Toro Declares Independence From Spain, Goes Pan-AsianThe owner of Spanish-Asian tapas spot Toro has redesigned it as a flashy Pan-Asian restaurant with a lofted, glassed-in dining lounge and a third-floor party space.
Live Poultry Not Live for Long in Woodside; Champagne at ParadouDumbo: The Japanese publication Mapple released a guide to the nabe and recommends Jacques Torres Chocolate, Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, and Grimaldi’s as top picks. [Dumbo NYC]
East Village: You don’t need to hunt down any Danish to track Frank Bruni; he’s a huge fan of Death & Co (and hopes the bar’s not really in trouble). [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Meatpacking District: A $25 Champagne tasting at Paradou next Tuesday also comes with snacks. [Paradou NYC]
Midtown: A rare bottle of scotch fetched $54,000 at Christie’s liquor auction last night. The Rob Roys we made with it were great. [Food and Wine]
Woodside: For a truly hands-on holiday meal, you can head to Bismillah Live Poultry market in the warehouse quarter; choose your “turkey out of a flock of around 30, and off it went in a shopping cart to be slaughtered, scalded in hot water, and plucked by the staff. Fifteen minutes later it emerged in a bag, warm to the touch, its fat tail sticking out.” [The Grinder/Chow]
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Harry Hawk Seeks to Schnäck-ize the Brooklyn Bridge Park BeachHarry Hawk, having created a burger and hot-dog haven at Harry’s at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, is attempting to re-create his magic in Brooklyn Heights. But it hasn’t quite happened yet. Brooklyn Bridge Park Beach, home of the Floating Pool at Pier 5, is currently being serviced by Hawk with Stahl-Meyer hot dogs and draft Abita root beer, but Hawk confides to us that he sees his concession “expanding in a Schnäck-like direction.”
NewsFeed
Patsy Grimaldi’s Fall From Grace
Such is our reverence for Patsy Grimaldi, the pizza patriarch behind Grimaldi’s, that when we heard word, via Slice, that he had come out of retirement to cook slices at the Aviator Sports Complex at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, we immediately began saving gas money to make the trip. The place is so remote — all the way down Flatbush Avenue, just before the Marine Parkway Bridge — that you practically need to be Hernando de Soto to find it. It’s a kid’s paradise, with two NHL-size ice rinks, indoor soccer, basketball courts, and the rest. But for the unathletic children, of course, the real draw is the food court, where you can find Schnäck burgers, cheesecake from Junior’s, Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory desserts, and, yes, Patsy’s pizza. Are those slices worth the epic journey?
Openings
Brick-Oven-Pizza Perfection Comes to Carroll GardensSlavering outer-borough Chowhounders have recently been storming the unmarked gates of Carroll Gardens’s newest brick-oven pizzeria, a rustic establishment being compared on that contentious, cultlike Website to such sacred pizza cows as Di Fara’s. It’s not only the posters who’ve evoked that mythic name — chef-owner Mark Iacono has as well. “My favorite pizza is Di Fara,” says Iacono, who looks a little like a Pope of Greenwich Village–era Eric Roberts. “The recipe is pretty much the same. Difference is, mine is made in a brick oven.” His pie is also imbued with a feisty smokiness, courtesy of a wood fire, and has a flavorful crust that’s comparatively soft and puffy, closer to classic coal-oven practitioners like Totonno’s and Grimaldi’s than Di Fara’s. “I call it old-school-Brooklyn style,” he says. “That’s what I’m going for.”
