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Bad gas.Photo: Daniel Maurer
Update: According to the DOH, the restaurant received 71 out of a possible 175 points on a June 11 inspection, for violations such as inadequate plumbing, improper pest control methods, and evidence of flies, mice, and rats. Shiki had better walk over to Veniero’s to ask them how to deal with this.
Jamison Blankenship, left, and Robby Cook, right: the men behind Morimoto.Photo: Melissa Hom
Names: Jamison Blankenship and Robert Cook
Age: 37 and 29, respectively
Restaurant: Morimoto
Backgrounds: Blankenship, Morimoto’s chef de cuisine, grew up in New Orleans, but didn't start in the restaurant business until he was 31. He worked in Washington’s famous Citronelle, and for two years had his own restaurant in D.C., before joining Morimoto as a sous-chef when it opened two years ago.
Cook, the restaurant's head sushi chef, had a Lana Turner moment as a sushi assistant at Koi: Masaharu Morimoto came in, saw Cook working the line, and offered him a job on the spot.
Without the danger … this just looks unappetizing somehow.Photo: James Wojcik
If the Fish Liver Can’t Kill, Is It Really a Delicacy? [NYT]
Related: To Die For [NYM]
The Environmental Protection Agency is beginning to examine the mercury levels in the twenty most commonly eaten fish in the New York City region. [NYT]
Top Chef seductress/hostess Padma Lakshmi is moving into a full-floor loft in Alphabet City. [The Real Estate/NYO]
The holy triumvirate of burgers, fries, and milk shakes continues to dominate the nation's culinary imagination. [NRN]
Before it was caught, this bluefin tuna ate only
mercury.Photo: Getty Images
6 p.m.: Whole Foods, Chelsea
Rebecca, a redheaded Web editor, is picking up salmon sushi. She’d noticed that the Times report found the highest mercury levels in tuna from Blue Ribbon and the lowest levels at Fairway. “People who eat high-class sushi are more at risk for poisoning than people like me who eat ghetto sushi from Whole Foods,” she said with some satisfaction.
Finally, the presidential candidates “respond” to the sushi crisis. Mike Huckabee’s stance? “Nowhere does the Bible mention sushi in the Garden of Eden.” [NYT]
If you’ve ever dreamed of being a Michelin Guide inspector, consider first that in a year “each inspector evaluates 240 restaurants, spends 130 nights in hotels, carries out 800 inspections, writes 1,100 reports and drives 18,000 miles.” [Guardian]
The international conservation group Oceana has issued a report saying that it found mercury levels in tuna sushi throughout the United States to be just as high as in New York’s supply. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
The 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]
Danny Meyer and the Union Square Partnership are planning to renovate the north end of Union Square Park, including a transformation of the decaying pavilion into a windowless restaurant space. [NYO]
Mia Dona, Donatella Arpaia and Michael Psilakis’s newest baby, will start serving up rustic Italian with Greek influences in midtown next month. Marc Forgione, most recently the corporate chef for the BLT Restaurant Group, is planning an American restaurant for a spring opening. [NYT]
Forget about bringing your junior gastronomes to the finest restaurant Disney World has to offer: Victoria & Albert’s has banned all kids under the age of 10. [NYP]
Fifteen years of hard use will wear you down.Photo: Melissa Hom
A chef at Masa: sacred fish priest or just another cook?Photo: Mark Peterson
Photo courtesy Vanity Fair
If You Knew Sushi [Vanity Fair]
Platt loves the silent, solitary art of sushi. Especially the silent part.Photo: RJ Mickelson
Sushi even a vegetarian could love.Photo courtesy Sumile
Who's going to tell them they forgot to take down the plywood?Photo: Melissa Hom
Things look fine from down here in the gutter.Photo: Getty Images
Lou Dobbs insists you put him down.Photo: Corbis
Put your headlights on.Photo: Daniel Maurer
Genji Sushi, 424-A E. 14th St. at First Ave.; 212-388-1127
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