Food: March 2008 Archives

Cocktail wizard Dave Wondrich used a Boston shaker as a time machine when he taught a room full of people how to make old-school drinks. Real old school--some of the libations that the author of Imbibe whipped up haven’t been made for more than 100 years.

New York's called the city that never sleeps, but to many it’s also the city that never leaves its apartment. For the Netflix-and-sweatpants set, there are an increasing number of ways to get all the essentials with just a phone call or a few clicks of the mouse, provided you have a desirable zip code. The best known late night delivery service is Anytime, which provides East Village and Williamsburg shut-ins with the beer and cigarettes they need to make it through that Friday night Wii bowling marathon. But Anytime may be gone in no time, and their East Village phone number has been disconnected.

IPPUDO: Though its website says the grand opening isn’t until Monday, a call placed to Ippudo, New York City’s first taste of the hit Japanese ramen chain, confirmed that they are welcoming diners for dinner during their “soft opening.” The photo here by Cocktailian depicts “a super porky broth with excellent melt in your mouth roast pork” that the photographer “will be dreaming about for days.” Andrea Strong declares the broth “perversely porky,” and explains it’s made by cooking pork bones for over 15 hours. Ippudo’s thin ramen noodles are made on the premises and cooked almost al dente, and a full bar up front serves 25 sakes, three shochu, beer and spirits. 65 Fourth Avenue, 212-388-0088.

At the Ethnic Market highlights international specialty foods and ingredients you're very unlikely to find at your local Gristedes.

On Wednesday night's episode of Top Chef, judge Ted Allen (pictured here with Padma Lakshmi) attributed the birthplace of the Waldorf Salad to somewhere in "middle America," an error that raised the eyebrows of foodies who know the salad's true inventor: Oscar Tschirky, who created it in the late 19th century while working at New York City's Waldorf Hotel (precursor to the Waldorf-Astoria).

The December installation didn't leave enough time for the boost in production needed for Passover tables across the region, which usually takes about five months. Manichewitz made the tough decision about which products to produce in their shortened time frame and Tam Tams didn't make the cut. Spokesman David Rossi explained, "We realized there are only so many hours in the day that we can make matzos, and something had to give."

The following open letter from The Ghost of Oscar Tschirky does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Gothamist. We would like a plate of Waldorf Salad now, though.

The blue awning above Tito Rad’s Grill and Restaurant, a homey spot situated next to a strip joint at the juncture of Queens Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue declares “Finest Filipino Cuisine.” Culinary boasts aside Tito Rad’s might just win the prize for Queens' westernmost Filipino eatery. Little Manila lies some 20 blocks east. In any case Tito's menu has a cool logo: a slick dude in a Panama hat sits above the phrase, “Halika, kain tayo.” Below is the English translation “Cmon’ let’s eat!”

Between the 2002 and 2004, New York City residents gained 10 million pounds, becoming Rubenesque at a rate nearly three times that of other Americans, according to a survey by city health officials. Obesity and diabetes rates in the city soared 17% between 2002 and 2004, compared to a 6% rise in obesity rates nationwide, where there was no marked increase in the rate of diabetes.

The New York Times had an article on gelatin clarification last fall, The Essence of Nearly Anything, Drop by Limpid Drop by Harold McGee. The idea is that you can create a perfectly clear broth that tastes like anything – chocolate, ranch dressing, brown butter, whatever you like. All you need is enough fridge and freezer space to set up a gelatin clarification system.

Just a few feet off of the BQE’s Hamilton Avenue exit and next to the Battery Tunnel toll plaza is an assortment of auto wreckers and chain link fences. On Columbia Street between Ralpelye and Summit Street are a couple of neighborhood institutions like the venerable Moonshine bar, whose floor is paved with discarded peanut shells. In the last few weeks, (and somewhat stealthily), a new tapas bar and grocer called Reds Produce has also opened on the same stretch.

Restaurateur David Bouley has emerged victorious (for now) after what he described as a “witch hunt” by some Tribeca Community Board members trying to stymie his liquor license application for Brush Stroke, a planned three floor Japanese restaurant on West Broadway. The dissenting board members have fiercely opposed what would be the fourth Bouley establishment on their turf because limos double-park out front and sometimes his restaurant waste leaves stains on the sidewalk.

Today Frank Bruni files a second review of Mas (pictured), the organic, locally-sourced West Village eatery he bestowed with one star four years ago. Today he bumps the cozy French-inflected restaurant up a star, noting that Mas isn’t “for diners with big, blunt appetites. It’s for those who revel in little surprises and unexpected nuances, like the smoked celery root purée that came with grilled turbot.” Meanwhile, Alex Witchel enlists cookbook author Arthur Schwartz in his failed and funny attempt to recreate his late Nana’s fried meat kreplach.

Has Bruce Willis left behind beer and barstools for wine and a more posh drinking atmosphere? The NY Post is saying yes.

Troy Landwehr, a champion cheese carver (who knew there was such a thing?), took four days to create this lovely Lady Liberty out of what started out as a 1,200 pound hunk of aged cheddar.

Now that Chef Alex Ureña is reintroducing leche frita to the menu at Pamplona, one might assume it’s a riff on café con leche, considering his Dominican heritage. Sure there’s plenty of leche, and yes it's a riff, but the dessert whose full name is citrus leche frita, is a spin on a traditional Spanish sweet that translates to fried milk.

Like a Jedi knight with an offset spatula, pastry chef Jehangir Mehta switched over to the savory side last September when he opened his first restaurant Graffiti in the East Village. Armed with a few induction burners and assorted kitchen gadgets, Graffiti’s 4-person staff prepares and serves Mehta’s eclectic food out of a pint-sized kitchen. Before Graffiti, Mehta worked with Jean Georges Vongerichten, Rocco DiSpirito, and lots of other chefs. He was most recently pastry chef at Aix.

Maggie Brown, the Myrtle Avenue comfort-food spot on the border between Clinton Hill and Ft. Greene, has become a popular attraction for nearby Pratt students and locals who pack the summer garden to sip spiked frozen lemonade. While better known for their fried chicken and ribs, we braved Maggie Brown on a busy Sunday morning, hanging in there for a 45 minute wait which climaxed with our party of five crammed into a table meant for four. Coffee is strong and refilled frequently, albeit in chipped mugs that typify the hodgepodge ambiance evoked by Maggie Brown's heavily textured vintage wallpaper, chandeliers, taxidermy, flea market art, and fireplace.

What and How Much: All you can eat pizza, unlimited drinks (beer, wine, soda) for $32 ($30 + ticketing charges, yo)Like the first Gothamist-Slice pizza party at Fornino, there will be a mozzarella making demonstration by Chef-owner Michael Ayoub following the pizza gorging.

Nominees for the 2008 James Beard Foundation Awards, which are kind of like the Academy Awards for chefs, have just been announced. This year’s ceremony will take place on June 8 at Avery Fischer Hall; New York contenders include Gavin Keysen of Café Boulud, up for Rising Star Chef. For the nationwide awards, Gothamist interviewees Dan Barber and Michael Psilakis have been nominated for Outstanding Chef and Best New Restaurant, respectively. Gramercy Tavern, owned by Danny Meyer, is up for Outstanding Restaurant. The full list is here.

The FDA is blaming melons shipped from Honduras for a salmonella outbreak that’s affected at least 50 people in 16 states, including New York. No deaths have been reported yet, but 14 people have been hospitalized and the FDA is telling consumers to check with stores to see where recently purchased melons came from, specifically any from Honduran company Agropecuaria Montelibano.

DUANE PARK: When the beloved Tribeca restaurant Duane Park Café closed last January, general manager Marisa Ferrarin decided to keep hope alive by buying the place. With her partner Frank Locker, they’ve spent the past months transforming the interior with touches like an antique crystal chandelier. Chef Shawn Knight, who learned a thing or two from Emeril Lagasse in New Orleans, is bringing in a taste of the Big Easy with dishes like barbecued quail with a black-eyed-pea salad and Louisiana crabcakes with remoulade and paddlefish caviar. Save room for pecan pie with whiskey for dessert. 157 Duane Street, (212) 732-5555.

We've seen expensive pancakes, hams and who can forget the $25,000 frozen haute chocolate? But now overpriced sodas are hitting the scene, and there aren't even gold flakes floating in them. Or refills!

At the Ethnic Market highlights international specialty foods and ingredients you're very unlikely to find at your local Gristedes.

Sunday’s 3rd Avenue In Brooklyn Is About To Be Rampant With Yuppies Times article glossed over the presence of a new restaurant on the block, Brick Oven Bar Be Que & Pizza. One gets the sense that owner Emmanuel Maropakis is involved in something downright quixotic here. Messages like “Free Coffee” are spray painted on the outside of the brick building, and at different times during the day such words appear only with considerable eye strain, just like one of those old Magic Eye illustrations. Most of the time they’re plainly visible: “Grand Opening NOW SOON says another one. The restaurant’s interior is sprawling and curved, airbrushed with cloudy purple-pink accents. Mr. Maropakis built the restaurant’s brick oven himself, and the Times says it can handle an insane “1,000 pounds of meat at a time.” A big oven is clearly visible from the dining area.

Easter, as you may know, is the holiday that often seems to celebrate the wonders of brunch, although rumor has it there's some religious thing involved as well. Whatever the holiday means to you, here are some Easter brunch (and dinner) options that sound particularly delectable.

On the outskirts of Queens’ Murray Hill, which is best known for Korean barbecue and fried chicken, is a store that caters to a much less carnivorous crowd. Meat eaters who first see the green sign for Vege Eats, might think that all that's inside is Gardenburgers. But as the sign says, it’s a “vegetarian specialty food store,” which is putting it lightly.

A scrap of news is no replacement for pulled pork, but fervid fans of the defunct Williamsburg DIY barbecue joint Pies ‘n’ Thighs will have to take what they can get. It seems the owners are indeed moving forward with their new location on the corner South 4th Street and Driggs, and there will be another Community Board meeting next month. (Last we heard, owner Sarah Buck had yet to sign the lease.)

With Starbucks stock plummeting – it lost half its value in the past 15 months – C.E.O. Howard Schultz spent yesterday reassuring thousands of anxious shareholders that everything would soon be right as rain, once some new changes “restore an authentic coffeehouse experience to the company’s stores,” as the Times puts it. It’s fun to watch corporations trying to “restore” authenticity, like when elderly bluebloods try dressing “casually” in their creased blue jeans.

Marty Markowitz: President of Mixed Messages? Every summer he tells fat people in Brooklyn to lose some weight already with his “Lighten Up Brooklyn” program, but in the spring he’s all, “You look great! Now eat at as many of these local restaurants as you can!” Last week the borough president (pictured) announced the impending arrival of Brooklyn’s version of Restaurant Week, called Dine in Brooklyn. This year it runs from March 24th to the 31st and features three course prix-fixe menus at over 200 restaurants in Kings County.

While Anytime in Williamsburg isn't actually open at any time, their doors swing freely when a hipster craves a jalepeño popper just before sunrise. So news of their possible demise is sending panic to those who crave post-imbibing tater tots and stormy night cigarette deliveries.

Shigemi Kawahara, who’s known in Japan as the Ramen King, unveiled the much anticipated Ippudo last night at a press event packed with food bloggers and dozens of members of the Japanese media. The East Village ramenya is his company's first restaurant outside japan.

These grits are spicy, boldly flavored, creamy, meaty from the pork stock, and just an all-around success. The idea of making it with kimchi broth was inspired by Aki and Alex of Ideas in Food, who cooked barley in kimchi broth for another tasty-looking dish.

Writing for the Post, Andrea Strong feasts at Broadway East (pictured), the chic new Lower East Side organic restaurant with the dainty carbon footprint: The restaurant composts, filters and carbonates its own water, uses a green linen company, and donates waste cooking oil to the Environmental Energy Recycling Corp. Oh, and the food? Strong calls it “a brilliant compromise” between carnivores and vegetarians, “showcasing veggies along with organic meat and sustainably harvested and locally procured seafood.”

At the beginning of March, the Plaza Hotel welcomed the public back after a three-year, $400 million makeover, which transformed part of the 1907 landmark building into private condominiums – where the super-rich tenants are complaining about how lonely and desolate their lives are. (Seriously.) And now reviews are trickling in for the famed Palm Court (pictured) and the new Champagne Bar, both under the auspices of chef Didier Viro.

While many folks were busy guzzling green beer, two food-obsessed Queens residents checked out a new restaurant in Jackson Heights for lunch yesterday. Since the joint is called Green Plantains, token points for St. Patrick’s day spirit should be awarded, even if there was no corned beef and cabbage to be had.

New York City's urban rustic trend keeps on trucking with the newest addition to Greenpoint’s ever-expanding nightlife scene, The Habitat. Housed in an old convenience store and built with lumber salvaged from as far away as Maine, the bar and restaurant will let Brooklynites savor back porch ambiance without having to breathe the air from the nearby sewage treatment plant. The kitchen is located behind what looks to be the exterior wall of a house, and a raised deck seems destined for late-night bluegrass jams.

When a restaurant throws down a chili-laced gauntlet with the title, “Can you take the heat?” most people expect to be crying by the end of the meal. Andy Yang, Rhong-Tiam’s executive chef, has issued just such a challenge.

Food Network fans are no stranger to Anne Burrell, whom they know as the spiky-haired blonde sous-chef to Mario Batali's Iron Chef. Now they will get to know her more intimately as the star of her own upcoming show, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, where she'll take her years of restaurant experience and culinary expertise and distill them into practical techniques for home cooks to work with in their own kitchens.

With a sprawling New Yorker profile coming on the heels of the opening of his 12-seat Momofuku Ko in the East Village, chef and restaurateur David Chang is having a very good March. But judging from the 8,000-plus word profile, the man is still totally miserable, just like most people in the restaurant industry. The article is not online, but Eater has been posting the juiciest parts.

A cross between a cafe, bakery, market, and gourmet takeout shop, Clinton Hill's Choice Market is one of those places which, once discovered, you're not quite sure how you lived without. Baskets of flaky croissants, raisin danish, and turnovers grace the window, and upon stepping inside – where a single communal table littered with the day's newspapers can can cause labyrinthine lines – you will also find luscious-looking scones (the orange chocolate is a must-have), muffins, cannisters full of cookies and brownies, delicious doggy biscuits, and loaves of crusty, artisanal bread.

To raise money and awareness about the lack of clean and accessible drinking water, which is the second largest worldwide killer of children under five, the Tap Project is happening again in New York City (and nationwide) through March 22nd, World Water Day. Select restaurants will be inviting customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free; the money goes to UNICEF.

Tie-dye is making a comeback in the fashion world (though most higher end shops are calling it "dip dye"), and it's not uncommon to hear Phish or The Grateful Dead playing at a coffee shop on Bedford Avenue...but are all of these signs that hipsters are becoming hippies? It seems the proof is in the homegrown pudding, as The NY Times reports on many young city slickers trading in their tight-jeans for some overalls (making their thrift store 4-H t-shirts no longer ironic). That's right, hipster librarians are so over, all the cool kids are taking up farming now -- and even current city-dwellers are cheering them on. One commented on the winds of change a-blowin', saying, "our rock stars are ricotta makers.”

Last week's Second Annual Corned Beef Cookoff – a benefit supporting families of the Fighting 69th soldiers in Iraq – was won for the second year in a row by the Upper East Side’s Neary’s Pub. (The Irish-American dish became popular in New York around the turn of the 19th century.) Neary’s will be dishing out the corned beef tonight, as will Murphy & Gonzalez, which tied for second place with Peter McManus Café, which will be packed today, starting at 8 a.m.

THE MERCURY DIME: Sasha Petraske, whose elegantly exclusive cocktail den Milk & Honey sparked the city’s current fancy-drink fetish, quixotically tried to get a liquor license for his new East Village venture The Mercury Dime. But the local community board shot him down like pretty much everyone else, so now he’s running it as an upscale coffee shop where sober gentleman and ladies can sip fine espresso in Petraske’s signature refined ambience, replete with fireplace and free Wi-Fi. The house specialty is an Ethiopian coffee called Chichu, which Urban Daddy claims is only available in the U.S. at the Mercury Dime. There are also teas, sandwiches and pastries. 246 East 5th Street, (212) 533-3295.

Laurence Elliott, owner of old Williamsburg's sorely missed Read Cafe (now the more upscale coffee shop El Beit) is opening up a new and bigger place in South Williamsburg, on Bedford between South 4th and South 3rd. First things first: the Read Cafe tradition of backyard garden lounging will live on behind Elliott's new home, called The Rabbit Hole.

In January, a roving monster with some real nasty lice terrorized Manhattan yuppies in Cloverfield. A few weeks later, the $11,000 Clover coffee machine began showing up in the press to devour yuppie wallets.

First there was the Spitzer Spritzer at Teddy's and now, Sandwich #9: Hot Tongue on Rye. Eisenberg's owner Josh Konecky explains to Gobble the creative process behind today's special:

So, who came up with the sandwich? Spitzer came up with it. [pause]. No, I came up with it. Did you already order?

Continue reading "Spitzer Fallout Hits Lunch: Sandwich #9"

Go make kumquat marmalade while you still can -- their season runs through mid-winter and with spring right around the corner, time's a-wasting.

Last night the committee that represents Tribeca for Community Board 1 voted against recommending full board approval for a liquor license for Brushstrokes, David Bouley’s planned Japanese restaurant and cooking school, which would be his fourth eatery in the neighborhood. In withholding approval for the license, the committee cited prior health code violations, a carbon monoxide leak, the glut of limos crowding the street outside his restaurants, and controversy surrounding Bouley’s attempt to claim $2.2 million for lost business income after 9/11 despite winning a $5.8 million contract with the Red Cross to feed Ground Zero recovery workers.

Last week, Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park Blog [via Eater] noted a new and tiny neighborhood space: Asian Grocery, the nondescript bodega located next to the Cortelyou Avenue Q train stop, will be selling momos around the clock when its in-store Tibetan restaurant opens next month.

Writing for the Times, Frank Bruni calls the wine and charcuterie restaurant Bar Boulud (pictured) “a terrine machine, a pâté-a-palooza, dedicated to the proposition that discerning New Yorkers aren’t getting nearly enough concentrated, sculptured, gelatinous animal fat” and awards it two stars. Bruni also revisits Fiamma and calls the owners out for jacking up prices by 20% just days after he rated it three stars.

Last night’s Choice Eats was the event of the season for eaters with tastes as eclectic as the Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema (who we interviewed yesterday.) The sprawling Puck Building food fest had something for everyone, with over 30 restaurants handpicked by the man who’s eaten everywhere, from Brooklyn cafes specializing in Barbados cuisine and Manhattan’s sole Sri Lankan restaurant to hipster spots slinging Malaysian fare and barbecue. As a DJ spun a selection of world music as diverse as the evening’s menu, even diehard fans of Sietsema's Counter Culture column were heard sheepishly admitting that they’d only eaten at a handful of the restaurants represented.

After a recent study detected minute quantities of pharmaceuticals in the city’s upstate water supply, the City Council has announced an emergency hearing to investigate the reports.

After widespread outrage that the city Parks Department might end more than three decades of Latin American cuisine dished out during weekend soccer games in Red Hook, it was announced yesterday that the longtime vendors have been granted a six year permit. In the end, they were the only group to apply. Last summer the Department of Health cracked down on the vendors for health violations, and it was feared that the vendors would be priced out of the park by new licensing fees.

Heads up: David Chang's latest creation, Momofuku Ko, will be open for online reservations at 10:00 a.m. today, so cancel your meetings, bookmark the URL and prepare to crash the site's server. Will the dainty new baby live up to the breathless hype that swirls around Chang's burgeoning empire? Only the quick-clicking lucky few will find out anytime soon.

Since 1993, Robert Sietsema has been eating his way through New York on behalf of the Village Voice; his specialty is shedding light on restaurants and cuisines that may have gone otherwise undetected by a broader audience. Sietsema's approach to the city's sprawling restaurant scene can perhaps best be summed up the titles of two of his books, Secret New York and Good and Cheap Ethnic Eats (now in its third edition). Tonight the Voice will be celebrating Sietsema's adventures in gastronomy with its first ever Choice Eats tasting event at The Puck Building, which will feature over 30 New York City restaurants and cuisines from around the world. Advance tickets for Choice Eats are sold out, but a limited number of $35 tickets will be sold at the door tonight, beginning at 5:30pm. Details here.

A few blocks south of the Lorimer L stop in Williamsburg there was once a beloved cafe, Hope and Union, which served divine pastries and stellar brunch in a cozy room with exposed brick walls and a tiny kitchen. A handful of name and management changes later, the space is occupied by Elote, a inexpensively priced breakfast-lunch-dinner-and-tequila drinking spot that retains all of the previous architectural elements but offers a Mexican menu. A full bar offers several dozen tequilas and the house's special cocktails, like the "dirty horchata," a variation of the milky rice-based drink often served in Latin America amped up with rum and vanilla liqueur.

Members of the Park Slope Co-op are expected to vote to eliminate the sale of bottled water this spring. The proposal comes as the environmental costs of bottled water are being widely publicized, including a city advertising campaign encouraging people to forgo bottled water and drink from the tap.

One thing that should be in your container of kitchen utensils is a set of tongs. They are extraordinarily handy and can used as an extension of your hands.

THE JAKEWALK: This romantic Carroll Gardens wine, cocktail and cheese bar is named after a Prohibition-era malady called the “Jake Walk”: a stiff-legged gait that afflicted drinkers of Jamaica Ginger, an alcohol-based “tonic” tainted with a leg-paralyzing neurotoxin. It’s the third in a growing “Smith Street empire” run by the owners of nearby haunts Smith & Vine and Stinky Bklyn. Their new venture, which opened last night, boasts (deep breath) 50 wines by the glass, 120 kinds of whisky, a rotating specialty cocktail list and a menu bulging with 40 cheeses, 20 cured meats, caviar and a “fondue of the day.” 282 Smith Street, Brooklyn, (347) 599-0294.

After Union Hall banned strollers (and the little ones who ride in them) -- a line was drawn in the sandbox, waging a full on war between the childless and the stroller pushers. But could there now be a light at the end of the tunnel? The Brooklyn Paper is reporting on a possible solution, at least at Water Street Restaurant in DUMBO.

Jodi Applegate and Ron Corning, co-hosts of Fox's Good Day New York, both claim to be serious foodies, and it was a toss-up as to which one would have the chance to share their favorite recipe with Gothamist. But New York Magazine went through Ron Corning's daily diet last month, and Jodi Applegate wanted to unveil her favorite recipe for Tuna Surprise here today.

At the Ethnic Market highlights international specialty foods and ingredients you're very unlikely to find at your local Gristedes.

Oenophiles envious of the big wine expos held in Boston and D.C. can stop whining; this weekend marks the first annual New York Wine Expo at the Javits Center. Friday night and Saturday are open to the public, where more than 600 wines from over 170 vintners will be available for tasting. Here’s the list of all the wineries and vineyards at the Expo.

Whether you call them variety meats, off cuts, or simply offal, hearts, tripe, tendons and the like aren’t the first things that spring to mind as fit for a gourmet feast.

It seems like every other weekend, Brooklyn is home to some kind of homestyle cooking competition, with a constant rotation of cupcake-offs, chili massacres, a big jerk-off, and probably some vegan tofu spread-a-thons somewhere. Prizes at these things are typically anything from homely trophies to a few cans of PBR, but the just-announced, upcoming inaugural Risotto Challenge is something special indeed: The prizes are going to be very nice. More on that below.

Wildly successful young chef and restaurateur Michael Psilakis – whose Anthos is one of only two Greek restaurants in the world with a Michelin star – refined his talent not in culinary school but in the kitchen beside his Greek mother during his childhood on Long Island. After earning a business degree, he found himself drawn back to the food world, where he worked his way up from waiter to owner of the Long Island restaurant Ecco. His subsequent enterprise with celebrated restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, called Dona, was one of Esquire's Best New Restaurants in 2006, but the place closed when the building housing it was sold to a developer.

The owners of four Manhattan Burger King franchises are locked in a nasty legal battle with their royal overlord. Luan Sadik and his sister, Elizabeth Sadik, rebelled against the mandatory 99-cent menu and the recent dollar Value Menu because the prices couldn’t cover the obscene Manhattan rent and the fast food monarch roared.

According to its website, Murray Hill's Tonic East “is the most well rounded sports bar in the area, with an attractive scene of locals.” But it seems black was not deemed beautiful by the management: they recently agreed to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to the tune of $35,000.

Today the Times’s chief food critic Frank Bruni revisits WD-50 (pictured) and elevates the Lower East Side avant-garde restaurant to three stars (a 2003 Times review by another critic had awarded it two). Chef Wylie Dufresne has made WD-50 a destination with his experimental, transgressive menu, and Bruni concedes that in the past “too many of his creations were gratuitously perverse… many visitors understandably feel that what they’ve experienced isn’t so much a meal as a prank.” But now most of the dishes are “knockouts” and Bruni extols “the tidiest Benedict the egg-loving world has ever known.”

Many people have a strong preference when forced to choose between sweet and savory -- french toast or eggs, cupcakes or french fries, chocolate or cheese? These days, however, the line is getting blurred, with more pastry chefs entering the savory fray, like Sam Mason's Tailor and Pichet Ong's P*ong, both with menus that bring sweetness into entrees and a savory edge to desserts.

It's the law of supply and demand -- if something is hard to get, everyone wants it. This especially applies to Momofuku Ko, the latest spot from chef-superstar David Chang. There's no secret handshake or phone number needed to get in (in fact, there's no phone), just an internet connection. Reservations for the 14-seat restaurant will only be made available online, first come first served...and everyone wants to get in desperately.

The holy Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, adored for its succulent burgers, righteous shakes and hellish lines, will soon expand into multiple locations. Owner Danny Meyer has signed a lease for a branch at 366 Columbus Avenue (at 77th Street), the former home of New Orleans import Jacques-Imo's. The new location will be entirely indoors, enabling delicate Upper Wide Siders to do their time on line out of the elements.

The incoming president of the Obesity Society has resigned amidst controversy surrounding his work on behalf of the restaurant industry. Last month Dr. David B. Allison (pictured), a professor of biostatistics and nutrition at the University of Alabama, drew fire from colleagues when he submitted an affidavit questioning the city’s new rules requiring chain restaurants to prominently display calorie information on their menus.

On the stretch of Dekalb Avenue in Fort Greene just east of Fort Greene Park is a stretch of reasonably priced, neighborhood restaurants including the local Middle-Eastern favorite, Black Iris. Cash only and BYOB, the friendly servers at Black Iris seat you promptly in a dim brick-walled room hung with tapestries at one of a dozen tables in a room made drafty by people constantly walking in and out.

As reported in the Times last month, the cheese is a side project of Lunetta sous chef Betsy Devine and curd cohort Rachel Mark. The duo makes the ricotta with milk supplied from Hudson Valley Fresh, a non-profit collective of upstate farmers. Salvatore Ricotta is served at Lunetta’s Manhattan and Brooklyn locations, but it can also be purchased retail at Saxelby Cheesemongers (seen here), Marlow & Sons, and Stinky Brooklyn.