Results tagged “southasian”

Hea: Pronounced HEE, this South Asian and Japanese restaurant is named for "an extremely popular Cantonese slang word invented by Hong Kong teenagers, which refers to a relaxed or 'chill' state of being." To keep things chill, the bi-level place emphasizes "communal relaxation" with a bar lounge on the first floor (pictured) and formal dining with a sushi bar upstairs, where diners will be greeted by a 300-year-old calligraphy table, "behind which glitter ancient Chinese characters formed by natural sand crystals." We'll take centuries-old calligraphy over chipper hostesses any day! Chef Heng Meng Kong's menu ranges from asian spice rubbed charred beef with pumpkin peanut sauce to pan roasted miso black cod with asparagus lemon dressing. (Opening Monday.) 145 East 13th Street, (212) 982-1688

Biryani is classified as any number of spiced South Asian rice dishes, heavily spiced, and layered with meat—often chicken, lamb, or beef. The biryani at Sangam, a new hole in the wall spot on Bleecker Street just east of 6th Avenue, receives what owner Ishrat Ansari calls “an authentic royal haute cuisine preparation.” The description is definitely merited when it comes to his wife Rafat’s homegrown recipe, which is served all vegetable, with chicken, and—on special nights—with lamb. Her biryani is intricately flavored with freshly ground herbs and spices, bursting with heat and the taste of spices that have long simmered and melted into one another.

Elettaria: Hendrix shredded here once upon a time, when it was a music venue called The 8th Wonder, but now the stage is an open kitchen and South Asian-spiced American dishes are the stars. Decorated by the man behind Allen & Delancey, the seductive 72-seat interior (pictured) features a rustic reclaimed barn-wood ceiling, plush banquettes, old-world paintings and exposed brick walls. Appetizers include a dish of dayboat sea scallops with celery root puree, oxtail, Meyer lemon and cilantro leaves, while entrées like roasted chicken with sweet and sour tomato ravioli and smoked sunchokes sound irresistible. Behind the 14-seat steel bar, Death & Co. alums concoct their fancy cocktails. 33 West Eighth Street, (212) 677-3833.

After a parents of a rejected student filed a class action lawsuit, the Department of Education asked a federal judge to overturn a 1974 ruling that set in place quotas to keep the school 40% minority and 60% white. The DOE wants the court to overturn the ruling immediately so the 2008-2009 will be quota-free.

An animal near and dear to the Gothamist heart has been embroiled in a Super Bowl controversy! This year's wardrobe malfunction is now the debate over an animated ad from SalesGenie.com that features pandas.

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...

Showing how divided its philosophies are, Supreme Court justices ruled, 5-4, to limit the power cities have integrating schools and placing students by race. Schools in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington had been trying to maintain diversity by, as the NY Times explains, "limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a 'tiebreaker' for admission to particular schools." However, the majority found those programs to be unconstitutional and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

We arrived at the Japan Day festivities in Central Park last Sunday afternoon only to find that the food had run out. Nevertheless, we enjoyed an excellent jazz combo, but soon it started to rain. In order to salvage the day, and keep with the Japanese theme, Gothamist headed downtown to give Go!Go! Curry a try.

In less than a year and a half, former Brooklyn Assemblyman and Democratic party boss Clarence Norman was found guilty on corruption charges. This time, a jury found Norman guilty of five counts of coercion, grand larceny by extortion, and attempted grand larceny by extortion related to, as the Daily News put it, "shaking down court candidate Karen Yellen for $10,000" back in 2002. Norman's threat was that she would lose his support if she didn't use certain campaign consultants. Norman was acquitted of five other similar charges related to extorting another candidate, Marcia Sikowitz.

We received a few emails about a truly disturbing incident that occurred right before the holidays last year at downtown restaurant Leela Lounge on West 3rd Street. Friends of Leela Lounge owner Ashwani Nagpal emailed us with a press release:

On the night of December 22/early December 23, 2006, Ashwani Nagpal, one of the owners of Leela Lounge, known to many of his patrons as a friend and a well-liked member of the community, was beaten to the point of unconsciousness in his own restaurant by a number of individuals, all in their 20s.

Continue reading "Owner Attacked at Greenwich Village Restaurant"

It's Law & Order: Concerned-Child- Who-is-a- Police-Officer Squad! An identity theft ring that targeted the elderly or people with "foreign-sounding" names was busted when a scammer called an old man, only to speak to an NYPD deputy chief - the man's daughter. Eleven people were indicted in Queens for duping people into giving up their credit card number, Social Security number, and other personal details. They would randomly call people, and one of the people they called was Deputy Chief Joellen Kunkel's father. According to the Sun, they called twice, leaving messages, "before Chief Kunkel finally called a phone number left by one of the supposed federal agents to demand that he identify himself." And the Daily News had their exchange:

"He kept saying, 'I'm a fed. I'm Homeland Security. I'm a fed,'" Deputy NYPD Chief Joellen (Cookie) Kunkel said yesterday of the phone call she received from the scammers last May. "And I said, 'I happen to be a chief in the New York City Police Department and I don't know who you are.'

Continue reading "Identity Theft Ring's Number Was Up"

Parents and critics are railing against various research projects at schools, studies which were approved by the Department of Education. While children are included in the studies with parental consent, the Post reports that there are "'modest cash payments' to parents and teachers and gift certificates for kids," leading one parent to say, "We have a laboratory of guinea pigs. The Department of Education markets our kids like they're a piece of meat."

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"

- Still wondering what to get that liberal friend of yours? How about Hillary Clinton's speeches on iPod?

There are so many holiday theatre offerings right now, many of them closing when Christmas is still a week or more away, so we are going to be ornery and focus on non-seasonal stuff, of which there is plenty, as usual. One show that just caught our eye is Under a Montana Moon, performed by the mime Bill Bowers. We get a lot of puppetry on stages here, but miming, not so much, and Bowers is a top guy in the field, so this solo piece is very much worth catching. It’s comprised of various stories set in the West, where Bowers grew up, and aims to “use the Art of Silence to investigate the Idea of Silence.” This weekend he’s also performing his other main solo piece, It Goes Without Saying, to benefit the Rattlestick Theatre, so there’s more than enough opportunities to fit seeing this unique artist into your schedule.

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.

When the British authorities released photographs of the suspected bombers from Thursday's incident, one could make out that one of the men was wearing a New York t-shirt. Oh boy. Police later found the shirt "discarded in a street in Brixton." The AP report pointed out that NY was a former terror target, but Gothamist suspects that the t-shirt was simply coincidental, as New York may be the world's second home (even if not in 2012), simply a way for people to blend in. But if another suspect were wearing a Madrid t-shirt, along with a Bali one, then we'd rethink it.

Police have shot and killed a man at a London tube station. According to reports, a South Asian man was being chased by police officers. One witness told BBC News, "One of [the police officers] was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him." The shooting occured at the Stockwell station in South London. The media speculates that the man had a connection to yesterday's would-be bombers. As underground travel is still disrupted in London, there are many theories about yesterday's bombings (copycats? the B team?) but investigations are still ongoing. This is wild news as NYC tries to get to work with more police in our subways.

Photo of llama in a New York City car from Magnum Photos

Schaller Consulting has many other interesting taxi cab resources, including the newly released 2004 Taxi Cab Fact Book (PDF).

"When Spears talks about the South Asian musical influences on , she says she�s 'been into a lot of Indian spiritual religions.' When asked if one of them is Hinduism, she says, 'What�s that? Is it like kabbalah?'"