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Grub Street

Edited by Josh Ozersky with Daniel Maurer

All Posts Tagged: ‘bar blanc’

Neighborhood Watch 

7/15/08

3:00 PM

César Ramirez Out at Bar Blanc; Prospect Heights Eats

Carroll Gardens: On July 26, Tall Order caterers will serve a Brownstone Dinner at their house, on the corner of President and Smith streets. [Bergen Carroll]
Harlem: Nectar Wine Bar, at 235 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, is pairing up with next-door's Harlem Vintage and the Joy of Cheese on Sunday to host a wine-and-cheese tasting, which you'll need to buy tickets for to attend. [Uptown Flavor]
Park Slope: The Brooklyn Burger Bar has been replaced by Flipsters, which looks like another burger bar. [Blondie and Brownie via Hamburger Today]
Prospect Heights: James Bistro is the latest in this line of good neighborhood eats. [NYT]
Soho: Frank Bruni may say “Fiamma is about as Italian as a poodle in a Prada scarf,” but Fabio Trabocchi's unfazed: “You don’t need a red-and-white checkered tablecloth and a bowl of spaghetti with tomato sauce to be Italian.” [Gothamist]
West Village: Lauded chef César Ramirez has left Bar Blanc, and another Bouley alum, Sebastiaan Zijp, will not only step in, he'll expand the menu and add more snack-able bar food. [Eater]

Mediavore 

5/28/08

10:00 AM

Cookbook Bloggers Are Nuts; ‘Flavor Tripping’ With Miracle Fruit

• Cookbook bloggers, those who tackle the challenge of cooking every recipe in a given volume and then write about it, are the craziest bloggers of all. [WSJ]

• The Sex and the City movie includes scenes shot in notable restaurants like Buddakan and the Modern. [NYS]

• After 1,300 phone requests on an online petition with more than 1,000 signatures, Kellogg is putting the Hydrox cookie — an Oreo alternative — back into production. [WSJ]

Read more»

Neighborhood Watch 

5/14/08

3:00 PM

Bar Blanc Serving Brunch; Jake Walk Cocktail Recipe

Carroll Gardens: The Jake Walk has so many good elements it's best to call it "a gastro wine-cocktail lounge and charcuterium," rather than a bar. The recipe for the house cocktail, included here, also has a lot of components, including white rum, tequila, and elderflower liqueur. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
East Village: The Ukrainian Festival this weekend on 7th Street between Second and Third will sell pierogi, blintzes, and shashlyk, a type of kebob. [Zagat Buzz]
Midtown East: An outpost of Joe coffee is opening in Grand Central on May 28. [Grub Street]
Midtown West: Gallagher's Steak House is hosting its Belmont Steaks lunch benefit and horse-race-handicapping seminar, featuring a number of racing pundits, on June 3. [Grub Street]
Williamsburg: Action Burger has pissed off comic-book fans who tried to eat there after the convention and found the place closed. [Eater]
West Village: Bar Blanc launches lunch service this weekend with dishes like steamed hen egg over polenta and a ploughman’s lunch of cured meats and cheeses. [Grub Street]
Lelabar has $1 oysters on Wednesdays and Saturdays. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]

NewsFeed 

4/17/08

4:50 PM

Akiko Katayama Tells Monday Room to Get the Cork Out

Picky, picky.Photo: Courtesy of W

Not only does Iron Chef judge Akiko Katayama hate grease, but she’s finicky about her wine, too. At a dinner at Public’s lovely Monday Room with W’s Eddie Leida and Bar Blanc’s Kiwon Standen, she shames the sommelier by sending back a bottle she says is corked. Perhaps her palate is a little more refined than ours, but we’d happily eat that tasty-looking miso-baked bone marrow with a glass of sand.

A Night Out With Akiko [Editor's Blog/W]

NewsFeed 

4/ 3/08

11:50 AM

‘Forbes’ Eyes Tomorrow’s Celebrity Chefs

april bloomfield, zak pelaccio jehangir mehta

From left: Bloomfield, Pelaccio, Mehta.Photo: Patrick McMullan

Ah, to be a rising star in the chef world. The James Beard Rising-Star Chef award is right around the corner, tonight Food & Wine will announce its Best New Chef awards, and this very morning Forbes has a slideshow of the celebrity chefs of tomorrow. Forbes picks ten chefs to watch, no fewer than four of whom are here in New York. Fatty Crab's Zak Pelaccio, Jehangir Mehta of Graffiti, Cesar Ramirez of Bar Blanc, and April Bloomfield of the Spotted Pig all got the nod. The judging panel is a strong one, including chef Christian Delouvrier, Will Blunt of Starchefs, and Susan Ungaro of the James Beard Foundation.

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The Other Critics 

3/26/08

9:30 AM

Mas Revisited for Two Stars; Three Takes on Mia Dona

Mas, tucked away into an odd corner of the West Village, has been off the city’s radar for a while, but has been plugging away, and now been rewarded by a very appreciative two-star rereview by Frank Bruni. [NYT]

Steve Cuozzo goes wild for Mia Dona: “The impossibly inexpensive, all-Italian sequel to prematurely shuttered Dona is also almost impossibly good — and not just in relation to the prices.” Alrighty then! [NYP]

Paul Adams, though noting some early lapses, likes Mia Dona too, but says that it falls into the uncanny valley between the refined (Anthos) and the rustic (Kefi). [NYS]

Read more»

The Other Critics 

3/12/08

9:30 AM

Bar Boulud, Loved at Last; Cuozzo Not on the Dovetail Bandwagon

“It's a new era, and Bar Boulud belongs to it.” That's why, even though the hot items are mostly “snoozers,” the restaurant deserves two stars. Another Zeitgeist review from Frank Bruni. [NYT]

Steve Cuozzo doesn't give out stars, but if he did, he wouldn't be giving three to Dovetail, whose stellar critical reception he recapitulates in a forceful, acerbic review. “The Times' Frank Bruni, who found 'drab' décor at Anthos a reason to deny that truly original, forward-Greek place three stars, overlooked Dovetail's butt-ugly brown palette to exult over the likes of — holy cow! — monkfish and lobster on the same plate.” [NYP]

Writing on his GQ blog, Alan Richman obliterates Brasserie Les Halles, but why? Who was thinking about it, anyway? And who thought it was good? The review seems conceived as a blow against Tony Bourdain, but it does him no harm. [GQ]

Read more»

The Other Critics 

2/27/08

10:30 AM

Bar Blanc Draws Its Deuce; Mia Dona Welcomed by Richman

Frank Bruni finds Bar Blanc fussy, mannered, overly fastidious — and very, very good. The two stars should take the sting out of his review for the place's owners. [NYT]
Related: Raising the Bar

Restaurant Girl hits Williamsburg’s Zenkichi and, between the room, the food, and the sake selection, seems to have a real find on her hands. [NYDN]

Randall Lane joins in the general enthusiasm for Dovetail , but now he seems unwilling to go back to his five-star-granting ways and so ends up giving them only four — the equivalent, in traditional star terms, to a two-star review, which is not what this reads as. [TONY]

Read more»

The Other Critics 

2/13/08

11:00 AM

Praise for 2nd Avenue Deli and Dovetail; Southgate Suffers

Frank Bruni can't help but make a one-act play out of his one-star 2nd Avenue Deli review: Sholom Aleichem by way of Oscar Wilde. A classic review, even if you don't come out of it knowing much about the food at 2nd Avenue Deli. [NYT]

Reviewing on his blog, Alan Richman delivers a less colorful, but more accurate and knowing account, of the place, which is even more admiring. [GQ]

Ryan Sutton isn't impressed one bit by Southgate — he thinks it's expensive and uninspired, broadly speaking. Not a whit of enthusiasm here. [Bloomberg]

Read more»

Neighborhood Watch 

2/12/08

3:00 PM

Bar Carrera Getting Bigger in the East Village; Did We Mention Bar Blanc Is Like a Bar But Better?

Astoria: Tell Astoria doesn’t seem to be reopening anytime soon. [Joey in Astoria]
Clinton Hill: Green Planet has opened with its shelves stocked with vitamins and drink mixes, but some still hope that actual produce could turn up. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: The sliver of a Spanish restaurant Bar Carrera is expanding into the space next door. [Eater]
Midtown West: South Gate has nifty, hand-held, touch-screen wine lists, which sound similar to the bar-top ones at Adour. [Zagat]
West Village: Lucky couples (or specifically, husbands) who scored a table at One If by Land this Thursday will find the food finally on par with the carriage-house setting now that Picholine alum Craig Hopson is manning the beef Wellington and adding his own dishes — like Gruyère gnocchi with wild Burgundy snails — to the menu. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch] Danyelle Freeman labels Bar Blanc "an ambitious restaurant in a laid-back disguise," almost like a watering hole with restaurant-caliber cooking. [Restaurant Girl]
Related: One If by Land Breaks Out a Bar Menu, and Not a Minute Too Soon

Mediavore 

1/31/08

10:00 AM

Starbucks Nixes Breakfast Sandwiches; Kenny Shopsin Ready for Mind-Altering Substances

In addition to slowing its expansion (finally), Starbucks will halt “sales of hot breakfast sandwiches because their smell interferes with the aroma of coffee.” [WSJ]

If Padma Lakshmi could eat anywhere right now, she’d head to a little taco stand in Mexico for some fish tacos on the beach. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]

Chelsea hot spot Stereo, which was closed by police earlier this month, will not be reopening at its current location because the landlord bought out the lease. [NYP]

Read more»

In the Magazine 

1/28/08

9:30 AM

Platt Pans Brasserie 44; Make Your Own Guacamole

Bar Blanc

Inside Bar BlancPhoto: Noah Sheldon

Reading this week’s magazine — or at least the food-related parts of it — had its own special rhythm. First came the shock and guilty excitement of reading Adam Platt’s review of Bar Blanc, which he liked, and Brasserie 44, which he didn't — zero stars. In a week with only one opening (Bridge Vineyards Tasting Room), Rob and Robin taught us how to make guacamole (there's a video, too!) and turned us on to the rebellious risotto at Dell’anima. They also found local treats that are globally inspired and clued us in on the rabbits multiplying across city menus. Gael Greene managed to get a table in the early days of Chop Suey, and her pre-pre-pre-review is favorable.

Read more»

The Other Critics 

1/23/08

11:00 AM

Mesa Grill Keeps One Star, Barely; Richman Rejuvenated by Dovetail

Mesa Grill loses a star, but this is one of the worst one-star reviews you'll ever read, even going so far as to compare it to gulag gourmet: “During one dinner the three slivers of chicken in the appetizer tacos were among the most shriveled, desiccated pieces of meat I’ve seen outside a bodega buffet at 3 a.m.” [NYT]
Related: Salute the Gulag Gourmet Movement

Now this is something cheering: Alan Richman found a tablecloth restaurant that got him genuinely excited. Dovetail's food, he says approvingly, is “exuberant and shocking” — in a good way. [Bloomberg]

Paul Adams hits Cooper Tavern, a not particularly ambitious hotel restaurant recently given a "meh" review by Frank Bruni, and likes it a little better, although the fries are “pathetically poor” and the pork chop is “hardly going to be the talk of the city's pork chop grapevine.” We can testify that that part is true. [NYS]

Read more»

Spot Check 

1/14/08

2:15 PM

Full Houses at Gottino and El Quinto Pino, Room to Spare at Bar Blanc

Spot Check
Last time we ran a Spot Check, we dropped in on several newly opened East Village restaurants between the hours of 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. to take head counts (though in the case of Cantina, there were no heads to be counted). This Saturday we threw some love to the West Side and repeated the procedure with six new establishments in the West Village and Chelsea.

Read more»

Neighborhood Watch 

12/13/07

3:00 PM

Bar Blanc Is So Open; Good Chinese in Sunset Park? Try Crashing a Wedding

Dumbo: Admission to Taste of Spain at the Dumbo Arts Center from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight includes a wine tasting and tapas. [Dumbo NYC]
Flatiron: Boqueria is throwing a "Cava fueled fiesta" for New Year’s Eve. [Snack]
Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: The empty space on the corner of Flatbush and Beekman will become a Subway, and one blogger isn’t so upset: "At first we were disappointed that a big chain was coming in, but … some Subways even have full blown salads." Nice! Just like McDonald’s. [Across the Park]
Sunset Park: Sietsema may have had to crash a Chinese wedding to figure this out, but dim-sum go-to Pacificana is also good for dinner. [Eat for Victory/VV]
West Village: Bar Blanc seems to be in soft-open mode. [Eater]

Neighborhood Watch 

12/10/07

3:00 PM

Sexy East Villager Open for New Year's; Bar Blanc Opening Not Imminent

East Village: One of Gael Greene’s sexy-restaurant-picks, Strip House, made this list of New Year’s Eve dining options. [Restaurant Girl] Sakaya and its daily tastings are now just a day away. [Down by the Hipster]
Fort Greene: The new trattoria Caffe e’ Vino’s menu is so standard that it’s not doing a good jobs of tempting potential diners. [Eat for Victory/VV]
Union Square: The area "centered on Broadway south of Madison Square" was called Ladies Mile in the 1800s because of its concentration of retails shops. Nowadays, restaurants like Tocqueville, BLT Fish, and Bar Stuzzichini have made the locale a culinary destination. [NYT]
West Village: Bar Blanc is supposed to open on Saturday, but these pics of the unfinished space might tell a different story. [Eater]

 

 

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