Research area one: Tampopo's.

I visited the official Tampopo's website in order to begin my body of research, Here I am presented with a large thorough collection of information, about the history and story of the restaurant.

One of the biggest concerns I found, that the restaurant like to communicate is their honesty to the East Asian food in which they produce, how they stay true to the ingredients used across the pond in their natural habitat. Here they do not just focus on one style of food from Asia, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, they've searched and experimented for a vast amount of time to come up with the perfect selection of dishes from an array of 7 Eastern Asian locations. 

'Like the traders and adventurers before us, we've travelled all over East Asia to bring back our favourite dishes for you to try. We've recreated the flavours and aromas traditionally found at the eternally bustling street-markets of Bangkok and Hanoi, the hawker stalls of Singapore and the noodle vendors of Tokyo. And just like in kitchens across East Asia, we make our sauces and stocks here every day from the freshest market produce.' quote

Tampopo's is not the biggest of food chains, their are only 5 in the country, with 3 residing in Manchester, and two others in Bristol and Reading. There was a Tampopo's in Leeds, however it closed it Leeds site, due to an offer on the site from another business, Of which the owners decided the offer was too good to pass up on. 

'Tampopo co-founder Nick Jeffrey said: "It was the last remaining unit in our Tampopo stable still in the original brand format and was overdue for a major refurb, so we had to weigh up on one hand the

 provisional capital expenditure outlay and projected return on investment from that and on the other hand the premium offer. In the end we felt it was it was in our best interests to take the offer." quote

Future Tampopo plans.

With the chain closing in Leeds, founders of Tampopo's say that their focus is now on opening between 25-30 units in the next 5 years. London and South east restaurants had always been on the close horizon. However they do hope to return to Leeds at some point as they realise by selling the site here, they are leaving some of their northern cuisine fans. 

Tampopo’s first London restaurant under new East Street brand ‘just the beginning’

Pan-Asian restaurant chain Tampopo is set to open its first central London site next month under the all-new East Street brand. And this is ‘just the beginning’.

http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Venues/Tampopo-s-first-London-restaurant-under-new-East-Street-brand-just-the-beginning.

With their new venture Tampopo's plan on furbishing their new London restaurant to look vastly different to those currently open.

Summer Brief: 3 areas of research.

Brief:

Good design begins with a good understanding 
of a subject. With that in mind, you will prepare 
a body of research over the summer that you 
will present to the class in a workshop at the 
start of the academic year. You will also need 
to show your research on your blog.

Initially, you will research into three things that 
interest you that are appropriate to graphic 
design – a hobby/interest, an 
invention/discovery and a person/place. You 
may choose to research into three ideas from 
one of these categories (for example, three 
hobbies), or you may choose to research into 
an idea from each category. 

This initial list of 
three will then focus your research down into 
one thing that really interests you, and that one 
thing will be what your presentation is about.
Whatever you choose to focus on, we want to 
know everything about it – facts, history, why 
you think your subject is interesting and what 
other target audiences exist for it. Make your
presentation interesting visually; if it helps to 
bring in physical examples or items to help your 
presentation, please make sure you do so.

In addition to this presentation, you need to 
write a “To Do” list for the forthcoming year. 
What skills and processes do you want to try? 
What would you like to improve upon? What 
interests you as a graphic designer that you 
want to learn? This is an opportunity to take 
control of your future and put strategies in 
place that will help you to establish and achieve 

your goals – whatever they are.

3 AREAS OF RESEARCH

In order to detect 3 possible areas of research that describe a hobby/interest, and invention/discovery and person/place I wrote a list of about 10 for each of the areas and then picked the three which stood out to me the most. These were two places and one interest of mine. 

Tampopo's - An Eastern Asian inspired restaurant that serves a number of 'street' and 'signature' dishes from a calibre of locations from across the continent, they pride themselves on being faithful to a dish, free from 'interpretations' and 'gimmicks'. This is my favourite restaurant to visit, and I go often with one of my best friends. 

Illustrating children's books - An interest of mine that I found within graphic design last year spiralled from, writing and illustrating my own children's book. 

Pinkberry - A shop in which people can go and eat either fresh or frozen yoghurt, this is the first place from which I ever tried frozen yoghurt and it has been a favourite food of mine ever since. Not only did I enjoy going here for the food, but also for the atmosphere that had been created.