Riding the B Line: The Hidden Genius of JoeySomewhere in the world there may be a train line that covers more gastronomic territory than the B and V subway lines, which start in southernmost Brooklyn and end deep in Queens, but if there is, we don’t know about it. For the next twenty-odd weeks, we’ll be riding the B and V from Coney Island all the way to Forest Hills, jumping off frequently to rave about our favorite restaurants and food stores near the subway.
This week: Broadway-Lafayette Street
Mediavore
More Buzz Over Restaurant Liebrandt; A Meatball for the AgesA second trivial press release (uh, the Oregon Museum of Science gala?) alludes to Restaurant Liebrandt 2007, and the chef’s chef is suddenly besieged with questions, which he vows to answer “in due time.” [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
Related: Vegetables Suggest Liebrandt’s New Restaurant Is a Reality
After a nerve-racking two-day delay, a judge has cleared the way for the $565 million Whole Foods–Wild Oats merger. [NYT]
The ruination of Times Square is now officially complete, with news of an IHOP on the way. [NYP]
A counterterrorism detective has been fired for what might be the best defense for failing a drug test ever: marijuana-spiked meatballs. [NYT]
The Underground Gourmet
Tuscan Square’s Meatball Maven Gets His Say — and Sandwich of the
If you saw Page Six last Thursday, you know that there may be a vast meatball conspiracy upon us. A quick recap of the item: Restaurateur Pino Luongo yields to no one in his devotion to the study and the making of meatballs, and along with Coco Pazzo chef Mark Strausman, he is feverishly scribbling a manuscript entitled Two Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen. Yet Luongo was ignominiously left out of an article by the Lee brothers in the Times’s Dining Section entitled “The Expanding Meatball Universe,” which traced the not-so-recent popularity of the things to the giant beef-veal-and-pork orbs made by Ápizz chef-owner John LaFemina (author of A Man and His Meatballs). Luongo smelled a rotten polpetta.
Mediavore
La Marqueta Fights City Hall and Wins; Josh DeChellis Out at SumileBrooklyn’s La Marqueta, facing the same kid of pressure as the Red Hook vendors, wins another year and postpones getting the heave-ho from the 70-year-old market. [NYDN]
Josh DeChellis has left Sumile Sushi to do a tempura restaurant at 50 Carmine Street. [NYT]
Related: Josh DeChellis Dodges a Bullet, and Hits a Bullseye [Grub Street]
This is a golden age of meatballs we’re living in. [NYT]
Related: Men and Their Meatballs [NYM]
