Posts for November 2, 2012 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for November 2, 2012

11/2/12 at 5:45 PM
ZOMG YES!
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Bright Lights, Big City: Lower Manhattan’s Power Returning for the Weekend Brunch Rush

By Grub Street

It seems almost too fitting that power is finally starting to come back to lower Manhattan after this long, trying week. And yet that's what seems to be happening today as Friday draws to a close. (And yes, "Friday Night Lights" has already been claimed by one of New York's own.) After four days of otherwise dismal news, it's a hopeful note, and we hope that we can come back on Monday with lots of new restaurant reopenings and menu changes to report. Until then, here are some of the best chef and restaurant reactions to the returning power.

11/2/12 at 5:05 PM
Storm Surge
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The Gowanus Whole Foods Site Likely Flooded, and Fairway Will Rebuild

By Hugh Merwin

The plans of two Brooklyn supermarkets were wrecked by Sandy this week: the Red Hook Fairway was hit with a wave and flooded out, prompting rumors that the store would leave the neighborhood for good. "We are working hard to get our store up and running as soon as possible," the chain says, however, in an e-mail. Meanwhile, Sandy may have put yet another dent in Whole Foods' Gowanus plans, as this video shows the storm surge creeping into the grocer's construction site along 3rd Street. Although the grocer has not yet started building at the site, it recently finished a environmental program after several delays. We've checked in the company and will let you know what we hear back.

11/2/12 at 4:15 PM
Inspections
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DOH Is Monitoring, But Won’t Crack Down on ‘Candlelit’ Restaurants

While Con Ed is busy this afternoon calling customers to retract the earlier calls claiming that electrical service had been restored, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has been making the rounds among restaurants without refrigeration. Inspectors are not issuing citations or even conducting inspections, Zagat reports, but rather just trying to prevent serious lapses in food safety. Dozens of restaurants that still have gas have outfitted their cooks with headlamps and their dining rooms with candles. The DOHMH is circulating special food safety guidelines for areas that do not have electricity. [Zagat, Daily Intel, Related]

11/2/12 at 2:55 PM on Grub Street Boston
Hurricanes
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Boston Chefs Throwing Mega-Fund-raiser for New York Restaurants Hurt by Hurricane Sandy

By Kara Baskin

Ken Oringer, Ming Tsai, and friends.Photo: Leise Jones

A rep for Toro chef Ken Oringer tells us that he and Boston pals including Jamie Bissonnette, Ming Tsai, and Tony Maws will throw a $500-per-person, 50-seat dinner at Mike's City Diner on Wednesday evening to benefit restaurant-industry victims of Hurricane Sandy. The price is hefty, but the wares are tasty!

11/2/12 at 2:10 PM
Special Delivery
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How Seamless Weathered the Storm

The food delivery site hunkered down and nurtured its inner customer service specialist in the cloudy hours on Monday before Sandy made landfall in New York City. The company, which owns the former New York Media property MenuPages, bolstered its communications department and padded out reported estimated delivery times, which helped to defy customer expectations and reduce the total number of complaint calls made to participating restaurants. Seamless also capitalized on warm social media feedback during the weather, including a customer who was so happy he was moved to write a love poem for the deliveryman. [Fast Company]

11/2/12 at 1:25 PM
Who Runs Bartertown?
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Restaurants Turn to Bartering Food for Gasoline

By Hugh Merwin

We need Tina Turner.Photo: Wikipedia

"I'm almost out of gas and it's like Mad Max out there," says King Phojanakong, who owns the restaurants Umi Nom in Bed-Stuy and Kuma Inn in the LES, which is temporarily closed. Because the trains aren't running, Phojanakong has been picking up and dropping off his employees since Tuesday, starting in Woodhaven and Inwood and ending at his Bed-Stuy restaurant.

What the going rate? Ten pancakes per half-gallon?

11/2/12 at 12:30 PM
Programming Notes
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New York Taste Will Be Canceled This Year

By Grub Street

Ticket holders can expect refunds.

Because of storm-related difficulties presented to both the venue and participating chefs, New York Magazine has made the decision to cancel this year's Taste event, which had originally been scheduled for this coming Monday, November 5. All ticket holders will receive e-mail notifications and refunds from our ticketing partner Ticketweb. The decision was only reached after very careful consideration of all options. Unfortunately, owing to logistical constraints, it just was not possible to reschedule the event for another date in 2012, but New York Taste will return in the fall of 2013.

11/2/12 at 12:05 PM
Celebrity Settings
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Bloomberg at Bistro Le Steak; Emma Stone Seeks Shelter at the Mark

By Monica Burton

Bloomberg, in a photo taken pre-Sandy.Photo: Derek Storm/Splash News

Before Hurricane Sandy put a halt to outings of any kind, New York's celebrities engaged in the usual Halloweekend revelry. In the storm's aftermath, they fled their downtown penthouses and meatpacking clubs to gather at a few uptown hotspots. This week, Katie Holmes came face to face with a "Free Katie" T-shirt at Mr. Chow, Mayor Bloomberg dined at Bistro Le Steak, and Emma Stone and others took to higher ground at the Mark. More pre-Halloween festivities and post-hurricane activities straight ahead in our weekly roundup of celebrity dining.

11/2/12 at 11:10 AM
Market Watch
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The Markets of New York Are Reopening [Updated]

By Hugh Merwin

Uprooted no more.

While many grocery stores remain closed, several Greenmarkets in the city are resuming regular hours this weekend. Notably, the Union Square Greenmarket remains closed, but other markets — including those throughout Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and in lower Manhattan at Tompkins Square Park and in Tribeca — will be open. Prepared food vendors will resume operations at both Smorgasburg locations in Brooklyn, but this weekend's New Amsterdam Market at the South Street Seaport has been canceled. The market is instead asking the public to gather at the Seaport on November 11 in order to raise funds for small neighborhood businesses along the waterfront, almost all of which were damaged by the storm. Update: GrowNYC just announced that most of the Union Square Greenmarket's Saturday regular lineup of farmers and vendors will set up tomorrow in Madison Square Park at 23rd Street and Broadway. [@GrowNYC/Twitter, @NewAmsterdamMkt/Twitter, @smorgasburg/Twitter]

11/2/12 at 10:45 AM
Other Magazines
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Martha Stewart Basically Kills Two Magazines, Lays Off 70 People

By Alan Sytsma

It's a good thing?

How's this for timing? Executives at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia — the company that puts out all things Martha — announced this week that they'd lay off 70 people from its 600-person staff. Additionally, they'll kill the recipe-focused Everyday Food as a stand-alone magazine and instead wrap it into Martha Stewart Living. The company will also try to sell another of its magazines, health-heavy Whole Living, to someone else. The moves are expected to save the struggling company between $33 and $35 million per year. [Adweek, Daily Intel]

11/2/12 at 10:10 AM
Neighborly
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Positively 4th Street: Get Hot Lunch at the Cardinal Today

Starting at 1 p.m. today, the Cardinal in the East Village is serving a free spaghetti lunch to its neighbors, most of whom still don't have electricity. After the storm, many restaurants and mobile food vendors have parlayed their remaining resources into spontaneous acts of hospitality. [Earlier]

11/2/12 at 09:45 AM
Damage Report
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Dumpster Diving Downtown, Burgers and Lack of Awareness Uptown

By Alan Sytsma

Why don't these people just go to Le Cirque?Photo: Emily Fleischaker/BuzzFeed

If you really needed a striking example of how different things are downtown and uptown in Manhattan these days, you've got it: BuzzFeed checks in with a group of people in the East Village who are so in need of food that they've resorted to Dumpster diving — not in the ironic hipster way, but in the actual desperate-for-anything-to-eat way. Says one hard-hit resident, "It's getting dark outside, I don't know how to get food like this without going all over the place and waiting in lines, and I don't want us to go to bed hungry tonight." Uptown, things aren't really the same.

"The whole place had a festive air."

11/2/12 at 09:15 AM
Video Feed
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David Chang Hits Fallon, Announces Multiple Red Cross Benefits

By Alan Sytsma

How many projects does David Chang have to promote these days? During his appearance on last night's (audience-attended) episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, it took almost two full minutes — of the five-minute segment — to get through them all: Momofuku's Toronto projects, the new issue of Lucky Peach, his upcoming PBS show (inspired, Chang says, by 3-2-1 Contact), etc etc. Oh, and there's also some cooking, not to mention info about Chang's involvement in three upcoming Red Cross fund-raisers, which will be held today and tonight at Má Pêche, Milk Bar Williamsburg, and Cafe Boulud. Get more details on those here, and watch the clip, straight ahead.

11/2/12 at 08:50 AM
The Grub Street Diet
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Mo Rocca Grabs Pre-Sandy Lucky Charms, Appreciates Post-Sandy Caipirinhas

By Vanita Salisbury

Rocca, outside French Roast, closed after the hurricane.Photo: Melissa Hom

As it did for all New Yorkers, the past week took a sudden turn for comedian and CBS Sunday News correspondent Mo Rocca. Late last week, he was wrapping filming on the first season of his new Cooking Channel series My Grandmother's Ravioli, in which Rocca learns traditional recipes from actual grandmothers. "It's partly because I’m ashamed," he says, "and guilty for never having helped my amazing grandmother in the kitchen." But by Tuesday, Sandy forced Rocca to abandon his Greenwich Village apartment in search of food, coffee, and the kindness of strangers. How did the workaholic storm refugee make it through? Find out in this week's New York Diet.