Posts for January 22, 2013 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for January 22, 2013

1/22/13 at 5:50 PM
Leftovers
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NYChilifest Heats Things Up; Sen Serves Lunch

• Get your tickets to this year's annual NYChilifest. More than twenty of the city's restaurants will gather at Chelsea Market on Sunday, January 27, from 7 to 9 p.m. Tickets start at $50. Go to nychilifest.com for more info. [Grub Street]

• On Tuesday, February 12, guest chef Amanda Freitag will be hosting “Food, Cocktails and Conversation,” an intimate charity gathering to benefit Food & Finance High School. Philanthropic eaters will gather at Scott Conant's Soho loft, the SCM Culinary Suite, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $250 per person. Contact events@scottconant.com to RSVP. [Grub Street]

• The new outpost of Sen in the flatiron district will launch lunch tomorrow. Served from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., the menu features hot plates such as Shoyu Truffle Butter Kamameshi, Sen’s individually prepared rice pot. [Grub Street]

1/22/13 at 5:35 PM
Expansions
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Two Boots Pizza Is Opening in Nashville

By Hugh Merwin

Motorino isn't the only local pizza shop with big expansion news today: Nashville Scene reports that Two Boots, which began with an indie filmmaker's dream and some dough on Avenue A way back in 1987, will open in May at 1927 Broadway. In addition to the regular Two Boots menu, a "few new Nashville-centric pizza creations" are in store. It'll be the first location in the South for the Alphabet City chainlet, which has fifteen locations around the country, ten of which are in New York City. [Nashville Scene, Earlier]

1/22/13 at 4:40 PM
Quote of the Day
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Rosie Schaap Will Pour You a Drink Now

"Bars have always been crucial to me as places that aren’t home, and aren’t work. Bars are pressure valves. And most of all, bars are people." —Bartender and Drinking With Men author Rosie Schaap goes to the bottom of the well to find the hearts of the city's worn-down watering holes. [Rumpus]

1/22/13 at 4:00 PM
Closings
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Is Five Guys Getting Priced Out of Brooklyn?

By Hugh Merwin

Double trouble.

Here's Park Slope notes that the Five Guys at 164 Park Place and Flatbush Avenue has closed permanently, and a comment notes that a "pile of discarded hamburger meat and French fries" had been left out by the curb this morning. Did the D.C. metro area fast-casual chain expand too fast in Brooklyn, saturating a cluster of restaurant-filled neighborhoods with affordable burgers, or is the rent too high, as some have speculated? The Cobble Hill storefront where Five Guys closed last August is going for $85 per square foot, which seems to be par for the main drag of Court Street. [HPS, Earlier]

1/22/13 at 2:50 PM
Breaking News
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Michael’s Changes Culinary Landscape by Serving Small Plates

The power-lunch spot for the midtown media elite is adding new items to its lunch and dinner menus: Korean steak tacos, prosciutto pizza, sliders, and fried chicken wings. According to the Times, these novel, cutting-edge foods are representative of a cultural phenomenon: "If the power tables start passing around Korean tacos and duck-confit sliders, what does that say about the way America eats?" It says that if Dr. Oz and Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger are the name-checked "celebrities" in an article about your restaurant, it's time to mix it up and attract new clientele. [NYT]

1/22/13 at 2:20 PM
Games
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Crucial News: Jeanne & Gaston Has Added Pétanque

Relative newcomer Jeanne & Gaston, which opened on West 14th Street just over a year ago and serves irony-free snails in garlic butter with Pernod and herbs (not to mention other French classics), has just added pétanque, the traditional and weirdly addictive bocce-esque game traditionally taken up by older but sly French people in the afternoons. Players of all ages open to the challenge are invited to the West Village restaurant's back garden daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., where they can also enjoy a Camembert-topped burger or the Cochonnet, a cocktail made with Ricard, pineapple juice, and Malibu.

1/22/13 at 1:45 PM
Expansions
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Is the Mermaid Inn About to Expand in the East Village? [Updated]

By Hugh Merwin

One more level?

East Village Grieve floats the rumor that the Mermaid Inn on Second Avenue is likely annexing the restaurant space next door, most recently home to the five-year-old Cuban and Italian restaurant Candela Candela, which now appears to be permanently closed. The restaurant isn't confirming or denying just yet, but it did close its doors last week for a brief and mysterious-sounding, construction-related "mermaid makeover," which is totally not fishy at all. Update: A rep from the restaurant tells Grub Street that its big news isn't that it's expanding its dining room footprint, but rather the duration of its happy hour, to two full hours of $1 oysters and drinks specials, every day. The promotion begins next Monday. [EV Grieve]

1/22/13 at 1:20 PM on Grub Street Boston
Video Feed
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Here Are Five Videos of Mutant Eggs-Within-Eggs

By Kara Baskin

Speaking of things that are both creepy and chicken-related, a YouTube phenomenon was born recently when a guy named Sean Wilson cracked open a very big chicken egg only to reveal it contained another entire chicken egg, shell and all. But Wilson's hardly the first lucky fellow to stumble upon the mythical, elusive egg-within-an-egg. Check out Wilson's moment, straight ahead, then see four other bewildering videos of overstuffed ouefs.

1/22/13 at 1:05 PM
Expansions
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Motorino Is Opening in Hong Kong

Pizza man Mathieu Palombino tells Eater he will open a clone of his East Village pizza restaurant in Hong Kong in March. The project has apparently been in the works for some time, and if you're worried this is the start of a global-expansion plan, Palombino says not to fear. Once the Neapolitan oven is up to temp, he'll come right back to reopen the long-awaited Williamsburg Motorino. [Eater NY, Earlier]

1/22/13 at 12:20 PM
Save Hostess
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Can Fan Art Save Twinkies?

By Sierra Tishgart

Day of the Dead Twinkies by Nancy Peppin.

The fate of Hostess is still in limbo, but one artist is bringing attention to the nationwide outcry for more Twinkies. Nancy Peppin makes Twinkie-inspired art, using mediums such as watercolor, mixed media, and creative writing to express her love for the "ultimate American food icon." It gets stranger; her "Twinkies in history series" shows how she thinks Charles Darwin and Leonardo da Vinci would have portrayed Twinkies in journals and books. One of her pieces includes the prolific passage, "Twinkies radiate out from the spring St. Louis breeding area to the summer nesting habitats throughout the world. Populations are heaviest in the North American 7-11 meridian." So is her beloved, possibly extinct Twinkie now just a cultural artifact?

She did title a painting 'The Last Snack.'

1/22/13 at 11:50 AM
Video Feed
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Watch This Creepy Chicken Licken Fast-Food Ad From South Africa

By Hugh Merwin

Hey, don't worry, that creepy white guy in the Rayon tie and sweater vest who watches you from the street every time you enjoy some fried chicken on the privacy of your balcony — who happens to also haunt your family picnics and is the same guy who ogles you while you wait for your laundry to finish drying — isn't coming to come murder you later on, he just wants you to save him a thigh. This drab new ad for South African fast-food chain Chicken Licken's new "Soul Fire" line shows that even fast-food stalkers need a little bit of new flavor every now and then.

Creepy people get hungry, too.

1/22/13 at 11:20 AM
Interview
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Homaro Cantu on Miracle Berries, Chewing Tin Foil, and the Best Peanut-Butter Cookies Ever

By Hugh Merwin

Homaro Cantu uses his noodle.Photo: JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images

Eight years ago, the Chicago chef Homaro Cantu, who regularly serves guests edible menus and "prints" flavors like broccoli and Cheddar using rapid prototyping machines, was contacted by a friend on behalf of a chemotherapy patient who could no longer taste food. "She said everything she chewed tasted like metal and rubber," he says. Because the 36-year-old chef develops flavors and invents techniques for corporations in his spare time, Cantu approached the problem of the chemo patient's lost appetite like any other fully funded research project, synchronizing his innovative and do-gooder impulses. He ordered thousands of spices and industrial flavor compounds, and back in the restaurant kitchen, he and his team set out plates of rubber bands and aluminum in at the top, like some demented food pyramid. "My pastry chef and I got to work," says Cantu, "chewing on tin foil and rubber for weeks at a time in different combinations with other ingredients just trying to figure out how to change the taste."

"Our product will be cheaper than sugar."

1/22/13 at 10:35 AM
Rocco's Modern Life
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Carbone Puts Up Neon in the West Village

By Hugh Merwin

Picnic at Rocco's.

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York is super-bummed that the new owners of the once-venerated red-sauce joint Rocco's have refurbished the old restaurant's iconic sign and superimposed its new name — Carbone — in bright pink neon swirl. The 90-year-old restaurant closed early last year, and Mario Carbone, with Rich Torrisi and business partner Jeff Zalaznick, is expected to open soon. The blog, however, doesn't understand why, exactly, the owners of Torrisi and Parm have updated the old sign rather than just buy a new one. "A melancholy homage to the lost?" it asks, noting the wave of repurposed nostalgia at restaurants like Fedora and Minetta Tavern. "Or cool cachet?"

Parmesan secrets.

1/22/13 at 09:50 AM
Sued
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McDonald’s Lied About Selling Halal Food

By Sierra Tishgart

How do you slaughter your animals?

For food products to be billed as halal, they have to be prepared according to strict Islamic dietary laws. The criteria specifies which foods are allowed (pork, for example, is forbidden) as well as how the food must be prepared. If God's name isn't invoked before an animal is slaughtered, no dice. McDonald's has two franchises in the country that sell halal products, and both are in Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the nation's largest Arab and Muslim communities. But Ahmed Ahmed, a special McChicken sandwich detective, discovered that one of the Dearborn locations wasn't complying with Islamic dietary laws.

Lawsuit time.

1/22/13 at 09:00 AM
Not Available in Stores
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Here’s That Tim Hortons–Ryan Gosling Coffee Mug You’ve Been Waiting For

By Hugh Merwin

Good morning! Canadian chain Tim Hortons is introducing a very, very limited-edition movie tie-in: an official Ryan Gosling Gangster Squad coffee cup. The Ontario-born actor gave an interview to movie site Tribute.ca in which he professed an admiration for the movie tie-ins of his youth, specifically Burger King's Dick Tracy soda cups. “I thought I might get a cup out of this deal,” said Gosling. The interviewer suggested the coffee-and-doughnuts chain would be a good fit.

Gosling agreed.