The $4 Di Fara Slice: We Break It Down
Dom De Marco raised the price of a Di Fara’s slice to $4, and Chowhounders are aghast, reports Slice’s Adam Kuban. But do the accusations of making a quick buck lobbed against the Saint of Avenue J have any merit? We did a little research into the cost of ingredients at Di Fara and confirmed our suspicion that De Marco doesn’t make much money.
Back of the House
Chowhounds, Heed Our Uzbek-Kebab Advice!
Is there anything more frustrating than seeing good people grope in the dark for something they already have? We feel it whenever a romantic-comedy heroine searches around for Mr. Right, while all the time the awkward but soulful male lead is mooning for her. Likewise with this thread on Chowhound, where the posters are striving to find the right place in Rego Park to eat Uzbek kebabs. Haven’t these guys ever heard of the Orange Line? Much of the discussion centers on Cheburechnaya, a big kebab house on 63rd Drive that always seems to have a couple of black Mercedes parked out front, contributing to the mobbed-up feeling. Forget that place — it’s all about Arzu. Read and learn, chowhounds: You have nothing to lose but your chebureks.
Out of this world central Asian in the FH/Rego Pk area? [Chowhound]
Related: Riding the V Line: Coming Back Around to Russia
Openings
A Japanese Mercenary Enters Noodle WarCan New York support a troop surge in the ramen wars? A Chowhound poster recently reported that an Ichiran ramen shop would open in Greenpoint. While Ramen Setagaya and Momofuku vie for soup-bowl supremacy, Ichiran, one of Japan’s top ramen chains, is making its entry in an area better known for tenements and pork stores.
Mediavore
Restaurant High Trains Chefs of the Future; Les Halles Takes a BeatingWelcome to Food and Finance High, which trains New York’s future chefs and restaurateurs. They diligently study the work of Dave Thomas, the origins of pizza, and read Fast Food Nation in preparation for the job market. [NYT]
Les Halles is taking a beating: They’ve got a Department of Health closure uptown and construction troubles downtown . [NYP]
The Red Hook ball fields, home to one of the city’s greatest gatherings of Central and South American food vendors, may finally see the trucks roll in this Sunday. [Eat for Victory/VV]
Back of the House
Startling Results of a Franco-American Summit; Queens Restaurant’s MobFrench journalists and top NY chefs and food personalities meet at Franco-American gastronomy summit. The consensus? The world needs fewer haute restaurants, more steakhouses, and to go to war to protect foie gras. [Bloomberg]
Le Binge: Gael Greene’s account of her French Eat-a-Thon [NYM]
The city contracted with the nephew of a former acting Gambino boss to run Caffe on the Green, Bayside’s answer to Tavern on the Green. This on the heels of the news that the Colombo family and the Russian mob together operate a golf course in Brooklyn. [NYP]
There are apparently a number of people who are enthusiastic about food and travel constantly sampling it. Among these are Jane and Michael Stern, Chowhound’s Jim Leff, and a guy who works for a
management and technology consulting firm. Who knew? [NYT]
Chow provides a sorely-needed molecular gastronomy cheat sheet, which not only explains
spherification, but even tells you how to pronounce the names of the movement’s major
exponents. [Chow]
A relatively inexpensive cooking school established in Westchester, boasting a 100% placement rate. Now about those wages … [7online]
The question of what constitutes “true Japanese” food to be settled once and for all, when the Japanese External Trade Organization begins certifying restaurants. [Mainichi Daily News]
Click and Save
Chowhound Wonders If You’ve Heard of This So-Called ‘Chinatown’
One of the pleasures of cruising the Chowhound boards is the vicarious thrill of discovery: There’s always somebody who just found out about DiFara or Sripraphai or Kebab Cafe. Last week, apropos of nothing, user Brian S. posted a guide to Manhattan Chinatown that includes a basic overview of various regional cookeries. An added bonus is the long, link-rich thread, centering on Chinese bakeries, which follows the post. (We recently essayed the same topic.) If only the Chinatowns in Brooklyn and Queens were given the same treatment.
Eating in Chinatown — a beginner’s guide [Chowhound]
Click and Save
Fireside Feeding, Tasty Tacos, and To-Die-For PiesEd Levine adds some favorite pies to Rob and Robin’s picks. [Ed Levine Eats]
Fireside feeding. [Chowhound]
Maddest martinis, including one of our favorites, Double Down’s bacon martini, and the $165 truffletini first reported here. [NYP]
Cobble/Boerum Hill for dummies/Manhattanites. [Citysearch]
Let’s get a taco. [NYDN]
User’s Guide
A Photo-Guided Tour of Mysterious Taiwanese FoodChinatown’s full of unidentifiable dishes (for visitors, anyhow). For years, we’ve seen a particularly weird-looking one, a runny oyster pancake that we would have asked about — if we’d spoken Chinese. After seeing a similar sentiment expressed on Chowhound some days ago, and asking a few foodie friends about the mystery food, to no avail, we decided to send our Chinese-speaking photographer, Melissa Hom, to three Taiwanese restaurants in Manhattan and Queens to scout out the dish, and a few others besides.
User’s Guide
Chinese Bakeries: Like American Bakeries, But Different. Here’s How!There’s nothing like a vigorous Chowhound thread to get your appetite going. This one, centering on the best Chinese bakeries in the city, recently made us wonder what we’re missing out on. Plus, we still have yet to visit the two fantastic-sounding places Rob and Robin wrote up a few weeks ago. Those of you contemplating your own bakery excursions would do well to remember the following three rules:
Openings
Hollywood Desserts and Soho GoblinsThis week in the magazine, Rob and Robin track two openings: the wildly successful Hollywood frozen-yogurt chain Pinkberry, and Goblin Market, a new Soho eatery named after lascivious young men in a poem by Christina Rossetti. Pinkberry, they report, is “the talk of the L.A. food blogs.” We tracked down a few of those blogs.
Click and Save
Beer and Chicken, From Moonachie to SunnysideEvery Monday, Click and Save surveys food service journalism from the previous week. Today, shaking the trees for plums, we came up with a collection that ranges from Sunnyside to Seoul, with special attention paid to beer and chicken.
