Dana Varinsky Atef Boulaabi.A specialty food shop that counted local chefs David Chang of Momofuku and Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune as fans will reopen next month.
Before closing a little over a year ago, S.O.S. Chefs sold high-end imported spices and gourmet products like truffles and rare mushrooms to “some of the most renowned restaurants and chefs in the world,” as none other than Martha Stewart put it. In the Momofuku cookbook, David Chang said he improvised his roasted mushroom salad after going there to pick up some truffles and instead buying Turkish pistachios, hon shimiji and king oyster mushrooms, fleur de sel, and pistachio oil. He’s gotten bay leaves there, too.
Atef Boulaabi, the owner, said S.O.S. Chefs 2020, as its new incarnation will be called, will have more of a retail focus. “Before we were chef, chef, chef,” she said, noting that 80 percent of her business was wholesale. Read more…
Stephen Rex Brown Scaffolding went up at Second Avenue and Sixth Street yesterday.Good morning, East Village.
If you missed our coverage earlier this morning of Community Board 3’s S.L.A. committee meeting last night, well then here it is. The Standard East Village didn’t show up to pitch its dining overhaul, but a couple of iconic bars, Joe’s and Nice Guy Eddie’s, got nods of approval for new ownership.
The Mosaic Man tipped us off to his latest work outside of the Bean on Second Avenue. This one is a tribute to the building’s notorious “crazy landlord.”
While organizers of the Anarchist Book Fair disavowed Satuday’s violence, Salon tackled the question of just how much the mayhem had to do with Occupy Wall Street. Natasha Lennard witnessed the impromptu march: “It was rowdy, energetic and fast. Barricades and trash cans were dragged into the street to stop traffic and impede the police cars that eventually arrived on the scene. At one point, two young women watching the surge of people winding through stalled traffic asked me whether this was an ‘Occupy thing.’ I answered ‘yes.’ But, as I soon appreciated, it’s more complicated than that.” Meanwhile, the Daily News digs in to one suspect’s arrest record. Read more…
Phillip Kalantzis-CopeGood 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. Read more…
