Rob and Robin picked La Esquina’s breakfast burrito as the best in the city for good reason: The thing was a hulking mass of cheesy goodness. Who cares if the chorizo grease ate through the wrapper, the stringy Oaxaca cheese got all over your clothes, and it left you feeling like you had swallowed a soccer ball? It was a tequila drinker’s breakfast burrito. That’s why we were horrified (horrified!) when Sugar Substitute noticed that something started happening to the behemoth a couple of weeks ago: “Every day it got smaller; the cheese disappeared, and potatoes began to appear regularly. In its current incarnation, it is a small mostly potato and egg burrito without cheese.” Indeed, look at what we got this morning: The thing is more of a dainty wrap than a proper burrito! When we called to demand an answer, we were told there’s a new chef, named José, whose last name couldn’t be divulged. We’re waiting to hear more from La Esquina’s rep. As soon as we get José’s last name, we will demand the old burrito back. Or maybe we’ll just suck it up and thank him for sparing us the 30 pounds we were poised to gain.

Breakfast [Sugar Substitute]
Related: You Rise, They Shine [NYM]

We’ve always been vexed that La Esquina doesn’t allow photography of its underground private party room — European tourists search our site about 50 gazillion times a day to get a glimpse of what lies below street level. We even hired an artist to try to sketch the gated den, but he ended up getting sloshed with some models who spilled a $50 tequila shot all over his drawings. However, we’re pleased to bring you this photographic approximation of Serge Becker’s hidden lair. Doesn’t it look pretty spot-on? Can’t you just see Beyoncé celebrating her birthday here? Oh, by the way, this was taken at the Castaway Cove mini-golf course on the Jersey shore.

Sometimes restaurants get political behind the scenes — you’ll recall our list of restaurateurs who donated in the primaries — and sometimes they put it all out there. Not only is La Esquina displaying in its front window a newspaper clipping touting Barack Obama’s win, but it’s now selling “Obama 08” T-shirts (in the style of its “Mexico 70” tees, in purple and green) for $20 a pop. It remains to be seen whether this will drive former Hillary supporters to Pinche Taqueria.

Serge Becker’s rep Nadine Johnson isn’t saying anything outside of what we’ve already heard about his new restaurant in the old Eastanah space, but for the record, she confirms that his partners are Oliver Stumm and Dominique Clausen of A Touch of Class. The strategy is brilliant: Open a smallish place so that the overflow is forced to grab a taco at La Esquina across the street. Not that it’s that easy to walk into that place. Serge Becker is one of the city’s most modest restaurateurs, so on his behalf we’re calling for the traffic island across from La Esquina and the new place to be rechristened Serge Becker Park.

Earlier: Is This Serge Becker’s New Restaurant?

A source close to D.J. duo A Touch of Class says that Oliver Stumm and Dominique Clausen, both Zurich natives, are collaborating with Serge Becker on what will be a Swiss restaurant in the space at 212 Lafayette Street. The building formerly housed Eastanah, the Malaysian restaurant adjacent to Becker’s cash cow La Esquina (Becker, of course, also has a hand in 205 and the Box, nearby). We have yet to receive confirmation from Becker’s rep, and, by the looks of their Website, Stumm and Clausen are currently gigging (and researching?) in Switzerland, but when we cruised by the construction site earlier today, a bar was under construction. The SLA's site says only that one 212 Lafayette LLC applied for a liquor license in March and it's currently pending. Becker is also of Swiss heritage, so if anyone will know how to pull off this unique concept (or any concept!), it’s him. Stay tuned for more.

A year ago, Keith McNally claimed Morandi would be his last restaurant, but he revealed at last night's Community Board 2 meeting that Minetta Tavern will join his repertoire. McNally plans to keep the name and setup, but change the menu from Italian to French, in the vein of Balthazar. When community residents asked what sort of crowd McNally's name may draw, he retorted, "They won't be French," and explained that his restaurants are "not the type of places where people spill out of white limos." So he's not expecting this to be the next Waverly Inn? "I'm lucky if I open the doors and people come," McNally said. The board approved McNally's bid.

La Esquina showed how it's done when it pleaded for a liquor license for its sidewalk café. A large group of supporters attested that owners Derek Sanders and Serge Becker are "altruistic and very caring." Said one resident: "I would personally be bothered if I couldn't sit down and have a beer." Word! And application approved. —Lucy Tang

Earlier, we noted that La Esquina served grasshoppers at the bar during the Spotted Pig’s Super Bowl party, and there’s more reason to believe entomophagy is catching on. Next Tuesday, the Gastronauts, last seen eating python, will hold a bug-eating dinner at a “posh apartment.” Their master of ceremonies will be David Gracer, a Rhode Island enthusiast who lectures on edible insects and serves them at private parties. Gracer recently wrote on his blog, Bugs for Dinner!, that he was bummed he couldn’t find markets selling them in New York. To help Gracer in his quest, we turned to Miguel Calvo, a mixologist who will be serving cocktails rimmed with grasshopper salt at Crema this Valentine’s Day.

Down by the Hipster has intercepted the menu for the Spotted Pig’s staff Super Bowl party at La Esquina and, we have to admit, it looks like it was a lot better than listening to “We Built This City” at the Village Pourhouse. A whole pig at the meat station? Baby crickets at the bar? Sombreros and mariachis? Definitely beats the plain ol’ pizza that La Esquina got for its staff party last year.

The Ultimate Super Bowl Party [DBTH]

The saga of Cordell Lochin, the maybe-sort-of partner in the Box and La Esquina who was convicted of drug-smuggling charges, has finally come to somewhat of a conclusion. According to Guest of a Guest, a judge has sentenced Lochin to 39 months in prison and a $35,000 fine. That doesn’t fare well for partner Serge Becker, who expressed hope in a letter to the court that Lochin be allowed to “continue his work while paying his debt.”

Cordell Lochin Sentenced for 39 Months, Fined $35,000 [Guest of a Guest]

Earlier: La Esquina to Open in Miami; Becker's Right-Hand Man in Legal Limbo
Serge Becker: Drug-Dealing ‘Consultant’ Is Not a Co-Owner of the Box, La Esquina

Ah, the tangled web of nightlife ownership. A while back, Serge Becker, part-owner of The Box and La Esquina, told us in a statement that Cordell Lochin, the young scenester who presented himself as a partner in Becker’s restaurants before being convicted of drug-conspiracy charges, was merely an “indispensable advisor.” A December 15 memo from a government attorney calls that assertion into question, pointing at an undated letter from Becker that describes Lochin as “more than just a business partner.” That letter pleads for leniency because his company is “in the design stage of our second location of ‘La Esquina’ in Miami Beach at ‘the Gale’ hotel.” Exciting news, innit?

The guys at Thrillist outed a favorite spot of ours today — Tropical 128 — and to make matters worse for those of us who wanted to keep it a secret between us and the Chinatown pool sharks, they hype the place like it was just remodeled to acquire its over-the-top tropical décor (causing Eater to call it an “opening”). Sorry, dudes, those fake trees have been there forever.

Guest of a Guest broke the story yesterday that Cordell Lochin — thought be a partner in Serge Becker’s joints La Esquina, 205, and the Box — will be sentenced on October 10 for importing more than 100 kilos of weed and dealing it in New York in 2004 and 2005. There’s been speculation that the August 24 raid of the Box and La Esquina was related to this, and we’ve heard rumors that Cordell was recently arrested again — but the Box’s publicist, Nadine Johnson, tells us neither of these things are correct (a check with NYPD turned up no recent arrests). She also describes Cordell as a consultant and not a partner in the Box, as reported in a recent Observer profile and other places: “We had taken the decision to call him a partner, but he isn’t a real partner or employee for the Box or La Esquina.” Serge Becker did not know about Cordell’s past until ten days ago, when his case went to trial, Johnson says. She also issued an emphatic statement to Grub Street on behalf of Becker further disavowing Cordell’s ownership stake.

La Esquina’s basement and the Box are open again, but Serge Becker’s woes may not be over. Alberto Armendarig, a reporter for Mexican newspaper La Reforma tells us that last Saturday at 205 (another joint Becker has his stamp on), he was choked by a bouncer and bodily ejected from the club in such a way that he tried to press assault charges (cops didn’t find any marks on him and told him to brush it off and call it a night). Sounds like any other Saturday to us, but Armendarig says he’s now on a quest to close the club down. As it turns out, he may not have to lift a finger.

As if La Esquina weren’t sceney enough, everyone’s favorite mock taqueria now has first-come-first-serve sidewalk seating from 6 p.m. to midnight, essentially making it the Pastis of Little Italy and bringing the neighborhood, with the help of Bowie's burlesque joint, one step closer to becoming the meatpacking district. By the way, while we’re on the subject: Please, people, it’s pronounced Es-KEE-na and not Es-QUEE-na. And (same people) don't refer to empa-NA-das as em-PIÑATAs unless you’re actually planning to strike them with a bat to make meat rain from them. That’s all.

It must’ve seemed strange attending a Christmas party when, earlier this week, the last of the Christmas trees sat on the city’s curbs. But it must’ve seemed stranger still when a mariachi band mounted the bar at said party and began to perform. And that was before the purple haze descended … — Daniel Maurer