Posts tagged ‘chain links’

Two Weeks in International Intrigue: Red Beans, Red Sauce, Spam

Photo: Facebook/Dairy Queen Vietnam

I posted no stray links last weekend because I knocked out a good portion of my front two teeth and somehow that kept me from posting online for a few days. These links must live.

Dairy Queen has recently expanded into Guyana, Taiwan and Vietnam. In Ho Chi Minh City you can have red bean and green teas flavors (not clear whether this is toppings or soft serve). Poland, Turkey, UAE, Kuwait and Jordan could be next.

Spam is suitable for gift-giving in South Korea.

It’s odd because we don’t have Jamie Oliver restaurants in the US, but Jamie’s Italian is all over the rest of the world. Next up, Stockholm.

Technomic rounds-up a slew of foreign restaurants opening in the US. I’ve been waiting for Bibigo, the bibimbap chain. Just Falafel may be the only UAE-based restaurant to make the unusual reverse journey and open here.

Subway is growing like crazy in the UK and Ireland, and will start serving breakfast.

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Chain Links: BoCoCa, Panini in Doha

The world’s love affair with what it thinks to be Brooklyn continues to blossom. We’ve come to expect this treatment from Paris and Tokyo, and now the
Russians (fresh off their taste of Shake Shack) and Slavs are getting into the act. Personally, my favorite is the Kraków restaurant named Bococa, p0ssibly the city’s grossest neighborhood portmanteau. The only words I can make out on the menu are French and Italian (croissant, penne, spaghetti, tagliatelle).

I didn’t even know what Spicy Pickle was, so it may as well open in Doha. It turns out not to be any sort of on-trend lacto-fermentation,
Sriracha-slathered type of affair, but a Colorado-based panini chain. The meat is be halal at the company’s first international location.

ShakeAway, another mystery chain, will be coming to NYC. Yes, it involves milkshakes (one named Jennifer?) and is from the UK, a region I don’t trust whatsoever to do a creamy dessert beverage properly. They probably call shakes puddings.

Russians get burgers and Brooklyn, and we will be getting Ariana, an offshoot of Gallery Cafe in Moscow. Perhaps it will fare better than Brasserie Pushkin. 

Michael White has expanded his empire to Istanbul.

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