A Fast-food Ban; the Calorie-Count Bake SalePlus: Jon Rosen, agent to the (culinary) stars, and off-site preparation at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, all in our morning news roundup.
Food Crisis Overshadows Credit Crisis; Kosher-Food Sales SoarThe world’s leaders are more concerned with feeding their people than resolving the economic crisis, a car accident damaged a Subway location, and Domino’s and Pizza Hut are facing hard times.
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Freedom Tower Seeks Restaurant Developer; Le Cirque Does Restaurant Week AllStarting today, the Port Authority is accepting early bids from developers for control of a two-story restaurant atop the Freedom Tower, with a grand opening slated for early 2013. [The Real Estate/NYO]
More bad news about the FDA: It’s “so understaffed that, at its current pace, the agency would need at least 27 years to inspect every foreign medical device plant that exports to the United States, 13 years to check every foreign drug plant and 1,900 years to examine every foreign food plant.” [NYT]
Le Cirque’s Restaurant Week menus are such a hit that the Maccioni clan is going to make them available every weekday in February. [Zagat]
Neighborhood Watch
Bar Blanc Is So Open; Good Chinese in Sunset Park? Try Crashing a WeddingDumbo: Admission to Taste of Spain at the Dumbo Arts Center from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight includes a wine tasting and tapas. [Dumbo NYC]
Flatiron: Boqueria is throwing a “Cava fueled fiesta” for New Year’s Eve. [Snack]
Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: The empty space on the corner of Flatbush and Beekman will become a Subway, and one blogger isn’t so upset: “At first we were disappointed that a big chain was coming in, but … some Subways even have full blown salads.” Nice! Just like McDonald’s. [Across the Park]
Sunset Park: Sietsema may have had to crash a Chinese wedding to figure this out, but dim-sum go-to Pacificana is also good for dinner. [Eat for Victory/VV]
West Village: Bar Blanc seems to be in soft-open mode. [Eater]
The New York Diet
Novelist Porochista Khakpour Drinks the Kool-Aid at a Hare Krishna Temple
In Porochista Khakpour’s debut novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, a coming-of-age story that may make its Iranian-American author the next Zadie Smith (the Times Book Review, Radar, and Paper are planning profiles), Khakpour, who grew up in Los Angeles before moving to New York, describes the exasperation of stern father Darius Adam at discovering that his wayward son Xerxes keeps little more than Fruity Pebbles in his Manhattan apartment. “Xerxes offered potato chips,” the passage goes, “which his father looked at as if he had never seen a Pringles can before, awestruck at his son’s supposedly adult living conditions.” Given that the novel is loosely autobiographical, we wondered about the living (and dining) conditions of the young novelist.
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Vongerichten Sued by Ex-Waiters; Subway Complies With Calorie LawSix former employees of V Steakhouse file a class-action suit against Jean-Georges Vongerichten for the usual reasons: sub-minimum wage and garnished tips. “We were kind of given the idea that the waitstaff is dispensable, that there were a million people who would come in and do your job.” [NYDN]
Unlike the other fast-food chains, who have adamantly resisted the calorie-posting law, Subway has already started to implement it. [Consumerist]
Healthy zombies should do their best to follow the zombie food pyramid, which calls for six to eleven servings of brains every day, and only sparing amounts of bones and gristle. [Serious Eats]
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De Marco’s Maniac Caught On Tape; NYC Denied Shamrock ShakesThe NYPD releases a surveillance video of the De Marco’s gun battle. It’s difficult to make out, but very graphic and not a little disturbing. [WNBC]
Brace yourselves: McDonald’s has decreed that there will be no more Shamrock Shakes in NYC, although they’re still widely available elsewhere. What’s up with that? [NYDN]
The Smith and Wollensky Restaurant Group is enjoying a sudden bidding war for its acquisition, after having already accepted a good offer. [Crain’s]
Back of the House
Yau Already Replaced at Gramercy Park; Everybody’s BloggingIan Schrager has already found a star chef to replace Allen Yau at the Gramercy Park Hotel: The Japanese-born nouvelle-Chinese star Yuji Wakiya, who almost came here two years ago to do a restaurant at the Bryant Park Hotel. [NYP]
Related: Restaurant Happenings: Sirio’s New Address? [NYM]
Bruni won’t have to bear the Diner’s Journal load alone anymore; we can now also look forward to the musings of Julia Moskin, Kim Seversen, and other contemplative food writers. [NYT]
Meanwhile, Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert and the Food & Wine staff have launched their own blogs. (The Ripper’s requires a subscription to The Wine Spectator.) [Snack]