Schnitzel Moving Into the West Village; Recession Makes Gael Greene Crave SweetsAstoria: You think $12.95 is good for an all-inclusive brunch deal? Michael’s has a weekday three-course dinner deal for the same price. “This neighborhood never ceases to amaze.” [Joey in Astoria]
East Village: Pichet Ong is teaching a class at Astor Center tomorrow on sweets and science. [Zagat] A new stuffed-potato bar is coming to town, but there’s already one on East Houston Street near Avenue A called NY Stuffed Idaho. [Eater]
Midtown West: Moylvos celebrates Greek Easter with “Breaking the Fast.” At midnight on April 27 they’ll host a parade to the local Greek church and offer a tasting menu that includes slow-roasted lamb with yogurt-Feta dumplings. [Restaurant Girl]
Upper West Side: The Insatiable Critic samples the new sweetshops in town. [Insatiable Critic]
West Village: 14th Street near Fifth Avenue is getting a schnitzel shop. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
VideoFeed
Video: Chris Cosentino Cooks Head to TailThere aren’t many out-of-town chefs who can draw a crowd, but California’s Chris Cosentino is one of them. The offal king cooked a “Head-to-Tail” dinner at the Astor Center last night, and Grub Street brought a camera along. Beware of graphic footage of coxcombs, tendons, trotters, and other delights.
Video: Cooking Head to Tail [NYM Video]
ByJonah Green
Foodievents
Back-to-Back Feasts Will Break the Bank, Blow Your MindAre you enough of a hard-core gastronome to attend Chris Cosentino’s and Seamus Mullen’s back-to-back event dinners? Cosentinois the famous West Coast offal master whom you may remember from his appearances on Iron Chef. Cosentino is doing a signature “Head to Tail” dinner at the Astor Center on Tuesday, March 4, hosted by Michael Ruhlman. Expect lots of tripe, testa, candied cockscombs, and the like. That one will set you back $250. On March 5, Seamus Mullen is doing a Basque “Homage to Euskadi” dinner at Suba, featuring regional specialties like hake tongues; tortilla de bacalao with poached hen’s egg; salt-cod brandade, pimientos de padron; beans and pork belly; and so on, all paired with big Basque wines. That one is $110 and should be a little easier on the old G.I. system as well. But what other city could produce two such feasts back to back? To reserve for the Cosentino dinner, click here; for the Suba dinner, call 212-982-5714.
NewsFeed
Duck Liver = Romance at Valentine’s Day Foie Gras Dinner
If you’re anything like us, nothing says “romance” like ingesting eight courses of duck liver. And so there’s probably nowhere you and your Special Friend would rather be than at the D’Artagnan foie gras dinner being held at the Astor Center on Valentine’s Day. PETA public enemy Ariane Daguin, the founder of D’Artagnan and the nation’s most conspicuous pro–foie gras activist, has put together a dinner of foie gras accompanied with different vintages of Chateau Y’quem, the Sauterne wine prescribed by tradition to accompany foie gras everywhere. The dinner will start out with foie gras canapés, followed by foie gras terrine, pan-seared foie with port reduction, then foie-stuffed quail with black truffle shavings and a grape-and-black-truffle sauce, followed by – what else? — foie gras beignets. What libido could be unmoved by such a feast? And isn’t that worth $1,300 a couple? We think the question answers itself.
Perfect Pairings: D’Artagnan Foie Gras & Chateau d’Yquem - A Dinner
with Ariane Daguin [Astor Center]
Foodievents
Mixology Immortals Met at Last Night’s Astor Center Opening
Last night’s opening bash at the Astor Center was an amazing event – there was ibérico ham, hip-hop violinists, and Joey Campanaro, Josh DeChellis, and Seamus Mullen cooking hors d’oeuvres. But what people will remember will be the mixologists. A veritable cocktail hall of fame was present, and we managed to get them all together at once for an image that makes us thirsty just looking at it.
Neighborhood Watch
Gavin Kaysen Tests His Menu at Café Boulud; Williamsburg’s Pampa Still aAstoria: Time Café is said to serve a solid brunch. The fries look a bit pale, but after a few “terrific” mimosas, they’ll probably hit the spot anyway. [Joey in Astoria]
East Village: The culinary study center the area desperately needs opens today. [Restaurant Girl]
Flatiron: On Monday, January 28, 4-Foodies is hosting an Italian Favorites tasting at Lunetta. [4foodies]
Upper East Side: Bar Boulud’s success hasn’t hurt Café Boulud, where chef Gavin Kaysen is currently testing his new menu; the latter DB spot still attracts eye candy like former Giants star Tiki Barber. [Mouthing Off/Food&Wine]
Williamsburg: A sleek new building on Graham Avenue will soon be home to a restaurant called Pampa, but no one really knows what the place will be like. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
NewsFeed
East Village Gets the Culinary Study Center It Desperately NeedsAstor Wine and Spirits isn’t content to just be the place where the rich denizens of the East Village buy their Priorat reds; now the store has spawned a state-of-the-art culinary facility, Astor Center, above its Lafayette Street shop. Lesley Townsend, the director, is quick to ward off comparisons to other recreational cooking programs around. “We’re not a cooking school. We’re not a wine school,” she says. “We’re going to be a host facility for events and symposia and conferences and panels.” Like Dale DeGroff’s Beverage Alcohol Resource (BAR) program, at which the King of Cocktails teaches five-day exhaustive master classes for aspiring mixologists.
