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Food Management
The Cool New Concepts at Case
Tara Fitzpatrick Sep 11, 2014

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Melt University
Melt Bar & Grilled is a grilled-cheese sandwich concept in the Cleveland area. It’s well-known for long lines and huge grilled cheese sandwiches, stuffed with creative combinations. Bon Appetit collaborated with Melt owner Matt Fish on Melt University, which features a scaled-down menu, but the same fun atmosphere as the commercial restaurant. “It was a good collaboration, because Case and Bon Appetit understand the Melt brand,” Fish says. “It’s not a full-service Melt restaurant, but the food quality, the attention to detail, that’s all there. It’s just a mini version.”
Melt University
Melt University offers two special sandwiches developed just for CWRU, including the Spartan Burger (Muenster cheese melting into a veggie burger, peppadew hummus and fresh quick pickles) and the Case Western BBQ (pulled pork or chicken with house-made barbecue sauce). Other choices on the menu include a bacon egg grilled cheese and also a chorizo and potato grilled cheese. According to Bon Appetit’s Resident District Manager Jim O’Brien, Melt University “generated a huge buzz.” He was quick to add, however, that the other concepts were just as buzz-worthy.
Naan
There’s a hot tandoori oven inside this concept. The staff behind the counter makes sure it stays around 650°F, and the small handfuls of dough that are thrown onto the wall of the oven come out two minutes later, and are little pillows of bread heaven. They’re served alongside authentic Indian dishes such as Malai Murgh Makhani (butter chicken), Roghan Josh with lamb and a lot of vegetarian dishes as well.
Naan
The Naan menu was created by Raghavan Iyer, Indian chef, cookbook author and longtime Bon Appetit collaborator. Iyer, who trains many Bon Appetit chefs and kitchen workers on Indian cooking, set out to develop a menu that was familiar yet true to India’s different regions in terms of flavor and technique. “Most Indian restaurants have a cookie-cutter menu,” Iyer says. “I wanted to use familiar dishes and ingredients on the Naan menu, but to set it apart, I wanted to also provide a sense of regional flavors and techniques.”
8Twenty6
This concept’s name requires a little explanation: it’s an 8-foot salad counter with 20 fresh seasonal ingredients and six house-made dressings. It’s a chopped-salad concept, something that’s getting trendier by the minute. Customers choose, then it all gets chopped and tossed between two huge silver salad bowls. It’s showmanship, and also customization, which is known to be something Millennials are drawn to.
8Twenty6
Customers can choose between a few greens (some local, from Green City Growers) and then protein (chicken, local turkey breast, tuna, cage-free hard boiled eggs, ginger-soy tofu) toppings. And then more toppings: carrots, roasted beets, sweet peppers, mushrooms, roasted fingerling potatoes, radishes, red onions, roasted sweet potatoes, pecans, chickpeas, goat cheese (and that’s not even all of them).
Pinzas
College students need pizza. That’s a fact. So Pinzas was a natural fit for the lineup. The word Pinzas is Italian for flatbread or sweet bread, and that’s exactly what’s found here, in personal oven size. There’s a good range of pies: the always-classic Margherita to California favorite Barbecue Chicken with cilantro and gouda to Local Bacon and Onion to the most creative pie: Ham and Peas (béchamel sauce, prosciutto ham, green peas, fresh mozzarella and Parmesan cheese).
Cool Beanz
This concept proudly serves Zingerman’s Coffee, part of Ann Arbor’s iconic Zingerman’s, which Inc. magazine calls “the coolest small company in America.” The double espresso packs a punch, and the brownies are pretty much irresistible.
Michelson & Morley
Cleveland Botanical Garden Executive Chef Tony Smoody created the menu, and he says he kept a few different audiences in mind when putting together the American-style bistro offerings: the campus community, the professionals working nearby and neighbors attending cultural events. “I wanted this to be affordable fine dining with lots of local ingredients and seasonal items,” Smoody says, adding that the standout dish in his mind, so far, is the trout cake (like a crab cake but with smoked Ohio trout). The menu has a good snack selection, including summer sweet pea hummus, chicken fritters with lemongrass and sambal and braised beef tacos. There are small plates, priced at $6, like a Panzanella salad or chicken and kale soup. Pizzas are $12, and are topped with gourmet-pizza standbys like goat cheese, caramelized leeks, burrata, house-made fennel sausage and more. The priciest entrée is only $18, a grilled skirt steak with kale, fingerling potatoes and a charred tomato vinaigrette. Smoody says he hopes the campus community will see the value, and also “people who are on their way out to see the orchestra or on their way back from the art museum.”
Michelson & Morley
The name Michelson & Morley was the result of a student contest. The winning name was submitted by student, Jacob Campbell, and honors the Michelson-Morley experiment that took place in 1887 here at the Case School of Applied Science and nearby Western Reserve College. This collaboration resulted in the awarding of the Nobel Prize in physics to Albert Michelson in 1907 and the results initiated a line of research that eventually led to Einstein’s theory of relativity.

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