Posts for January 14, 2013 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for January 14, 2013

1/14/13 at 5:35 PM
Leftovers
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The Dalloway Launches Brunch; Fresh Direct Delivers Il Laboratorio Del Gelato

• Moleskine (yes, the notebook company) and Food Republic writer Brian Quinn are hosting "Tasting Stories," a wine-tasting event, on February 1 at the Astor Center. From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., attendees will use Moleskine note cards and journals to record their impressions of the alcohol. Tickets are $45 per person and can be purchased here. [Grub Street]

• More news about the Dalloway's just-launched brunch: A prix fixe menu that includes one brunch item and a cocktail will be available for $16. The menu will feature savory items like fried chicken and waffles with maple-jalepeño jus, sweet brunch staples like mascarpone-stuffed French toast, and specialty brunch cocktails. [Grub Street]

• Lower East Side gelato shop Il Laboratorio del Gelato has announced a partnership with Fresh Direct. Eight flavors will be available through the grocery delivery service in twenty-ounce containers: fresh basil, grapefruit Campari sorbet, malt gelato, mascarpone, pink peppercorn, pistachio, thai chili chocolate, and toasted sesame. [Bowery Boogie]

1/14/13 at 4:55 PM
London Calling
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London’s Balthazar Has Hired a Chef

Robert Reid, who trained under Joël Robuchon and took over for Marco Pierre White at the three-Michelin-starred Oak Room in London when the chef retired in 1999, will be the chef at Keith McNally's Balthazar when it opens next month, Caterer and Hotelkeeper reports. Reid will join pastry chef Regis Beauregard, formerly of the Ritz, and maître d’ Byron Lang, who was last at the Savoy Grill. [CatererSearch, Earlier]

1/14/13 at 4:40 PM
Road Trip
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Cómodo Goes International, Now Hosting Dinner Parties Around the World

By Sierra Tishgart

Lamb sliders at Cómodo.

Before Felipe and Tamy Donnelly opened Cómodo in Soho, they got their start cooking for friends in their apartment on Worth Street. Friends soon turned into friends-of-friends, and eventually total strangers began attending. A community based on a love of food formed, and now Felipe and Tamy are going back to their supper-club roots by organizing pop-up dinner parties in new, exotic locales. Cómodo partners Mac Osborne and Carolina Santos-Neves are hosting the "clandestine yet very familiar gatherings," which will take place in "studios, beaches, fields, and living rooms" of friends old and new. You can keep up with their journeys by following #comodoroots on Instagram and Twitter. So far, there's been a bacon-filled meal in Dallas, and it looks like a good time.

Check out the schedule ahead.

1/14/13 at 3:55 PM
Egg Fu Young
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New York’s Fake Chinese Restaurants Need More Variety on the Menu

By Hugh Merwin

Moo moo gai pan? Aw Hell No!Photo: WILSON WEBB/Columbia Pictures

You might have seen Wu's Diamond Garden Seafood Restaurant in Men in Black III. The Cantonese joint may have a great website and a big menu of house specialties like "Chinese Boyfriend Steak Rodent from the exotic streets of Staten," but there aren't any reviews for Wu's on Yelp, it turns out, because it doesn't exist in real life. Lacquered woodwork, red wallpaper, 3-D plaster dragons, paper lanterns, and rows of crispy Peking duck hanging by their necks in the front window have become the common visual cues used to signify the Old-School New York Chinese Restaurant, notes Scouting NY, as seen in everything from Seinfeld to The Fisher King to Glengarry Glen Ross. It's a real headache to location scouts, because real Chinese restaurants in Manhattan look nothing like they do in the movies. [ScoutingNY]

1/14/13 at 3:20 PM
Quote Of The Day
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Woody Allen Is Scared of Food

"I never smoke and I watch what I eat, carefully avoiding any foods that give pleasure. (Basically, I adhere to the Mediterranean diet of olive oil, nuts, figs and goat cheese, and except for the occasional impulse to become a rug salesman, it works.)" —Woody Allen, who writes that he's not a hypochondriac, but an "alarmist." [NYT]

1/14/13 at 2:45 PM
Brownie Points
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The Nature Theater of Oklahoma Scores Brownie Points With Audience

Ticket-holders for the full, ten-hour marathon performance of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Life and Times: Episodes 1-4, which takes place at select times on Saturdays and Sundays during its run from January 16 to February 2 at the Public Theater, can take comfort in the fact that they will be fed some good snacks. While tickets can be purchased for the show's food-free "episodes," those who settle in for the sprawling ten-hour performance of the Soho Rep-produced show will be treated first to knishes and fully loaded hot dogs from Katz's, and then to brownies, which are baked by cast member Kristin Worrall and are garnished with vanilla sea salt. Finally, the audience will be given cups of hot chocolate from Velselka on their way out of the theater. [Public Theater]

1/14/13 at 1:50 PM
Shrooms
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Mushroom Spores Are Going to Save the Planet

By Hugh Merwin

Hot darn hen of the woods!

Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, the 26-year-old founders of Ecovative Design, are hoping to replace vast amounts of carcinogenic and nonrenewable polystyrene products in household products worldwide with a styro-foamy material of their own made with a benignly vegan origin story. At their Green Island, New York, factory, Bayer and McIntyre inoculate a super-goop of corn stalks and chopped-up vegetable parts with mushroom spores. "In a week to 10 days," Bloomberg reports, "the company can grow miles of superthin, supergrippy mushroom fiber that can be molded into nearly any shape." With a minimum of post-cultural processing, the shroom-foam can be shaped to make anything from flip-flops to file cabinets. It can also be used as home insulation, but there's no word yet if that'll leave your house smell like truffle oil. [Bloomberg]

1/14/13 at 1:20 PM
Let It Brie
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No Gouda: Westside Market Cheesemonger No Longer Allowed to Write Funny Labels

By Hugh Merwin

"The line between madness and genius is always perforated."

No whey: Cheesemonger Peter "The Doctor" Daniels, who warmed our cave-aged, blue-veined hearts with a series of funny notes and inspirational quotes he left on cheese wrappers at the Westside Market, has been asked to stop. Passive Aggressive Notes runs a shot of a recent cheese sticker from the store explaining that the witticisms, song lyrics, and maxims have been discontinued because of "one person's constant complaints."

"It's been fun."

1/14/13 at 12:50 PM on Grub Street Chicago
Video Feed
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Video Feed: Get Ready For the Carnivorous Pleasures of The Hunt

By Michael Gebert

You don't actually see Next chef Dave Beran bag a pheasant in the new video for The Hunt menu, running now, but you see plenty of other things in the latest, beautifully-put together work from resident filmmaker Christian Seel that leave you in no doubt that The Hunt is about the carnal pleasures of carnivorousness. Heads are cut off, bones are sanded down for eating marrow out of, red meat is trimmed and even pureed... all these things happen in fine dining, but this meal isn't about keeping them behind the kitchen door. Check out two minutes and forty-four seconds of red-blooded meat below, and speaking of red, according to Twitter, this is the first Next video shot on their latest toy— a Red Scarlet 4K digital video camera. So be sure to watch it in 1080p as large as you can— and apparently it even comes in a 3D version (we haven't actually tested that out, especially on these vivid images).

1/14/13 at 12:25 PM
Opening Soon
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Delmonico’s Expands to Southampton; Miami and a Third Manhattan Location Could Be Next

By Sierra Tishgart

Back in style.

"America's first restaurant" is still going strong: In November, Delmonico’s opened a midtown location on West 36th Street, and now the nineteenth-century hot spot is expanding to Southampton. Owner Dennis Turcinovic said there's also a third Manhattan outpost in the works (Delmonico's still holds down the fort at its original Beaver Street location), as well as a possible Miami restaurant. Another sign of changes to come: The new 5,000-square-foot Hamptons location, which will open in April, is going to serve up classic dishes in addition to "lighter fare for the Hamptons crowd." That better mean that Lobster Newberg, Delmonico steak, and Baked Alaska are still on the menu. Can the city give landmark designation to food? [NYP]

1/14/13 at 11:55 AM
Chain Link
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Pizza Hut and KFC Operator Looking to Open ‘Better Quality Casual Eateries’

The Riese Organization, which operates more than a dozen fast-food franchises and fast-casual concepts in the New York area — including Tim Horton's, KFC, Tequilaville, and T.G.I. Friday's — is looking to diversify its portfolio with a number of "better-quality casual eateries and more full-service restaurants," Crain's (subscription required) reports. Chairman and chief executive Dennis Riese, who is the son of the group's co-founder, says his plans for the the newly acquired property at 211 West 34th Street do not involve fast food, and actually will contain two restaurants. Riese is also opening a bunch of Fatburger stores in New York, the first of which will open in Murray Hill in the spring. But don't get the wrong idea: "We will be much less known for fast food," says Riese. "I haven't liked that identity." [Crain's, Earlier]

1/14/13 at 11:30 AM
War on Soda
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Coca-Cola Admits That It Makes Americans Fat in New Ad

By Sierra Tishgart

"Happy calories."

Bloomberg and Bittman will be pleased to hear that the world's No. 1 beverage company is joining the discussion on obesity. Coca-Cola's new ad, which will air during the most watched shows on CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC, will acknowledge that soda contributes to weight gain. But, of course, the spot will also make the point that obesity is the result of too many calories of any kind, and that over the years, Coke has been selling drinks with fewer calories. Though this is certainly a defensive move, it's impressive that the company's speaking out about the issue for the first time. "We have not done a good enough job in telling our story and being consistent in telling our story," said Coca-Cola spokeswoman Diana Garza Ciarlante. ("And we want to make Pepsi and Beyoncé feel like shit," she did not add.)

So what can you expect from the ads?

1/14/13 at 10:50 AM
Fire
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A Fire Broke Out in Whole Foods, and No One Cared

According to numerous reports, a fire broke out yesterday afternoon at around 4:45 p.m. inside Whole Foods on Houston Street, on the Lower East Side. The retailer confirms that the fire started near the rotisserie chicken ovens, no one was hurt, and the store reopened for business within a few hours. Gothamist reports that a visible amount of smoke spread throughout the aisles and the fire triggered the sprinkler system in at least one area of the store; few customers waiting to pay for groceries seemed to mind, however, and then the store was evacuated. [Gothamist]

1/14/13 at 10:15 AM
Save Hostess
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Tastykakes-Maker Is Buying Hostess Bread Brands: Will Twinkies Be Saved?

By Sierra Tishgart

It's a miracle!

If you've been living in a nuclear fallout shelter packed with Ho Hos and Ding Dongs since news broke of Hostess filing for bankruptcy, it's time to come out and see the light. Flower Foods Inc., a company in Georgia that produces Tastykakes, Nature's Own, and Cobblestone Mill, is buying six of Hostess's bread brands for $390 million. The deal isn't finalized yet because the bankruptcy court must approve it, but it looks like Wonder Bread will be back in your bodega soon (did it ever really expire, though?). Maybe consider starting a prayer group for Twinkies. [Earlier, AP]

1/14/13 at 09:35 AM
Closings
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Brooklyn’s 92-Year-Old St. Clair Diner Is Closed

By Hugh Merwin

Bye-bye, all those big spinach pies.Photo: Hugh Merwin

The Greek diner that has stood at the corner of Smith Street and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn appears to be closed permanently. Complete with burnished vinyl booths, spinach pies, warm coffee, and formidable omelettes, the St. Clair had been operational through the New Year, but closed down, Brownstoner notes, sometime last week. Paper now covers the windows, and the diner's exterior signs have been removed.

1/14/13 at 09:10 AM on Grub Street Boston
TV Land
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Wahlburgers Reality Show Begins Filming

By Kara Baskin

Mark Wahlberg, reality star.Photo: Getty Images

That reality show we told you about featuring Wahlburgers' chef Paul Wahlberg and his celebrity siblings Mark and Donnie begins taping tomorrow, according to the Boston Globe. The show is all about what it takes to run a successful restaurant — despite recent woes. Wahlburgers has been in the news lately thanks to a lawsuit alleging that ex-manager Ed St. Croix did an "abysmal" job and the arrest of CEO Rick Vanzura for midday drunk-driving. This series could be juicy!

1/14/13 at 09:00 AM
Eat Well
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Eat Well: Moroccan Mussels, Carrot Pancakes, and Cauliflower Tacos

By Kate Lowenstein

Mussels give you strength.Photo: Corbis

Health fare isn't limited to salads and vegetables; tacos can be included, too. The olive-oil-poached fish tacos at Crave Fishbar and the cauliflower ones at Salvation Taco taste as good as they'll make you feel. 606 R&D and Goat Town are also worth checking out for satisfying bites that happen to be packed with vitamins, protein, etc., etc. When it comes to healthy eating, you should never have to sacrifice taste.

Tuna sandwiches, guacamole, and more ahead.