Fish & Monkeys

Hardly an hour goes by at Barrel without a mention of food. It’s not that we’re gourmands or big snobs about fine dining. We just love eating, and talking about food makes us feel that much closer to eating.

A few months back, we started having these ambitious dreams that we would one day open up a restaurant. We even came up with a concept and gave it a name. It’s called Happy Bibmbap, and it’s pretty much bibimbap done Chipotle-style (the process, not the ingredients!). Last Friday, we had our third “product development” trial, and we feel ever more confident about creating the ultimate bibimbap. And believe it or not, we used chicken instead of beef.

There was a time when we would eagerly hit up various lunch spots around our office every day, often referring to Midtown Lunch as our guide. But expanding waistlines and shrinking wallets made it necessary for us to consider alternatives. We started by packing turkey sandwiches and romaine lettuce salads - money-savers but not the tastiest choices. Then we each became a bit fancier, trying different recipes and even making extra for dinner the previous night in order to bring in leftovers for lunch. The result: Barrel Eats, a continuously growing exhibition of our packed lunches.

We used Tumblr to create Barrel Eats, and thanks to its incredibly easy-to-use interface, we were able to set things up and have images uploaded in less than half an hour. It’s much easier to use than Wordpress or even Blogger, and although it has some feature limitations (no commenting), we think more blogging platforms should be like Tumblr. Speaking of which - please check out Gobbl! We have a lot of new features and content coming soon.