Courtesy of Suzanne Parker

Sorry, PR folk, we just can’t bring ourselves to publish any of the “aphrodisiac menus” that have been littering our in-box like (let’s just say it) used condoms. Especially now that a study cited in the Times has more or less debunked the whole idea. Sure, we’re a little intrigued by the new oyster truffle at Vosges, but at the end of the day it just seems more contrived than inspired. And yet somehow, when the mayor of Queens, Joe DiStefano, points us to a Qingdao restaurant in Flushing that serves fish topped with mayo and rose pedals, we perk up. Maybe because it’s been on the menu all along? Still, it’s a timely dish given that Chinese New Year and Valentine’s fall on the same day this year.

Romance and Regional Chinese at Lu Xiang Yuan [Edible Queens]

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Filed Under: what to eat, chinese new year, flushing, lu xiang yuan, queens, valentine’s day

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Hell’s Kitchen: All drinks — cocktails, sake, wine, and beer — are 50 percent off at Kyotofu from now until closing tonight at 12:30 a.m. [Grub Street]

Midtown East: Little Italy Pizza just opened a second location on 33rd Street near Seventh Avenue. [Midtown Lunch]

Williamsburg: Egg is selling playful handmade Valentine’s Day cards (pigs humping!) that come with a cookie and support a high-school garden project in Brooklyn for $10. [Grub Street]

West Village: Cabrito is running an all-night happy hour today to lure drinkers out of the snow. [Grub Street]

Kingswood closed today owing to smoke damage from a fire in the same building, but plans to reopen this weekend. [Eater NY]

Read more posts by Alexandra Vallis

Filed Under: neighborhood watch, cabrito, hell’s kitchen, kingswood, kyotofu, little italy pizza, midtown east, west village

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from Grub Street Chicago

Will this bookshelf replace the one in your kitchen?

The launch of the iPad last month sent ripples through pretty much every facet of the book publishing industry, and now it’s worked its way down to cookbooks. Considering that most portable electronic recipe sources (the Kindle, recipe-specific devices like the Demy) have pretty much failed to take off as cookbook alternatives, Chow editor Lessley Anderson wonders whether Apple’s latest toy, with its sleek interface and pretty, pretty graphics, is finally going to be the device that tears the home cooking crowd away from both recipe websites and paper-and-glue cookbooks. With the possibility of iTunes-style individual recipe downloads and recipe-specific instructional videos (though nothing flash-based, guys), this could be the cross-platform breakthrough the industry has been waiting for (if not necessarily hoping for). Would you give up your cookbooks in favor of on-screen recipe content?

The Future of Cookbook Publishing [Chow]

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Filed Under: cookbooks, ipad, technology

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It was only a matter of time before Serious Eats honcho Ed Levine (a man whose gift for grub is so all-encompassing that he actually tried the hamburger at Katz’s) netted another book deal. Given how lucrative diet books are, we expected him to parlay his “Serious Diet” into print, but thank goodness, we’ve been spared further ruminations on bananas. His next book, announced on Publishers Marketplace today, will be a celebration of all things “tasty.” As it should be. Here’s the blurb.

Founder of the popular website SeriousEats.com Ed Levine’s THE SERIOUS EATS GUIDE: How to Eat, Cook, and Live a Seriously Tasty Life, to Emily Takoudes at Clarkson Potter, by Vicky Bijur of the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency (world).

Incidentally, Takoudes, the editor who bought this, has also signed on a cookbook by Alain Coumont, which will showcase “the healthy and organic menus at the author’s Le Pain Quotidien restaurants in the U.S. and around the world.”

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Filed Under: bookshelf, ed levine, katz’s, le pain quotidien, serious eats

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from Grub Street San Francisco

The boudin blanc with red sauerkraut, mustard, and duck-fat-fried potatoes at Camino.

Each week on the Food Chain, we ask a chef to describe a dish he or she recently enjoyed. The chef who prepared the dish responds and then picks his or her own memorable meal. On and on it goes. Last time around, L.A.’s Vinny Dotolo couldn’t say enough about Alison Barakat’s fried chicken sandwich at Bakesale Betty in Oakland. What’s thrilled your palate recently, Alison?

Who: Alison Barakat, Chef/Owner of Bakesale Betty in Oakland
What: Boudin blanc with duck-fat fried potatoes
Where: Camino, Oakland
When: December

“Russell Moore’s Boudin blanc is one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Boudin blanc is from the Burgundy region of France, and it’s considered the richest, most treasured of all French sausages. In fact, the French refer to it as the king of sausages. Russell’s version is a most perfect example. He makes his with pork and chicken finely ground with cream, butter and onions and it’s perfectly spiced. It has this amazingly smooth, rich texture and the flavors are out of this world. I loved it served with duck-fat fried potatoes and applesauce. It is the ultimate comfort food: warm and satisfying.”

Russell Moore, fresh off of making a Monday batch of the stuff, responds:

“It’s a funny little thing… I worked at Chez Panisse for a million years while I was pretty young. I made sausages all the time. It kind of became the thing that I made — whenever it was on the menu it always fall on me to do the sausage. For a special event, Alice asked me to make a boudin blanc. I called my friend David Tannis in Santa Fe (he’s back at Chez Panisse now), because I knew he’d have some advice. If anyone knows David, he speaks in really vague, whimsical terms, and he said things like: ‘It should be soft and yielding with a crispy skin, but it definitely shouldn’t bounce back from the casing. It should taste like the things you put in it.’

“After that conversation I basically lied and told Alice I knew how to make it, and I spent the next twelve hours figuring it out on my own. It’s a really tough sausage to get right, to get the flavors right, and there are so many components. It was a big hit at the party, everyone talked about it, and it ended up on the regular menu in the café. But the problem is it took me fucking forever to make every single time, and it still does.

“I stopped making boudin blanc for a long time, but when I opened Camino I thought I’d do it every once in a while. It’s a much smaller place, fewer people on the line, so I can’t do it very often. We happen to be serving it right now, just for the month of February on Mondays only, with a few different kinds of sauerkraut. I think it’s better now than it was. I use Soul Food Farm chickens, which are so good. I start making it in the morning, butchering everything myself, saving the fat, grinding each meat separately, and eventually something splatters on me and I end up smelling like sausage for days. But we’ve got some funny customers who keep coming back for it.”

Read more posts by Jay Barmann

Filed Under: the food chain, alison barakat, bakesale betty, camino, russell moore

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We still haven’t heard back from Marcus Samuelsson’s rep about the question we posed yesterday — i.e., is the mysterious Red Rooster (mentioned in Bravo’s press release about the upcoming season of Top Chef Masters) the name of the restaurant he’s rumored to be opening in Harlem? But here, via the chef’s Twitter, is our answer: “Yes, opening Red Rooster in Harlem later this year.” So the next question is where in Harlem? Stay tuned. And while we’re talking Top Chef Masters, here’s the trailer for season two. Bayless loses it on Ludo!

The Masters Are Back [Bravo]

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Filed Under: openings, harlem, marcus samuelsson, red rooster, rick bayless, top chef masters

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It’s 4 p.m., and that means it’s time to play Two for Eight. We just asked ten restaurants the best time they can squeeze in a couple for dinner; you need only make your chosen reservation. (As always, we make the calls but don’t guarantee the results.) Today: Notable Italian.

A Voce Columbus (Menu)
212-823-2523
Two for eight? No
Best available: 8:45 p.m.

Babbo (Menu)
212-777-0303
Two for eight? No
Best available: 9:15 p.m.

Convivio (Menu)
212-599-5045
Two for eight? Yes

Del Posto (Menu)
212-497-8090
Two for eight? Yes

L’Artusi (Menu)
212-255-5757
Two for eight? No
Best available: 7:30 p.m.

Locanda Verde (Menu)
212-925-3797
Two for eight? No
Best available: 9:30 p.m.

Maialino (Menu)
212-777-2410
Two for eight? No
Best available: 5:30 p.m.

Scarpetta (Menu)
212-691-0555
Two for eight? No
Best available: 6:30 p.m.

SD26 (Menu)
212-265-5959
Two for eight? Yes

Sfoglia (Menu)
212-831-1402
Two for eight? No
Best available: 9:30 p.m.

Filed Under: a voce columbus, babbo, convivio, del posto, l’artusi, locanda verde, maialino, scarpetta, sd26, sfoglia, Two for Eight

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Jim Lahey recently discussed his no-knead baking method with Leonard Lopate, and you can find his recipe for coconut-chocolate bread on WNYC’s website. The basic recipe is also online, but of course that’s been floating around for a while so there’s probably “no need” to refer to it. But here’s something fun! According to his blog, Jorge Garcia from Lost just discovered it.

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Filed Under: home cooking, jim lahey, jorge garcia, leonard lopate, lost, sullivan street bakery

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Jean-Georges Vongerichten premiered his new restaurant at the Mark Hotel last night for a Chanel dinner in honor of Vanessa Paradis for Rouge Coco. The chef served 140 people a meal including pumpkin ravioli, grilled black sea bass, and Parmesan-crusted organic chicken. He spoke to Jada Yuan about the lure of hotel restaurants, the timeline for his upcoming ABC Kitchen restaurant, and why locavores are akin to time travelers.

When is the Mark restaurant opening?
Probably a couple weeks from now. The restaurant was finished yesterday. They gave me the key yesterday. We threw a party tonight. So it’s been pretty intense, serving 140 people the first night. Now we have to test the food, work out all the kinks, make sure the flavors are right, etcetera, etcetera. We have friends and family the 18th, 19th, 20th, then hopefully a party for the industry.

How is this different from your other restaurants?
Every restaurant is different. Already the ambiance is totally different. We are on the Upper East Side, so we try to do something for everybody. We have some pizzas on the menu, some pastas; we have a raw bar with Champagne and oysters. My flavors, the combinations are mine, but it’ll be different. We’re open breakfast, lunch, and dinner because of the hotel. We’ll pamper the guests upstairs, pamper the neighborhood, pamper anyone who comes in. We’ll pamper everybody!

What’s the appeal of opening in a hotel?
Hotels are the ultimate pampering. When you’re in a restaurant, you’re there for two or three hours. When you’re in a hotel, you stay overnight, a couple days. You get to take care of people up in their room, for breakfast. For me, the hotel is the ultimate pampering.

What are you most excited about on the menu?
I’m excited about all the pasta, because it’s different. We did a pasta with buckwheat. Not like a soba, but a buckwheat fettuccine. We added some clams, some shrimps, some sea urchins. It’s almost like a healthy pasta, but not. It’s almost like a vongole, with lots of seafood, but we added buckwheat.

How hands-on are you?
Every single dish. For me, you know, opening up a restaurant, I have to be here for three months and watch over every single dish, and then I give it to other people to repeat it, and then I watch the consistency.

And then you take a vacation?
No, no, no. There’s no vacation. Because there’s always a better restaurant opening next door. Usually it takes about six months to put a restaurant together. In the beginning, everyone has to see and everyone has an opinion, but after three months you can settle in and know what the food is going to be. Here it is very light. Very light.

How do you train the staff?
Tomorrow, half the staff sits down and the other half is cooking and serving for them, and then they switch. So we are trying amongst us until we have the right flavor down, you know, the right movement. Because, you know, when the restaurant actually opens, we will have 150 people, so we need to coordinate. Everybody is very receptive. They want to learn, they want to see, they want to taste — because they are the ambassadors of the food. They are the ones talking to the customers about it, doing the sale.

In the kitchen we are working on the flavors, the combinations. On our menu, altogether, we have about 60 new dishes. We’re only going use about 30, half of it. So we’re going to take the best ones and the others, use them for next time, for next season. But it’s tough to open in the wintertime. You have to use root vegetables. The palettes of flavor are kind of limited. In the spring you have asparagus, rhubarb, those things. Opening in February is kind of challenging, but I like it. I love a challenge.

What’s going on with ABC Kitchen?
We pushed it back another month. This one was late, the other one was early. I was like, “Guys, there’s only one me!” We’re definitely going to open up there soon.

How will you know when you’re ready to open ABC Kitchen?
We’re training a whole team of waiters, the chef, the whole team in the kitchen. But I want to focus on this one for the next two weeks and get it off the ground, and then we’ll look to that. Secretly, I want to push ABC until I can get asparagus on the menu, and ramps. I want it to be in springtime so we can get ramps and morels, rhubarb. You have to follow the seasons. But it’s so great, even the dishwasher is green, and the soap we are using there, the silverware — we bought everything on eBay. Everything is recycled. The plates were made in Connecticut by a lady there. Everything is done by local artists. We bought nothing new.

Now you have to make all your other restaurants that way.
We are. A little bit more local every day. It’s amazing, we found somebody making soy sauce in New York State, homemade soy sauce. A lot of people are approaching us, contacting us: “Oh, I do this. I do that.” It’s amazing. Even the liquor is local. We have whiskey and vodka from the Hudson Valley. Local veal. There’s so much going on right now. All these artisans. It’s amazing. It’s like we’re going back in time a little.

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Filed Under: openings, abc kitchen, back of the house, jean georges vongerichten, the mark

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I have always loved Indian food, from the authentic family-style dishes served in a basement-level restaurant during…

Devi

8 E 18th St, New York

(212) 691-1300

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Eastern Alley, the former Thailand Café space at 6 Clinton, is opening this snow-filled evening. Sean Scotese, Michael Bao Huynh’s former right hand, partnered with Krit Dangruenrat, whose family owns the space (as well the Thailand Café on Second Avenue). The pan-Asian Eastern Alley shares an address with the new DessertTruck Works), but Scotese is offering three desserts of his own. The restaurant is serving dinner from 6 p.m. to midnight on Tuesdays through Sundays, but the kitchen will stay open till 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The 40-seat restaurant looks raw: Tables and a back bar are fashioned from 150-year-old wood, and copper piping snakes along the brick walls. During renovations, the team uncovered four bricked-over windows and now illuminates them with light fixtures resembling old-fashioned streetlamps. “We’re trying to expose the things people normally keep hidden,” Scotese explained, adding that the partners wanted to “reinvent” the space and assert their project as something new. With some unusual ingredients and matchups, the menu, below, may prove such a departure as well.

First
Papaya and Jerky Salad-grilled pork jerky, chili vinaigrette, dried shrimp, pickled onion, cashews 8
Crispy scallion pancakes-chicken livers, shitake, watercress, red vinegar syrup 7
Pho Summer Rolls-marrow broth, black rice vermicelli, sprouted beans, brisket, hoisin 8
Taro shoot hot&sour soup-smoked tofu, pineapple, buckwheat noodles 7
Twice cooked wings-curry spices, cilantro, crispy garlic, passion fruit raita 8
Greens salad-marinated beans, herbs, crispy shallots, black vinegar dressing 6

Next
Wok seared mackerel-fermented black bean, young ginger, fennel, water chestnuts 15
Calamansi pork loin-shallot, adobo potatoes, pea shoots 14
Crispy chicken thighs-green curry lentils, cabbage, cilantro, smoked pork 14
Soy braised oxtails-crispy yucca cake, radish, scallion 15
Half duck noodles-eggplant, egg noodles, crispy egg, salted egg yolk 20
Ginger brisket-taro, miso-mustard, apple salad 16
Stir-fried lamb noodles-chili, spring onion, mustard greens, peanut 18
Pork claypot pie-anchovy coconut sauce, lime leaves, smoked peppers, tea-egg 17
Toasted jasmine rice or seared rice cake or steamed buns (4) to share 2.5

Last
Salted ice cream & black pepper marshmallows-cookies 5
Pan de sal bread pudding-dates, smoked almonds, sweet soy 5
Yuzu tart- poached green papaya, tamarind-coconut jam 5

Inside Eastern AlleyPhoto: Collin Scotese

Eastern Alley, 6 Clinton St., nr. Houston St.; 212-228-8249

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Filed Under: openings, eastern alley

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Eater brings good and bad news from last night’s Community Board 2 meeting. First the good: Michael White’s casual 94-seat Tavoliere-inspired restaurant at 218 Lafayette got the board’s blessing for booze, so long as it doesn’t stay open past 1 a.m. And the bad news (for Danny Meyer, at least): Shake Shack Nolita chose to temporarily withdraw its beer and wine license application after complaints about possible noise and trash. It’s easy to imagine why neighbors as notoriously contentious as CB2’s might be worried — the lot at Mulberry and Prince is so small (there will only be room for eight seats on the ground floor, with more seating on the roof) that there will inevitably be lines down the block (hours will be from 11 a.m. till midnight). And more than the Madison Square Park location, this one will lure the Soho and Chinatown fanny-packers who don’t know how to use a sidewalk. Meyer might just have to bribe a few local activists with line-cutting privileges to get this one over.

CB2 Considers Michael White’s Truck Stop, Villa Pacri, More [Eater NY]
Shake Shack Withdraws Application as Neighbors Cry Sacrilege [Eater NY]

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Filed Under: community boards, community board 2, michael white, nolita, shake shack

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