Eric Ripert Defends Escolar; Ed Koch: Bib WearerRadar ran a story on escolar’s tendency to cause leaky bowel movements and mentioned that the fish was served at Le Bernardin. This, in turn, prompted a response from Eric Ripert himself, which prompted the author of the article to respond, “I’m sure Eric Ripert serves his escolar in such a way that it doesn’t make people shit orange oil. He’s good like that.” [Fresh Intelligence/Radar]
Chef Craig Hopson says the ghost of Aaron Burr haunts the kitchen of One if by Land, Two if by Sea and has a tendency to steal batches of brioche. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
Related: One if by Land Breaks Out a Bar Menu, and Not a Minute Too Soon
Katrina Markoff, founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, likes to pair her company’s bacon-laden chocolate bar with pieces of Gruyère and a glass of Shiraz. [WSJ]
Related: A Bacon Tribute Product We Can Get Behind
Ask a Waiter
One if by Land’s Michael Lombardozi Won’t Let You Make Babies in the Bathroom
By now even the unrepentant Paul Jankas of the world know that One if by Land, Two if by Sea is widely regarded as the most romantic restaurant in the city. Normally we’d hesitate to match a cheesy holiday with a played-out restaurant, but now that new chef Craig Hopson, formerly of Picholine, has replaced the humdrum chicken Kiev with entrées such as turbot poached in coconut milk with peeky toe crab, mango and sea beans (you can peruse the new menu here), we don’t feel the least bit corny about asking Michael Lombardozi, a waiter at the West Village institution for seven years, to walk us down lovers’ lane.
Neighborhood Watch
Bar Carrera Getting Bigger in the East Village; Did We Mention Bar Blanc Is LikeAstoria: Tell Astorya 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
NewsFeed
One If by Land Breaks Out a Bar Menu, and Not a Minute Too Soon
Though we are longtime fans of chef Craig Hopson and expect great things from his tenure at One If by Land, Two If by Sea, we’ve still never had dinner there. It’s too expensive, too romantic, too much pressure — it’s Valentine’s Day every night there! The restaurant has remedied this with a bar menu, so you can now sample Hopson’s work in a (relatively) casual setting. We were happy to see that his frog-leg beignets, long a favorite of ours at Picholine, had made the leap, so to speak, to the new restaurant. The full bar menu is below.
Mediavore
Calories to Show Up on Menus Starting March 31; Mercury Levels Horrifically HighThe Board of Health decided yesterday in a unanimous vote to make all chain restaurants with fifteen or more outlets – approximately 10 percent of the city’s restaurants – post calorie info on their menus starting March 31. RIP, 1,230-calorie triple Whopper with cheese. [CNN]
Laboratory tests run on sushi samples from twenty Manhattan stores and restaurants revealed shockingly high levels of mercury in bluefin tuna, so high that the FDA could technically take the fish off the market. And if you’ve got to have your tuna sushi, you’d best head to Fairway and avoid Blue Ribbon Sushi at all costs. [NYT]
Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl is “obsessed with” Momofuku Ssäm Bar, “like everyone else in New York,” according to her. [TONY]
The Other Critics
Primehouse’s Steak Saves Its Star; BarFry BlastedThe best steaks at Primehouse NY are good enough to earn a single star from Frank Bruni — which is saying something, given that he had problems with service, didn’t like the other entrées, and even found the rib eyes to be less than they ought to be. But the Creekstone strips carried the day, as they always do. [NYT]
The small, porky tapas at Jason Neroni’s Cantina seem to impress Robert Sietsema, but his review leaves you with the sense that, croquettes aside, the place is still a work-in-progress. [VV]
Paul Adams dines at Smith’s and praises the rich, possibly too rich, appetizers, while frowning over some of the mains. But on the whole he likes the place: “Some dishes are excessive by design, others poorly executed in the heat of the dinner rush, and a few, like the pasta, remarkably good and worthy of a return visit — perhaps after the first wave of crowds has moved on.” [NYS]
Click and Save
Gael Greene’s Secrets of Restaurant SeductionIf there’s one thing you can count on Gael Greene to deliver, it’s tales of seduction by food — and her latest post has it in spades. This time, it’s from the male point of view, as Gael offers a “service feature on seduction,” courtesy of her friend Francesco, “the teflon Romeo, in and out of love constantly, an outright chauvinist pig, in fact, but as a pal, really fun, full of zest and unfailingly loyal.” Francesco’s advice includes the following helpful tips:
Mediavore
Haunted Restaurants; Market Table’s Sneaky ReservationsA list of the most haunted New York destinations compiled by Internet librarians features a lot of restaurants, including Bridge Cafe whose six-foot-tall, female bouncer, Gallus Magg, used to bite ears off drunken customers back in the nineteenth century; and One if by Land, Two if by Sea, which boasts the spirit of former building owner Aaron Burr — not to mention his daughter, who nowadays “bothers ladies who lunch by pulling their earrings.” [NYP]
Market Table is the latest restaurant to only accept strategic reservations, and it’s annoying when you see empty tables. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
The New York branches of Muji won’t have the cafés selling the delectable green-tea pastries you find at the Toyko flagship, but the new Amai Tea & Bake, at 171 Third Avenue, sells similar ones, along with viennoisserie and white-tea cookies. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
Mediavore
Mob Associate Called CEO of Cipriani; Yet Another Fall PreviewColombo-crime family associate Dennis Pappas signed leases for Cipriani USA as the CEO of the restaurant group, but was surprisingly left off contracts submitted to the SLA. [NYP]
By the time Craig Hopson unveils his new menu in January, One if by Land, Two if by Sea will have undergone a complete renovation, building on a color scheme of chocolate and watermelon. [Restaurant Girl]
The fall openings include all the usual suspects. [Strong Buzz]
Related: Where the Underground Gourmet Will Be Eating [NYM]
NewsFeed
A (Near) Gary Robins Sighting Nothing against the articles, but it’s the ads in the Times dining section that we’re obsessed with. First there was Jeffrey Chodorow’s “Dear Mr. Wells” rant, followed by Jeffrey Chodorow’s “Dear Frank” letter, and now this intriguing tidbit buried at the bottom of an ad for a Macy’s Cellar cooking event in the August 29 edition:
Thursday, September 27, Executive Chef Gary Robins from the legendary and romantic restaurant One if By Land, Two if By Sea, prepares a perfect meal for special occasions!
