• Grub Street isn't the only one in the holiday-gift-guide game: Chef Thomas Keller has prepared gift sets that show up a standard-issue fruitcake in a wicker basket. [Grub Street]
• Plan ahead: Brooklyn pie specialists Four & Twenty Blackbirds are now taking online holiday orders. [Grub Street]
• Starbucks is expanding again: The coffee mega-chain announced they will open 1,500 new stores in the next five years. [AP]
The Jewish delicatessen is going extinct, but what this trailer for a project called Deli Man makes clear is that the concept of the deli itself was a by-product of the forces of immigration and city life, with salami, spiced meat, and pickles appearing like a novelty in late-nineteenth-century New York. We see Larry King laying out his ground rules for corned beef, Fyvush Finkel on hot dogs and beans, and plenty of interviews with the owners and operators of the last remaining Jewish delis in New York, Los Angeles, and, funnily enough, Texas. The greats are here, including Carnegie, the 2nd Avenue Deli, and Stage Deli, which closed last week after 75 years of operation. In the video below, co-owner Steve Auerbach laments the fact that more and more of the Stage Deli's customers had been asking for hamburgers, leaving the blintzes behind.
Send your kids to college or make some nice risotto. Your choice.Photo: John Magazino
You've probably noticed that there haven't been too many giant white truffles on the giant-white-truffle shelf at your local supermarket as of late. It's been something of a low stock season, so the arrival of this one-pounder, which was unearthed yesterday in Piemonte and just cleared customs at JFK, may be worth your while, especially if jumbo truffles are your thing. Bring home and shave it over a salad of bitter lettuces and old cheese, why don't you? At $4,000, it's a bargain — you may remember Sirio Maccioni shelled out $7,000 for something similar five years ago. Interested parties should contact John Magazino at Baldor Specialty Foods. Buy it, and this holiday season, you make it snow. [Related]
We'll be honest: Until about four minutes ago, we were not aware that the world's largest collection of banana paraphernalia was in Southern California, but it turns out that it is. Cool Hunting stopped by the International Banana Museum and talked to owner (and apparent savior of the museum) Fred Garbutt about why in the hell someone would have a banana museum in the first place. It's ridiculous, of course, but gosh this guy's enthusiasm is just so darn agreeable.
Sripraphai's papaya salad looks innocent enough ...
Perhaps you've heard of a restaurant on the Lower East Side turning out incredibly spicy, Sichuan-ish Chinese food to hordes of diners that huddle outside for hours at a time just waiting for a table? Mission Chinese Food might be the tongue-burning temple of the moment, but it's hardly the only place that can blast its customers' taste buds. There's plenty of heat to go around in New York. Read on to see our favorite baker's dozen of blistering plates.
Freemans Alley
The Lo-Down notices that Taavo Somer and Kent Kilroe of Freemans Alley have applied for a liquor license at 8 Rivington Street, former home of the National, and plan to operate a combination retail space and a restaurant. "We are expanding Freemans Sporting Club," Somer's rep tells Grub Street in an e-mail, "and looking at the possibility of having a small classic cocktail bar with snacks on the basement level as a service to retail customers." The team will present its plan at next week's CB3 Manhattan meeting. [TLD]
Bloomberg, with Monica Byrne (left) and others.Photo: Lauren Leonardi
An hour ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn paid a visit to Fort Defiance in Red Hook to meet with a group of small business owners, among them a representative of Fairway market, Home/Made owner Monica Byrne, and St. John Frizell, who owns the bar. The mayor asked the assembled group what they felt it would take to rebuild the neighborhood, which was damaged extensively by Sandy. Byrne, who helped spearhead the fund-raising group Restore Red Hook, said that most area businesses suffered, on average, $50,000 of damage apiece. Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn, who have separately visited the damaged Brooklyn neighborhood during the last few weeks, said they are seeking input from the community with regard to what the administration can do to expedite recovery in the neighborhood. The business owners want to promote the message that businesses are coming back and, despite the lingering effects of the storm, that Red Hook is still open for business. [Earlier]
Remember when perfume didn't smell like beef and cheese?
“Introducing Pizza Hut Perfume - a brand new fragrance from Pizza Hut Canada boasting top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough,” says the press release attached to this new fragrance, released by Pizza Hut in Canada to commemorate some kind of Facebook milestone. Thankfully, only 110 bottles were made. We could make our own dough and just smell that forever, but we'll keep our eyes peeled on eBay for one of these. We need something to replace the smell of our old Burger King Whopper cologne. [CSM, Earlier]
This is like the cute indie version of how Red Lobster and Olive Garden locations are smushing together and forming Frankenrestaurants: Tribeca Citizen reports that brick-oven old-timer Il Mattone, which shuttered after Sandy, has now reopened a dozen blocks south, joining up with Tre Sorelle. The blog says Carly Adams of Torly Kid noticed that Il Mattone has put up a sign, seen here, announcing the move. "Same chef," it says, "same food." Great, but now what about the name? [Tribeca Citizen]
Thank you for the cake.
Sad news out of the Upper West Side: The 30-year-old Soutine Bakery, a New York Magazine favorite, has closed. My Upper West reported last month that the space will next be home to Muffins Cafe. The well-loved bakery's owner, Madge Rosenberg, sold some of her recipes to Muffins, according to West Side Rag, and also to Jessica Echevarria, a former Soutine employee who has started her own bakery called One Cup Two Cupcakes. Rosenberg says she'll lend a hand there from time to time.
First Valencia peanut butter, now this: Trader Joe's says its house brand Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice meals may be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes. There haven't been any confirmed cases of food-borne illness, but Aliya's Foods, the grocery store's Alberta-based supplier, wants to keep it that way.
Your actual Christmas might look a little different.Photo: Fox Photos/Getty Images
Christmas is not a drinking holiday, per se (we have Saint Patrick's Day and the Super Bowl for that), but it is the holiday that presents the strongest reasons to drink: family time, shopping madness, end-of-year ennui, sweater parties, cookie swaps, hearing "The Little Drummer Boy" for the fourteenth goddamn time in one day. The only sensible way to navigate the Yuletide gauntlet is with drink in hand.
Sirio.
This week, New York's Adam Platt filed a twofer review of Sirio and the Strip House's new midtown location, awarding a lone star to each. Where did the rest of New York's professional restaurantgoers eat lately? Read on to see for your self.
The New Yorker (subscription required) runs a possible leftover from last week's food issue that expands the Department of Health's grading system into twelve new specialty categories: a sign bearing the letters WO stands for "Whimsical Offal," meaning that the bison ducts and the côte de golem served within are must-try house specialties, but also potentially fictional. There's MF, for the supplementary "Momofuku Fee," which enables customers at a run-of-the-mill ramenya to "pretend that it is Momofuku" by tacking on "uncomfortable seating" and "unlimited sneers from the cooking staff." The HSBC on the door means you're actually in a bank, not a restaurant. [NYer, Earlier]
Busy guy.
Thirty-three-year-old chef Marc Forgione has partnered with the EMM restaurant group and has been appointed executive chef at a forthcoming redo of the Abe & Arthur's space, today's "Off the Menu" column in the Times reports. Last month it was reported that the chef, also an Iron Chef, was readying a Southeast Asian project in the old Duane Park space in Tribeca. Abe & Arthur's as we know it will close in early 2013 and reopen as an entirely new place.
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