Posts for December 21, 2012 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for December 21, 2012

12/21/12 at 5:05 PM
Leftovers
Comment

Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya Launches Brunch Buffet; Cacciatore Wild Game Dinner at Locanda Verde

• Need a food-related reason to look forward to 2013? Starting New Year's Eve weekend, Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya will launch an all-you-can-eat buffet brunch, featuring sushi rolls, breakfast staples, fried chicken, and more. It's $29.50 for the buffet with nonalcoholic drinks, $39.50 for the buffet with à la carte and non-alcoholic drinks, and $10 for kids under 12. The brunch is available Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Check out the full menu here. [Grub Street]

• Greenpoint's own Paulie Gee is bringing his pizza operation to Baltimore. He's partnered with Pizzablogger (who has a pop-up summertime pizza shop at Baltimore Farmers' Market) to open "Paulie Gee's Hamden" in Baltimore's Hamden neighborhood. The restaurant is slated to open in spring 2012. [Slice/Serious Eats]

• Chefs Andrew Carmellini and Ron Rosselli will serve a wild-game dinner in Locanda Verde's back room January 7 and 21 at 7 p.m. It's $155 per person (including wine pairings) for four courses, including fresh pasta, wild pheasant, and handmade charcuterie. Sign up here. [Grub Street]

12/21/12 at 4:45 PM
Prison Pizza Parties
Comment

Canadian Prison Pizza Parties Are Now Banned

By Hugh Merwin

Hold the pepperoni, and everything else.

In September, Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews put an end to years of sanctioned fast-food parties held for inmates when he issued a directive condemning them. The practice was widespread in prisons across Canada for many years and doubled as a food drive for groups like Doctors Without Borders. Under the program, inmates used their own money to order outside food, while food drives took place on the outside. "Canadians were concerned that dangerous and violent prisoners had across the board access to pizza parties and BBQ socials," a spokesperson for the government tells the CBC. Greg McMaster, a convicted murderer who has spent 34 years of a life sentence in jail, says his fellow inmates raised $50,000. "If someone's in an outrage that I enjoy a piece of KFC twice a year," he told the CBC, "I would say their priorities may be a little askew." [CBC]

12/21/12 at 4:05 PM
Cake
Comment

Maison Kayser Rolls Out the King Cake

By Hugh Merwin

Aw, that cake is wearing a crown!

Eric Kayser, the Parisian baker who opened up shop this year on the Upper East Side, is now taking orders for his take on the seasonal galette des rois, which will become available at the shop on December 29. Kayser's take involves the traditional mix of puff pastry and almond and pastry creams, but the baker encloses these within a shell of "inverse" puff pastry. Meanwhile, MadParkNews notices construction is underway for Maison Kayser's second New York location, at 921 Broadway. A representative tells Grub Street it will open in March. [MK, MadParkNews]

12/21/12 at 3:30 PM on Grub Street SF
Holidays
Comment

Twelve Interesting Christmas Food Traditions From Around the World

By Jay Barmann

Did you know that KFC is now a huge Christmas thing in Japan thanks to a 1970s ad campaign?Photo: .tamoteru./Flickr

In America, we have our sugar cookies, our rib roasts, and our candy canes. The French have bûche de Noël. In Italy, there's panettone and the Feast of the Seven Fishes. But you may not be as aware of these other festive traditions from around the world. Like, for instance, the potato, cheese, and anchovy casserole known as Jansson's Temptation that's a traditional part of the Julbord (Christmas smörgåsbord) in Sweden? See a dozen of our favorites below.

12/21/12 at 3:05 PM
Lawsuits
Comment

Louisville Man Sues Maker’s Mark Bourbon House for Alleged Racism

By Hugh Merwin

Maker's Mark Bourbon House in Lousiville.

Andre Mulligan and his brother met with representatives at the Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge in Louisville last August in order to book a party for the following day. "During the meeting," Mulligan alleges in a complaint filed this week in Jefferson County Court, "the officials from Maker's Mark demanded to know the ratio of 'black people' to 'white people' attending the event." When Mulligan told them the party would be "100 percent African American," management allegedly replied that the restaurant would not host the event. When his party showed up at the restaurant the following night, they were turned away at the door. Mulligan is now suing the restaurant's operators for costs and punitive damages for violating the Kentucky Civil Rights Act.

The liquor company's statement.

12/21/12 at 2:30 PM on Grub Street LA
Celebrity Settings
Comment

Katt Williams Causes Trouble at Subway While Suge Knight Gets a Manicure

Repeat offender Katt Williams was detained by LAPD in front of a West Hollywood Subway last night in response to an alleged disturbance at the foot-long purveyor. Much to the reassurance of public safety, the cops later released the comedian, handing him back his marijuana and a .45 caliber pistol after determining that he was only loitering while his manager, Suge Knight, got a manicure next door. For their troubles, a Subway employee brought the twosome free sandwiches and denied any incident took place. [TMZ]

12/21/12 at 1:30 PM
Dr. Guy
Comment

Guy Fieri Is Now Dr. Guy Fieri

By Hugh Merwin

He will school you.Photo: Corbis, Getty Images

The Donkey Sauce titan and Food Network personality was given an honorary doctorate on Tuesday by his alma mater, UNLV. The school thanked Fieri for his public service and continued support of its hotel college's fund-raising efforts. "[T]here is no place better in the world to get a hospitality degree than UNLV," the chef said during commencement. "It allowed me to get the mental game it takes to win in the big leagues." Now that he's got multiple TV shows, a successful restaurant chain, and many cookbooks under his belt, let's hope that Fieri will move on to teaching, because he'd obviously be the best professor in the world. He'd wear Hush Puppies with a suit and bring gyozas with Bleu-Sabi sauce to class. He'd carefully hear out all of your problems and then maybe hit on your sister. [UNLV via Eater]

12/21/12 at 12:40 PM
Bookshelf
Comment

Red Hook Now Has a Benefit E-Cookbook, All Hands on Deck

By Hugh Merwin

Twenty-five recipes. Fifteen dollars. Lots of help from this e-book.

Hot off the digital presses and available for download today is All Hands on Deck, an e-book containing 25 recipes contributed by the restaurants, bars, distilleries, and supper clubs of Red Hook, the Brooklyn neighborhood whose businesses were damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The book costs $15, and all of the proceeds from sales will go directly to Restore Red Hook, a nonprofit group formed by small business owners after the storm.

Fort Defiance, Sunny's, Home/made, Mile End, Baked, and more.

12/21/12 at 12:15 PM
Dangerous
Comment

YouTube Food Challenges Causing Actual Harm to Kids

By Sierra Tishgart

This doesn't end well.

A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, but a spoonful of cinnamon could land you in the E.R. YouTube-inspired food challenges are known to be dangerous. Now poison centers and toxicologists are reporting that they're treating an increased number of kids after their failed attempts at fifteen minutes of Internet fame. The stunts include "the cinnamon challenge" (trying to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon) and the "chubby bunny" (stuffing marshmallows into your mouth and trying to say the words). Both can result in choking, air-deprivation, and public embarrassment when a future employer Googles you. But seriously, kids, if you want to be a YouTube star, make a video of yourself covering a Justin Bieber song or something. [NPR]

12/21/12 at 11:35 AM
Video Feed
Comment

Watch This Outback Steakhouse Ad With Scary, Singing Leftovers

By Hugh Merwin

If you've ever opened your refrigerator door and found yourself, minutes later, deep in conversation about Sartre with a dish of beef stroganoff or slab of fennel gratin, don't watch this video — it will probably hurt your feelings. For everyone else, the idea here is that holiday-meal leftovers are creepy, so instead of eating them, let them fester until they develop perfect pitch and start singing Christmas songs. Then go to Outback Steakhouse and eat there. After all, Bloomin Onions don't cry out when you pull them apart limb from limb.

What's up with that turkey leg?

12/21/12 at 10:35 AM
Openings
Comment

Fast-Casual Chain Boneheads Is Coming to Brooklyn

A beach-themed pseudo-healthy chain restaurant is going to invade Brooklyn. The first outpost, a 3,300-square-foot beast on Court Street, will open in March, and dozens more New York locations are in the works. Boneheads specializes in piri piri chicken and grilled fish (sample item: mahimahi with zucchini), which is exactly what you want produced in mass quantities. First Tommy Bahama's tiki-themed restaurant, and now this: Stay tuned for Cheeseburger in Paradise. [NYDN, Earlier]

12/21/12 at 10:10 AM
Celebrity Settings
Comment

Lady Gaga and Johnny Depp Party at Carlyle Restaurant; Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel Get Down at GoldBar

By Monica Burton

Christopher Peterson/Splash NewsPhoto: The newlyweds boogied.

This week's celebrity sightings involved a lot of partying, and oddly enough, it was often with kids. Susan Sarandon watched her son perform at "Versailles in the Sky" XVI Lounge, Katie Holmes celebrated her birthday with Suri at Sugar and Plumm, and Tom Cruise opted for Le Baron over son Connor's D.J.-ing gig at the Darby. But Justin Timberlake and his new wife also boogied, as did Zac Efron (who got carded, ouch). Read about all this and oh so much more in our weekly roundup of celebrity dining.

12/21/12 at 09:35 AM
Noodlers
Comment

Catfish Owners Want to Open, But Neighbors Aren’t Biting

Three Brooklyn guys who've been working on opening a Cajun-style bar and restaurant called Catfish on a residential stretch of Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights have been told they must close by midnight on weekdays if they want to serve liquor, DNAinfo reports. Maxx Colson, Aaron Giroux, and Luke Wheeler made appearances at CB8 Brooklyn meetings to defend their bar project, which they planned to keep open until 4 a.m. on weekends. When the board's SLA committee offered team Catfish a 2 a.m. weekend closing time, the restaurant's owners allegedly declined, and the State Liquor Authority responded with the even more restrictive conditions. [DNAinfo]

12/21/12 at 09:00 AM
The Grub Street Diet
Comment

Marvel Comics’ C.B. Cebulski Grills Japanese Beef at Home, Orders Everything at Pig and Khao

By Alan Sytsma

Cebulski and a few of his colleagues at the Marvel office.Photo: Melissa Hom

"I travel from country to country, city to city, looking for writers and artists who can contribute to the Marvel machine," C.B. Cebulski says. That's because Cebulski is Marvel's international talent scout. And the job has more perks than you might think: "A lot of the meetings are around dinners," says Cebulski, who is also the man behind Eataku. "The artists have a lot of pride in their culinary cultures." Lucky for him, a lot of the people he works with come from countries like Italy, Japan, and Croatia. "There's been an enormous boom in Eastern European artists — the eating adventures were unbelievable." To read more about Cebulski's (many) eating adventures here at home, read on in this week's New York Diet.