Posts for November 30, 2012 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for November 30, 2012

11/30/12 at 5:15 PM
Leftovers
Comment

Foreign & Domestic at City Grit; Big Gay Ice Cream West Village Opens

• Ned and Jodi Elliott, Texas chefs who are also veterans of New York's restaurant scene, will cook six courses — including beef heart tartare with salt-cured yolk and Wagyu flank steak with smoked ham hock broth — served at their acclaimed Austin restaurant Foreign & Domestic, at City Grit tomorrow night. Tickets are $95, details are here. [Grub Street]

• Spend an afternoon glugging Glögg with St. John Frizell. The writer and owner of Brooklyn restaurant Fort Defiance is teaching a class entitled "Fire in the Hole!: Hot Drinks for Long Nights" at The Intercourse in Red Hook. Learn about the rituals surrounding hot alcoholic beverages and how to mix them up in the comfort and privacy of your own home. Sign up here. [Grub Street]

• Big Gay Ice Cream's West Village location will open for business on Monday. And as reported earlier, this shop will have seating, leaving no excuse not to get a salty pimp in the dead of winter. [Eater]

11/30/12 at 4:45 PM
Showdown Shows
Comment

Saveur Debuts Online Cooking Show

By Hugh Merwin

To schmaltz or not to schmaltz.

If you liked New York's "Eat Cheap" video series on YouTube's Hungry, be sure to check out Saveur Magazine's "Dueling Dishes." Each of its six episodes pairs two chefs who square off with their versions of the same dish. The first installment pits Eli Sussman of Mile End Deli against Quality Meats' Craig Koketsu; latkes are involved, and Gabriella Gershenson serves as referee and judge. What say ye? Future episodes will include the biggest, baddest Bûche de Noëls ever, a thermonuclear meatloaf-off between Dan Holzman and Joey Campanaro, and an ice box pie cooldown with Kieran Baldwin of the Dutch, who goes up against the formidable Nancy Olson of Gramercy Tavern. "Dueling Dishes" officially debuts tomorrow, but like Little Orphan Annie says, tomorrow is always a day away, so go check out the first episode here. [Hungry/YouTube, Earlier]

11/30/12 at 4:10 PM
Quote of the Day
Comment

Sometimes a Little Irish Whiskey Does Fine

"Some bartenders can be really self-centered and shitty, and act like the only drink that you can get that's valid is a Last Word or a Brooklyn. Go fuck yourself, man. Our job is to just make people happy, and you can do that with a Powers in a dirty glass and a Guinness." —Dutch Kills head bartender Jan Warren, on what it really takes to get the job done. [Eat Like a Man/Esquire]

11/30/12 at 3:45 PM on Grub Street Philly
Chef Shuffle
Comment

Eric Ripert’s Pulling Out of His Philly Restaurant, Too

By Collin Keefe

Looks like Washington, D.C.’s Westend Bistro at the Ritz-Carlton isn’t the only partnership that Eric Ripert is bringing to an end. The Le Bernardin chef announced today that he’s also bidding adieu to 10 Arts, the restaurant he opened at Philadelphia’s Ritz-Carlton back in 2008, and where his ambitious blonde protégé and Top Chef alum Jen Carroll’s career began its skyward trajectory. According to the Insider, Ripert cites the same reasons he gave for his abrupt D.C. departure for his exit from Philly: Le Bernardin, and a mysterious project related to it. [Insider; Earlier]

11/30/12 at 2:50 PM
Openings
Comment

Bill’s Bar & Burger Is Opening in Battery Park City

By Beth Landman

Where have all the sliders gone?

Stephen Hanson's BR Guest Hospitality group has signed a deal to open yet another Bill's Bar & Burger. This one's headed to the New York Marriott Financial Center, at 85 West Street in Battery Park City, making it the fourth Bill's, following its meatpacking flagship, its Rockefeller Center expansion, and the chainlet's most recent foray into new territory, at Harrah's in Atlantic City. Bill's at the Marriott will have a bar that faces West Street, a dining room that facing out onto Washington Street, and a mind-boggling choice of at least fifteen burger toppings facing you. The restaurant group's newest Bill's will open next spring.

11/30/12 at 2:10 PM
Strikes
Comment

Striking Fast-Food Workers Return to Work

By Hugh Merwin

They want better treatment and higher wages.

Several hundred fast-food workers today are back at the deep fryers, burger drawers, and salad stations after participating in yesterday's unprecedented walk-out and strike outside of multiple restaurant chain locations. Walk-outs and strikes commenced around 6 a.m. outside of McDonald's at 280 Madison Avenue in Manhattan and continued elsewhere and Brooklyn, at Pizza Hut, Domino's, McDonald's, Wendy's, and Taco Bell locations. Workers are pushing for higher wages, better treatment, and to unionize. The strike, organized by a group called Fast Food Forward, was backed by labor advocates, politicians, several civic and religious leaders, and labor advocates, started Thursday morning and continued to gain strength throughout the afternoon.

Sign the petition.

11/30/12 at 1:20 PM
Roe the Day
Comment

Elusive Caviar Crook Caught After 23 Years on the Run

By Hugh Merwin

Payback is briny.

A 69-year-old former caviar dealer named Isidoro Garbarino plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday. Garbarino, who is also known as "Mario," once ran a company called Aquamar Gourmet Imports and was first arrested in November of 1987 for dodging taxes, passing off domestic shovelnose sturgeon roe as a more expensive Baltic product, and illegally importing "more than 100,000 pounds of Russian and Iranian caviar in the 1980s." Garbarino was free on bail when he disappeared in 1989, and the AP reports he was arrested in September by U.S. Marshals while he was changing planes in Panama.

Like a sturgeon.

11/30/12 at 12:45 PM on Grub Street LA
The Name Game
Comment

Psy Gives His Blessing to Rogue ‘Gangnam Style’ Restaurant

By Hadley Tomicki

Psy: Increasing the peacePhoto: Patrick McMullan

Soju Town, a stop for Korean bar food in Los Angeles, recently swapped its generic title for one that is so fleeting, it already feels dated. Of course, the restaurant recently renamed itself after Psy's "Gangnam Style," but never actually cleared the idea with Psy himself. Oops. Naturally, TMZ had to consult the singer on the matter, learning that he originally considered suing the place, but soon gave it up, most likely as he's confident his next song is going to be a much bigger hit. Or maybe, like a bow-tied Billy Elliot, he just wants to dance. In any case, "Gangnam Style" the Restaurant officially now exists. [TMZ]

11/30/12 at 12:25 PM
Quote of the Day
Comment

David Chang Is a Wandering Vagrant

"People don't understand that when you work in a restaurant, you literally live there. Even today, I basically live in hotels. This year, we opened four places in Toronto. In the last year, I spent about three months in Toronto. Over the last 14 months, I spent five months total in Australia. I live in the Star casino there, where we have the restaurant. I've gone long stretches where I haven't left the grounds. You work, you eat, you get a drink, you go to bed." — Momofuku chef and owner David Chang, on how he went from a 400-square-foot apartment in the East Village to essentially living out of hotel rooms around the world, all in nine years. [WSJ]

11/30/12 at 11:40 AM
celebrity settings
Comment

Alicia Keys Gets a Striptease at the Box; Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Reunite at Marble Lane

By Monica Burton

Keys: supporter of reverse stripteases.

This week, New York celebrities recovered from Thanksgiving festivities by going light on the dining and a bit heavier on the drinking. Alicia Keys celebrated an album release at the Box, Bill Clinton got drinks at the Lamb's Club, and Justin Bieber fit two dinners into one night out this weekend. All the deets (and just a few eats) straight ahead in our weekly roundup of celebrity dining.

11/30/12 at 11:20 AM
Tonkotsu Time
Comment

Ivan Ramen Is Now Hiring

Looks like chef Ivan Orkin is getting a lot closer to opening his much-anticipated New York noodle shop: He's put a call out for a chef and a general manager on Twitter. Interested applicants must "live and breathe ramen." [ivanramen/Twitter, Earlier]

11/30/12 at 10:50 AM
Closings
Comment

The 75-Year-Old Stage Deli Is Closed

By Hugh Merwin

We'll miss the blintzes.Photo: Shanna Ravindra

What a bad week it has been for New York's old-time delicatessens: On Sunday, a three-alarm fire nearly destroyed Sarge's Delicatessen in Murray Hill, and today, Diner's Journal reports that the 75-year-old Stage Deli closed for good at midnight. The restaurant was known for cheese blintzes and behemoth sandwiches; its countermen built cathedrals out of salami and pastrami and named them after celebrities. Paul Zolenge, who co-owned the restaurant with Steve Auerbach for the last 26 years, told Florence Fabricant that a scaffolding erected around the restaurant's telltale neon wrap killed a lot of business during the last year. “We just couldn’t afford to keep it going any more," he says, noting that it had also been difficult to keep up with the escalating rent. [Diner's Journal/NYT, Earlier]

11/30/12 at 10:35 AM
Booze News
Comment

Nine Amazing American Whiskeys That Aren’t Pappy Van Winkle

By Jordana Rothman

There's plenty to go around.

As you've probably heard, Gotham's growing packs of boozehounds are in a fix: Pappy Van Winkle, a big-game bottling from Frankfort Kentucky’s Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery is almost nowhere to be found. Look, we’ve tasted most of the Pappy range and we can attest to its luscious, buttery, appley, punch-you-in-the-gut then tongue-kiss-you-in-the-rain deliciousness. But this is America y’all: Pappy ain't the only game in town. In fact, our fellow countrymen produce plenty of outstanding bourbons and ryes — most widely available and at prices far under the $200-plus that a bottle of Pappy goes for when you can find it.

Take a look, won't you?

11/30/12 at 10:00 AM
Lawsuits
Comment

Morimoto’s Ex-Partner Wants Back in at Tribeca Canvas

An entrepreneur says he invested $1 million on Masaharu Morimoto's long-in-the-works Tribeca Canvas but was ousted from the restaurant's team when he was unable to contribute more money. Michael Wainstein filed a claim in Manhattan Supreme Court and says he just wants to be able to rejoin Morimoto and two other partners at the restaurant and tap back into his 18 percent share. [NYP, Related]

11/30/12 at 09:30 AM
Red Hook
Comment

This Is Red Hook, One Month After Sandy

By Hugh Merwin

Some scaffolding going up, but still a lot of heart in South Brooklyn.Photo: Hugh Merwin

The emergency management trailers are still parked in Coffey Park near the basketball court, and tall, cranelike spotlights are still stationed on corners throughout the neighborhood, but the police officers no longer stop by to turn them on every night. The gutters are streaked with oil and dirt around Richards and Verona, just outside Visitation Church, where a line still forms each weekend when volunteers hand out diapers and garbage bags. And as rebuilding begins in earnest, the neighborhood's identity — only really coming into focus when the storm hit 31 days ago — is evolving yet again.

11/30/12 at 09:00 AM
The New York Diet
Comment

Recette Chef Jesse Schenker Makes Sandwiches After Service, Stays Late for Claire Danes

By Alyssa Shelasky

"I'm really craving a box of Entenmann's chocolate doughnuts."Photo: Melissa Hom

Jesse Schenker, chef-owner of the bustling West Village restaurant Recette, was thankful for many things this past week: his wife and business partner Lindsay, their 2-year-old son Eddie (named after Vedder), the success of his first own restaurant, and ... Dr. Steven Gullo, the celebrity psychiatrist-slash-life-coach who's been linked to Jonah Hill's weight loss and many other famous, no-carb body transformations. In fact, Gullo's way of thinking inspired Schenker to lose some weight of his own: "Dr. Gullo suggests that fancy people, or unfancy people like me who are around good food all day, just go crazy with shrimp and lobster," says Schenker, who's largely subsisted on egg whites, fish, and vegetables for ten months, losing more than 50 pounds. But it's not all health food: Read all about his strip steaks, Caesar salads, and dietary slips in this week's New York Diet.