East Village: A Papa John’s is opening at 120 First Avenue. [EV Grieve]

Midtown: From 5 to 8 p.m. today, Cold Stone Creamery stores located at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue, and 50th Street and 9th Avenue will hand out free three-ounce portions of Kate’s Creation, an apple-pie-flavored ice cream, to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation. [Midtown Lunch]

Park Slope: The Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District’s Oktoberfest on Fifth kicks off tonight with more than 30 participating bars and restaurants along the Avenue between Dean and 18th Streets. [All About 5th]

Taro Sushi’s new location on St. Marks and Flatbush is open. [Fork in the Road/VV]

Prospect Heights: A stabbing outside Branded Saloon involving two employees of the bar has left one dead and one hospitalized. The bar is currently closed. [Brownstoner]

Union Square: Raines Law Room introduces weekly drink specials starting Sunday, featuring a rotating cast of $10 cocktails. This week’s theme is cocktails created by women, such as the Hanky Panky by Ada Coleman of London’s Savoy Hotel, a variation on the martini made with gin, sweet vermouth, and Fernet-Branca. Fork in the Road/VV]

Filed Under: neighborhood watch, cold stone creamery, forty four, papa john’s, pop tarts world cafe, raines law room, tabla

• 0 Comments

Union Square Hospitality group has announced that on December 30, it will shutter Tabla, the Indian-fusion restaurant that has lately been the invisible stepchild of Danny Meyer’s empire. A release explains that “in its 12-year run, its sheer size with 283 seats often made it a financially challenging business — especially for a restaurant whose cuisine is so specifically focused. Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) has stated that it is open to finding another space whose scale is more suited to Tabla. Additionally, the organization is weighing whether to conceive another business for the existing Madison Square Park location or to assign the lease and space to another restaurant.” Executive Chef Floyd Cardoz, who also helped launch the El Verano at Citi Field, will “continue to work with USHG to develop a new restaurant beyond the realm of Indian spices.” Tamarind Tribeca now finds itself in less company (until Hemant Muther’s place opens, anyway).

Read more posts by Daniel Maurer

Filed Under: closings, danny meyer, floyd cardoz, tabla

• 0 Comments

File this under developing, but a look at the latest Community Board 2 agenda indicates that Emil Varda (or Warda, as it’s spelled on the docket), the maître d’ and partner of the Waverly Inn, will plead his case during the October 13 board meeting for a liquor license at 285 West 12th Street. If that address sounds familiar, it’s because it belongs to the late, great Beatrice Inn. Cobi Levy claimed the space earlier this year, but aside from its sign disappearing, there hasn’t been much progress at the address, and Levy now tells us, “I decided to focus on the opening of Niko before pursuing another project.” So will Varda be joined by Graydon Carter here, or is this a solo gig? We’re asking around and will let you know what our inn-vestigative reporting turns up. Elsewhere in Beatrice news, the Tribeca Citizen reports that onetime Bea owner Matt Abramcyk’s plan to renovate the former Delphi space have crossed the hurdle of being approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Read more posts by Daniel Maurer

Filed Under: openings, cobi levi, emil varda, matt abramcyk, the beatrice inn, the waverly inn

• 0 Comments

We could see the noodle-maker at work stretching pliable dough into thin noodles, moving his hands in and out as…

Lan Zhou Hand-Pulled Noodle

41-28 Main St, Golden Mall Food Court, Basement, Flushing

(212) 566-6933

• 0 Comments

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: 9:30 p.m.

Convivio (Menu)
212-599-5045
Two for eight? No
Best available: 9 p.m.

Del Posto (Menu)
212-497-8090
Two for eight? No
Best available: Fully booked

L’Artusi (Menu)
212-255-5757
Two for eight? No
Best available: 8:30 p.m.

Locanda Verde (Menu)
212-925-3797
Two for eight? No
Best available: 10 p.m.

Maialino (Menu)
212-777-2410
Two for eight? No
Best available: 10:30 p.m.

Scarpetta (Menu)
212-691-0555
Two for eight? No
Best available: 8:30 p.m.

SD26 (Menu)
212-265-5959
Two for eight? No
Best available: 7:30 p.m.

Sfoglia (Menu)
212-831-1402
Two for eight? No
Best available: 8:15 p.m.

Filed Under: two for eight,

• 0 Comments

So, Padma was spotted on the street (wearing a sari and bindi) with her 7-month-old, Krishna Thea. Consider these photos of the cutesy-wootsey lil’ one our penance for showing you that breaded mouse. [Daily Mail UK]

Read more posts by Daniel Maurer

Filed Under: personalities, padma lakshmi

• 0 Comments

As previously mentioned, Dinosaur Bar-Que opens it’s new location in Harlem tonight. While the Today show’s website talks to John Stage about smoking ribs, and Stage answers some questions for Syracuse.com (he says his new lease with Columbia is for twenty years), Gothamist has video of the guys at Fatty ‘Cue slow cooking an entire pig over the course of 18 hours. Avert your eyes, health department– there’s a lot of bare hand contact here.

Making Perfect Ribs With Dinosaur Bar-B-Que [Serious Eats]
Video: How Your Pork Gets Smoked at Fatty Cue [Gothamist]

Read more posts by Daniel Maurer

Filed Under: what to eat, barbecue, dinosaur bar-b-cue, fatty cue, john stage

• 0 Comments

“I love to eat food that I don’t know anything about,” Thomas Keller told the crowd gathered at the James Beard House yesterday to hear him talk about his cookbook Ad Hoc at Home. He was answering the old chestnut of where he likes to eat while he’s in New York, but beyond a specific shout-out to Marea’s fusili with red-wine poached octopus and bone marrow, Keller explained that it’s not about where he eats, it’s about what: “I love going to restaurants like Jean-Georges or Daniel, of course, places I love and cook the kind of food we cook,” he explained. “But for me, eating there is a little bit like work. In my mind — and of course I’m never saying this out loud — I’m going, Oh, I would have done it this way, or God, I wish I knew how they did that. But if I go to a Japanese restaurant, or a Korean restaurant, or an Indian restaurant, for me it’s about enjoying the experience of being there without thinking about how they did it.”

How things are done has been a theme for Keller, particularly since Ad Hoc at Home was published last year. The book has been heralded as his most “accessible” cookbook, a designation with which Keller has some beef. “I’m not really sure what accessibility is,” he said. “We have a roast chicken in the Bouchon cookbook, and we have a roast chicken in here, but in Bouchon it’s called “poulet rôti” and here it’s called “roasted chicken.” It’s like, you know, which is more intimidating?”

But that’s not to say he and his team didn’t go a little out of their way to make sure his most recent book had points of entry for the reader who might be put off by the tweezers-and-a-magnifying-glass ethos of his earlier volumes. “We went to town on this one,” Keller said of Ad Hoc, noting in particular the cookbook’s very last page. “It’s me in a Superman cape saying ‘Until next time, boys and girls!’” says the famously buttoned-up chef. “I’m not sure why I let that happen, but, you know, when you have two domineering women like [co-author Susie Heller and photographer Deborah Jones] telling you ‘Hey, Thomas, that’s really cute, you should do it,’ you say okay. I realized a long time ago that women are much smarter than men.”

Read more posts by Helen Rosner

Filed Under: party chat, ad hoc, ad hoc at home, per se, the french laundry, thomas keller

• 0 Comments

Looks like erstwhile Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl has landed a new gig. The New York Times reports that not only has Reichl abandoned her old publisher, Penguin, to write in the greener grasses at Random House (she’s working on a memoir of her time at Gourmet, among other things), she’ll also be on the publishing company’s payroll as an editor-at-large, acquiring and editing titles. We do hope that her new editorial role leaves her plenty of time for languorous days of cooking and eating easily tweetable, deliciously poetic food. [Media Decoder/NYT]

Read more posts by Helen Rosner

Filed Under: personalities, gourmet, random house, ruth reichl

• 0 Comments

We saved the best for last. It was the final day of our ladies’ adventure in NYC. We packed up and set out for a…

Mesa Grill

102 5th Ave, New York

(212) 807-7400

• 0 Comments

Anita Lo and Mario Batali celebrate at Eataly.

The mood at Eataly last night was doubly celebratory, as revelers toasted Epicurious, whose fifteenth anniversary was the reason for the party, as well as Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, whose now-famous four-star review for Del Posto is still the hot topic. We asked Batali if he ever caught Sam Sifton while he was in the house in the course of reviewing. “No, of course not,” he said with a wink and a nod. “I was in the kitchen the whole time; I really don’t know who’s there.” Bastianich was less subtle, admitting that he spied the not-really-that-anonymous critic, but he never approached him. “I try to respect his anonymity,” he explained. As for the review, he’s over the moon: “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. For someone like me, it’s the culmination of a lifetime of work and a multi-generational evolution. My parents come here as immigrants 50 years ago from Italy; to be the first four-star Italian restaurant, it’s amazing.”

Now that the matter of Del Posto’s stars has been settled, the other burning question on chefs’ minds is one of Michelin stars. The annual guide’s 2011 edition comes out Wednesday, and speculation is running wild — particularly about the restaurant of the hour. “Del Posto was two stars, and then last year they took a star away,” explained Drew Nieporent. “I hope, for them, they get their star back.” As for his own main Michelin contender, Corton, Nieporent is a little jittery about holding on to his two stars, but not quite as nervous as we might have expected. “There’s a little-known fact, but before Michelin came to America, I was the only American restaurateur with a Michelin star,” he told us, pointing to a brochure for Nobu London. “Alain Ducasse of course had a lot of Michelin stars, but he’s not American; he’s French.”

After an extended, post-kitchen-fire hiatus, Anita Lo’s restaurant, Annisa, is also a big question mark for this year’s guide. The revamped spot has been overwhelmingly positively received by critics (our own Adam Platt said it “strikes that delicate (and increasingly rare) balance between modern style, classic technique, and pure, old-fashioned gourmet pleasure”), but that doesn’t mean Lo isn’t nervous. “I’m always scared, you know?” she said. “Maybe you have one little off day. We’ve retained our stars since the inception [of Annisa], and knock on wood, we’ll hold on to them.”

Read more posts by Jillian Goodman

Filed Under: party chat, anita lo, annisa, corton, del posto, drew nieporent, epicurious, joe bastianich, mario batali, michelin, michelin guide 2011, sam sifton

• 0 Comments

Today, tips are on the minds of Foster Kamer (writing for Gourmet Live) and Francis Lam (writing for Salon). Kamer trots out the familiar argument that tipping is “often a racist, superficial practice and yet, like capital punishment, gun ownership, and of course, the abolition of slavery, America is one of the last industrialized nations in the world still desperately holding on to it.” He thinks “tipping needs to die,” partly because it presumably takes no more skill to serve a $20 dish than a $100 dish (and yet a waiter gets tipped more on the $100 dish), because black cabbies were tipped less in a study (a practice that presumably carries over to the restaurant world), and because the “absurd sociological pressures” of tipping have gotten to a point where you tip 15 percent or above no matter how good or bad the service is. Plus, by Kamer’s estimate, it’s probably costing the government at least $1.6 billion in unreported income.

Meanwhile, Francis Lam interviews Steve Dublanica, the Waiter Rant author who has published a new book about tipping, Thanks for the Tip. Dublanica says that when he was waiting, he was amazed to discover that “the quality of service has almost no effect on tipping,” and he cites a study that found that “the customer’s perception of service affects the tip only 2 percent of the time.” Instead, diners tend to tip because they don’t want to feel guilty, or feel bad for the waiter, or they want to be remembered (Dublanica was particularly accommodating with a customer who gave him $200 Christmas bonuses). Or, let’s remember, because Bob Marley is playing.

But here’s a question: Does anyone enjoy tipping? Sure, the practice doesn’t make much sense, but (just to play devil’s advocate here) isn’t there something vaguely satisfying about being generous to the person who serves your food?

Read more posts by Daniel Maurer

Filed Under: eatiquette, tipping

• 0 Comments