Hallo Berlin Express: A weird name and a weirder awning, but sometimes good food comes in weird packages (consider Masala Munch.) This new 30-seat joint on 9th Avenue near 50th Street is the sister of the bigger German eatery Hallo Berlin. Eating in Translation stuck his beak in when they opened this week, and walked away full of schnitzel, spaetzle, soup, and cucumber salad. There are also German fish sandwiches, and a German "single soul......

Last summer Shepard Fairey was in town installing his exhibit at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in DUMBO; new pieces also went up around the streets of Brooklyn during that time. This past week, after a report came in that Fairey was going blind as a result of his diabetes, a whole new slew of his pieces went up (check them out below); while some thought, "for a blind guy, he's sure getting up," others questioned......

As if offering a final coda (or is it?) to the suspenseful Momofuku Ko reservation saga, the Times’s Frank Bruni has officially opined on the breathlessly hyped, 12-seat restaurant from rock star chef David Chang. Bruni extols it with three stars, calling it “noteworthy beyond its addling all-computer reservation system and the intense, revelatory pleasures of its partly Asian, partly French, wholly inventive food… Ko in its early months serves a few dishes that merely......

A brand new full-length trailer for The Dark Knight hit the web today; the last one circulated in December -- just one month before one of the film's stars, Heath Ledger, was found dead. This trailer was originally screened at NYC's Comic-Con late last month, and gave viewers the first glimpse of Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face character. Watch the larger version here. In March, Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate started pushing New York to lay claim on......

Fish Market: This little bar and restaurant is a loving homage to the now closed Fulton Fish Market; photos of the market from the ‘30’s line the exposed brick walls, illuminated by nautical lamps under a vintage copper ceiling. Andrea Strong takes a glance at the new South Street restaurant, which also features an impressive view of the Brooklyn Bridge. She says Chef Eddie Montalvo’s menu is as ambitious as it is pricey; with standout......

Even though it had been open less than a week Wildwood Barbeque, the latest addition to the burgeoning New York City barbeque scene, was mobbed with merry meatheads Wednesday night. Folks were queued up at the entranceway, as they waited to taste meats from Pitmaster Big Lou Elrose. Big Lou had been deputy pitmaster of Hill Country and has cooked many a barbeque competition. He's clearly just at home smoking with the Texas post oak......

Robert Downey Jr. finally gets his big paycheck job with Iron Man, adapted from Marvel’s comic book series. Hollywood-Elsewhere’s Jeffery Wells calls it underwhelming: “I was never twitching in agony, but the advance word had suggested it might lift me out of my chair. Forget it.” He’s also troubled by “the jingoistic get-the-dumb-terrorists plot that John McCain or Dick Cheney will be totally delighted by if and when they see it. That's supposed to......

NYC’s air quality has gotten substantially worse compared to other cities, according to the American Lung Association's annual "State of the Air" survey. Since last year the city jumped from 10th worst in the nation for ozone pollution (smog) to an eighth place ranking. And in the category of short-term particle pollution (soot), NYC nabbed 13th place after ranking 17th worst in the last study. (L.A., the undisputed smog heavyweight, coasted to 1st place again.)......

The historic – but not landmarked – Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village could be the next building to make way for NYU’s ongoing expansion, which will devour six million square feet of space in New York in the next 25 years, if all goes according to plan. The theater is widely regarded as the birthplace of 'Off Broadway.' The local community board is open to NYU’s proposal (see renderings here), but some preservationists are trying......

This week the Times’s Frank Bruni hands down his verdict on Commerce (pictured), the trendy new inhabitant of 1911 West Village carriage house formerly occupied by Blue Mill Tavern, among others. Overall, he deems the new tenant fussy and cacophonous; chef Harold Moore’s “polyglot menu and intricately wrought dishes let him strut his stuff in a way that a more archetypal bill of fare might not. In doing so he creates a rankling dissonance, his......

Freshly fried plantain chips and homemade chimichurri sauce start the meal off right Shachis, the Venezuelan spot in South Williamsburg run by Pedro Boyer and his partner Alan Rodriguez. You can snack on the chips while perusing the menu, which specializes in arepas – Venezualan corn cakes – but also offers delightful Latin American entrees incorporating flavors of saffron and piquillo peppers, yuca, and sweet plantains. A handful of simple salads are a gateway......

Using a Leica M2 with a 90mm lens, Cuban photographer Alberto “Korda” Díaz snapped the iconic photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevara during a mass funeral for the victims of a mysterious series of explosions in Havana harbor that killed at least 75 people 1960. The service was held the day after the tragedy, and Korda, who was Castro’s official photographer at the time, managed two photos of Guevara as he briefly stepped onstage to......

Wildwood: Pit master “Big Lou” Elrose has come a long way from his Ozone Park lunch wagon; the 6’4 Brooklyn-born behemoth has now transferred from Hill Country to this new Park Avenue South barbecue restaurant, part of the B.R. Guest empire. The atmosphere is urban industrial and reclaimed rustic, with high ceilings and a 50-foot-long bar. Big Lou’s famous ribs, pork brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken can be paired with such sides as Cast......

In the past several years, writer and performer Mike Daisey has become widely known as one of the most compelling artists working in the solo monologue format first trailblazed by the late, great Spalding Gray. If you're not familiar with Gray's work, you'll be forgiven if the word 'monologist' makes your eyelids droop, but in the right hands the form is as riveting and rewarding as the best ensemble theater. And Daisey's hands are assuredly......

Last spring, it was announced that Galapagos was being priced out of their N 6th Street digs in Williamsburg, which the club had inhabited permanently since 1998. More recently, TONY hinted that Southpaw owner Matthew Roff planned to sign a lease to take over the space, and today it's been confimed; from a press release:In an exciting development for New York City’s performing arts and music scene, Michael Palms, Matthew Roff, of Southpaw, & Larry......

Pictured left to right: Garrett Lombard, Denis Conway and Tadhg Murphy. Photo courtesy Pavel Antonov. In The Walworth Farce, Enda Walsh’s pitch black comedy currently in from Ireland at St. Ann’s Warehouse, all the world’s a stage in a squalid council flat, and all the men and women merely amateur players. Dinny (Denis Conway), a heavyset man with an air of menace, is the author of a deliriously farcical play that he and his two......

Gowanus Yacht Club: Outdoor seating at Carroll Gardens’ kitschy beach bum beer garden was born again on Thursday night; Eater is rightfully ecstatic, and has some photos, which show the place looking pretty much the same as ever. Wouldn’t have it any other way; Gowanus Yacht Club is an ideal summer's eve refuge for enlightened discourse on the finer points of yachting, whilst sipping fine lager and feasting on hamburgers and hot dogs. (A vegan......

Forgetting Sarah Marshall opens today, remember? Of course you do, because the movie’s marketing campaign has flooded the city for months with posters like “You Suck, Sarah Marshall,” pissing off a lot of real-life Sarah Marshalls in the process. By now, you know that it stars Jason Segel (Knocked Up) as a jilted slacker who books a Hawaiian vacation to get over his ex, only to find her at the same hotel with her......

The Habitat: This charmingly designed bar and restaurant we reported on a few weeks ago opens tonight. Built almost entirely out of salvaged lumber, The Habitat has achieved a rustic back porch ambiance by building an actual porch next to a wall dressed up with exterior siding and fake windows. Chef Ashley Engmann's small plate menu has empanadas, a pecan mandarin salad, cheeseburgers, and other sandwiches. 12 New York microbrews are on tap. 988 Manhattan......

Chef Anita Lo, whose intimate and sophisticated Barrow Street restaurant Annisa has been a hit for years, has now opened a bigger venture in the West Village. It’s a 120-seat Asian barbecue restaurant called Bar Q, which specializes in dishes like baby back ribs made with Lo’s mother’s “special sauce.” In an interview last February, Lo said she’s been thinking about opening an Asian barbecue restaurant for at least six years, in part because her......

If you haven’t yet seen the phenomenal new Broadway show Passing Strange, you’re really missing out. There are plenty reasons why you don’t dare pass on this electrifying, decidedly un-Broadway triumph, but it’s Stew, the single-named writer, co-composer and onstage narrator of Passing Strange, who’s best equipped to sell you on it: “You wanna know the most terrifying combination of words in the English language to me? Rock Musical. Because the music featured in such......

The Village Voice’s Robert Sietsema stops by Soba Totta (pictured), the fourth addition to the Yakitori Totto mini-chain. He loves some charcoal shish kebabs and says “the sight of three yakitori chefs skewering morsels of chicken with military precision behind a hanging sheet of glass intended to forestall spatters is one of the great sights of midtown dining.” Eat your heart out Frank Bruni; New York Magazine’s Adam Platt is the first critic to score......

Since first appearing on film in Woody Allen’s Manhattan, Wallace Shawn has become one of Hollywood’s most distinctive character actors, familiar to audiences for his striking performances in everything from The Princess Bride to The L Word. But theatergoers also know another side of Wallace Shawn; the relentlessly daring playwright whose work challenges conventional ideas about theater, power, sex, class, and, most unsparingly, liberal complacency. Tomorrow night Shawn will be participating in an “evening of......

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......

The conversion of an 85-acre stretch of Brooklyn waterfront from post-industrial decay to pristine park is continuing apace, as bulldozers have begun demolishing the hulking warehouses that have barred access to the East River for years. But a Sierra Club lawsuit could yet stall the long-planned urban renewal project, and outcry from some community groups remains undiminished. The Sierra Club objects to the “wave-calming systems and floating walkways” that are to be installed along five......

BATCH: The wrapping around pastry chef Pichet Ong’s 12 seat dessert shop, Batch, is being torn off today and visitors are invited to “preview” his new array of sweets. Ong is trying to capitalize on the success of P*ong, the cozy savory/sweet pastry restaurant next door that’s so good Bruni called 2007 “the year of P*ong.” (Okay, so Bruni’s 2007 wrap-up had a lot of ‘year of’ declarations, but he still likes the place enough.)......

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.) And......

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......

When asked why she wants to learn Japanese, a character in Kristen Kosmas’s play Hello Failure replies, “I want to chop away at the wilderness of my mind.” One suspects the playwright's reasons for developing her own distinctive theatrical language are the same; and, fortunately, her unique voice has a similar "clearing" effect on the audience. By the show’s end, you may find yourself walking out with a slightly less restless mind, though you may......

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,......