Posts for November 20, 2012

Bon Appétit Hosts All-Star Sandy Dinners; Bottomless Mimosas on Black Friday

• Shuck yeah: W&T Seafood will operate a pop-up store at Williamsburg's Gourmet Guild from 3 to 7 p.m tomorrow. Stop by for free samples of their bacon-leek-oyster stuffing.

• A better way to do Black Friday: Almond will offer $12 bottomless mimosas and bloodies with their brunch menu.

• City Grit and Bon Appétit will host a Do-Your-Part dinner series to raise money for small food businesses as they continue to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. Renowned American chefs — including Daniel Humm, Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, April Bloomfield, Danny Bowien, Dan Kluger, Sean Brock, John Besh, and Andy Ricker — present two dinners of five courses each, plus wine pairings. Tickets are $300 and benefit Mayor's Fund to Advance New York (for Hurricane Relief). Buy them here.

Read more »

Come to Fort Defiance Tomorrow to Celebrate Red Hook’s Resilience

By Hugh Merwin

The Fort is coming back.

The well-loved Red Hook restaurant Fort Defiance, which was damaged extensively during Hurricane Sandy, has not yet been able to reopen for business, but owner St. John Frizell and his staff are slow-roasting a 130-pound pig from Pino Prime Meats starting tonight and will start congregating directly outside the restaurant tomorrow afternoon to serve the meat. The smoker is a loaner from Hometown barbecue, which proprietors Christopher Miller and Billy Durney will open next year at 454 Van Brunt Street; in addition to the pig, beans, greens, and cornbread will be served, and the Fort will be pouring Sixpoint beer. A free IKEA shuttle service will make the rounds from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to take patrons to the Bell House, where Rosanne Cash is playing a show to benefit Red Hook businesses. [Earlier, Earlier, Related]

Littleneck Introduces ‘Weekend Lunch’ Menu, Plus Oyster Happy Hour

By Hugh Merwin

The Gowanus clam shack's owner Aaron Lefkove sends word that the restaurant has added what it's strategically calling "weekend lunch," which is another way of not using the word brunch, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. If you enjoy Cap’n Crunch and clam rolls in the same sitting, congratulations, you know where to go. Click on through for the full menu, which also includes a duck egg sandwich, shrimp and grits, and fluffy fromage blanc pancakes. Also, if brunch isn't your thing, Littleneck has introduced two new oyster happy hour deals: One is that all tap beers are $5 with accompanying bivalve at $1 apiece, while the "Rhode Island Meets Long Island" $10 deal gets you one half-dozen local oysters with the Narragansett tallboy of your choice.

Duck eggs, and 'coffee milk' ... »

This $250,000 Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud Dinner Is Totally Worth It

By Hugh Merwin

Better than a jetpack.

When is comes down to it, the toss up is really between this $99,500 JetLev R200 jetpack and this private dinner for ten guests, cooked by Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Richard Rosendale, and Jerome Bocuse in the privacy of your own home. It is $250,000, but it does come with a lot of Casa Dragones tequila, you can get drunk, and all proceeds benefit the Bocuse d'Or USA Foundation. The collected knife skills of America's next top chefs are looking to you on this one, big spenders. [Neiman Marcus]

Mile End Does Not Serve Three-Foot-Tall Novelty Pastrami Sandwiches for a Reason

“It became a style of the 1950s and 1960s to stuff your face with food. That’s fine. I’m not going to argue whether that’s good for the Jewish people. But the reality is that that’s not how we used to eat.” — Mile End owner Noah Bernamoff, on why neither his deli nor his sandwich shop serve Carnegie Deli-style sandwiches. Also, old-timey deli nostalgia is fine, but he really doesn't need "a picture of the old country on the wall with an old Polish guy with a string of bagels.” [Edmonton Journal]

Six Degrees of Snack Cakes: Watch This Montage of Twinkies in the Movies

By Hugh Merwin
Watch Video

Twinkies as we know them probably aren't going anywhere after all, but don't let that stop you from enjoying this montage and tribute to cream-filled golden sponge cake. Hostess products have been in Ghostbusters, The Ice Storm, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Die Hard, and lots more. How many of the Twinkie-filled movies can you identify in the video below? And more crucially, how many can be connected to Kevin Bacon in three degrees or fewer?

"The creature stole my Twinkie." »

Ruth Bourdain’s Flat Thanksgiving Jokes Are All Turkeys

By Jay Barmann

It's almost Thanksgiving, and thus everyone's favorite Twitter mashup of 2010 is at it again. Ruth Bourdain unleashed a flurry of Turkey Day-related tweets today, and we'd have to concur with Anthony Bourdain who said six months ago that RuBo had "lost gas." Jokes like "Moistness should be your goal when cooking the turkey, but if it's too moist, consider calling a gynecologist," and "If you are buying a local, organic, heritage turkey, make sure it has a beard, tattoos, and is wearing skinny jeans," never would have made it out of the Onion writers' room, that's for sure. RuBo then finished up her morning's work with a brief moment of shilling her new book, Comfort Me With Offal. Because, you know, with humor like this we could sure use more! Thankfully the burning question of "who is Ruth Bourdain?" isn't burning so bad anymore, and it would seem most of us have given up caring. (Last we heard it was two people, but they've remained mum.) [RuthBourdain/Twitter]

Your Allergies Are Bullsh*t, and Other Things Servers Believe

From bad tippers to "horny assholes" to the creepy man who sent his waitress thirteen CDs, here's an oral history of what it's like to serve you in the city. Most of the time they know when you're on a first date, and they always know when your first date has gone horribly wrong. Then there's the call girl who slipped the waitress $100 in order to make sure her client got extra drunk. [Narratively NYC]

Cook Rushed to Hospital After Eating Ghost Chile Pepper Sauce

By Hugh Merwin

A spoonful ... of danger.

A 26-year-old cook in London was taste-testing his restaurant's "ultimate flaming hot chicken wings" in front of cheering customers when things went horribly wrong. Arif Ali started sweating while eating the wings, which were slicked with a sauce made from Naga Bhut Jolokia, or ghost chile peppers. He drank milk in an attempt quell the burn before gasping and ultimately collapsing on a dining room table. Ali was taken to a nearby hospital, treated and released, but reported severe stomach cramps and diarrhea for a week afterwards. The wings were prospective menu items at Jimmy's in London, and the restaurant intended to challenge customers to eat as many as they could withstand. "We have now decided in the interests of customer safety," Jimmy's manager tells the Mail, "not to put this particular item on our menu." [Daily Mail UK]

Watch Funny or Die Do Thanksgiving in These Two New Videos

By Hugh Merwin
Watch Video

One minute you're having a bona fide Norman Rockwell moment, and the next, two of your Thanksgiving guests are denigrating the notion of stuffing and describing their ideal bowel movements: This is apparently what happens when raw foodists and Thanksgiving purists sit down at the same table. "We molded these nuts and berries into the shape of a turkey," say Tricia & Johanna, who point out that any turkey cooked to a temperature above 118° is no turkey they'd like to eat, and generally ruining everyone's dinner. Elsewhere, Larry David comes through with a very Brooklyn, and very kvetchy Thanksgiving.

Check out Larry David's way of doing things. »

Rihanna Has Oreos and Haribo Under Her Umbrella

By Alyssa Shelasky

Ri-ri can really eat! TMZ obtained the list of the superstar's personal backstage buffet (Hint: makes Bloomberg's green room look like Organic Avenue). In addition to those "German meat chips" a journalist spotted on the tour plane, Rihanna's 24-hour-munchie menu consists of: Cheetos, Ruffles, Oreos, Gummi bears, Cup O' Noodles, Capri Sun, Golden Grahams (right on), Flaming Hot Cheetos, and more. Next album title? Metabolism. [TMZ]


Situational Dining: Bar and Restaurant Recs for Every Conceivable Thanksgiving Scenario

By Monica Burton

This long weekend, choose your own dining adventure. They're ready for you at Maialino.Photo: Hannah Whitaker

As is the case with any holiday gathering, Thanksgiving is rife with the potential for disaster, whether it's a dismal turkey or your pushy, Rockettes-obsessed Uncle Rico. Fudged up the lattice work on your apple pie? Dressed to impress but have nowhere to go? In this inaugural installment of Situational Dining, we've looked to New York's restaurants and bars for solutions to all the dining-related misadventures we could anticipate. You're on your own for the other stuff.

Black Friday blues? Too many carbs? Not enough shirred eggs? »

Nublu Gets Liquor License Approval From Community Board 3; Cheeky Sandwiches Gets Cheekier

By Mary Reinholz

Keep the jazz coming.

Noting that live jazz venues in the East Village are a "dying breed," CB3 Manhattan's SLA committee voted last night six to three to approve a full liquor license for Nublu, despite objections from committee chair Alexandra Militano, who cited its history of noise complaints. The ten-year-old club's owner Ihan Ersahin presented more than 200 signatures, however, and assured the committee that the noise complaints would stop after the club moved to 151 Avenue C, its new space, which is currently a vacant garage. Also victorious last night: The diminutive but mighty po' boy shop Cheeky Sandwiches on Orchard Street, which is looking to sell beer and wine throughout the restaurant, and to add seating in its basement, where it'll serve breakfast all day long. Owner Din Yates told Grub Street he will move forward just as soon as the DOB signs off on plans to renovate the restaurant's lower level. [Earlier]

Reflections on Getting Porked

By Alyssa Shelasky

"For pork, unlike chicken, beef and certainly fish, has developed around it an ineffable sexiness. Eating trotters and nibbling on a crispy pig ear has become a debauch, the a table equivalent of finger-cuffs. There’s a reason Babe was a pig and not, say, turbot." — Joshua David Stein, in the Observer, on the the city's pig fetish, represented at Swine and Pig and Khao. [NYO]

Gordon Ramsay Preemptively Files for Spotted Pig Trademark in the U.K.

By Hugh Merwin

Ramsay just likes trademarking things.Photo: Getty Images

Balthazar and Shake Shack are expanding to London, so why not the Spotted Pig? Owners April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman have each brought up the possibility of crossing the pond and setting up shop, but one thing that may impede expansion for the restaurant — which also counts Mario Batali and Jay-Z as investors — is that Gordon Ramsay has already applied for the U.K. trademark to the Spotted Pig's name.

Oh, okay, that makes total sense. »

Shake Shack Is Opening in London Next Year

By Hugh Merwin

Pass the HP sauce, please.

ShackBurgers, SmokeStacks, concretes will all be available when Danny Meyer's restaurant group opens its first U.K. location in mid-2013 inside the Market Building near the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The historic neighborhood, which is also where Keith McNally is opening a clone of Balthazar next February, is popular with tourists and has a steady influx of foot traffic and, presumably, many lovers of frozen custard and American cheese. [Earlier]

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