Learning Objective: Design a menu based on a target market, type of operation, and desired quality standards 

When writing a menu, there are several steps to take.

• Incorporate  Priorities: Know guest demographics, area competition on similar menu  items, profitability expectations, quality level, and know what your  operating limitations are.
• Consider  Menu Categories: Will you highlight soups, salads, appetizers, entrees,  desserts, beverages, specialty or featured items, all-of-these?
• Determine  number of items/category: Consider variety, temperature (cold/hot/room  temperature), preparation method, texture, shape/size, flavor, color,  composition, and balance.
• Establish  Quality Standards: Standardized recipes and product purchase  specifications need to be written for each item. Standardized recipes  will identify the types of ingredients within that menu item, amounts of  each, and preparation method. Specification sheets define the quality  requirements of each ingredient. Together, they'll give you the tools to  provide consistency in your offerings.
• Write  Descriptions: Good descriptions will influence your patron's choices.  Truth-in-menu issues arise from poorly written descriptions. for  example, "Fresh Jumbo Gulf Shrimp" written for a Shrimp Scampi entree  description cannot be made with frozen shrimp from Vietnam (largest  shrimp importer to the US).

Assignment Instructions

For this assignment, you will demonstrate the above steps through a descriptive summary that achieves the following:

• Present and outline a menu that you could use for the recipe and restaurant you described in your introduction. 
  • show the example menu page[s] in an appendix to the writing (appendices follows the reference list)
  • evaluate and critique the shown menu page[s] in your written analysis
• Identify who the target market is and explain how menu choices are affected by who the target market is.
• Assess  how your operations will utilize standardized recipes for examples from  your menu as well as how operations will be affected by truth-in-menu  requirements.

Each  of the aforementioned steps should be represented in the summary. For the  description component, use the recipe you identified and/or another  highlighted item that would best demonstrate how to write an effective  description. 

Note:  The "restaurant" could be any style [scope/scale] of foodservice  necessary to provide sufficient assessment of a menu type and planning.