) says I should try it doesn't make it persuasive enough for me to take action.

Ordering the Same Dishes Every Time

Have you noticed that when you go to your favorite restaurant (or one of the many restaurants you visited before), you look at the menu and order the same dishes you ordered last time you were there?  If you do this, you are not alone.  I went to a Japanese restaurant last weekend and I ordered the same salmon sashimi during my previous visit:

Why do we do this?  Isn't it boring to eat the same dishes every time in the same restaurant?  Don't we want to explore the wild?  Here are a couple of reasons:

1. Reading the menu is a waste of time.  We go to restaurants because we want to eat.  We hate spending all the time only deciding what to eat and not eating.
2. People are afraid of change.  It is a safer investment to order the dishes we know we like, rather than take the risks to order something new and it turns out to be bad.

Any restaurants practicing any sort of customer relationship management strategies can exploit this behavior .

1. Instead of giving the customers a menu, ask the customers if they want to order the same dishes based on their past ordering history.  Now that is customer service.
2. Reduce the operation costs by getting rid of dishes that aren't popular.
3. Focus on improving existing dishes instead of designing new dishes.
4. Cross-sell new dishes that may be of interest to the customers given what they usually order.

Remember that only the food in a restaurant is not enough to keep customers from coming back.  The atmosphere, the service (very important), the hygiene etc are all important factors in creating royal customers.

Yin Yang and the Chinese Medicine Philosophy

Chinese Medicine has thousand of years of history through real-world practice.  It has a very different philosophy than the world's other medical system, Western medicine which is based on science.  Some say that Chinese medicine is not science and they refuse to believe that Chinese medicine can cure any disease.  This controversy has been going on forever, but nowadays there is a trend to find the best possible cure for patients by blending Chinese and Western medicine practices.

One of the core foundations of Chinese medicine is that it is based on the notion that the Yin (陰) and Yang (陽) in a human body must be balanced:

So what are the Yin and Yang in the human body?  Yin can be interpreted as either the coldness or wetness.  Yang can be interpreted as either the hotness or dryness.  A Chinese doctor can determine whether a person has too much Yin or Yang inside his/her body by using a variety of techniques, such as looking at the color of the tongue, checking the pulse pattern etc.  The idea is the maintain the right amount of Yin and Yang such that the person can feel normal.

We can also maintain the right among of Yin and Yang ourselves without taking any Chinese medicine.  Use common sense.  For example, in the winter, when it is cold, try not to eat any ice-creams.  In the summer, when it is hot, try not to eat hot and spicy food.  Too much Yin or Yang can make a person feel sick and it is best to maintain the correct balance between them.

Are you Brave Enough?

Hong Kong is in the proximity of many Asian countries and Japanese food is one of the most popular cuisines here.  Just walk down the street and you can hardly not see a Japanese restaurant.

A lot of people go to Japan to learn how to cook Japanese food, come back and start their own Japanese restaurants in this Chinese city.  Some local restaurants even hire Japanese chefs direct from Japan.

When I was a student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in the USA, I met a lot of mid western guys and girls who have never traveled outside the midwest. One guy I knew was from St. Paul, Minnesota.  I remember one time I took him to a Chinese restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin in the USA (mind you, the Chinese restaurants there aren't really Chinese restaurants, at least not like the ones in Hong Kong).  I asked him if he could eat Japanese food like sashimi (thin slices of raw fish).  He said he couldn't.  Take a look at this:

I mean, how can you resist eating this?  Not only it looks beautiful, it also tastes wonderful!  For those who aren't brave enough to devour, the taste is a little sweet but you have to dip the sashimi into soy sauce and wasabi before eating it.  I told this guy he should be a real man and try it.

I once heard from a university professor that the earth is running out of food resources.  As technology advances, people and their submarines can go deep into the ocean and get the seafood from there.  Deep ocean fishes or other animals unfortunately look horrible in their appearance.  Can human beings be brave enough and eat them?

Back to the Basics: Internet Word of Mouth Marketing

Last month my parents told me to get two tailored suits.  There is a shop on the 4th floor in an old office building located in the financial district in Hong Kong.  I asked them how they knew about it.  They said they were introduced to this shop by a friend, and my dad bought a couple of tailored suits from there.  He was quite pleased with the suits.

I went there and it was an extremely small shop.  However, the moment I stepped into the shop, I saw foreigners trying on their finished suits.  When the elderly gentleman (I suspect he is one of the owners of the shop) was taking my measurement, many customers came in to either get new suits or paid their finished suits.

While I may not know much about this custom tailor business, just by looking at how many people walked in and out of this shop, I would say this business is a high revenue business.  A regular suit costs HK$998/US$129/€94.  I counted there were about 3 people walked in during my 30-minute stay in the shop.  Each suit requires a HK$500/US$64/€47 deposit.  Assuming each person pays that amount on average throughout a business day, the shop makes HK$24,000/US$3,905/€2,259 a day.  From the business card, it says that this custom tailor company has two retail shops.  So the annual revenue can reach up to a total of HK$14M/US$1.8M/€1.3M.

About a month later I got back the suit.  Every suit has this logo stitched in the left inner pocket:

Some people have long heard that US presidents like George W Bush, Bill Clinton or Prince Charles etc often buy tailored suits in Hong Kong.  How did they hear about these tailors in Hong Kong in the first place? Did they do a search in Google?  I doubt it because most of these tailors don't even have websites or any kind of advertising.

Throughout all these years, what still works is the Word of Mouth promotion.  It is never going to change.  When your parents/friends/someone you know recommend something, you normally won't ask too many questions but will listen to their advice and go to their recommended restaurants or visit the same doctors.  

I made my first purchase on Amazon because one of my friends said it's good, not because I saw a banner ad on some random websites.  I created my account on facebook after my friend said I could locate my high school classmates from there, not because I read about this thing in the news.

With all the fancy tools available today for internet marketing, nothing beats your friends' recommendations.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Marketing of US Hosting Providers

A few months ago when we were about to launch our first web application to the public, we were evaluating a VPS (Virtual Private Server) solution.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), the local hosting providers were quite expensive and technically inferior compared to the US-based providers.  In addition, we try to avoid providers that require 12-month contracts.  We don't want to be stuck with problematic providers for a year if we find out they cannot deliver what they promise during the first week after we sign up.

Doing the shopping requires a  lot of reading on the internet, then actually signing up and see if there are surprises.  It was an interesting exercise.  We realize that every company has a different marketing personality and we are able to categorize these personalities into the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Bad
Dreamhost
Some comments around the internet gave high marks to a US-based provider called Dreamhost.  So we went ahead and tried to sign up.  During the signup process, after we entered the credit card, clicking next didn't seem to take us to the next step and there was no error message.  We didn't know if the transaction went through or not.  After a few minutes, we logged in to the Dreamhost account management system and found that our account was indeed created, but it was in a pending status.  What happened here?

It didn't inspire much confidence for customers that there was trouble getting past the very first step.  So we decided to do nothing and see if Dreamhost knew a problem had occurred and took proactive action to contact us.  So far Dreamhost didn't contact us.  Until today we are still able to log into the Dreamhost account management system with our account status as pending.

We have no way to know if Dreamhost is a good provider.  What we do know is that a technical problem had occurred and Dreamhost didn't know about it.  Can they find out problematic accounts by scanning their account management system?  Probably.  But to us that doesn't matter.  We left and probably would never go back, and we will discourage anyone from signing up with Dreamhost.

Rackspace
Next we went to Rackspace.  It is another US-based hosting provider and was credited for providing hosting services to Youtube.  It has opened a local office here and its website has a localized web domain.  We visited their local website to check out their plans.

So their first plan caught our eyes for 4xx dollars per month.  It was a great deal because the hardware options were extremely powerful.  However we had a question on the contract terms.  It didn't say if the price was only valid if we signed a long term contract.  We tried to contact their sales.  There is a link on their website that launches some kind of a chat window.

After a while, a live sales "person" came online at the other end.  We asked about this particular plan and asked if we needed to sign a long term contract.  This other "person" asked if we had trouble signing up and could walk us through the signup process.  We said we only wanted to ask if we needed to sign a long term contract if we wanted to get the 4xx dollars per month plan in our local currency.  This "person" then said the price was in fact in US dollars, not our local currency.  We asked how that was possible.  We went to their local website and common sense said that it should be in the local currency (since there's no US$ in the front).  This "person" said they are a US company so every dollar value is in the US currency.  So this "person" made the assumption that local customers coming to this local Rackspace website know that Rackspace is a US company, and hence only the US currency should be used.

We were quite annoyed by that time.  This "person" wouldn't stop but kept saying he/she could walk us through the signup process for that plan.  We politely said if you had put a simple US$ in front of the prices we wouldn't have this "conversation".  You wasted our time.

We tried to ask simple questions but were bombarded with pushy behavior to get us signed up.  It was also funny that such a "big" company had trouble using the right currency on their website (now I think about it, maybe they did this on purpose).  That sure is an effective way to push potential customers away.

Openx OnRamp
We needed to serve ads from our web application with the openx ad server and we wanted to see if the free Openx OnRamp service can help us.  We submitted our application to use this service.  For many days we didn't hear anything and one day we got an email from openx telling us that we downloaded a white paper from openx and asked us to contact them.  First of all we didn't download any white papers from openx and you were lying.  Secondly, please tell us if you had denied or approved our application.  The silence is killing us.  Well it doesn't matter anymore because we will never use this service ever again or recommend it to anyone.


The Ugly
We tried to find a hosting provider that can provide hosting services for our openx ad server.  The name Arvixe kept popping up so we decided to sign up to see if it could meet our needs.  Their plans are very reasonably priced and there's no contract.  Customers can pay month-by-month if desired.  We opted for a monthly payment option just to test Arvixe out.

After signing up and logging in, we immediately went to install openx in our hosting account.  The installation is done through another software known as Softaculous that can be launched from the Arvixe account system.  After the openx installation, we realized that there was a problem with the openx plugins.  So we contacted Arvixe's customer service by submitting a ticket through their support system.

Arvixe has a 24-hour customer service team so within a few hours we got a response.  It told us to reinstall openx in our hosting account.  We did that but the problem was still there.  We contacted customer service again.  After exchanging a  few messages, one of their staff said that we had to get support from openx and they couldn't help us resolve the problem because openx is a 3rd party thing.

It is always easy to blame someone else for your own problems.  We said Arvixe advertised openx hosting.  Now you are telling me to go somewhere else for an installation problem which obviously came from your own system.  We even googled the problem for Arvixe and the problem might be related to Softaculous.  We asked Arvixe to resolve the problem with Softaculous, but if you insisted us to go somewhere else to solve this problem, we wanted a full refund immediately and we would take our business elsewhere.

We reinstalled openx again for the one last time and to our surprise, the openx plugin problem went away.  We started putting in ads to the openx ad server and so far it is able to serve ads properly without problems.

We were about to leave Arvixe but somehow they quietly admitted their fault and quietly fixed a technical problem without telling us.  We will wait and see but we are staying with Arvixe at the moment.  But it doesn't give us a warm feeling that we were told to go somewhere else for support.

The Good
We were hoping to give Dreamhost our business but we couldn't even sign up.  Perhaps our fate was destined to find another hosting provider.  We were very glad we did.

We found the following US-based company Linode.

We had never seen such a clean and error free signup process.  It accepted our credit card (we are outside the US so we thought our credit card might have caused Dreamhost the glitch) without problems.  Once we paid we were given full control to our virtual private server.  In a few hours we were up and running.

Linode doesn't require customers to sign a contract and we can pay month-by-month.  So far we have zero problems.  In the future when we expand we may signup more servers with Linode.  We are not afraid to recommend Linode to our partners and friends.

Lesson Learned
Some companies like Linode are technically superior.  This is a big marketing win because it gives potential customers a safe feeling that their businesses are in good hands.  Some companies are technically challenged.  But that doesn't matter.  What matters is companies can take a step forward, own the problems and solve them, instead of ignoring them or telling their customers to go away.  Some companies just want to close sales using whatever means and simply won't listen to what their customers are saying.  Whatever these different companies do, it has a big impact on their company's brand images.  Potential customers may never be their customers.  These potential customers may tell their partners and friends never to patronize these companies.  Losing 1 potential customer can mean losing 10 more potential customers.

Retromarketing for the Restaurant Business

I once read a marketing paper titled Torment Your Customers.  It talks about successful marketing is done based on playing hard to get to the customers, which goes against modern marketing thinking that customers are always right.  In modern marketing, businesses must do everything they can to fulfill customer needs.

Here in Hong Kong, some of the most popular restaurants have non-appealing store fronts.  Take a look at this restaurant Fai Kee:

It doesn't look good, in fact it looks pretty bad compared with the norm.  However, this restaurant is the most successful restaurant on the island of Ma Wan.

So you ask what the secret formula of success is.  Let's take a look at what it does:

1. It is located in a hidden alley.
2. It closes on Wednesdays.
3. One can hardly get a table reservation on the weekends.  Tables are available at around 6:00pm or after 8:30pm.
4. Customers mostly serve themselves inside the restaurant, like getting hot water or tea.

As you can see, this restaurant is almost practicing retromarketing with great success.  It is playing hard to get, but people still enjoy dining there without any customer service.  I don't think a restaurant like this can survive in a country such as the USA.  On the contrary, I often see foreigners patronizing this restaurant happily.

In the Chinese culture, restaurant customers are accustomed to poor customer service.  Most restaurants often advertise themselves as serving the best food and that is all that matters.  Most customers believe that customer service is less important than the food itself.

A restaurant owner must put things into the proper perspective.  Most dishes in most restaurants are similar and there is actually little differentiation between the restaurants.  The differentiation has to come from other factors besides the product itself.  Customer service is one factor.  The location is another.

If a restaurant has awesome dishes, can it practice retromarketing and be successful?  Let's put it this way.  Providing good customer service may not guarantee success, but not having customer service increases the chance of failure.  I think it is obvious that in today's competitive restaurant business, if doing one thing can increase the chance of success and decrease the chance of failure, you will do it.

Increase the Depth of Field in Closeup Food Photos

I must admit that for the longest time, I am an opposer of using any post-processing on digital photographs because I think it's cheating.  However, as I am starting to get into food photography, I find that most of my pictures have been less than satisfactory.

One day I was surfing online and found this great article by norecipes:
http://norecipes.com/2009/01/10/adobe-lightroom-tutorial-aka-my-dirty-little-secret/

I said to myself, perhaps this is what my food pictures were missing: the vibrant colors, the nice contrast, the correct exposure and white balance.  Without an expensive camera and all the elaborate lighting equipment that the pros use, I think I should give this a try.  It is the most cost effective solution.  I already have Photoshop CS5 but I haven't devoted the time and energy to learn how to use it properly.

It is always easier to learn something new by applying the knowledge to solve a real world problem.  I am told that some of my closeup pictures of fried rice were too blurry in the background.  Without retaking the pictures with a smaller f stop, is there something Photoshop can do to increase the depth of field?  As a matter of fact there is.

I took two pictures of the same fried rice but with the focus set in the front and the back.  This is the first picture with the focus set in the front:

This is the second picture with the focus set in the back:

Start Photoshop CS5 and launch the mini bridge application:

Load the two images into Photoshop CS5 as layers:

Select the layers and auto-align them:

Choose Projection->Auto.  Unchecked the lens correction (I think my 18-55mm Nikon lens is okay):

Now auto-blend the layers:

Perform the necessary post-processing of the merged images and here's the final image:

In the final image, there is little or no blur from the front to the back of the fried rice.

I will be using more Photoshop to post-process my food photos from now on.

Taking Food Photos at Restaurants

In food photography, lighting is everything.  The camera doesn't really matter in comparison.  As I am starting to get serious in this craft, I try to figure out the cheapest possible ways to take the best pictures.

I was having dinner at Ruby Tuesday the other night.  I took my Ricoh GX200 with me.  Lighting in most restaurants is terrible and they don't appreciate you using your camera flash.  In general, flashing directly at the food often results in too much light and the details of an image are lost.

Without using the camera flash and when the lighting is inadequate, I had to increase the ISO sensitivity on the camera.  Unfortunately in my opinion this camera produces fairly grainy images at ISO sensitivity 800 or above, even with noise reduction on.  It is best to leave the ISO sensitivity at 400.

I usually use the A (Aperture) mode on my cameras.  To avoid blurring the food image too much, I try to set the F stop on the Ricoh GX200 to a high number (for example, above 6).  However, the shutter speed will need to increase when the f stop is relatively low.  Any shutter speed higher than 1/60 seconds may result in shaky camera images.  The only solution is to put the camera on a steady surface and take the pictures.  This time I brought a very small tripod that looks like an octopus:

It is a very cheap tripod that I bought in a local camera accessory store.  It allows me to put my Ricoh GX200 on it and shoot steady images especially in low-light situations.  I set the self timer to 2 seconds to avoid having to press the shutter, which may result in shaking the camera.

I wanted to take pictures of the full rack ribs I ordered.  However, the ribs were dark.  I didn't like the picture because I could hardly see the texture on the ribs:

I gave my Nokia E63 to my girlfriend.  She took out her Nokia E63 at the same time and turned on the flash lights on the phones.  These flash lights are constant light sources.  After shining the flash lights on the ribs, I shot the ribs again and this time the texture was clearly visible:

I used the same technique and shot the smashed potatoes:

Although the shadows might be a bit too much, the pictures were bright and clear.  One can also be more creative and bounces strong lights off from a white napkin to soften the lights further.

The lesson to learn here is that lighting is important in food photography especially in low-light situations such as in restaurants.  Try to be creative about the light sources.

Finally, I want to thank Ruby Tuesday for letting customers take pictures of their food.