Dragon Fruit Ceviche

For this dish at Pequín  at Vespera Resort in Pismo Beach, Calif., executive chef Frank Barajas tosses together cucumber, onion, mango and avocado in a marinade of citrus juices, ginger and turmeric. Then, instead of using seafood, he tops it with diced dragon fruit to make this a vegan dish. He finishes it with dill oil.

Glazed Doughnut soft serve

Doughnut chain Krispy Kreme has made a soft-serve ice cream using ingredients from its popular glazed doughnut, plus milk. It’s available in 10 markets (Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-Salem in North Carolina; Greenville, S.C.; Norfolk and Newport News in Virginia; Charleston, W.Va.; Nashville and the Tri-Cities area in Tennessee, and San Antonio, Texas) with plans to introduce it to Mobile, Ala., and elsewhere in the southwestern part of the state; Tampa, St. Petersburg and Pensacola in Florida; New Orleans; Branson, Mo., and Wichita, Kan.

The soft serve comes in three flavors: Original Glaze, Strawberry Iced Sprinkled and Chocolate Iced. It’s also made into seven different shakes: Original Glaze with whipped cream and doughnut crumbles, Strawberry Iced Sprinkled with whipped topping and rainbow sprinkles, Chocolate Iced with whipped cream and a chocolate drizzle, Lemon Filled with lemon doughnut filling, whipped cream and graham cracker flavored crumbs, Cookies & Kreme with chocolate cookie pieces, whipped cream and chocolate cookie crumbs, Birthday Batter with yellow cake batter flavored doughnut filling topped with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles, and Coffee & Kreme with whipped cream.

Ramp Bucatini

This dish The Noortwyck in New York City’s West Village, is inspired by the traditional Roman pasta dish cacio e pepe, but chef Andy Quinn gives it a local/seasonal touch with ramp pesto and uses fermented white pepper instead of black pepper for a touch of the exotic.

The pepper comes from a family farm in Indonesia on the island of Bangka, off the coast of the larger island of Sumatra, where it’s grown by farmer Pak Sugiri and his son Ilham and fermented according to traditional methods. Quinn said the white pepper adds “a deep umami flavor and funk to everything they touch.” 

He stockpiled ramps when they were in season, right before the restaurant opened in June. He blanched the greens in salt water and then puréed and blended with house-made cultured butter, using a ratio of 40% ramps to 60% butter.

The bucatini are also made in-house and then mixed with the ramp butter, pecorino Romano cheese, and the fermented pepper.

Price: $27

Pine-smoked oysters with trout roe

Chef and restaurateur Richard Sandoval developed this dish for Stoke & Rye at the Westin Riverfront in Avon, Colo., bringing many local touches to decidedly non-local oysters. The dish is made by marinating local pine needles in an oil infused with juniper and bay leaves, which are then used to smoke the oysters.

An aïoli is made by combining mayonnaise with garlic, house-cured lemon and local 10^th Mountain Whiskey. That’s placed in oyster shells, the oysters go on top of that and they’re garnished with Colorado trout roe and microgreens. The dish is accompanied by a mignonette made with a vinegar that has had wood chips soaking in it for a month, plus fresh minced shallot and black pepper. It’s served with smoking wood chips.

Pandan Pancakes

Wau, a Southeast Asian restaurant on New York City’s Upper East Side, launched brunch in June, and it includes this dish by chef and owner Salil Mehta. It’s a traditional pancake recipe, except pandan leaf extract, made by simply blending together pandan leaves and water and then straining the mixture, is added to the milk, giving it an added floral/nutty element. Instead of serving the pancakes with maple syrup, Mehta uses a syrup of gula jawa, or brown palm sugar, a popular sweetener in Malaysia, along with some whipped butter.