What’s worth watching on food-related TV this week? Next Sunday is the finale of The Next Iron Chef (9pm on the Food Network). Michael Ruhlman has a comment from Chef Chris Cosentino on his blog about the airplane episode—he was clearly getting crowded by cameras, but for him the crowding was to the degree that he couldn’t work, and he wanted to clarify that fact “now that 1/2 the country thinks i am an asshole.”......

What’s worth watching on food-related TV this week? We’re in the thick of it now on The Next Iron Chef (Sundays at 9pm on the Food Network). The Amateur Gourmet says “Finally, it gets juicy!” and puts his money on Symon or Besh. He also points out that these chefs—with national reputations—have much more to lose than your average reality food show competitor. “It’s not really a laughing matter when your business hinges on your......

Graffiti: Pastry Chef Jehangir Mehta, who has spent time at Aix, Jean Georges, Vong, and Union Pacific, takes a stab at the world of the savory. He has opened a restaurant and bakery in the East Village with a "global bistro comfort food" menu. Offering breakfast, lunch, dinner, Graffiti serves up baked goods, coffee and tea, and a dinner menu where the dishes range in size from "nibbles" to "all mine." For the kicker, the......

We were poking around on Lupa's website and noticed their stunningly beautiful photo gallery for the first time. Michael Piazza's visuals are simply gorgous, and several are downright mouthwatering. The Epi-Log compiles ten food books that they think every chef should own, including some of our favorites, like Heat, Tender at the Bone, the Omnivore's Dilemma, and The Art of Eating. Bruni ponders how best to navigate the annoying social ballet of splitting the bill......

No orange Sharpies in these goodie bags, honest. Technically we weren't at Martha Stewart's table. French wonderchef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten was. Gothamist had the distinct honor of attending the premiere broadcast of the domestic diva's new Sirius radio show, At Martha's Table last week. As Gothamist approached the McGraw-Hill Building on 49th Street, we knew Martha was already in the house, particularly because there was a Chevy Suburban with tinted windows parked outside. And what a......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA floater in the Harlem River at Manhattan's 135th St., a homicide on Church and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and a jumper was up on the Williamsburg Bridge just before noon this morning. NYC local Steven Herbst won a Hall of Fame award at the International Whistling Convention in Louisberg, NC. When we wrote about former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's life-sized nude photo he had on display in......

There's been confirmation that the Red Hook ball field vendors will be starting their season on April 28th. We're keeping our fingers crossed for warmer weather by then. [via Porkchop Express]Jean Georges Vongerichten is in the process of transforming 66 from upscale Chinese to (presumably) upscale Japanese, with an emphasis on soba noodles. Once the metamorphosis is complete, it will be known as Matsu Gen. [via NYT]Crif Dogs is opening a "secret" bar next door......

- Finally! Banh mi sandwiches in Midtown. But are they any good, and are they worth the $7.50 a pop? Midtown Lunch readers chime in with their thoughts. - The newly re-opened Blind Tiger is opening for brunch this weekend at 11:30 a.m. After Monday their new regular hours will be 11:30 a.m. until 4:00 a.m, and the kitchen will stay open until 2:00 a.m. In addition, they're having a grand re-opening bash on Monday,......

A crazy lawsuit was filed against the owners of Jean-Georges. Joseph Bassani, a former waiter at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's four-star jewel at Columbus Circle, claims that he was harassed about his sexuality and "tricked into having simulated sex with a prostitute" - at the restaurant! Bassani says he was essentially terrorized for two years. His allegations include being called a "whore" frequently and that a supervisor said his weight loss was because he was "dying of......

Sometimes all you want is a slice of pizza. Chefs know this, and try occasionally to answer our basic cravings. Case in point: tarte flambée. With its French pedigree, it’s fancy enough to stand up on high-end menus. The Modern’s bar room offers it, as do Café d’Alsace and August. But the best example yet to hit Manhattan may be at Klee Brasserie, which opened in Chelsea last month. Called “Alsatian pizza” and presented as......

- Lots of talk these days about absentee Chef’s and their far-flung empires. Here is Frank Bruni's Diners Journal round up, where he makes this observation: "I’m betting that if we had copies of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s daily planners for the last year, we’d see that he spent much more time at Perry St. and at Jean Georges than he did at Jo Jo, 66 or Vong. My assumption is based on my experiences at those......

All the foodies are in a tizzy today as the coveted James Beard Award nominees were announced last night. The actual awards ceremony and reception will be held on May 8, at an event celebrating "the culinary legacy of New Orleans." Reservations for the May 8th event can be made by calling 212-367-9490 or toll free at 1-866-362-6442. Admission is $375 ($325 for James Beard Foundation members/$120 for students - find your old ID cards......

Well, one vacant restaurant at the Time Warner Center filled, one to go! Today's Times brings the announcement that one of the more famously vacant restaurant spaces in the city has been filled. After the failure of Jean Georges Vongerichten's V Steakhouse, not to mention the no-show of the originally called for Charlie Trotter restaurant, there has been a fair amount of interest in who would come next. And now we know that the answer......

The big NY Times Dining feature is about how dining in the year 1985 shaped NYC's restaurant going experiences through today. Led by chefs and restaurateurs David Bouley, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Danny Meyer, Drew Nieporent, and Alfred Portale, diners were treated to fine fare in sketchy neighborhoods, less pretension, smaller checks, lighter California cuisine, and the reliance on fresh, Greenmarket ingredients. An overall democratization of going out for a delicious meal (freed from the restraints......

Florence Fabricant reports that restauranteur Charlie Trotter and his team of developers have cancelled their plans to open a restaurant in the Time Warner Center, a.k.a. the luxury food court. Mr. Trotter said in a telephone interview yesterday that as his restaurant's budget climbed from $6 million to $9 million to $11.5 million, the Related Companies, the center's co-developer, decided to scale back the concept and design. . . . "I didn't want to remove......

This summer has been one docu after another in the art house theaters. If you've seen enough talking heads, soft money and political intrigue to last you until the next election cycle, might we recommend a documentary on a topic near and dear to the Gothamist heart: New York restaurants. The documentary Eat This New York (2003), detailing the opening of a Brooklyn eatery by Billy Phelps and John McCormick over the course of year,......

Don't blame yourself. Gothamist was fooled too. We thought the fancy-schmancy food court at the Time Warner Center was going to be the second coming. But with Thomas Keller's Per Se going up in smoke in its first week, Frank Bruni's one-star spanking of Jean-Georges Vongerichten's V Steakhouse, and openings for Charlie Trotter and Gray Kunz still months away at best, things are looking glum on the upper floors of the Columbus Circle über-mall. New......

Gothamist Cooks (Kind of) by the Book About Gothamist Cooks (Kind of) by the Book is a weekly column written by Girlynyc, featuring a tasty, easy-to-make recipe featured in a New York-related cookbook. This week features New York Cooks: The 100 Best Recipes from New York Magazine, by Gillian Duffy (Primedia, 2003). Gillian Duffy raided fifteen years of back issues of New York Magazine for its best recipes, so you can throw out all those......

New critic Frank Bruni's premiere Dining & Wine > Restaurants: Arias From the Kitchen" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/dining/09REST.html?8hpib">Times restaurant review is of Babbo, the crown jewel in chef Mario Batali and partner Joe Bastianich's restaurant empire. Bruni gives three stars, the same rating Ruth Reichl gave it that heady summer of 98 when it first opened (if SLNY were around then, they would have noted that the line was busy busy busy, and then when someone would pick......

Gothamist headed down the Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Chinese-inspired restaurant, 66. The sleek Richard Meier-designed space was full of Wall Street types, beautiful people, and some people from L.A. The main dining area is separated from the kitchen by a beautiful aquarium (right), but there's a communal table that seems to have space at any time for walk-ins, which is what we were. The menu is split up into appetizers, dim sum, entrees, and noodles/rice -......

Ladies and gentlemen, gourmands and those with expense accounts: The [AOL] Time-Warner Center Restaurant All-Stars! The Times' restaurant critic William Grimes looks at the wealth of cooking talent the new AOL Time-Warner Center boasts (but the Time Warner Center is NOT A MALL - it's One Central Park, okay?). The breakdown: Coming from that Napa Valley oasis of cooking, the French Laundry, is Thomas Keller. Representing the Beef Council is Jean-Georges Vongerichten with steakhouse......

The eagerly anticipated 66 is reviewed by Williams Grimes. It's pretty positive, with the last lines being: They are to the traditional fortune cookie what the hundred dollar bill is to the single. The fortunes, of course, are printed on heavy stock. From beginning to end, the production values at 66 are top-of-the-line. Sometimes the food is too. The 66 cocktail......

Usually, I'm not bothered when the media gets excited about all things Asian. In fact, I think it's a good thing to expose people to the Far East. But for some reason, this description of the cocktail at Jean-Georges Vongerichten nouveau Chinese (or is that Chinois) restaurant 66 in The New York Times style article confused me: "The Shanghai Cosmo at 66, which was created in character with the restaurant's Chinese theme, is a Lucy......