Trying to pass the next week and not obsess about Top Chef? You might want to avoid Whole Foods in Pasadena, where Los Angeles magazine's Matthew Segal complains that a fella can't shop in peace without a stray Rick Moonen or Susan Feniger getting in his way while Top Chef Masters is being shot. [Los Angeles]
Boerum Hill: The former chef at Michael’s opened a seafood restaurant called Café Mei Mei. [NYT]
Midtown West: If the Radio City area wasn’t packed enough, Magnolia Bakery now sells red-velvet cupcakes topped with Rockette decorations through December 31 that come with discount vouchers to see the Radio City Christmas Show. [Grub Street]
Union Square: The House, an 1854 carriage house turned wine bar, now serves brunch and lunch with everything from truffled mac and cheese to tuna over lentils. [Grub Street]
Upper East Side: Southern Hospitality hosts a $45 tequila tasting tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. that includes snacks of ribs and pulled chicken. [Grub Street]
Upper West Side: A Voce, Picholine, and Ed’s Chowder House are among the restaurants participating in the tenth annual Winter’s Eve holiday market on November 30 from 6 to 9 p.m. Vendors stretch down Broadway from Time Warner Center to 68th Street. [Grub Street]
West Village: Joseph Leonard introduces Cochon Sundays, when chef Jim McDuffee will serve six to seven à la carte specials he creates after breaking down a whole pig. [Grub Street]
A few days ago, an eagle-eyed tipster pointed out that although Clipse’s latest jam is called “Popular Demand (Popeyes)” (as in “outside of Popeyes, eating chicken and fries”), the video is filmed outside of the Obama Fried Chicken in Brooklyn that Al Sharpton protested. Now Brokelyn notices that MTV is blurring out the name. [Brokelyn]
The Guardian of London ponders the proper way to complain at a restaurant if the food or service isn’t to your liking, but the best part is the way chefs respond. One chef: “Once, at La Noisette, some customers were rude to my staff, which I won't tolerate, and they refused to leave when we asked them to. I pulled away their table and they sat there in their chairs looking extremely foolish.” Another chef issued the following one-liner when a salad was returned with a Band-Aid in it: “I bet they didn't expect that kind of dressing ...”
Giles Coren's Restaurant Rant [Guardian UK]
In all our time covering the labor disputes that are increasingly becoming par for the course at New York City restaurants (just today there was the case of kitchen workers suing Mama Mexico), most of the cases arose when jilted employees went to lawyers. But today, the AP reports that the state labor commission visited 27 restaurants and coffee shops in Park Slope and found no less than 25 in violation of wage laws. “Labor officials say most of the 207 underpaid employees delivered food,” writes the AP. “Officials say they worked 60 to 70 hours a week for $210 to $275 a week. Workers at one restaurant were paid as little as $2.75 an hour.” In all, the restaurants underpaid a total of almost $912,000. Kind of puts paid sick leave into perspective, doesn't it?
Official: NY restaurant workers underpaid $912,000 [AP via WCAX]
Et tu, Martin Yan?Photo: Courtesy Google
To add to the cacophony of voices in food media, Google today launched a series of food-centric themes and gadgets for your iGoogle page. The new "gourmet" bells and whistles include background themes like holidays, "foodscapes" (landscapes made of food), and individual chefs (check out Michael Mina). New gadgets range from somewhat useful tools like the Supercook recipe creator to feeds from Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray which, if you're a food-obsessed iGoogle user you probably already subscribe to. But hey, they sure look pretty.
The East Side Social Club starts serving Italian food in the Pod Hotel Monday, but Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld have the menu and a holiday-appropriate preview today: “If you thought peacefully assembling the clan in one room once a year for Thanksgiving was a challenge, consider what restaurateur Billy Gilroy (Employees Only) is attempting to do: go into the business with his chef son Devon, daughter Grace, brother Jim, and even an ex-wife (number two of five).”
Dinner [PDF]
Dessert [PDF]
Wine [PDF]
Opening: East Side Social Club [NYM]
East Side Social Club, 230 E. 51st St., nr. Third Ave.; 212-355-9442
In case the lawsuit drags on, Dean Poll has picked a temporary name for Tavern on the Green. According to Crain's, it’s Tavern in the Park (we would’ve suggested Tavern on Dean but it’s already taken). Well played, NYC — you’ve done Chinatown counterfeiters proud! No doubt Jennifer LeRoy is consulting her live-in lawyers about this.
Back-up name chosen for Tavern on the Green [Crain's NY]
It’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze a couple in for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: Romance.
Brenner at a Philadelphia book signing
Bostonians who resent the idea of New York's Shake Shack on the Common, you're not going to be happy about this. Chocolate-centric Max Brenner will open its third U.S. location in Boston, reports Fox Business. Max Brenner currently has locations in New York and Philadelphia, as well as dozens of outposts in Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Israel. New York's Robin Raisfield and Rob Patronite weren't too impressed by dishes like "the cloyingly sweet chocolate-topped and crunchy-bitted pizza, or, worse, the Melting Chocolate Heart Cake, which your server will recommend and dutifully describe to you as never having elicited anything but squeals of joy but is really just a not-so-molten chocolate cake—more dormant volcano than hot lava flow."
Last week, there was Fresh-N-Fast (obviously a reference to In-N-Out), and this week, news of another burger joint, called Black Shack. No, it isn’t a play on Shake Shack, nor is it affiliated with the not-safe-for-work BlackShack.com — but it is a reference to a popular fast-food joint (think Black instead of White and Shack instead of …) Chef Jeffrey Maslanka has had the name in mind for ten years, and to realize the concept, he teamed up with his colleague at Fort Greene’s 67 Burger, owner Ed Tretter.
Wondering if your restaurant plans for the evening would be animal-rights-activist approved? A new database from the World Society for the Protection of Animals IDs restaurants in fifteen cities — including Boston, New York, and Los Angeles — that serve "humane" meat. [Eat Humane]
Martha Stewart will be on Nightline tonight, and a preview video on ABC (alas, not embeddable) is sure to raise the hackles of the country's Rachael Ray fans. Stewart calls Ray out for her admitted inability to bake and accused her of simply reworking old recipes for her new cookbook. "That's not good enough for me," frosts Stewart, who then crafts a dismissal worthy of Anna Wintour herself. "She's different. She's more of an entertainer than a teacher like me." [ABC News]
After our news that Balthazar Bakery’s former director of ops was opening a brownie store, the Real Deal publishes more details about the Limelight Marketplace, which is proving to be an upscale Brooklyn Flea. Other tenants will include It’s Sugar (a candy store from Jeff Rubin of Dylan's Candy Bar) and Carter & Cavero Old World Olive Oil.
New Limelight incarnation sees 75% lease rate [Real Deal]
Photo: Patrick McMullan
Politico hears that Aquavit's Marcus Samuelsson has been chosen to help White House chef Christeta Comerford cook a state dinner honoring the prime minister of India. Why is this news? Because apparently, very few outside chefs have gotten such an honor in the past— Hubert Keller was the first guest chef at the White House when he cooked for the Clintons, and Patrick Clark is the only one who cooked for a state dinner during the time of the Bushes and Clinton. And there definitely weren’t any guest chefs during the Reagan and Johnson years, when Harry Haller was in charge: “I would have been very upset if they had done that,” he says. But the Obamas are all about the celebrity cameos. White House chef Sam Kaas visited several restaurants to decide between Charlie Palmer of Aureole, Michel Nischan of the Dressing Room in Westport, Connecticut, and Dan Barber of Blue Hill, among others. Wonder what his expense account looked like.
State Dinner: W.H. Invites Guest Chef [Politico]
Bostonians are divided on their response to the news that an outpost of New York's Shake Shack could open here. Some Hub residents are excited, as the comments on our original news indicate. "Shake Shack would be fantastic, would instantly become one of the best inexpensive burgers in Boston. Frankly, any outpost of Union Square Hospitality Group would be a wonderful addition to the city, never mind that they're based in Manhattan" writes commenter (and Phoenix critic) MC Slim JB). On Twitter, most responses came close to the "YES YES!" from Barbara Cole. "Shake Shack is welcome in our beloved city," writes The Beantown Bloggery, who adds, "the rats though that are always in that area can stay in NYC. We have enough of those of our own."
Earlier this year, several front-of-house workers for Mama Mexico filed a lawsuit claiming that the chain failed to pay minimum wage and overtime, and now, according to a press release from the law firm, the kitchen workers are filing one, too. The attorneys are attempting to shame the chain’s owner: “Mr. Rojas Campos should remember his own humble beginnings as an hourly restaurant worker and treat his low-wage workers with the respect they deserve.”
Mama Mexico Restaurants Abuse 'Back of the House' Workers Too, According to Workers' Legal Team [PR Newswire]
Marc Murphy believes that having to give his employees nine days in paid sick leave will cost him almost $200,000 per year, but the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York went before the New York City Council on Tuesday to present the other side of the story. According to DNAinfo, a study conducted in San Francisco (where a similar bill is already law) showed that workers generally don’t even use all of their sick days (Lord knows Grub Street has powered through many a flare-up of burgeoning carpal tunnel), much less abuse them. Mayor Bloomberg has said he supports required sick days in theory, but “the devil is in the details,” and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer thinks that if anything, the proposed measure will help the bottom line by encouraging less turnover and more employee loyalty.
Restaurant Workers Make Plea to City Council for Paid Sick Days [DNAinfo]
Earlier: Restaurant Owners Are Quietly Freaking Out Over Health-Care Reform
Because there weren’t enough culinary competition shows in the world, NBC has signed on a new one called, rather horribly,The United Plates of America. Produced by Magical Elves, who you know and love from Top Chef, it’ll feature a bunch of apparent newbies (“anybody can take part,” says the executive producer) competing to impress investors with their chain-restaurant concepts. The winner will get to open four outlets across this great land. And when they fail, maybe Gordon Ramsay can bring in a camera crew and fix them!
Photo: Courtesy of Bravo
Last night, the Top Chef judges decided they were done sweeping contestants like Robin and Jersey Mike under the rug, and they could finally welcome the likes of Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud into their little party. First, though, some human interest: It seems the Brothers V. are doing all of this for Mom, Kevin is doing it for his girlfriend (and Jesus), and Eli is doing it for … Richard Blais? Anyway, onward! Café Boulud chef Gavin Kaysen looked about three feet tall next to Padma — somehow her outfit caused us to picture her spanking him with a riding crop. The chefs are to pay tribute to the dish he made for the 2007 Bocuse d’Or finals — a ballottine of chicken, with chicken liver, foie gras, and crayfish. No mention of the fact that, owing to a mishap in which a dishwasher accidentally ate two of Kaysen’s sides, his platter placed fourteenth. In any case, everyone had 90 minutes to make their interpretation of a “protein in a protein in a protein” (shame on This Is Why You’re Fat for failing to get a plug on the show).
Hosea Rosenberg, winner of Top Chef season five, misses his mad dashes through Whole Foods so much that he shot a series of videos for the store. (His website also lists him as a spokesman for Whole Foods, as well as the Colorado Tourism Office.) We've got his turkey-carving demo below, and the chef also teaches you how to make gravy, "budget-friendly appetizers," and gives tips on decor.
• A new bill in the Senate would require companies to test their ground beef for E. coli. [NYT]
• Gordon Ramsay's British show The F Word is not doing very well in the ratings. [Guide Girl]
• Consumer-trend tracking company Mintel predicts that sodium reduction will be the next big health fad. [Reuters]
• Ruth West, the founder of Ruthie's, has passed away at 75. [Local/NYT]
• Flooding at the Atlanta Eggo factory means a future shortage of the frozen waffles. [NYDN]
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