Grub Street Grub Street New York

Have you seen the weather report for New York this weekend? There are some lightning bolts. Plus it's been raining basically all week. So we're skipping out early to take advantage of what sunlight there is. We suggest everyone else do the same. (But stay safe out there: Grub L.A. has a lovely little look at what can happen when you get too cavalier with your grilling.) Enjoy your long weekend — we'll see you back here Tuesday.

Holy Navy Grog: An online listing seems to match the description of Lani Kai, right down to the fireplace and double liquor license. We're just going to go out on a limb and posit that the almost-two-year-old bi-level cocktail spot on Broome Street, previously the home of Sam Mason's Tailor, is part of Soho we'll call the Watts Peninsula, an area bounded by Thompson Street, Watts, and Sixth Avenue. As such, it's a place of many unexplained and unexplored mysteries, and you owe it to yourself and cocktail culture in general to head over there tonight and trade notes over Bermuda Triangles (cachaça, coconut, kalamansi, and lychee juice: $13).

Update: Sounds like we got ahead of ourselves. Julie Reiner writes in to say that the listing is most definitely not Lani Kani, despite the similarities: "My business partner is in real estate. I don't know if someone saw his name on a building or space in our neighborhood.. and drew their own conclusions? I just know that it is not Lani Kai." Okay then. It's a correction we're happy to make — we really like the place! Sounds as though the listing's similarities are the real unexplained phenomena of the Watts Peninsula.

He won't ever admit it publicly, but food writer JJ Goode has what basically amounts to a dream job: As a cookbook writer — you could call him a ghostwriter — he spends a bulk of his time hanging out with the country's best chefs, alone, while they cook him amazing meals — chefs like April Bloomfield (Goode co-wrote her first book; the duo is at work on a second) and Pok Pok's Andy Ricker, whose first book will come out next year. "Usually I'm writing in my coffee shop," he tells us. "But it's funny, you caught me on a week where I had more meetings than usual." We know Goode, and we also know that he says this every time we talk about his job. So why won't he just admit that it's a great gig? "Okay, it is pretty awesome. Just the fact that I get to spend two hours watching April make fresh pasta — it's amazing." To read about that pasta, impromptu picnics, and one ill-advised octopus breakfast, continue on in this week's New York Diet.