De Marco’s May Close Forever; Let Them Make Foie Gras!The Department of Health rampage claims its most eminent victim yet: the venerable Brasserie LCB (formerly known as La Cote Basque). Apparently chef Jean-Jacques Rachou had a few things to say to the inspectors when they arrived. [NYP]
According to the owner’s father, DiFara legend Dom De Marco, De Marco’s Pizza may close permanently in the wake of the recent shooting. [NYP]
A more palatable way of making foie gras: Let the geese gorge themselves. [BBC via Chow]
In the Magazine
Kobe Club Gets the Bagel, and Foie Gras Foes’ Last StandThis week’s issue of New York is crammed with food news, including an Adam Platt slam, a Gael Greene discovery, and a very odd story about people who hate foie gras.
• Foie Gras foes, rebuffed in their efforts to get the delicacy banned in New York, converge on Fairway, much to the store’s delight. [Intelligencer]
• Adam Platt hands Jeffrey Chodorow’s new Kobe Club a bagel, faulting the restaurant as “less like a steakhouse than a bizarre agglomeration of restaurant fashions and trends, most of them bad.” And that was one of the nicer things he had to say. [Food]
Back of the House
Startling Results of a Franco-American Summit; Queens Restaurant’s MobFrench journalists and top NY chefs and food personalities meet at Franco-American gastronomy summit. The consensus? The world needs fewer haute restaurants, more steakhouses, and to go to war to protect foie gras. [Bloomberg]
Le Binge: Gael Greene’s account of her French Eat-a-Thon [NYM]
The city contracted with the nephew of a former acting Gambino boss to run Caffe on the Green, Bayside’s answer to Tavern on the Green. This on the heels of the news that the Colombo family and the Russian mob together operate a golf course in Brooklyn. [NYP]
There are apparently a number of people who are enthusiastic about food and travel constantly sampling it. Among these are Jane and Michael Stern, Chowhound’s Jim Leff, and a guy who works for a
management and technology consulting firm. Who knew? [NYT]
Chow provides a sorely-needed molecular gastronomy cheat sheet, which not only explains
spherification, but even tells you how to pronounce the names of the movement’s major
exponents. [Chow]
A relatively inexpensive cooking school established in Westchester, boasting a 100% placement rate. Now about those wages … [7online]
The question of what constitutes “true Japanese” food to be settled once and for all, when the Japanese External Trade Organization begins certifying restaurants. [Mainichi Daily News]
The Annotated Dish
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon’s Eel–and–Foie Gras TerrineWelcome again to the Annotated Dish, where the creator of a buzzed-about New York entrée walks you through its essential components. (Simply scroll over the arrows on the image to get quotes from the chef.) This week L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon executive chef Yosuke Suga describes a dish that we’ve been hearing about since the restaurant opened, a compact fusion of sea and land, France and Japan, sweet and savory: Le foie gras fumé en duo d’anguille caramélisée aux saveurs orientales — smoked foie gras layered with caramelized eel ($29 on the tasting menu).
Back of the House
Chefs Tortured by Possible Foie Gras Ban; De Niro Versus Trans Fat• In New Jersey, where a big distributor of foie gras is based, a legislator proposes banning the delicacy. Anthony Bourdain ain’t gonna take it: “It’s like beating up on Julia Child.” [AP]
• “Some day a real rain will come and wash all the trans fats off the streets”? Bloomberg attempts to rope Robert De Niro into the debate. [Newsday]
• Alain Ducasse moves to the former Lespinasse space in the St. Regis hotel and plans decanters modeled after Louis Vuitton trunks. [NYT]
• Ruth Reichl: Coming to a multiplex near you. [NYP]
• The new face of caviar: scannable sturgeons and fish biopsies. [NYT]
• Starbucks rips off the Egg McMuffin. [Dow Jones]
• Greenpoint’s Café Grumpy rents its back room out to hipstervangelists. [NYDN]
• Del Posto, Craftsteak, and Buddakan called out as the principal hells of the meatpacking district: “The assholes are eating assholes. The cocks are eating coxcombs.” [Gawker]