Results tagged “middleeastern”

The Sun’s Paul Adams is the latest critic to get around to Hundred Acres (pictured), the meticulously-sourced, farm-to-table restaurant which used to be Provence. While the Daily News was haunted by the ghosts of the old restaurant, Adams says “the transformation is a delightful blast of fresh air. A sultry Southern accent marks the restaurant's menu… where "seasonal" isn't just a buzzword, but where you actually look forward to returning season after season to see what new ideas are blossoming.”

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.

tre dici STEAK: The second floor of Chelsea’s Italian restaurant tre dici has been transformed into an intimate, 50 seat dining room (pictured) designed in the style of a sexy New Orleans speakeasy, circa 1920. Heavy fabrics covering the windows evoke a feeling of timelessness in the candlelit room, which is lined with luxuriant claret leathers and sensual artwork under an antique silver tin ceiling. The food arrives via dumbwaiter from chef Giuseppe Fanelli’s kitchen and features entrees like Kobe Beef Ravioli with black truffle, caramelized onions and parmigianino; and, no surprise, a 16 oz. Black Angus Hanger Steak. A lobster salad with watermelon, avocado, red onion & yuzo vinaigrette walks on the lighter side, and an elegant bar pours a selection of bourbons and scotches. [Closed Sundays.] 128 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, (212) 243-2085.

MOVIE: Tonight the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series delivers two very different films. First up is The French Riviera, described as "a road documentary that follows a truck driver on a mission to earn enough money selling ice cream in the Icelandic countryside to go on a vacation on a French beach."

This week in the Times, Bruni one-stars Lebanese Ilili, saying “Ilili is probably the atmospherically grandest excursion into Middle Eastern cooking that New York has ever seen.” While much of the menu is inconsistent, he loves the kebabs and kaftas. Says the service is “occasionally confused.” And get the essmalieh for dessert.

This week in the Times, Bruni one-stars Irving Mill (pictured). Says, “It’s a self-conscious heir to Gramercy Tavern…if only it performed that way.” He does like some of the food, and the wine list. “At Irving Mill’s finest moments, with its finest dishes, it’s decidedly more than pleasant,” he says. But the cooking is inconsistent, the menu sounds more flavorful than it tastes, the desserts are only so-so, and the space too big, says Bruni.

A Columbia grad student, Arun Wiita, and the New York Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit against the NYPD last Thursday. Over the summer, Wiita was photographing a subway station entrance and its surroundings at 207th Street and 10th Avenue as part of an ambitious 10-day photography project. He was detained by police, handcuffed and held for 30 minutes; now Wiita is "seeking compensatory damages and reimbursement of legal fees." He believes that his South...

Take a Palestinian professor with a critically praised and questionable book about Middle Eastern archeology and add her desire for tenure at Barnard College, and you have a big headache for school administrators. The NY Times notes that Nadia Abu El-Haj's tenure bid is yet another instance of the "struggle over scholarship on the Middle East" at Columbia University.

The Khalil Gibran International Academy––a new bi-lingual school dedicated to teaching children Arabic and instructing students about Middle Eastern history––received a new principal after the abrupt departure of its founder Debbie Almontaser in a flap over a t-shirt. The new interim principal is Danielle Salzberg, who is an Orthodox Jewish woman that has been working with the Dept. of Education to establish the Khalil Gibran school.

An adventurous appetite for ethnically authentic and delicious victuals in our fair city's outer boroughs often yields both delights and disasters. This is a tale of a delight, three to be precise.

THEATER: Biography is a largely forgotten 1932 comedy by S. N. Behrman, who wrote witty and flattering plays for high society. In the Pearl Theatre’s current revival, Carolyn McCormick (Law & Order) plays Marion Froude, a free-spirited, liberated lady in her 40s who draws heat when she decides to write a tell-all about her eccentric life. One of the colorful characters from her past who dreads the exposure is a U.S. Senate hopeful; sparks fly when Ms. Froude refuses to self-edit. Martin Denton calls it “a delightful, giddy, smart screwball comedy of ideas.” - John Del Signore

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

With many local short-season spring vegetables out of commission (ramps, pea greens), at least for a while, one nutty underdog is currently available at many small Middle Eastern, Russian, and Ukrainian produce markets throughout lower Brooklyn and parts of Queens- green almonds. Because they are only available for 3-4 weeks each year, green almonds are usually overlooked, or are considered too hard to find. Some people dismiss the olive-sized green things as too much kitchen work; everything depends on how far along the almond inside the furry green casing is- we’ll explain, because other than the two links above, there’s not a lot of literature on the subject. If you’re waiting for fiddlehead ferns, you’re not feeling all the bulky white asparagus, or you just want to try something new, here’s what you need to know:

From beastly brisket sandwiches to Bruni-sanctioned shrines to pork, Brooklyn has established itself as a dining destination worthy of a restaurant week all its own. Now in its fourth year, Dine in Brooklyn (Monday, March 19, through Friday, March 30) offers an opportunity to sample nearly 200 of the borough’s best at $21.12 (honoring Brooklyn’s zip code, ‘112’) for three courses.

Kids and technology can be a bad idea, as some are filming their beatdowns of classmates for YouTube. The Post reported about "cyberbashing" yesterday and found some videos from the NYC area. Basically, it's just sick:

In one locally produced video, a mob of pupils from Lehman High School in The Bronx punches and kicks a freshman of Middle Eastern descent as he emerges from the Tremont East diner across the street.

Continue reading "Schoolyard Fighting on YouTube"

I'm the happiest with it out of all of our records by a big margin. Doing too many styles can be a bit of a trap where you spread yourself too thin rather than focusing on what you do the best. We've always had a song or two on our albums that have been metal songs and they sounded like they were made by a different band. A lot of that was influenced by Dave [Murray], our old drummer. They sounded great, but not very much like Estradasphere. This time around, if there's a metal song it's in a style that is more up our Ally. There's the one song that's on the Internet now, Smuggled Mutation , it's Romanian Gypsy Death Metal song all the way through. There's no vocalist or black metal keyboard sound; it's just the band doing a metal song with violins.

If you ask a random sampling of people about their experiences with okra, you are likely to hear stories of a fantastic pot of Louisiana gumbo or a dish consumed at an Indian restaurant. Less often, you might hear about a deep fried, potentially battered, version often associated with Southern foods including fried chicken and BBQ. While the prime examples of fried okra are all about individually crunchy and greaseless bites of self contained okra flavor, it is the exact opposite quality that is brought to bear for a gumbo or stews popular in India and the Middle East. That quality is alternatively described as slimy or mucilaginous, and it is this gluey substance which okra releases that binds the dish and creates the unique texture of these types of dishes.

Representative and head of the Homeland Security committee Peter King of New York wants better airport security. How much better? Well, better enough to protect against shoulder-fired missiles. In fact, let's look at the transcript of what he said on Fox News (yeah, we know, Fox News...) since he mentioned a NYC neighborhood while talking to Chris Wallace:

Well, I'm not saying we should be targeting people, Chris, but I think we should put political correctness somewhat to the side and say that a screener or even an airline should have the right to factor in a person's national origin.

Continue reading "Airline Travel: More Than Meets the Eye"

If you’ve been to Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, or Carroll Gardens and kept your eyes open while you were there, you’ve noticed that empty yellow cabs are always cruising up Clinton Street on their way back to Manhattan. What you might not have noticed is that they often make pit stops for a quick bite before crossing the bridge. Quite a few of my cabbie colleagues are Middle Easterners, and they each have their own personal favorite amongst the cluster of cheap, authentic, and delicious Middle Eastern restaurants along Atlantic Avenue. Having tried a number of their recommendations over the years, I’ve chosen my own favorite: Waterfalls Café.

Gothamist ate way too much falafel in our college years. Cheap and fast, the Middle Eastern sandwiches were probably the only decent source of nutrition we got back then. But now, sufficient time has passed (we're not going to say exactly how much) for us to have return to the old standby. Chickpea (with locations at 3rd Avenue and St. Mark’s as well as now on 14th Street between 2nd and 3rd) offers perhaps one of the best versions downtown. The restaurant makes its own pitas, fries the batter in small batches, and uses a salad mix that actually tastes fresh. A thin coating of hummus lines the pita and hot sauce and tahini come on the side. At four dollars, it may also be the most expensive in town, but nowadays we can spare the extra buck.

Tsk tsk. It seems that young Americans are more Americentric (self-absorbed) than we thought. A report in National Geographic shows that 63% of Americans aged 18-24 could could not correctly locate Iraq on a map of the Middle East. Other stunning facts revealed in the report:

Underneath the Greek restaurant Metsovo and down the candelit stairs Shalel is a dim, decadent Moroccan-inspired bar and lounge. The wine list is extensive, the beers listed by country and the cocktails, in a word, uninspired. We tried the a Moroccan lager ($7) so you don't have to- it's not our favorite, but a spicy malt flavor does compliment phyllo wrapped delicacies better well. Thinking Belgium would be a better bet for lounging about on the oversized, soft-focus hanging lamps and soft banquets we had the Chimay. It's pricey- we didn't think we'd ever pay $10 for a bottled beer on the Upper West Side and then the the bartender didn't even pour the beer into the embossed glasses.

Well, New Yorkers definitely said something after they saw something: There were two scares in Midtown Manhattan yesterday, and luckily, they were false alarms. First, a Bronx man claimed to have a bomb in his belongings at Penn Station, leading other people to alert authorities. While Raul Claudio did not have actually have a bomb, there is some speculation his anger over the Amtrak ticket representative's failure to find his reservation (he was heading upstate to a drug treatment center) could have fueled some suspicion. That and going up to the counter and saying he had a bomb. Claudio is being held on $15,000 bail; his lawyer claims only in this paranoid time would his client be jailed for saying something like that, but Gothamist doesn't really think about bombs as bragging rights. No one really wants to question whether or not a bank robber has a gun in a hold up, so if someone said he had a bomb, we'd definitely try to get the hell away and tell a police officer about the person.

The eternal Sunday riddle: Should you have breakfast or lunch fare at brunch? It's one that Gothamist can sympathize with on a regular basis. Sometimes you just can't decide.

Gothamist can't abide fruit cake. (Who the heck does?) But, there is something to be said about the virtues of dried fruit on its own, in cake-free form.

The Daily News says Mackris wants her life back; Gothamist wishes there was a time machine as well. Gawker on James Wolcott's loofah feelings. And Curbed notes that Middle Eastern eatery Chickpea is looking for people to name their non-falafel sandwich (the winner will get $1000).

Margaret Braun, Sugar Artist

While we waited for our food we were curious as to whether the culinary aspect of this restaurant would live up to the mood that had been set, and we're happy to report that while Peque�a wasn't the best Mexican food we had ever experienced, it was respectable-to-good across the board. On two visits we sampled guacamole and chips, fish and chicken tacos, black beans and rice. The flavors were clear, the food well presented and tasty, and the service was attentive.

So the next time Gothamist is in the neighborhood to see a film at BAM, we'll definitely keep this place in mind.

Peque�a, 86 South Portland Ave. (at Lafayette), Fort Greene, (718) 643-0000

If you are unfamiliar with the oft-used term "feh" it is defined by one Yiddish-to-English dictionary as: "It stinks! No good."