Flavor Trends, Strategies and Solutions for Menu Development

The Topper with Texture Egg toppers increase the flavor, variety and perceived value of dishes, and the yolk provides an additional “sauce”

The crispy Thai Fried Egg is presenting indulgent opportunities.
Egg toppers continue to be extremely popular with dining consumers, so operators should not adopt a “been there, done that” attitude about them. They increase the flavor, variety and perceived value of dishes, and the yolk provides an additional “sauce.”

A variation of the egg topper we are increasingly seeing is the Thai fried egg, which is cooked in a pan or wok containing a pool of very hot oil. The egg floats on the oil as it is cooking, allowing the yolk to remain liquid while the bottom fries to a crispy crunch.

The Thai fried egg can add textural interest to a variety of handheld and bowl-based dishes, a personal favorite being The Rogue breakfast sandwich at Chimney Coffee House in Los Angeles, an egg-on-egg treatment featuring a soft scramble topped with truffled pork sausage, a toasted cheddar frico and yuzu mayo, crowned with a crisp Thai fried egg.


Eggs Break Out – read the full story on how the everyday egg is one of our top 10 flavor trends for 2019


From the Jan/Feb 2019 Top 10 Trends issue of Flavor & the Menu magazine. Read the full issue online or check if you qualify for a free print subscription.

 

 

About The Author

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Gerry Ludwig is a nationally recognized food writer, speaker and trend tracker, and leads the Culinary R&D department at Gordon Food Service, based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Using a proprietary street-level research method as his exclusive data source, Gerry and his team create trends-based menu solutions that are executed at the operator level by the company’s team of culinary specialists. Gerry is a contributing writer for Flavor & The Menu and conducts seminars and workshops at numerous industry events in both the United States and abroad, and oversees customer-facing restaurant research tours in major cities throughout the United States.