5th Annual Great Chefs Dinner
This Sunday, August 9th, chefs from the East End of Long Island, will be cooking in honor of Jeff Salaway and the Jeff Salaway Foundation. Toni Ross of Nick & Toni’s and Jon Snow of Hayground camp will be hosting the all-night affair of cocktails, a silent auction, and a seated dinner prepared by Eric Ripert and Nick & Toni’s Joseph Realmuto among others, like Miche Bacher of Sacred Sweets and produce from the Hayground School’s Slow Food Greenhouse. Tickets for the cocktail party are $125, and $500 for the seated dinner. For more information and to purchase tickets, call 631-537-7068 or go to www.greatchefsdinner.com. Date &Time: Sunday, August 9th, 5-9PMLocation: Hayground School, 151 Mitchells Lane, Bridgehampton,...
Read MorePressure Cooker
Forget reality TV, Top Chef and cooking shows for one night- Pressure Cooker is a real life drama about life in the kitchen. Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker’s new documentary follows three students from low income areas of Philly through culinary school and into the real world. The documentary is inspired by the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), which provides scholarships, education and internships to underserved students across the country, Pressure Cooker has already won the Special Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival for Best Documentary at the Philadelphia Cinequest as well as Audience Awards at the Aspen Film Festival and Portland International Film Festival. Pressure Cooker comes to New York’s IFC on May 27th. To preview the trailer —...
Read MoreRestaurant Recession Deals & Steals
It’s the only upside to a down economy- restaurants around town are coming up with all kinds of deals to draw in the guests. From prix fixe, buy one get one free, reduced prices, wines, and lots of other deals, we’ve combed the city to find some of the best recession specials. Halfsteak at Craftsteak85 Tenth Ave., btwn. W. 15th St. & W. 16th St.(212) 400-6699www.craftrestaurant.comEvery weekday the cafe at Tom Colicchio’s steakhouse ingeniously morphs into the terrifically affordable Half Steak. There’s tons of great small plates, half-pints of beer, cocktail specials, and small desserts, all under $15. I’m fond of the pig trotters, fried oysters, and the namesake dish — a half-portion of Craftsteak’s dry-aged steak, served with their hand-cut fries. Del Posto’s Enoteca85 Tenth Ave., btwn. W. 15th St. & W. 16th St.(212) 497-8090www.delposto.comJust next door to Craft...
Read MoreRestaurant Week Extended
The phrase “Restaurant Week” is being used pretty loosely these days. Winter Restaurant Week became Restaurant Month and it looks like it’s not going anywhere, at least until Friday, March 20th (the first day of Spring.) A whopping 130 restaurants will be participating, lunch for $24.07 and dinner for $35.00. And this year, it’s a whole new Restaurant Week. The good ones aren’t offering B list menus, most are serving dishes from their regular menu. The best deals? Le Cirque and Matsugen are both participating for lunch and dinner. And you might want to consider taking a long lunch because Cafe Boulud, Aquavit, and Telepan are all open for restaurant week lunch and they’re not holding back on the menu. You might want to make reservations fast. See the list of restaurants and make your reservations at...
Read MoreC-Cap Benefit 2009 at Pier Sixty
Last night, New Yorkers gathered to raise money for the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP). Their mission? To provide underserved high school students with culinary training, jobs, and scholarships. Restaurateur Drew Nieporent (Nobu, Corton, Tribeca Grill) was honored for his contributions to C-CAP. Attendees tasted dishes from thirty-six chefs at the city’s top restaurants, who were assisted by over 60 C-CAP culinary high school students. This was one tasting experience that was hard to beat- where else can you find bites from the likes of Dan Barber, Wylie Dufresne, Michael White, Marcus Samuelsson, and Alfred Portale all under the same roof? Some of the best vegetable dishes were Blue Hill’s forono beet salad and buttermilk panna cotta with horseradish, and Payard’s petit pois and soft scrambled eggs with a uni-leek broth and caviar. On the seafood side...
Read MoreWhere To Celebrate National Pancake Day
Forget your breakfast blueberry muffin for breakfast, lunch sandwich or even supper slice, today it’s all about pancakes. Because it’s National Pancake Day and hear are some of the city’s best options. If you’re a fruit in your pancakes kind of guy/girl, head for Clinton Street Baking Company. They serve up a stack with your choice of wild Maine blueberries or bananas and walnuts. Just don’t skip the maple butter topping. You can get anything imaginable in your pancakes at Shopsin’s in Essex Market. We’re fans of the slutty cakes – six pancakes to an order, all made with peanut butter, pumpkin puree, and topped with a blend of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg. If you have more refined taste in pancakes, visit lemon ricotta pancakes at Sarabeth’s Upper East Side location are the way to go. Get...
Read MoreHope and Fairness for Valentine's Day
Valentine’s Day isn’t just about chocolate and roses. It’s about giving and this Valentine’s Day, from 3-5pm, the Global Giving Circle will be holding a special chocolate tasting at Sidebar near Union Square. The event will benefit the efforts of Project Hope & Fairness, which supports African cocoa farmers and their families. Tickets start at $25 each, and will contribute to the building of a well and measuring scales for an African village. $25 will also get you a taste of some of New York’s finest chocolates. Jacques Torres, Baked, The Chocolate Room, and Fine & Raw are just a few of the chocolatiers and bakers in attendance. There’s even an offering of Banyuls, a dessert wine donated from Thirst of Brooklyn. And to think you were going to spend Valentine’s Day eating Hershey’s Kisses… You can purchase your...
Read MoreRecession-Friendly Baking Tips
Desperate times call for…smart baking tips, not desperate measures like cake mix from the box or frozen cookie dough! Oh, no. Indulging your sweet tooth from scratch can be expensive, so we’ve come up with recession-friendly hints to help you get more out of your baking dollar without depending on Betty Crocker or the Dough Boy. 1) Say a recipe calls for ground pecans or crushed peppermint candy. No need to spend a couple hundred bucks on a Cuisinart – all you need is a plastic ziplock bag, a rolling pin, and a counter top. Just put the nuts, candies, or whatever else you need to process in the bag, and seal it up. Then think about that miniscule raise or bonus you didn’t get and smack away with the rolling pin! 2) If you’re an ambitious baker, decorating...
Read MoreC-CAP Benefit 2009
It turns out Valentine’s Day isn’t the only thing to celebrate this February. C-CAP, the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program, will hold its 11th Annual Benefit on Wednesday, February 25th. Thirty seven chefs (and more than 60 C-CAP culinary high school students) will come together to cook at Pier Sixty in Chelsea Piers. The many dishes will help fund C-CAP’s mission, and make for one of New York’s most varied tasting events. We think it should be noted that Chef Chair Marcus Samuelsson will be giving the grand tasting tour – prepare for a night of entertainment. Drew Nieporent is the deserved honoree this year. Nieporent, who helms the Myriad Group (Tribeca Grill, Corton and Nobu) has made significant contributions to C-CAP and underserved high school students with opportunities in the restaurant industry. He will be receiving C-CAP’s Honors...
Read MoreSeduce Your Lover with Burgers on Valentine
This Valentine’s Day, dispense with tradition and shower your love with burgers — heart shaped burgers. Win your carnivorous crush’s heart with Burger Shoppe’s Valentine special . All day February 13 and 14, this Financial District spot is selling a dozen heart-shaped burgers to go for $49. They even come nestled in a pink heart-shaped box. Not to worry- you can get a single heart-shaped burger for $4.50, which is a better deal than frozen pizza and re-watching Bridget Jones’s Diary. 30 Water Street 212-425-1000 Wall Street Burger...
Read MoreInauguration Day in NYC
Buh-bye Bush. I’d say that’s reason enough to celebrate this Tuesday, January 20th — Inauguration Day. A flurry of restaurants around the city will be hosting Inauguration festivities and honoring the occasion with everything from Obama-tini’s, Chicago-style pies and my personal favorite, Hill Country’s “Give Bush the Boot” cocktail… Hill Country 30 W. 26th St. (212) 255-4544 http://www.hillcountryny.com/home.php The soon-to-be-former President Bush may be from Texas, but Hill Country’s all about Obama’s inauguration. So much so they’re serving a Give Bush the Boot cocktail, made with Lonestar beer and a shot of bourbon or tequila. Pair it with the Presidential Platter ($25), which includes brisket, pork and beef ribs, chicken and traditional southern sides. You can even watch the inauguration action right at your table. Bussaco 833 Union St. (btwn. 6th & 7th Aves.) (718) 857-8828 www.bussacobklyn.com Park Slope...
Read MoreSeasonal Restaurant & Weinbar Sneaks onto the Scene
It’s not often a restaurant opens under the radar, but Seasonal Restaurant & Weinbar did just that this week. This Austrian-German restaurant quietly opened its doors on 58th Street in midtown — just a stone’s throw away from Park Blue (one of my favorite watering holes) — in the former 4 Fusion space. Co-owners and executive chefs Wolfgang Ban & Eduard Frauneder first met at the German Mission to the United Nations and have teamed up here on an Austrian/German menu, with starters like a wild king salmon carpaccio with a poached quail egg and honey mustard cream or sea scallops with red beet butter, black trumpet mushrooms and fresh horseradish. Mains include such classics as wiener schnitzel or braised milk fed veal cheeks with a quark chive spaetzle. The wine list focuses on German wines with a strong...
Read MoreThe 11th Annual Chocolate Show
What could be sexier than chocolate and fashion? Thursday evening, the 11th Annual Chocolate Show kicked off with a rather racy, chocolate fashion show at Pier 94 in Manhattan. The task at hand for designers and pastry chefs alike — “Chocolate Superheroes.” Models worked the runway covered in everything from dark chocolate to edible candy couture. It didn’t go off without a hitch, or two. Troubles with the air conditioning caused a few costumes malfunctions. That’s right, a few dresses literally “melted off.” Spectators couldn’t resist eating runaway chocolate right off the runway. And really, who could blame them? Superheroes strutted their stuff in chocolate-coated armor and capes. There was a scantily clad, Bittersweet Black Widow (pictured right,) designed and baked by Oceana’s Jansen Chan and designer Laurence Rassin. The widow wore 100 percent Valrhona chocolate lingerie. Buyer beware – she...
Read MoreReservation Rants
Has anyone noticed how hard it is to make a dinner reservation these days? I’m not talking about getting a table. The economy’s made that easy. A little too easy if you ask me. It’s the restaurants that are making it so difficult. Suddenly, reservationists are demanding full names, multiple phone numbers – a work and cell phone numbers – sometimes even a credit card. But that’s not the clincher. The reservationist at a restaurant I won’t name required that I call back the Friday before my Monday night reservation to confirm or cancel. Another thing I had to add to my calendar . Monday morning wasn’t sufficient, never mind that I was making a reservation in the first place. I not only have to think of fake names and phone numbers. I have to remember to confirm it...
Read MoreElection Night Eats
This year’s election heard around the world– one that will result in either this country’s first black president or its first female vice president— is just a week away. We’re making history here folks, consider it your duty to get in the spirit on election night. Why not take advantage of election fever and honor this little quadrennial holiday we call the presidential election? There’s not much time to left to plan our election-themed party, so we asked — begged really — chef Christopher Siversen to drum up an election night menu to remember. One that would provide the perfect talking points for an evening of politically savvy entertainment. Whether it’s the Sarah Palin-inspired Alaskan salmon or the Barack Obama-inspired Chicago deep dish pizza, each drink and entrée on the menu will present great fodder for election conversations. If...
Read MoreAt the Table Event
Women Chefs & Restaurateurs (WCR) will be hosting its third annual At the Table event this Tuesday, October 14th, to celebrate and raise money for women in food. This year’s benefit, which takes place at Prince George Ballroom, will feature some of New York’s finest female chefs, mixologists and pastry chefs. Rebecca Charles of Pearl Oyster Bar will be serving up her legendary lobster roll, Audrey Saunders from Pegu mixing Old Cuban cocktails, and Nancy Olson of Gramercy Tavern capping the evening with pumpkin cheesecake with spiced cranberries and pumpkin seeds. Other participants include Vera Tong from Dovetail, Patti Jackson from Centovini as well as Alex Guarnaschelli from Butter. We can’t think of a better way to satisfy your hunger while supporting the advancement and education of women in the food industry. Where: Prince George Ballroom, 15 E 27th StreetWhen: Tuesday October, 14,...
Read MoreJosh Eden Unveils a Late-night Dim Sum Menu
Late-night dining just got much more interesting on Prince Street. Though Shorty’s.32 may play an American comfort food restaurant by day, it’s soon to become a dim sum speakeasy by night. Why tamper with a good thing you might ask? “Because chefs need to eat dinner as well…” That’s a quote from the new late-night menu. When we got word of this under the radar project, we stopped in to taste the offerings for ourselves. Bottom line: there’s a serious dim sum menu in the works at present. Just this weekend, the kitchen was turning out everything from shrimp hargow to pot stickers to chicken sui mai. My favorites were the crispy shrimp with sweet mayonnaise and steamed pork buns. Eden even makes his own wonton wrappers and hargow dough. Sound familiar? Of course it does. Josh Eden had...
Read MoreA Sneak Peak at the International Chefs Congress – With 2008's Rising Star Chefs
What are the best young chefs saying about their success? You may get to eat at their restaurants, but you don’t often get to hear what these Star Chefs say to their peers. Or in some cases, what they don’t say. This year’s International Chefs Congress arrives in town this Sunday with chefs from around the world. The three-day symposium will be held at the Park Avenue Armory. Here’s a sneak peek at what 2008’s Rising Star Chefs will be discussing… Chef Gavin Kaysen – Cafe Boulud Humility aside: what do you think the secret to running a successful kitchen is? I think the secret is more then just one thing, but a perfect combination of integrity, organization and most importantly, adaptation. There are a million things going on everyday in a chefs life and if you are not...
Read MoreGreenmarket Profile with Dancing Ewe Farm
Ricotta’s light and fluffy texture makes it the perfect complement to summer salads or locally grown tomatoes — quickly becoming available in greenmarkets and grocery stories alike. Some of the best ricotta around can be found at Union Square Greenmarket. Dancing Ewe Creamery, situated near the Southwest corner of the market, offers a number of tasty local versions of Italian cheeses, including both cow and sheep’s milk ricotta. Back in 2000, Jody Somers bought a dairy farm and had what he dubs, “an epiphany.” He would travel to Tuscany and learn the art of cheese making. When Jody returned to this side of the Atlantic, he quickly made fan out of prominent chefs, the likes of Mario Batali. So the story goes that a Italian friend of a friend came to stay with him in New York, and became...
Read MoreGreenmarket Profile with Rockefeller Plaza Greenmarket
A midtown lunch often evokes images of a business lunch meeting or grabbing a gyro from your corner street cart, but is usuallyWith so many business suits, laptop cases, grey sidewalks and tall, grey buildings in Midtown, most people would be hard pressed to believe that a plentiful greenmarket, on par with Union Square, lies in the center of it. Midtown is known for its quick and easy food carts, not its fresh produce. To disprove that myth, walk over to Rockefeller Plaza between 50th and 51st Street (East of 5th Avenue,) to check out the Rockefeller Greenmarket. Having begun its season on July 23rd, it is open from 8AM-6PM, Wednesday to Friday, until August 29th. With around eight stalls on any given day there are ample options to create a fresher, more organic midtown lunch. On Wednesdays, Greenmarket stalwarts Red Jacket Orchard...
Read MoreCheck out My Book – Try This
