Interior shots: Alexa Mae Asperin. Food shots: Zandy Mangold.
“I’m sick of everyone doing pork belly,” says Leah Cohen, the former Centro Vinoteca chef best known as a contestant on “Top Chef.”
That’s why, at her new Clinton Street restaurant, she’s staying away from it. “We eventually want to do pork brains, ears and just everything,” she said.
Pig and Khao, her project with the Fatty Crew Hospitality Partners (Fatty Crab, Fatty ‘Cue) opened for dinner tonight, with a Thai-Filipino menu (below) inspired by the year Ms. Cohen, whose mother is Filipino, spent in Asia.
“Most of the cuisine that I had when I was traveling in Asia, like in Thailand or in the Philippines, the main staples were pork and rice,” said Ms. Cohen. At Pig and Khao (“khao” means “rice” in Thai), she’ll be braising, air drying and frying pork cuts such as head, face, butt and leg – with Thai accents of cilantro, lemongrass, basil and mint. Read more…
Daniel Maurer Sign boards at Bar Kada and Maharlika on Sunday afternoon.Maharlika has received its share of attention since it went from being a roving pop-up to a proper brick-and-mortar restaurant on First Avenue back in August. “Could it be that Filipino food, the underdog of Asian cuisines, is having its moment at last?”, asked The Times in its $25 and Under review. It would seem so: Recently, yet another Filipino pop-up quietly opened up in the East Village – on the very same block as Maharlika.
Few seem to have noticed, but last month, Bar Kada took up a Sunday residence at Ugly Kitchen at 103 First Avenue, just a few doors down from Maharlika between Sixth and Seventh Streets. The pop-up is the brainchild of Aris Tuazon, 37, who was until recently the chef at another nearby Filipino restaurant, Krystal’s Cafe 81. Yesterday, Mr. Tuazon said he planned to serve a Filipino menu at Ugly Kitchen every Sunday from 11 a.m. till midnight while he looked for a permanent space in the neighborhood. Read more…
Michelle RickGood morning, East Village.
The Post reports that singer Gavin DeGraw was attacked by a group of men on First Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Streets around 4 a.m. Monday. He was scheduled for a concert in Saratoga Springs today, but instead Mr. DeGraw, who owns The National Underground with his brother Joey, is under observation at Bellevue Hospital.
The “outlook is dim” for the last of the lighting businesses along the Bowery. “Store owners point to gentrification, the downturn in the local housing market and the rise of online shopping as having taken a toll on their businesses,” writes The Wall Street Journal.
More change on the Bowery: The folks at Bowery Boogie and The Lo-Down recap last night’s CB3/SLA meeting. According to The Lo-Down, a “slightly more affordable” version of midtown steakhouse Quality Meats has been green-lighted for liquor at 199 Bowery. Bowery Boogie reports that the owners of Peels at 325 Bowery were given the nod for some alterations.
Correction: August 12, 2011
An earlier version of this blog post misstated the name of a neighborhood blog. It is The Lo-Down, not The Lo-Side.
