Fall’s Shoes Are Fit to Be TiedLace-up boots are emerging as the “It” shoe of the season, adding a little tough-girl chic to knits and sheers.
ByAmina Akhtar
21 questions
Brian Williams Likes Thin-Crust Pizza, Ambien, and Claire DanesName: Brian WilliamsJob: Anchor and managing editor, NBC Nightly News; sometime blogger. Brian will host on Saturday Night Live this weekend — which just got especially exciting because of the writers strike!
Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
FDR
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in New York?
Sacco Pizza (819 Ninth Avenue, between 54th and 55th) is most consistently my favorite place in a hurry. Low-rent but the best thin-crust pizza in the city.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
Compile, write, and edit the day’s news, while hopefully influencing young people on our staff.
Neighborhood Watch
Improve Your Looks with Pork in the West Village; Five Guys Wreaking Havoc inClinton Hill: Chinantla deli on Myrtle Avenue is dingy as all hell but makes tacos “that may bridge the gap between ‘real’ and … American-style.” [Eat for Victory/VV]
Dumbo: Two ICE graduates just launched a neighborhood dinner-delivery service called Nylon Cooks. [Dumbo NYC]
Lower East Side: Owners of ápizz and the Orchard John LaFemina and Xeras are “on the prowl for [their] next project.” [Eater]
Midtown West: Newly inaugurated Five Guys Burgers and Fries on West 55th Street has lunch crowds waiting up to an hour and a half for their orders. [Eater]
Tribeca: Marc Murphy supplied this very straightforward carbonara recipe, which he considers a signature dish at Landmarc. [Restaurant Girl]
West Village: The Japanese restaurant that promises better skin and hair through its pork dishes, Hakata Tonton has opened at 61 Grove Street. [Gothamist]
early and often
Is Mukasey Giuliani’s New Kerik? Kinda!Like many in the media, we had a brief crush on Michael Mukasey, Bush’s pick to replace the selectively amnesiac Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. The man was a born-and-bred New Yorker, after all, and a respected judge to boot. Chuck Schumer all but endorsed him. We blushingly called him “like, a decent guy.” Hell, we thought he’d give his pal Giuliani an unfair advantage in the race! “Can this really be?” we wrote. “Has the man never worn a dress? Are there no nipple clamps in his bedside table?”
Katie Holmes Will Kick Your Ass in the Marathon This WeekendHide your antidepressants and your carbs! The New York Marathon is this weekend, and according to OK, none other than Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes jumped on a plane last night so that Katie could live out her life’s dream, which apparently consists of running in the cold, amid a big mob of sweaty, ropy-limbed people, while strangers yell at her from the sidelines. Hm. Actually, that’s probably not so different from her everyday life. Katie’s family is flying in from Ohio to “watch” her run through the five boroughs, we’re told. Frankly, we would have told them to stay home, you can probably see it better on TV and in magazines next week, and speaking of that, does the world really need more pictures of Tom trying to bond with Katie’s Catholic parents, flashing his giant white teeth and leaping at their legs like a little Jack Russell while they scowl and think about how he’s going to hell? Honestly. Those give us total secondhand embarrassment.
TomKat Hits NYC for Marathon [OK]
Need a Good Bathroom? Grub Street’s Guide to Loos You Can UseFor over a year, we tested the theory that a restaurant is only as good as its restroom by scouring the city for notable loos, ranking them with the unforgiving rigor of our five-star rating system. Always searching for the straight poop, we visited certain facilities months before their restaurants had even opened (“I didn’t know you lurked around toilets,” Park Chinois’ dismayed publicist told us), and fell in love with old favorites all over again. In these dark rooms we found jack-o-lanterns, volumes of existentialist literature, live fish, warnings against cocaine peddling, waterfalls, pachinko machines, S&M gear, and the city’s most expensive toilet. The only thing we missed was Larry Craig. We hope you enjoy the resulting compendium of loos you can use. Please put your own recommendations in the comments.