The Day | In Defense of IHOP

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

While Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York offers up another post in support of St. Mark’s Bookshop, it looks like the troubled Heathers may be the latest neighborhood cause célèbre – L magazine’s blog, The Measure, thinks the bar’s liquor license should be renewed because “it is a bastion for a diverse mix of gay and straight creatives who are looking for a drink in an increasingly frat-like East Village bar scene.”

Voice critic Robert Sietsema eats cow tongue at Prune, but that’s hardly his most disconcerting dispatch today: After making light of the “ridiculous amounts of hoopla” over the 14th Street IHOP and pointing out that the place was half-empty around lunchtime, Mr. Sietsema stuffs some pancakes with sausages in an attempt to reproduce a childhood favorite. They’re “still superb.”

Still not sold on IHOP? Jimmy’s No. 43 will start serving brunch on Saturday. According to Zagat Buzz, items will include “‘black and tan’ griddle cakes (complete with ale batter, bananas, salted stout-caramel sauce, curry spiced pretzels, cocoa and powdered sugar).” Grub Street has still more East Village food news, including special meals at Hearth and JoeDoe.

The Times files a review of “After.,” a play about an ex-convict that opened this week at the Wild Project. It’s “a compassionate portrait of a man struggling with the challenges of socializing.”

Downtown Express has the results of the district leader races: John Scott won in the 66th Assembly District. In the 64th Assembly District, Part C, Paul Newell and Jenifer Rajkumar emerged victorious.

At P.S. 188 on East Houston Street yesterday, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced that the school is one of seven getting a new volunteer tutoring program. NY1 has more.

Due to “customer concerns,” Bondi Road (the Sunburnt Cow’s Lower East Side sister restaurant) has scrapped plans to celebrate its fifth anniversary with spit-roasted shark, according to a press release reprinted on Bowery Boogie.

As advertised on a flyer spotted by EV Grieve, a new organization, LUNGS, is working to “promote, protect and preserve gardening and greening on the Lower East Side.” The first meeting is on Saturday.

Runnin’ Scared interviews doormen at the Cooper Square Hotel and the Bowery Hotel. One of them says, “Probably the weirdest stuff I’ve been asked to do is to find, you know, prostitutes.”

According to Grub Street, Winebar creator Raymond Azzi is partnering in a Peruvian restaurant, La Cerveceria, that will open at 65 Second Avenue next month.