Vongerichten.

In Sin City for Vegas Uncork’d with husband Jean-Georges, author and TV host Marja Vongerichten recently told Robin “Champagne Wishes” Leach about the ongoing search to find her biological father. As Kimchi Chronicles fans no doubt already know, Vongerichten was born in 1976 in Uijeongbu to a Korean mother and an American father who had been stationed in the region with the Marines. Her father, whose name is William H. Brown, was relocated before she was born; and when she was 3 years old, Vongerichten was put into an orphanage and later adopted by a Washington, D.C., family.

She tells Leach that when she was young, her biological father even returned to Korea to search for her mother, and when reunited they recorded a message for her relating the story of her adoption. She has since met her mother, but her father remains a mystery.

She’s hoping someone will recognize the man in this photo. “It would complete my journey and the experience,” she says.

‘Kimchi Chronicles’ chef Marja Vongerichten is still searching for her father [Las Vegas Sun]
Earlier: Marja Vongerichten Snacks on String Cheese, Gives In to Her Soda Weakness

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Take a good gawk at yourself.

“If we play chicken or the egg, I’d blame the yelpers and customers who put pressure on chefs to deliver things at the prices they do. There is little to no money in this industry and when money dries up people put their hooker heels on.” —Eddie Huang takes issue with Gawker’s proclamation that the Great GoogaMooga signals food culture has gone “too far.” [Fresh Off the Boat]

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bmmm-chkh-bmmm-chkk-bmmm-chkk.

With almost no fanfare and little advance warning, it sounds as if a new 75,000-square-foot event space called the Brooklyn Terminal Project is set to open along the Red Hook waterfront on June 3. That’s very soon! Amenities include a “killer sound system to experience your favorite DJs as intended,” free parking, and best of all, a “food and vendor village.”

Live music and food: Yay! But what is food and vendor village, exactly? That description makes it sound downright medieval, Deadhead–ish, or maybe even Smurf–esque. Ideally Brooklyn Terminal Project’s F&B program will be a mix of all three; we’ve got a call into the new venue’s hotline for some answers.

Here’s what we know: Brooklyn Terminal Project is located at Pier 12, or 72 Bowne Street, which is also the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal’s address. The summer season festivities commence with a show from Knife Party, an electro-house outfit from Australia who sounds like this.

So, full-on glow-stick territory; also, watch out, strobe-sensitive epileptics! It’s sort of like if the Great GoogaMooga in Prospect Park were the Glastonbury Music Festival, this would be Ibiza. Dubstep fans know what we’re talking about.

Brooklyn Terminal Project [Official Site]

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Filed Under: eating and dancing, brooklyn terminal project, red hook

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He might be packing his knives and leaving.

Chef and restaurant gossip tends to hit a flash point during the week of the James Beard Foundation Awards, and one recurring leftover from last week’s festivities is the rumor that the New York L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon may soon close to make room for another super-deluxe restaurant. And now Grub Street gets word from a few people close to the situation who say The Four Seasons is shopping the space around.

According to our sources, the hotel’s management has already approached a few local, high-powered chefs to gauge interest in the space; another source says the restaurant could close as early as next month. You may recall that the restaurant hired a new executive chef, Christophe Bellanca, in January, and one recently departed cook tells us that the mood in the kitchen these days is decidedly mauvaise.

We reached out to The Four Seasons to see what’s up, but a rep would only say that L’Atelier “is open for business” and that its potential closing is “only a rumor.” Fair enough, but if we hear anything different, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, ne nous quittez pas, Joël!

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Filed Under: rumors, joel robuchon, l’atelier de joël robuchon, the four seasons

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Moo

Let’s put our hands together and offer a round of welcoming applause to the Vegas Strip steak, a “new” cut of beef which today joins the hallowed ranks of other such butchery innovations as the Delmonico, the Tomahawk, cube steak, minute steak, the Newport, the flat iron, and the Denver steak.

The 14-oz Vegas Strip, which evidently comes from a cow part that nobody will identify in a forthcoming way, is the grill-bound love child of a chef at David Burke’s Primehouse (of course) in Sin City and a “value-added meat processing specialist.” Right now you’ll have to go to Vegas to get in on this meat happening, which is intellectual property and patent pending, unless of course someone else figures out how to carve up a cow in a similar fashion.

<a href="“>Steak Specialists Discover a New Cut of Beef [Gizmodo]

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Up for grabs?

There seems to be more trouble at Centolire, the Upper East Side Bolognese-and-gelato spot owned by the “dark prince of Italian fine dining” Pino Luongo. An auction listing in yesterday’s Times (also available online, with pictures) indicates that the restaurant’s mortgagee is seeking unpaid funds in the form of assets, so everything from Centolire’s fine china to the freestanding glass elevator (with a reported $300k value) is up on the block today starting at 1 p.m. A call to the restaurant this morning was answered by a manager who told us, “I don’t know where that information came from, but it’s totally wrong.” So, what gives? Has Centolire put out its last chicken ragout with strozzapreti?

When the restaurant was temporarily seized by the taxman in January, Luongo’s attorney blamed an errant bookkeeper as the source of the problem. The “rather minimal” back taxes were paid, and Centolire swiftly reopened. According to the listing, this restaurant’s contents are being sold by order of a UCC secured party mortgagee. A representative of the auctioneer tells us that Luongo’s representatives are in court this morning to prevent the auction from taking place. We’ll let you know when we have more information.

Earlier: Did Tax Troubles Do In Pino Luongo’s Centolire?

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The spot’s named after a twenties boxing arena.

Looks like that Kickstarter campaign worked: Tonight, former Momofuku Noodle Bar chef de cuisine and Craft vet Kevin Pemoulie will open the doors of Thirty Acres, his 40-seat Jersey City spot. Will the restaurant be able to do for Jersey City what a place like M. Wells did for Long Island City? Perhaps. The menu (which you can see below) is heavy on local seafood, and includes dishes like pan-fried skate with Old Bay–braised cabbage; grilled swordfish with ramps and salsa verde; and duck-fat-confited fingerling potatoes mixed with double-smoked bacon, a spoonful of crème fraîche, and chives. Only one thing on the menu (the swordfish) costs more than $20, which might be reason enough to spring for a ticket on the PATH train.

Pan fried skate with green cabbage, Old Bay, and crab.Photo: Hugh Merwin

Menu [PDF]

Thirty Acres, 500 Jersey Avenue, Jersey City; 201-435-3100

Earlier: Jersey City’s Thirty Acres in the Home Stretch, Turns to Kickstarter Before Opening

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Filed Under: what to eat, alex pemoulie, jersey, kevin pemoulie, openings, thirty acres

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The restaurant on a brighter day.

Visitors to Home/Made in Red Hook enjoying a glass of wine, espresso or a snack invariably come to remark that they feel like they’re hanging out at a friend’s apartment. Artist Leisah Swenson and chef Monica Byrne operate the rare kind of establishment that, when closed for regular renovations, arranges a fully stocked coffee station outside its front door… just in case you were planning to drop by. Byrne works wonders with brunch, a rare accomplishment these days, and even once moved Sam Sifton to write prose poetry about her mushroom lasagna. This all adds to the especially crummy news that yesterday, a fire inside the restaurant took out some windows, its ceiling, and stove. The restaurant’s rolldown grate also needs to be replaced. As a good neighbor, the Red Hook CSA is asking friends of Home/Made to chip in with small donations. All the details can be found here.

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Filed Under: temporary closings, homemade, monica byrne, red hook, red hook csa

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It’s amazing how oddly and efficiently the drag queen trio in this video approach the notoriously anti-gay, foundational agenda of the Georgia-based fried chicken franchise Chick-fil-A in this video, simply by changing the lyrics “Hold on for one more day / things will go your way” from Wilson Phillips’ classic pop tune “Hold On” to “Chow down at Chick-fil-A / Even if you’re gay.” What’s even more awesome is how the song transitions into a Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes rap, circa “Waterfalls,” at the 2:30 mark, with Willam Belli and friends Detox & Vicky Vox thigh-deep in some suburban mall fountain. The video is possibly NSFW (especially if you’re presently working the fryer station at Chick-fil-A), but it’s definitely funny. And very true: Someday somebody’s gonna make you want to gobble up a waffle fry.

Earlier: Chick-fil-A Is Anti-Gay

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Filed Under: protest songs, anti-gay, chick-fil-a, waffle fries

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In full bloom!

Get ready for some serious news: Macarons are not the only round foodstuffs widely available for free today. Apparently Outback is giving away Bloomin’ Onions (”hand carved by a dedicated ‘bloomologist,’” no less) at all of its locations in the contiguous United States, plus Puerto Rico. Within the five boroughs, that’s a decent handful of Outbacks that will be frying up a big springtime storm of alium. Yes, of course, terms and conditions apply, and there’s yet another secret-code phrase you must tell your server (hint: it’s not “the dingo ate my baby.”) En garde, bloomologists! [Official site, Earlier]

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Filed Under: onion breath, bloomin’ onion, freebies, marketing gimmicks, outback, the chain gang

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This nano-documentary about legendary Tennessee ham man Allan Benton — producer of pork products admired and used by chefs like David Chang, Hugh Acheson, Thomas Keller, Sean Brock, and even barmen like Jim Meehan and Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver — is short, brown sugar-sweet and smoky. Benton speaks about the process of making ham and bacon, which he says isn’t an “exact science,” from his cluttered office, where faded business cards adorn the walls. The family recipe, Benton says to a customer on his “high tech” rotary phone, came “straight out of a log smokehouse behind the lil’ house I was born in.” Every few frames, the camera lingers inside the actual smokehouse, and the process of smoking and aging meat takes on a profound, almost mystical quality.

Benton Family Cure [Vimeo]

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Filed Under: ham, allan benton, jennifer davick, video feed

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Not so funny.

Wodka Vodka, the imported Polish spirit that is perhaps best known for its bizarrely offensive billboard advertising campaigns, has apparently been selected as the house vodka at the restaurants comprising Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Restaurant Group. Boulud’s restaurants are, of course, classy joints, so the union is strange. Just last month, Wodka installed a billboard in the notorious prostitution-plagued Hunts Point neighborhood featuring a photo of a sombrero-donning sheep with a variation on the company’s slogan, “Escort Quality, Hooker Pricing.” And who could forget Wodka Vodka’s fantastically tasteless, “Christmas Quality, Hannukah Pricing” campaign from last fall? Perhaps the Boulud/Wodka deal means the company is now headed in a new direction. If so, cheers to that. [Reuters, Earlier]

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Filed Under: boozy, daniel boulud, dinex group, wodka vodka

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