Just 9,680 More Signatures Needed to Preserve Coney IslandChinatown: Tow-happy deputy inspector Gin Yee instills fear in government officials: no more double-parking for dumplings. [downtown express]
Clinton Hill: The Pan Y Mas grand opening, and the 49-cent coffee it promised, has come and gone. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Coney Island: Online petition to battle Thor Equities needs 9,680 more e-signatures. [Kinetic Carnival]
East Village: Birdies chicken restaurant takes over Flor’s space on First Avenue, panders to the stereotype that old ladies and chicken naturally go together. [Gothamist]
Flatiron: Shake Shack open early! [Eater]
Midtown East: Hip new Pod Hotel soon to have “bitchin’ roof deck” and bar. [Gridskipper] Upper West Side: Saigon Grill’s delivery workers continue strike; “Fat Guy” implicates all of us. [egullet]
West Village: A campaign backed by Virgin Atlantic, Tea and Sympathy, and celebs like Mischa Barton looks to rename part of Greenwich Avenue “Little Britain.” [Englishman in New York]
Williamsburg: Almost all the ice-cream trucks involved in last Tuesday’s Koolman garage fire were indeed damaged. [i’m not saying, i’m just saying]
NewsFeed
Hark! James Beard Award NominationsAfter much speculation, the 2007 nominees for the James Beard Awards, the Oscars of the restaurant world, are in. Adam Platt, Rob Patronite, Robin Raisfeld, and Grub Street all filled out Beard brackets (or at least revealed whom we’d like to see win) on Friday. Here’s how the academy’s coming down.
NewsFeed
Harold Dieterle’s Perilla to Open … on Jones Street!For someone who cooked his way into the national consciousness on broadcast television, season-one Top Chef Harold Dieterle is taking a surprisingly low-profile approach to the imminent opening of his Greenwich Village restaurant Perilla. An Asian-food fanatic whose signature dish is steamed Thai snapper, the Long Island–raised, CIA-trained chef named the place after an aromatic plant also known as shiso but has kept its location a closely guarded secret. But even the best-laid plans are sometimes foiled by a paper trail: Thanks to a notice of public hearing for a liquor-license application we spotted in the corner of the paper-covered window at 9 Jones Street, just off West 4th Street, the secret is out. Dieterle hasn’t officially confirmed it, but unless there are two Greenwich Village restaurants named after an obscure Asian leaf on the horizon, it looks like it’s only a matter of time before Perilla opens in the space previously occupied by Inside (and before that, Drover’s Tap Room) and Dieterle faces an even tougher panel of judges: the New York dining public. — Rob Patronite & Robin Raisfeld
User’s Guide
Take the Cab to Deepest Brooklyn for Restaurant WeekThe bargains at Brooklyn Restaurant Week, which starts this Monday, aren’t quite as overwhelming as the Manhattan version. The deal is the same — three courses for only $21.12 at any of the listed restaurants — but few of these places are hugely expensive to begin with. Look at it this way: What you save will cover the cab fare. What follows are a few of the more far-flung Xs on our own personal Brooklyn treasure map. Generally, these aren’t destination restaurants, but this week they should be.
NewsFeed
Owner of D’Or, Opening Tonight, Also Plotting Rooftops to Rival 230 FifthTonight’s launch of D’Or (pictured above), the lounge underneath the Dream Hotel’s newly opened Amalia, isn’t the most exciting thing owner Greg Brier has going. He tells us that on July 1 he’ll open a 4,000 sq. ft. rooftop on the 16th floor of the Hilton Gardens hotel on 48th Street and Eighth Avenue — a space he believes will trump 230 Fifth in size. A two-minute walk through a utility corridor and a high-speed elevator trip will lead visitors to an enclosed fifteenth-floor lounge with a glass fireplace. And the roof? “It’s going to have a Japanese garden-type feel,” Brier says, “with teak decking and little plots so people can break away from the crowd.” More than likely, he’ll ask Amalia chef Ivy Stark to consult on a menu of “real American barbecue.”
Neighborhood Watch
Space for Even Your Butt in Williamsburg This WeekendHarlem: Eat at Dinosaur, get bowling discount. [UPTOWN flavor]
Lower East Side: Holes suspected in Schiller’s rubber glove story. That’s right, holes. [Gridskipper]
Soho: Babouche, the Moroccan restaurant and lounge brought to us by the people behind Barbes, now serves brochettes at brunch. [PDF: Babouche NYC]
Tribeca: Former Abboccato sous chef Greg Johnson is the new chef de cuisine at Dani. Sun amuses self calling the cook Dani Boy. [NYS]
Union Square: 15 East now serving lunch. But why didn’t the Eater boys “live-blog” the event? [NYS]
West Village: Blind Tiger will open at 4 p.m. today with beer on tap after an exasperating tug-of-war with the SLA. [Grub Street]
Williamsburg: Mystery Japanese restaurant on North 6th thought to open tonight. [A Test of Will] But you probably won’t get in until this weekend. [i’m not saying, I’m just saying] Thankfully new tapas joint Nita Nita has room enough for wide asses. [Bad Advice]
What to Eat Tonight
We’ve Got Oceana’s New Menu — and Word of a Special ServedThe man Ben Pollinger succeeded as executive chef at Oceana in October, Cornelius Gallagher, was one of the city’s top toques, and much of the kitchen left with him. Finally, though, Pollinger has settled in and after much tweaking of the original, finally introduced his own menu (which we’ve filed into our flourishing playground of a database). Says the chef: “Oceana’s menu reflects my vision for what I wanted to do here: a kind of global seafood, with a simultaneous awareness of classic American cooking.”
Mediavore
De Marco’s Bartender Shot in Village Gun Rampage; Big-Check Chains on theDeMarco’s bartender and two NYPD auxiliary officers shot and killed in Village gun rampage. [NYP]
High-end chain restaurants like Smith & Wollensky or Dos Caminos are on the rise, as some recent mergers and acquisitions suggest. [Nation’s Restaurant News]
Joël Robuchon stands behind the counter at L’Atelier this week; Alain Ducasse may not be going to Chicago after all. [Snack]
