Results tagged “newyorkmag”

To promote his memoir I Am the New Black, Tracy Morgan has been answering questions from readers at Time magazine. One wanted to know what he thought about Barack Obama’s recent Nobel Peace Prize win. Morgan replied, "I think he deserves it. I think he’s really trying to stop nuclear war. I love Obama. You see how cool he is? You see the way he gets off of Air Force One? He kicks that leg just like Richard Roundtree. Ain’t no other countries gonna mess with us. And as far as health care is concerned, tell them to put cocoa butter on it. Those old remedies still work!"

New York’s Best of New York lifestyle catalog is out, and among the rightful winners, like Best Old School Lobby: The Chrysler Building and Best Dive Bar: Mars Bar, there are some curious ‘bests’ to ponder.

We remember Z100 fondly. It was our morning listen for much of elementary school, and for better or worse, has stuck to the same broadcasting formula for all this time. The annual Jingle Ball is a fun tradition, if for nothing else, as a convenient year end recap of all the biggest pop hits of the year we might have missed. Getting all these names together for one night only is no easy feat. They had your Fall Out Boys and Backstreet Boys, Alisha Keys and Avril Levine, Timbaland's bizarre soft-rock crossover protégées and many more. They all got a slot to perform their one hit wonders to the obsessed, shrieking masses. The biggest story coming out of the concert may have been the state of Ashley Tisdale's schnoz, but the music itself was a perfect storm of mainstream glitz that just seems fitting for this crazy season. (pic via Z100.com)

Attention Pacific Northwest: New Yorkers don't care about your cuisine. None of Jeffrey Chodorow's blogging, full page ads in the Times or other theatrics could save Wild Salmon from its imminent closure. After Eater circulated news of its potential doom, Chodorow issued a statement, published on Grub Street, "Regrettably, we will be closing Wild Salmon after the new year. We were excited about bringing the food and wine of the Pacific Northwest to New York,...

This week's New York Mag runs down some of this season's upcoming restaurant openings -- better start planning now. We've already given you the scoop on Will Goldfarb's Picnick and Peter Hoffman's Back Forty, due in September and October respectively, but we're looking forward to some of the other spots highlighted by Rob and Robin, especially noodle shop Bun, from Mai House chef Michael Huynh and his wife, Thao Nguyen, and El Quinto Pino, from the Tia Pol gang.

This week's New York Mag focuses on one of the backbones of NYC culture -- the street vendor. Despite the title of the feature, "Cartography: The Complete Road Map to New York City Street Food," a vendor map is conspicuously absent. What you will find, however, is a list of the city's top 20 vendors, according to Rob & Robin, a glimpse into the daily life of a street cart vendor, and an interview with Sean Basinki, vendor defender and founder of the Urban Justice Center's Street Vendor Project and the Vendy Awards. You'll also learn from their survey of 50 street vendors that New Yorkers are better street cart customers than tourists (although we all already knew that), and get answers to all of your burning vendor questions (where do they park all those carts at night, anyway?).

Sasha Frere Jones has a problem...and NY Mag has a problem with how he's going about solving it. The New Yorker music critic's files, photos and memories have been imprisoned by the evil LaCie 1TB, and the bail is a hefty $5K. He explains on his blog:

This Sunday, the Mayor will formally unveil more PlaNYC details (though the website has been up for a while now). He'll give the speech at the American Museum of Natural History, to which New York Mag says, "while we're excited to see the plan, we confess the museum's symbolism is making us nervous: dinosaurs … carcasses … oy."

We've already told you where to find your gefilte fish, so let's talk about some of the other Seder staples:

Jeffrey Chodorow has it out for Frank Bruni, and we mean big time. In a full page ad in yesterday's New York Times dining section (at a reported cost of over $83,000), Chodorow a essentially called Bruni a hack with no real food or reviewing experience (see Bruni's bio here), and accused Bruni of personally attacking him rather than focusing on the food at his latest restaurant, Kobe Club.

In case you've been cut off from the outside world, we wanted to let you know that Keith McNally's Morandi (named after the painter, Giorgio Morandi) is officially opening tonight in the West Village. The man behind Balthazar, Pastis, and Schiller's Liquor Bar has teamed up with Chef Jody Williams, most recently at Gusto, for an Italian extravaganza.

"Sweet Heart," composed of Necco Conversation Hearts by Nathan Sawaya.

Dad, Broadway and 44th, by Mexican Pictures.

Port Authority 9:45am, by Travis Ruse.

Unless you've been under a rock (or perhaps out of the country for the last week or so), you've probably seen all the hooplah about this fall's upcoming culinary offerings. New York Mag was first on the scene with their fall preview issue, followed closely by the New York Times (offering "sooner" and "later" openings), and Andrea Strong. Here are some of the spots we're the most excited to try:

-- Holy schlamoli, the College Humor kids are rich, bitch! It's not Girls Gone Wild money, but still!

The City's Greenmarkets turn 30 this week. They've become such an integral part of our culinary landscape, with 45 locations across all five boroughs, that it's hard to imagine that there was a time we didn't have ready access to ramps, heirloom tomatoes, and locally grown berries (and neither did our chefs). According to New York Mag, the Greenmarkets were set up as a way to preserve farmland by lowering the costs involved in wholesaling; by removing the middleman and selling directly to consumers, farmers made more money. And boy, did they make money. As one farmer notes, “Rosemary put my kids in college.” Raisfeld and Patronite go on to profile five Greenmarket purveyors, including the Violet Hill Farm, which provided the pig that Bill Buford took home from the market strapped to his Vespa as described in his book, Heat, to Stokes Farm, which has been a fixture at the Greenmarket since day one.

- What the hell got into Frank Bruni this week with his mock e-mail exchange review of Sacha? Too many "special cocktails," perhaps?

We got smart this year and took our mom out for Mother's Day brunch at Cookshop two weeks ago. Not only did we beat the crowds and have no trouble getting a reservation, but we probably saved a buck or two since there was no special Mother's Day menu (but don't tell our Mom that). For those of you who are still figuring out where to take Mom on Sunday, here's a roundup of Mother's Day roundups. We've highlighted a spot in each, but for the full list, click on the link:

- Some good news about Li Miu from Felix Solomon, we were intrigued by the quartet of chefs who came together on this one.

Thanks to the folks at New York Mag for bringing this one to our attention. Tia Pol's Chef Alex Raij is putting together a Valentine's day menu that contains loving tributes to her favorite dishes throughout the city. Some of Alex's favorites are ours too: Banh Mi So 1's amazing sandwiches, Pearl Oyster Bar's lobster rolls, 'ino's truffled egg toast, and Momofuku's pork buns. For each dish, she creates her own variation.

What is it about stars that gets people so worked up? New Yorkers went ballistic over the stars doled out by the Michelin Guide (the Spotted Pig?!?), and the addition of one extra star from the New York Times can make all the difference when you're trying to get a reservation. And now, New York Mag has jumped on the star bandwagon, with Adam Platt dishing out stars to his 101 favorite restaurants in the city. He describes the new rating system in detail:

Five stars is an ethereal, rarely used designation, the equivalent of foodie heaven. Four stars means that we consider the restaurant and its chef to be among the city’s very best. Three stars means the restaurant is excellent, though not elite. A two-star rating is very good—though not necessarily so good for the many establishments in town that aspire to be a foodie heaven. Classically, one-star restaurants tend to be simple, more neighborly, and often more satisfying than their multi-star brethren, and that will often be the case here, although one star for a restaurant with elite aspirations is really not much better than no star at all. No stars on a review doesn’t necessarily mean a restaurant is bad; it means our critics don’t recommend you go out of your way to eat there.

It's quite the red letter week for us bookish types, with the prestigious, sometimes baffling, and oft-maligned National Book Awards dinner and awards ceremony tomorrow night where trophies will be bestowed, granted, totally robbed, whatever, at the Marriott Marquis. To that end, critic A.O. Scott has an interesting article about the contradictions and complications inherent to the awards, Medal Fatigue (registration required). Garrison Keillor is the Master of Ceremonies which, frankly, is why Gothamist wishes we had tickets. If you do have a seat at the Ivory Tower's table, enjoy and report back to us lowly slobs. The odds on the fiction winner have already been calculated by New York Mag, with Gaitskill and Doctorow as the favourites to win. It's just like Belmont, really.

It's true. A new French bistro is opening in Brooklyn - Jolie Restaurant. The gall (or Gaul, as it were)! Opening up in Cobble Hill/Boerum Hill, where standbys like Bar Tabac, Quercy, Banania and Patois have already cornered the Gallic gourmand market.

Seems like all the foodies are gearing up for Thanksgiving, and we can't forget dessert among all the hype of picture-perfect turkey and stuffing served with lump-free mashed potatoes and gravy. New York Magazine brings us nine of the city's best pies, in case you don't want to make your own. Witchcraft's pumpkin, Kitchenette's double crust apple, and Blue Smoke's bourbon-pecan certainly sounded appealing (dessert and booze in one place? Now we're talkin'), but keep in mind that buying a pie will set you back about 20 bucks, give or take.