There’s activity over at the old Jade Mountain space on East 12th, the restaurant with the iconic neon CHOW MEIN sign. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York (via Eater) reports that an on-scene workman offered up this tidbit: “It’s going to be a restaurant.” Jade Mountain closed earlier this year after much-missed owner Reginald Chan was struck by a vehicle while delivering food. Here’s a photo of the restaurant’s landmark sign taken by reader Jay Jaffe: Red,......

Could the secret ingredient to the meatballs from Nicolina DiSpirito actually have been tears?!? In videotaped testimony yesterday, Rocco DiSpirito's former manager Lon Rosen said that Jeffrey Chodorow, the owner, would make Mrs. DiSpirito cry, "She'd break down crying that Jeffrey was saying terrible things about her son." The lawsuit stems over a fight for control over Rocco's, the subject of the NBC reality show, 'The Restaurant". DiSpirito says he owns half of the restaurant......

Biting the hand that fed him, Rocco DiSpirito, humiliated last month when business partner Jeffrey Chodorow sued him because Rocco's (the 22nd realitys show AND restaurant) was not a critical or financial success, filed a civil lawsuit against Chodorow's company, China Grill Management. The Times reports that within the 38 page civil suit, the offenses to DiSpirito included changing the locks on the restaurant and not giving him a key and not paying 79 year-old......

Gothamist doesn't think news of angry investors of Rocco DiSpirito's restaurant, Rocco's on 22nd, is surprising. What's surprising is that it took them so long to figure it out. Jeffrey Chodorow and his China Grill Management group filed a law suit against DiSpirito, stating, "The Restaurant, under DiSpirito's management, has not been the financial or critical success that the CG parties expected. The quality of the food and service has been widely criticized." Additionally, Rocco's......