Umami Food and Art Fest Will Blow Your Mind, KitchenWhen we first heard about Umami Food and Art Festival, “a meeting ground to people who use food as a medium,” our first thought was: Will Goldfarb has to be involved with this.
Neighborhood Watch
Psilakis Hopes to Move Kefi by July; Collective Sausage in SohoClinton Hill: Some people like Sushi Okdol on Myrtle Avenue, others find it “meh,” but the place will host children’s birthday parties. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Midtown East: The owners of Burger Kings at 485 Fifth Avenue and 129 East 47th Street refused to sell $1 value meals because they say they were losing money on the company’s specials. The locations have been shuttered, but they’re suing BK for the right to charge more in Manhattan. [NYDN]
Soho: Always wanted to make a “collective memory sausage”? You can on April 8, when the Umami Food and Art Festival kicks off at Roulette, 20 Greene Street. [Strong Buzz]
Upper West Side: Michael Psilakis plans to move Kefi around July to open his fourth restaurant. [Gothamist]
West Village: Anito Lo expects to have her barbecue spot, Q, around April. [Eater] Something’s happening to Minetta Tavern, but it might not be Keith McNally’s doing. [Eater]
Mediavore
No Plaza for Graydon; Mr. Rachael Ray Drops $35K for LunchboxGraydon Carter won’t be taking over the Plaza’s Oak Room, so you’ll still have to head downtown to the Waverly Inn for that truffled macaroni and cheese. [NYP]
Jean-Georges Vongerichten seeks the elusive fifth taste by serving “umami bombs” at his restaurants. [WSJ]
Related: Waiter, There’s a Fifth Element in My Soup
It’s possible that locally grown products have a comparable or even greater carbon footprint than food that travels long distances, so you can stop patting yourself on the back for being a greenmarket fanatic. [NYT]
Related: Local Schmocal [NYM]
Click and Save
Waiter, There’s a Fifth Element in My SoupOn the eve of Momofuku Noodle Bar moving its base of operations up the street, NPR’s feature today on the “fifth sense” of umami has a certain timeliness. (In the ramen business, every day is umami day.) The Japanese word for “yummy” is used to describe the taste of meat, animal fats, cheese, dashi, and other foods in which glutamates have broken down – it reflects the “savory” sensation that everybody likes in chicken soup, ramen broth, and other foods not notably salty, sweet, bitter, or sour. The feature is a kind of combination of Science on the March, with Escoffier standing in for Madame Curie, and a Paul Harvey piece: “and that flavor, that scientists said was just a figment, was… umami. Now you know the rest of the story.”
Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter… and Umami [NPR]
