Belgian Room Closed for Underage Drinking; Park Avenue Winter Preparing for ItsAstoria: Sweet shop Oleput is now offering a lot more savories in the form of small plates and panini. [Joey in Astoria]
Clinton Hill: Rustik Tavern has a warm interior, but the menu doesn’t sound too rustic: chili, wings, nachos, though for the last one the blogger liked “that it’s cheese sauce rather than real cheese.” [Clinton Hill Blog]
Dumbo: Food writers including Kara Zuaro (I Like Food, Food Tastes Good), Phoebe Damrosch (Service Included) and David Wondrich (Imbibe) and Edible Brooklyn’s Gabrielle Langholtz will talk about — what else? — eating, at Powerhouse Arena next Tuesday. [A Brooklyn Life]
East Village: Belgian Room has been closed for letting minors booze on Lambic. [Down by the Hipster]
Soho: Vosges bacon chocolate now comes in the shape of flying pigs. But they can’t escape. [Snack]
Upper East Side: Park Avenue Winter will turn into spring on March 26, just in time for Easter. [Zagat]
Mediavore
Eric Ripert Defends Escolar; Ed Koch: Bib WearerRadar ran a story on escolar’s tendency to cause leaky bowel movements and mentioned that the fish was served at Le Bernardin. This, in turn, prompted a response from Eric Ripert himself, which prompted the author of the article to respond, “I’m sure Eric Ripert serves his escolar in such a way that it doesn’t make people shit orange oil. He’s good like that.” [Fresh Intelligence/Radar]
Chef Craig Hopson says the ghost of Aaron Burr haunts the kitchen of One if by Land, Two if by Sea and has a tendency to steal batches of brioche. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
Related: One if by Land Breaks Out a Bar Menu, and Not a Minute Too Soon
Katrina Markoff, founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, likes to pair her company’s bacon-laden chocolate bar with pieces of Gruyère and a glass of Shiraz. [WSJ]
Related: A Bacon Tribute Product We Can Get Behind
Mediavore
Citywide Truffle Shortage; A New Eastside Fro-Yo FoeA citywide truffle shortage can explain why “the Waverly Inn jacked up the price of its infamous truffle-topped mac & cheese from $55 to $85. The dish was an amusing punch line at $55; at $85, it’s just obscene.” [NYP]
Related: Le Cirque Bids High for Monster Truffle
Bruni eschews all the courtesies one suffers at the dinner table, which he refers to as restaurantspeak: “Would I ‘enjoy coffee with dessert?’ I don’t know; it depends how good the coffee is. I’ll have some, yes, then we’ll see.” [NYT]
FR.OG has now lost Jean Georges alum chef Didier Virot to the Plaza’s new restaurant-to-be, the Palm Court, set to open later this year. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
NewsFeed
A Bacon Tribute Product We Can Get BehindDespite our recent stance against all bacon-related products, which we continue to find too cute and not enough like actual bacon, we couldn’t help but sit up when we saw, on our own Best Bets, this bacon-flavored chocolate bar by Vosges. Normally, we would come down hard on such a thing, but (a) we hate to disagree with Best Bets and (b) it’s really good! We even singled it out for praise in our earlier post, so we’ll second the recommendation here.
Hog Heaven [Best Bets]
Earlier: Bacon Has Jumped the Shark
Foodievents
A Hotel’s ‘Chocolate Covered Weekend’If Rob and Robin’s gifts for chocoholics weren’t extravagant enough for you, the Exchange Hotel is offering a “Chocolate Covered Weekend” — and starting Saturday, December 16, the price drops from $1,200 to a mere thousand. What does a grand get you? According to the hotel Website, the deal includes a two-night stay in a suite (typically a winter rate of $289 per night); a three-hour tour of Christopher Norman Chocolates, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, Kee’s Chocolates, MarieBelle, and Jacques Torres; and Mexican chocolate mojitos or non-alcoholic Aztec iced chocolate in the on-site lounge. (The visit to the high-end chocolatiers is led by a guide from Zoom Chocolate Magazine.) General manager Rani Carr tells us that the package launched earlier this fall through a partnership with the Chocolate Show, but the word is just starting to spread. “It’s so new that we haven’t had anyone actually book it and confirm it,” she explains. — Lori Fradkin
Calling All Chocoholics! [Exchange Hotel]
Foodievents
A ‘Risky, Controversial’ Chocolate TastingAt last night’s “Taste of TED,” an event at Joe’s Pub, attendees — after being warned of potential controversy — were instructed to open their Vosges Haut-Chocolat “Groove” boxes. (TED, which stands for “technology entertainment design,” is an idea-sharing conference.) There were twelve truffles inside, each inspired by a genre of African-American music and meant to be eaten to songs on an accompanying CD. To the tune of Skip James’s “Hard Time the Killing Floor,” chocolatier Katrina Markoff told how best to appreciate the Field Songs truffle, which contains yams (first cultivated in Africa) and is topped with African grains of paradise: “Close your eyes and take three deep yoga breaths.” A few eaters later burst into applause after tasting the salty-sweet Blues truffle made from slow-roasted bacon from Neuske’s of Wisconsin (admittedly, not exactly the Deep South). Markoff said that when blingy caviar didn’t pan out for the hip-hop truffle, she combined white chocolate with champagne from a $200 bottle of Krug and dusted the truffle with gold leaf. At least she didn’t use Cristal. — Daniel Maurer
Vosges Haut-Chocolat Groove Truffle Collection
