By
Hugh Merwin
Never say "omakase" to the guy who handles your cash.Photo: Mark Peterson
The price of the tasting menu at Masa may be a little inflated, it turns out, because an unscrupulous employee has allegedly been funneling cash out of the business: The Manhattan D.A.'s office announced this afternoon that it has indicted the restaurant's former bookkeeper for stealing approximately $100,000 between January 1, 2011, and February 1 of last year.
Pocketing a few hundred dollars at a time. 
By
Hugh Merwin
If Coca-Cola's big new marketing push to reinvent itself as a company that takes the health of consumers very seriously has left you fatigued, or perhaps the soda company's flashy new anti-obesity ad left you feeling a little sad and bewildered, here's the "honest" version of that flashy commercial. Someone's cheekily taken the original's and hijacked the audio. "If you choose to live a healthy lifestyle," the new narrator intones, "you should not be drinking any of our products." Of note is that the purported uploader here is John "Doc" Pemberton, otherwise known as the man who invented Coke. Check it out now, before the corporate lawyers check their in-boxes and snap into action.
"You'll get fatter, and fatter."
By
Hugh Merwin
Follow Mission Chinese Food chef-prodigy Danny Bowien to Spicy Village and he'll insist, stubbornly, on getting the whole menu, from the pork pancakes to the hand-pulled noodles to the trays of braised and fried chicken served with whole dried chile peppers and spices. On the walk back to Orchard Street, he'll consider those flavors, and by the time he's on the line again, this handsome Nowness video shows, he's figured out how he's going to use what he just tasted to try making something new. "We honestly, totally knocked off a few of their dishes because they're so delicious," he says.
"Can we get two of the pancakes?"
By
Sierra Tishgart
Back in October, Grub presented you with a sinister history of energy-drink-related deaths and illnesses. Only one month later, 5-Hour Energy was cited in reports of thirteen deaths. It's unfortunate that we're not surprised to now learn that ER visits tied to energy drinks have doubled since 2007. Most of the cases involve teens and young adults, who are often mixing energy drinks with alcohol, and sometimes stimulant drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin. The toxic combinations can cause insomnia, seizures, dehydration, kidney failure, heart attacks ― the list goes on and on. It's a problem that's far deadlier and more concentrated than your usual bout of binge-drinking or dangerous-eating, and legislative change is needed.
The FDA is waiting until spring.
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