We hear that Alfred Portale ducked out of a celebration for Gotham Bar and Grill’s 25th anniversary to welcome Num Pang to the neighborhood last week. We would’ve done the same, but when we went there on Saturday at 3 p.m. there were a daunting ten people in line. A Flickr photo uploaded on Sunday shows seventeen people waiting, and a Grub Street commenter waited forty minutes but thought it was worth it. Blogger Adam Schwartz found that the line moved quickly, but another Internet scribe bailed out and opted for Stand instead. Yet another found the place “overwhelmingly crowded” on Friday. So will Num Pang become the new Rainbow Falafel? Perhaps in an effort to figure out crowd control, the shop is taking the day off and reopening tomorrow. Anyway, Martha Stewart’s show about sandwiches (featuring Russ & Daughters, Marlow & Sons, and Baoguette, which opens an outpost on St. Marks this week) will be plenty timely when it airs tomorrow.
