Late-Night Cookie Delivery Seeks Disciplined Help in the East VillageClinton Hill: The laundromat space on Greene Avenue near Grand has been leased to a gourmet store that will offer charcuterie, cheeses, and fresh flowers. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: Insomnia Cookie specializes in late-night sweets delivery and wants a vehicle-equipped employee who can make it to NYU dorms without eating the booty (or trying to get some). [Eat for Victory/VV] Neighbors of Le Souk want the bouncers to stop chatting up girls and rein in the noisy crowds. [Villager]
Long Island City: The owners of Italian restaurant Manducatis may be opening a 5,000-square-foot gourmet marketplace on Vernon Boulevard and even bringing gelato to the ice-cream war. [Joey in Astoria]
Midtown West: The Copacabana closes its doors tomorrow night to make way for the number 7 subway line. [NYDN]
Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: One can only dream that the now-closed Access Point space could be taken over by a falafel purveyor. [Across the Park]
Soho: Provence has just introduced brunch service sweetened up by items like cherry mimosas and chocolate-bread French toast. [Restaurant Girl]
Neighborhood Watch
Treats Truck Will Grace the East Village With Its Presence TomorrowAstoria: GoWasabi at 29-11 Ditmars Boulevard will serve sushi with a side of live jazz tonight. [Joey in Astoria]
East Village: The Treats Truck is bringing its freshly baked (in Red Hook) sandwich-cookies, brownies, and crispy confections to Bond Street at Lafayette on Saturday. [The Treats Truck] Are you extremely kind, and do you love the smell of offal in the morning? Prune is looking for someone really nice to be their next hostess. [Eat for Victory/VV]
Hell’s Kitchen: Terrance Brennan’s Artisanal Premium Cheese Center is holding a tasting course on cheeses of the newly trendy Pacific Northwest on Tuesday, June 19. [Artisanal Premium Cheese Center]
Midtown West: Curry craziness has died down at Go!Go!Curry, but should rev back up if Hideki Matsui (its namesake of sorts) hits a homer any time soon. [Gothamist]
Park Slope: The newly opened Hotel Le Bleu will house a restaurant with views of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty; it’s aptly named Vue. [NewYorkology]
What to Eat Tonight
Picholine Has Frogs’ Legs, and Knows How to Use ThemFrogs’ legs tend to be associated with the French and Vietnamese, but according to Craig Hopson, the chef de cuisine at Picholine, the frogs in Florida have the imported ones beaten on all counts. “They’re a lot bigger and cleaner,” he says, and tonight, he’ll be serving them (for $19) as a special at the restaurant. “Frogs’ legs don’t have much flavor on their own,” Hopson tells us, so he ups the ante by filling them with a mixture of ground frogs’ legs, bacon, and foie gras, leaving a small bone protruding to hold them with, and frying them up in tempura batter as crispy frog lollipops. The dish is served with celery kimchee, considerably cooled down from the fiery Korean kind, and a spiced aïoli. But it’s the legs themselves that really jump off the plate.
Neighborhood Watch
Hearth Spawns a Wine Bar in the East VillageEast Village: It looks like Hearth may spawn a wine bar. [Eater] A date with Momofuku’s David Chang is only worth $1000 at auction (Jean-Georges Vongerichten brought in $6100) but that’s not too bad for a night at a dive bar. [Snack]
Greenwich Village: NYU is hosting a panel on Building a Food Professional Pedigree from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. this Thursday, with speakers including Michael Lomanaco and Florence Fabricant. [NYU]
Long Island City: The Food Film Festival at Water Taxi Beach kicks off tomorrow. [The Food Section]
Midtown West: Brasserie 8 1/2 will join the dessert-bar fray starting tonight by repackaging its lounge as After 8.5, and serving desserts after 8:30 p.m. — get it? [NYT]
Times Square: Insieme is starting weekday lunch service between noon and 2 p.m. [NYS]
Tribeca: Fresh Pie has been taken over by Ruben’s Empanadas at 149 Church Street. [Grub Street]
Neighborhood Watch
Midwood Facing a Second DiFara Crisis As Health Department RevisitsEast Village: Plans for the Bowery Hotel’s subterranean Japanese restaurant get scrapped for a spa. [Down by the Hipster] Drown your sorrows (or pickup takeout sushi) and head to Astor Wines for over 50 varieties of shochu, the Japanese alcohol that “goes down easy.” [Gridskipper]
Fort Greene: The first South African restaurant in the United States, Madiba, has just been closed by the Department of Health. [VV]
Long Island City: Junior’s Cheesecake and Harry’s Water Taxi Beach are among the participants in tomorrow night’s Taste of LIC to support the Chocolate Factory’s arts programs. [The Chocolate Factory]
Midtown West: Starwood’s new (opening in 2010) green hotel overlooking Bryant Park will feature restaurants by Stephen Hanson. [Gothamist]
Midwood: DiFara closed by the Department of Health for the second time since March. Dom, please just wear the hat. [Eater]
Neighborhood Watch
Closing of East Village Pork Store Causes Polish Homemaker to Clutch BosomDumbo: Not only will cookbook author and multiple James Beard Award winner Rozanne Gold be a guest host at Tuesday night’s food benefit for the American Cancer Society, there’ll also be lots of New York brews. [American Cancer Society]
East Village: Fifty-year-old Kurowycky Meat Products Inc., known for its sausages and internal smokehouse, closes, and a Polish homemaker, dismayed, clutches her bosom. [NYT]
Midtown West: Appreciating modern art just got easier: MoMA’s got a brand-new (seasonal) bar. [NewYorkology]
Park Slope: Store owner harassed for putting the word “arena” in the name of his new bagel shop, as suggested by his teenage children. [NYT]
Red Hook: 360 should reopen structurally upgraded, but mostly unchanged, though even the owner’s not sure when. [VV]
Restroom Report
Wild Salmon: The End-All and Pee-All?
Last week we continued our restro-spective of Jeffrey Chodorow’s tinklers with a look at Ono. We half-expected Chodorow’s blog to carp over our five-star review, but no — his latest entry shows that the man is still pissed off, this time at Adam Platt, whom he considers a piss-poor reviewer for handing a measly star to Wild Salmon. This got us to wondering about the restaurant’s facilities.
Neighborhood Watch
Alain Ducasse Has Designs on LCB’s Midtown West SpaceAstoria: Sai’s Organics health-food store will open a new location that incorporates a wellness center, and they’re hiring. [Joey in Astoria]
Bensonhurst: Do Carluccio’s heroes have a right to be famous? Has anyone heard of them? [Brooklyn Record]
East Village: A sake retailer is moving in on East 9th Street. [Down by the Hipster]
Flatiron: Charlie Palmer shuts down Kitchen 22. [Eater]
Fort Greene: Pequeña chef and co-owner Johannes Sanzin, who also partners in Olea and Maggie Brown, is developing a space on Fulton and Clinton Avenue for an unknown restaurant. [VV]
Midtown West: Our Insatiable Critic’s new blog breaks news that Alain Ducasse cohorts claim to have secured the low-rent space of Department of Health–shuttered Brasserie LCB. [Bite]
Upper East Side: There’s apparently something sacred about staring at bodega workers just trying to have dinner in peace. [The Upper East Side Informer]
Williamsburg: An Austro-Hungarian biergarten — huge, with a restaurant — is in progress on North 3rd Street! [A Test of Will]
What to Eat Tonight
A Three-Way Standoff Between Olives, Duck, and Smoky Cheese, Tonight at InsiemeChef Marco Canora’s menu at Insieme is divided between modern dishes like uni risotto and traditional ones like spinach lasagne. But tonight’s special, black-olive fettuccine with duck ragù, falls somewhere between the two sides. “I love this as a take on a really rustic dish, but reworked,” Canora says. “The acidity of red wine goes with the richness of the duck, and both are complemented by the brininess of the olives.” The dish is topped with fiore de Sardo cheese, which Canora says he likes for its smokiness. If we were ordering it, we would start off with a cold, clean crudi appetizer, before taking on its deep, salty flavors. ($16 for an appetizer portion, $26 for entrée.)
Openings
A New Destination for Vaguely Discomforting Comfort Food
Feast your eyes on a dubious addition to the city’s culinary landscape — the Frito Lay pie at the recently opened Fat Annie’s Truck Stop, a.k.a. F.A.T.S. We recommend pairing it with a bucket of Rolling Rock nips. Sure, the airy room full of Americana (Pillsbury Doughboy figurines, old iceboxes, vintage Texaco pumps) reeks of a tourist trap, but a look at the menu reveals more than a few items that appeal to our masticatory masochism: Chicken fried steak! Fried cheese curds! Tater tots topped with bacon, cheese, pickled jalapeños, scallions, and ranch dressing! We predict a Federline sighting in about … three … two … one …
Fat Annie’s Truck Stop, 121 W. 33rd St., nr. Sixth Ave.; 212-695-1122.
Fat Annie’s Truck Stop Menu
Neighborhood Watch
Pegu Club Shaking More Than Just Cocktails in SohoForest Hills: The layout for Trader Joe’s coming to 90-30 Metropolitan Avenue. [Forest Hills 72]
Midtown West: Sample cuisine from more than 50 restaurants including Aquavit, Buddakan, and Eleven Madison Park at tonight’s Taste of the Nation at Roseland Ballroom; tickets are $200 and benefit the fight against childhood hunger. [Cakehead]
Soho: Pegu Club accused of shaking down its customers by pouring drinks that haven’t been ordered. [Majikthise]
South Hampton: Dune should pick up the slack where Cain left off. [Down by the Hipster]
Upper West Side: The lobby lounge of the Mandarin Oriental now has a cart offering $75 flutes of Dom Perignon, but at least the price includes dried fruit. [NYS] Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe hopes to see a bidding war over Warner LeRoy’s Tavern on the Green between top “concessionaires” including Dean Poll of the Boathouse and Danny Meyer. [NYO]
West Village: Awkward zoning prevents Camaje bistro on Macdougal Street from setting up outdoor seating, though it’s allowed for virtually all its dining neighbors. [NYP]
Neighborhood Watch
SushiSamba Manager Opening His Own Restaurant in Midtown WestClinton Hill: A walk-through of the mysterious chocolate bar. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: Gemma in the Bowery Hotel looks set to open but will probably launch with private parties. [Down by the Hipster]
Flatiron: Porky’s nabbed for selling alcohol to minors. [Blog Chelsea]
Gowanus: Whole Foods spearheads construction on contaminated site. [Gowanus Lounge]
Harlem: Manna’s, trying to become the Starbucks of soul food, opens its fourth location. [Uptown Flavor]
Midtown East: Aquavit’s weeklong herring buffet to celebrate the fish’s migration starts June 11. [Grub Street]
Midtown West: A former manager and the chef of SushiSamba on Park will open their own Japanese restaurant near the Ed Sullivan Theater. [Restaurant Girl] The kosher falafel joint House of Pita is opening “another location” two blocks from the original; it’s not clear if this means they’re moving or expanding. [Midtown Lunch]
Soho: The opening of Lola Is Soul restaurant may be further delayed now that the owners have ousted weepy Top Chef alum Dave Martin. [Eater]
Neighborhood Watch
Healthier Hot Dogs Coming Soon to TribecaAstoria: Freeze Peach at 22-00 29th Street has introduced tea-based ice creams including butterfly sencha and black currant to its repertoire. Plus, a man with a real French-sounding name has installed a new crêperie in the old Lil Bistro 33 space. [Joey in Astoria]
Clinton Hill: Two new Italian restaurants slated to join the nabe, and one might have an outdoor space. [Clinton Hill Blog] Tough luck if you want to taste the source of those great bakery smells near Washington at Atlantic. The Hasidic bakers probably won’t let you in. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Flatiron: Otto investor Jason Denton, after stepping away from Otto, will open an “Otto-like restaurant.” [Eater]
Midtown West: A sly janitor at Penn Station will find a go-to solution if you spill your soda. [East Village Idiot]
Park Slope: Kara Zuaro will be signing her rocker cookbook tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble; live music from Maplewood is also in-store. [Brooklyn Record]
Times Square: The only view from Above restaurant at the Hilton is the back of a giant creepy hand. [NewYorkology]
Tribeca: The New York City Hot Dog Company on Church Street at Chambers that promises healthier options and myriad toppings looks closer to an opening now that a big picture of a hot dog is in place. [Grub Street]
The Annotated Dish
Insieme’s Complicated Quartet of LambMarco Canora has the reputation as a chef’s chef, a guy who knows how to take great ingredients and develop their taste with a minimum of artifice or flash. He was that way as the original chef at Craft, at Hearth, and now at Insieme, his ambitious new midtown restaurant. Lamb four ways with lavender, spring garlic, peas, morels and spicy greens is a quintessential Canora dish, intense, multilayered, but somehow humble. Mouse over each element for Marco’s description.
The Other Critics
Wild Salmon Starts Its Upstream Journey Strongly; Craftsteak UpgradedAlan Richman has a few qualms about Wild Salmon – its reason for being, for example – but likes both the food (except for the sauces) and the service (when it’s not too friendly). Given how ready Richman is to knock restaurants, owner Jeffrey Chodorow has to feel pretty good about this one. [Bloomberg]
Related: Wild Salmon Swims Into View. Yes, ‘Pun Intended’ [Grub Street]
The newly revamped Craftsteak and Craftbar get rereviewed by Bruni, who awards the less than the white-hot former a much-needed second star, and the latter, “more or less back on track” after earlier troubles, a (borderline) single star. [NYT]
Time Out’s Randall Lane lays four stars (out of six) on Gilt, finding Chris Lee’s cooking admirable all around, if less risky than that of his predecessor, Paul Liebrandt, who still keeps popping up whenever the restaurant is discussed. [TONY]
Related: Gramercy Rehab [NYM]
The In-box
Yes, You Are Too Old, and I Don’t Want You in My KitchenWe recently got a letter from Keith, a 45-year-old reader who hated his job and asked us, “Am I just too old” to become a chef? A number of letters have come in, encouraging the guy in his dream: “On my 62nd birthday,” wrote one, “I retired from a long-time corporate career in risk management to follow my daydream of becoming a cook … and now, three years later, work as a prep cook at Amalia.” But lest Keith get the idea that the cooking world as a whole is filled with love and understanding, here’s a wake-up call from chef Dawn Fornear of Vessel restaurant in Seattle. Fornear writes:
What to Eat Tonight
A Seasonal Summit of Tilefish, Fava Purée, and Rhubarb Salad at Amalia
At Amalia tonight, chef Ivy Stark has reeled in a fish seldom seen in New York dining circles – which is too bad, because golden tilefish is one of our favorites. Meaty, dense, and full of oily goodness, it’s similar to mackerel in taste, but much, much bigger, typically weighing about twenty pounds. Since it can’t be done whole, Stark serves a pan-seared, skin-on filet of the fleshy creature, with a very springlike purée of fava beans and pineapple-mint leaves (the latter being one of the latest designer hybrid herbs on the market). “It’s really very Egyptian,” Stark says. “I was looking through my cookbooks, and I came across it and decided it would be perfect.” The dish is also served with an Iranian-style salad of raw salted rhubarb with whole mint leaves, spring chives, lime, and garlic. “I saw people eating raw rhubarb on the street in Iran,” Stark says, “and the salt completely takes away the sourness and bitterness … I love not having to cook it. It’s so much more refreshing this way.”
The In-box
My Plus-Size Family Demands Nonethnic EatsDear Grub Street,So my college graduation ceremony is taking place in Madison Square Garden in less than a month and I need a suggestion for lunch around 2:30 for six people. As an amateur foodie, I’d usually have no problem picking a place if it weren’t for my family, who bring many stipulations to the table, so to speak: must be close-ish to MSG/Port Authority, must be handicap-accessible with seating arrangements that can accommodate, err, larger people, must take reservations, and must not be “ethnic” (that’s my two-star major-general grandfather speaking).Lida
Openings
Marco Canora Does His Thing at Insieme, Aw Yeah
As Rob and Robin announce in this week’s Openings, Marco Canora has finally opened up a second restaurant. As its just-published menu shows, Insieme represents Canora’s efforts to do two things at once. On the one hand, dishes like lesso misto con condimenti tipici (mixed boil) or bistecca fiorentina (grilled steak) represent his take on ultratraditional Italian food; the “contemporary” side, with offerings like sea-urchin risotto, allows him to assert the thoughtful but restrained style he showed as the original chef at Craft and in his own, still-popular Hearth.
Insieme Menu
What to Eat Tonight
Snow Crab, Sure. Ritz Crackers — Definitely!The icy waters off the Canadian Maritimes bring special bounty at this time of year, and right now, that takes the form of one of the biggest and best of all crab species: Chionoecetes opilio, or snow crab. These monsters, which can easily weigh between five and seven pounds each, are just beginning to show up on menus, David Pasternack of Esca tells us.
Openings
Mandler’s Releases the Dogs Near Port AuthorityGarlicky krainerwurst, plump knockwurst, Italian sausages, classic kosher frankfurters: All these things and more (zucchini fries, corn fritters) will soon be within easy reach of the weary folks streaming through Port Authority (weary Times workers will have to wait until they’ve moved into their fancy new tower). Mandler’s, the Union Square wurst mecca, kicks off expansion plans that include the Upper West Side, Midtown East, and franchises in other states with Monday’s opening of a second location on Eighth Avenue. Besides being significantly bigger than the original, the midtown store will sell crêpes and smoothies. All in all, it’s a smart move for Mandler’s: They’re not only introducing their brand to the valuable bus-tourist demographic but the porn-DVD browsers and Siberia revelers as well.
Mandler’s, The Original Sausage Co., 601 Eighth Ave., nr. 39th St.; 212-244-4777.
Neighborhood Watch
LES Whole Foods Soon to Have Checkout Line Stretching to Trader Joe’sEast Village: ACME Bar and Grill will host a fund-raiser for a service-oriented trip to New Orleans; $20 gets you one drink, snacks, and a few moments reprieve from your liberal guilt. [Gothamist]
Lower East Side: Whole Foods! On the Bowery! Set to open! March 29! [Curbed]
Midtown West: Post scrounges for “breast” synonyms as Scores discovers it may lose its liquor license for two years. [NYP]
Park Slope: Two bakeries, one couple, and a rumored tale of marital acrimony, Health Department violations, and — maybe — sweet reconciliation. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
What to Eat Tonight
Yes, Soup for You!
Last week we lamented the freakishly warm weather’s impact on the availability (and desirability) of cassoulet. Now that New York has finally hit a cold pocket, we’re taking the opportunity to recommend three soups that are the culinary equivalent of kicking back by a roaring fire. fire.