Results tagged “bagels”

The owner of H+H Bagels was indicted on tax fraud charges today. Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said that Helmer Toro collected payroll taxes from employees but didn't pay them to the government and also evaded unemployment insurance tax.

Is Mayor Bloomberg's crusade to turn New Yorkers into healthy eaters really just a product of his own struggles with self-control, roller coaster dieting and poor body image? It turns out that the man who has banned trans fats, made us face calorie count signs on a daily basis and now has his squinty eyes aimed at sodium levels in restaurants and sugary soda drinks is the type of guy that "an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness."

Well, that was quick: the Upper West Side location of H&H Bagels reopened this afternoon, after being seized by the government for non-payment of taxes early this morning. The State Department of Taxation and Finance this afternoon told the CityRoom that the retail location of H&H and its Hell's Kitchen bakery owed more than $100,000 in back taxes. Clerks at the UWS bagel store have returned to laying out lox slices and buttering those poppyseed selling plain, unadorned bagels like there's no tomorrow, and have been specifically instructed not to talk about the temporary seizure. A woman at H&H's flagship (identifying herself as “Blanca, just Blanca”) said the seizure was “a misunderstanding that has been cleared up." The tax department differs; CityRoom explains, "so many tax warrants, or liens, had piled up by Friday that the department was still struggling to provide a full accounting to reporters." H&H hopes to have everything cleared up by today, so that no more locks will be hoisted upon on the House of Lox.

The cold masses in DC for Barack Obama's inauguration will get a little treat from NYC tomorrow. The Daily News reports that a fifth-generation East Village bagel maker has been hard at work preparing 1 million bagels to hand out to folks, free of charge. Adam Rosner of Bagel Boss and 200 of his employees began the dough-making process last Thursday "at their 14 shops in Manhattan and on Long Island." Today they begin their journey to the nation's capital, riding down on 14 trucks, and tomorrow 50 employees and Young Dems will pass out the...day old bagels (beggars can't be choosers!), which will come in a variety ranging from honey whole wheat to sesame. As for the total bill, Rosner spent tens of thousands on the delicious donation, and told the paper that while he backs Obama now, he actually voted for McCain!

Tired of squandering your mornings laboriously spreading cream cheese on your freshly defrosted bagel? Kraft Foods, Inc. is here to blast you and your breakfast into the 21st century, with their new line of frozen bagels that come pre-filled with cream cheese!

“It’s horrible. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Arye Lewkowitz, owner of Daniel’s Bagels on Third Avenue, recently told Metro. “We’re going to have to sell a bagel for over $1.” Lewkowitz isn’t alone; bagel and bread prices are soaring nationwide due to the skyrocketing cost of wheat, which more than doubled in the past year in New York, from $5.31 a bushel to $14.22.

Time to dress up and play "I have my own food television show!" If you've ever thought you had it in you, now's the time. Epicurious.com is hosting a contest for the best video on holiday food and entertaining. Submit your entry by January 2, 2008 and have a chance to win prizes including Michael Chiarello cookware and Epicurious.com editors' favorite cookbooks. And if you're quick about it, the first 25 people to submit videos...

The Comedians of Comedy are performing at Irving Plaze on October 27th at 6 and 10:30 PM. Both shows will be hosted by Patton Oswalt, who will be joined by Brian Poshein, Maria Bamford, Eugene Mirman, John Mulaney, and some yet to be announced special guests. Last year's surprises included performances by David Cross, Nick Swardson, Jon Benjamin, and Jon Glaser. With such a line up, the event is certainly a night not to be missed. Gothamist got a hold of Patton to get his opinion on some of his past roles, politics, and where he likes to eat when he's in town.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a suspicious fire in the area of Ludlow and Stanton Sts. in Manhattan, a crane vs. overpass incident at Westchester and Prospect Aves. in the Bronx, and an armed robbery on Shell Rd. in Brooklyn.
• Musician/actor Jon Bon Jovi is suing the maker of an energy drink for selling a coffee-based beverage called Mijovi. The owner of the NJ beverage company says that the name of his product is derived from that of his girlfriend, Jovita. No word yet on whether the rocker will be suing pastry chain Cinnabon.
• A 13-gigapixel interactive panorama of Harlem taken from a neighborhood rooftop.
• Brooklyn is undergoing a building boom of hotels and completed ones are running high occupancy rates.
• A man was found guilty of a 2003 murder today and faces 25 years to life in prison for forcing a man who was dating his ex-girlfriend out of a 5th story window on the Upper West Side, and the man fell to his death.
• A Jersey City woman whose home is in the flight path of Newark Liberty Airport found an inoperable rocket launcher in her front yard this morning. The FBI said the launcher was part of an AT-4 anti-tank weapon.
• The owner of a Brooklyn bagel store near Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards project thought it would be a good idea to name his new business Arena Bagels. After widespread criticism of the massive real estate project, and in turn his store's name, the store has been renamed A.R.E.A Bagels & Bialys.
• Time shares are a growing market in NYC real estate, for vacationers who want to own a portion of a city apartment and occupy it for just a few weeks a year.

There must be something about the morning shift at WABC. After just four days on the job as the permanent replacement for Steve Bartelstein, Ken Rosato, overslept and was late for the 5 a.m. edition of Eyewitness News. We think it is pretty safe to assume that he just overslept, since he probably hasn’t adjusted his body clock fully to the new hours, and that he wasn’t spending the night out clubbing like his predecessor. We wonder if he brought bagels to smooth things over.

Earlier this week Gothamist had the chance to attend the taping of Len Berman's 20th Anniversary of Spanning the World special at NBC’s 30 Rock studios.. The show was filled with some of the best clips of the past twenty years and a visit by the always fun Al Roker. During the breaks in the taping Len answered questions from the audience, including several interesting hockey related questions from a young Rangers fan which he handled with aplomb. Hopefully everything else will make the final cut when the special airs on Saturday at 7:00 p. m. on WNBC. And nobody got hurt.

The Grasshopper Bar at Baked is the more portable version of the eponymous cake that the Red Hook bakery also sells, a 3x3 inch paean to the ultimate Betty Crocker housewife kitchen caveat, an old-fashioned, unholy marriage of Cool Whip, Crème De Menthe, and a little brownie mix.

Remember doodling in your notebook while your teacher droned on and on and on and on like Ben Stein? Well, pull that Bic from behind your ear and start scribbling. The drawings from These Bagels Are Gnarly: Ballpoint Pen Group Drawing Show are on sale for up to $1200 at Cinders Gallery (103 Havemeyer; Brooklyn). Unlike in a high-school cafeteria, everyone finds acceptance at Cinders. Simple rows of crosshatches like the kind kept to pass time in prison are on the same wall as meticulously detailed portraits of animals; amateurish cartoons face social commentary.

Residentially speaking, Gothamist is blessed with rather ample proportions. We’ve graduated from the grimy hovels of our youth to a humbly appointed dwelling which, owing to the block’s somewhat tawdry reputation, takes only a modest toll on our wallets while allowing enough space for the occasional fete.

“Welcome to Brooklyn,” I said, even though we’d been in the borough for 4 hours already. A half dozen Hasidic children darted by. I saw perplexed expressions wash over my customers’ faces. We all stood there as if shell shocked, holding what remained of our Grimaldi’s slice and staring off at the desolate Floyd Bennett airfield. Countless Hasidic families roamed the grounds oblivious to the shameful pizza we’d just eaten.

-- The Village Voice Best of NYC 2006 is out, and chock full of fun! It even includes an interview with our own Famous Fat Dave.

One of the many things I love about this town is that there are a thousand places where you might find yourself saying, “It doesn’t even feel like I’m in New York City anymore.” I started driving a yellow cab, in large part, to try to find as many of those places as I could.

Ha! When it was revealed that frozen dessert chain CremaLita did not have low-fat or fat-free ice cream, we should have known there would be a lawsuit. The Post reports that Stephen Brandt sued Crema Lita, blaming his "severe health problems, including but not limited to cardiovascular problems, mobility problems and cancer [as well as the] negative self-esteem issues [that the] social stigma [of] excess weight gain carries [in today's culture]" on the misadvertised treat. But a judge just threw out the case because Brandt's diet wasn't that great to begin with. CremaLita's lawyer wrote:

What Brandt fails to mention is that he regularly eats real ice cream, McDonald's and Wendy's cheeseburgers, french fries, pepperoni pizza, beer, corn chips, donuts, cookies, hard cheese, eggs, bagels, peanut butter, Chinese take-out meals and pasta, [and] that he never exercises.

Josh Karpf at foody.org tackled taste testing a staple of the Sunday morning: The everything bagel. He took bagels from Terrace Bagels and Bagel Hole in Brooklyn and judged them by their appearance, taste - even the bags they come in. Now, Josh does not seem to name one the winner over the other, as it may depend on how you like your bagels (soft or chewy? sweet or malty?). You can see the photographic evidence and analysis here.

Just when we were starting to forget about Peter 'the fake firefighter rapist' Braunstein, the New York Post brings him back. Er, well, talks to his 62-year-old former Bellevue roommate, a guy named William Allman.

AOL has released their Cityguide for New York with a list of "The 2006 City's Best," some of which are a surprise and others which were not so surprising. Stone Park Cafe in Park Slope took Cityguide's top restaurant honor, beating out big names like Daniel, Le Bernardin, Per Se, and Masa. The Chef and co-owner of Stone Park told the Daily News, "We're very thrilled - winning these types of contests really attests to the loyal support of our customers."

- And we wish good luck to Charles Maikish - he's in charge of Ground Zero rebuilding construction

"If you can't beat 'em, psych 'em out" seems to be the tactic of the Brooklyn bagel shop that incited the ire of the MTA when it used MTA symbols. The shop, the former "F Line Bagels," was hit with a cease and desist from the MTA last March and eight month laters, fined and forced to remove the various subway signage the owners bought from the MTA. Deciding that a new sign would only be good if it could capture some of that F line goodness, the owners are installing a backwards-F sign, with one owner saying, "People can pronounce it any way they want. It'll be kind of like Toys 'R' Us." Ooh, that's a good idea - maybe they should sell toys, too, with a giraffe hawking them.

The bigger, new-fangled bagels: "an oversized mass of sweetened dough, with a pale exterior soft as a feather pillow."Some NYC customers expect huge bagels, even though they really weren't meant to be that way. Apparently bagels got bigger to feed "whitebread" tastes, and some bagel makers use a scary sounding "dough conditioner" that gives bagels their "product softness ('Reddi-Sponge' some old-timers call it) and extend shelf life." Good God! Gothamist always assumed big bagels represented the bounty of the city, and during our carb-conscious consciousness, we've opted for bialys - or scooped out the white flesh from the big bagels. But now we know!

Tired of that cramped studio? Dying to have a view other than a brick wall to look at? Has public urination gotten you down?

We spotted this sign on Bedford in Williamsburg yesterday. If Subway gets burned down by rampaging hipsters, we recommend the bagels at The Bagel Store (Bedford and N3rd) or BagelSmith (N7th). [Related: An easier to read web-version is available at MotherlessBrooklyn.org.]

Even when Gothamist is half way around the world, we cannot get away from timely NYC topics. Yesterday, we wrote about the MTA's demand that F Line Bagels remove any MTA-related signage and decor from the premises, plus pay a fine, and a few hours later, we wandered into a "New York style deli" in a trendy Hong Kong neighborhood... that had a huge subway map and Metrocard behind the counter! Of course, the subway map is on its side, which makes it pretty difficult to really read, but we're sure that if the MTA's lawyers could find a way to convince an Asian country that copyright infringement was wrong, they would.

Following up eight months after MTA told Carroll Gardens bagel shop, F Line Bagels (decorated with various official MTA merchandise), to cease-and-desist using the anything-MTA-related in their store, a judge ruled that the store must indeed cease using MTA logos and materials. The judge said the Assad brothers just need to cover up the MTA logos, but the MTA wants the signs totally removed PLUS $5,000 in licensing fees. Clearly, no settlement was ever brokered, but did the Assads' lawyer try hard enough? Like offering free bagels for MTA employees? Faried Assad tells NY1, "t's not like we're stamping the bagels with an F, or an A, or whatever it is. We're not making money from whatever they're providing," and says that the store can't afford to pay the fees - they already spent $1,000 to subway-ify the store! Unfortunately, they will face contempt charges if they can't pay the $5,000.

Next Wednesday at sundown the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur begins - a 24 hour period of fasting and atonement. After a full day without food or drink, many Jews ritually break their annual fast with the "other" Jewish cuisine - Chinese. But, even more members of "the Tribe" default to the classic urban Judaic breakfast for break-the-fast - a smoked fish-palooza featuring a bevy of assorted bagels and cream cheese spreads.