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......

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,......

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......

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. Last June, 11-year-old Nikita Rau was denied a place at Coney Island magnet school, Mark Twain School - IS 239.......

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. During the commercials, two pandas discuss how to stay in business while speaking with Chinese (English-as-a-second-language) accents. There is also one panda who speaks in non-accented English. After the growing criticism (even College Humor dubbed it "the first commercial to......

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......

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. One of the reasons we waited so long to pay Go!Go! Curry a visit was that it was host......

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......

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......

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......

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." The Post......

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......

- Still wondering what to get that liberal friend of yours? How about Hillary Clinton's speeches on iPod? - A terrible murderous attack - a man raped and fatally stabbed a woman and stabbed her father, while her 7 year old son watched - The free healthcare it offers retirees - and their families - will cost the city - NY1 reports a fatal hit-and-run in Queens, which is like the third or fourth we've......

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......

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......

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......

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......

If you're around the Port Authority or the movie megaplexes on West 42nd Street or at the Coldstone Creamery, waiting for a chorus of voice singing how their milkshake brings all the boys to the yard in near but not quite perfect harmony, check out the billboard that's at the corner of 42nd and 8th Avenue. SmartSign Media has donated the space to photo agency Magnum Photos, which is showing over tons of photographs from......

In an interesting but non-groundbreaking report, it seems that most taxi drivers are immigrants. The Times, knowing how cynical people are, points out that this is the first time real numbers have been found to back up what everyone who rides cabs knows. Taxi travel expert Bruce Schaller released a new study showing that nine out of ten drivers are immigrants, as well as other interesting facts like West Indian drivers are the biggest group......

From Lorraine Ali's Newsweek interview with Britney Spears this week: "When Spears talks about the South Asian musical influences on In the Zone, 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?'" Also included: Admissions that she's "bitter" over men and that her family walked around the house naked. Gawker is waiting for Britney's album to tank.......