Eat the Weeks; 19th - 21st, 26th - 30th

We took part of last week off to digest after Thanksgiving, so here's what we ate over the last two weeks. Happy weekend.

19th - 21st: After losing his Staten Island home in Hurricane Sandy, Otto hosts a fundraiser for Babbo exec chef Frank Langello | A look around Park Slope's Sunday farmers market | Some stories from waiters about working in New York City restaurants; told to the folks at Narratively NYC | Pete Wells gives two stars to M. Wells Dinette | We put together a list of eight New York State wines to drink at Thanksgiving

26th - 30th: Aska opens in former Frej space | Links to stream the first 10 episodes of Mind of a Chef | Michael White's Altamarea Group signs lease on former Fiamma space | Pete Wells gives two stars to Dirt Candy | Eleven Madison Park drops the grid format | Morimoto's Tribeca Canvas opens | Gabe Stulman's izakaya restaurant Chez Sardine opens | Donde Dinner? - 235 Mulberry Street

Donde Dinner? - 235 Mulberry Street

Donde Dinner? wants to make your next dining experience an adventure. So, we'll pick a restaurant and post its address for you every Friday. The catch is, that's all the information you get. No name, no type of cuisine, and no Googling! We took a week off for Thanksgiving last week, so here's the address from the 16th:

14 Bedford Street = Quinto Quarto

This week's restaurant follows typical Donde Dinner? fashion: price, quality, and accessibility are all taken into account. You won't be waiting at the bar for two hours with $15 cocktails, and you don't have to worry about a dress code. Just hop on the train, or your feet, or your bike, and head to:

235 Mulberry Street (btwn Prince and Spring)

Chez Sardine is Open

Chez Sardine opened last night at 183 West 10th Street. The restaurant is Little Wisco emperor Gabe Stulman's first forray into Japanese cuisine and the izakaya-style restaurant is the next to go from our Taste of Tastes to Come list.

Izakaya is a Japanese drinking establishment where the food is designed to go with the drink. To help make that happen, Stulman called on talent from other Little Wisco restaurants. Fedora chef Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly is in charge of the food at the new 30-seater. The menu hasn't been released yet, but some of the dishes Brunet-Benkritly is serving are smoked arctic char, beef with sea urchin, sushi rice balls with avocado and fish roe, and chicken with kimchi. Perla sommelier Jen Sgobbo put together the list of sake and wine for Sardine. We'll get back to you with more very soon.

183 West 10th Street | 646-360-3705 | www

Tribeca Canvas is Open

Masaharu Morimoto had his first taste of Tribeca nearly twenty years ago, when we was hired to be Nobu's executive chef. Now, the Iron Chef has reintroduced his culinary vision to the triangle below canal with the opening of Tribeca Canvas. The 80-seat restaurant opened last night at 313 Church Street and is the next to go from our Taste of Tastes to Come list.

Due to Sandy-related delays, the restaurant is still awaiting its liquor license, but when it arrives, the restaurant will be open until 4am. For now, Morimoto's take on comfort food is being served until 11pm. The menu hasn't been finalized yet, but some of the items are chicken sausage pot pie, lamb ragu steamed buns, fried chicken, mac and cheese with a poached egg, and whole fish with spicy tofu sauce and pickled vegetables. Once that liquor license rolls in, and the kitchen serves until 4am, Tribeca Canvas will likely turn into an after-hours industry hangout; something like the Blue Ribbon of Tribeca. We'll see you there.

313 Chruch Street (btwn Lispenard and Walker) | 917-720-2845 | www

NYC's Grid System Survives EMP's

Diner's Journal confirms the news today regarding yesterday's tweet from Ryan Sutton. Sutton, NYC food critic for Bloomberg News who keeps tabs on dining deals via the Price Hike and the Bad Deal, revealed via Twitter yesterday that "Eleven Madison Park dropped its grid format." The 16-item grid was introduced in September 2010 and invited diners to choose ingredients from each of four sections and have their meal built around those choices. It was one of many changes to take place at the restaurant that year and was designed to strike up a dialogue between guests and service staff. Two years later, the grid falls victim to the constant evolution that has come to define the four star restaurant.

On their website, the restaurant still invites guests "to share any allergies, dietary restrictions, and ingredient preferences with us so that we can tailor our menu to each individual," but the grid is gone. A meal at Eleven Madison Park remains 16 courses, $195, and epic. [DJ] [Twitter]

No Meat, No Matter; Two Stars for Dirt Candy

[nagle for the ny times] cabbage at dirt candyKate's Joint raised the bar for American-vegetarian food when it opened in the East Village back in 1996. The restaurant closed earlier this year, but Dirt Candy is there to carry the Village's vegetarian torch. Dirt Candy is what Amanda Cohen calls vegetables, it's also the name of her restaurant she opened in 2008. The restaurant's website explains, "When you eat a vegetable you’re eating little more than dirt that’s been transformed by plenty of sunshine and rain into something that’s full of flavor: Dirt Candy."

In his two star review of the restaurant today, Pete Wells enjoys the food and the way humor plays a part in the Dirt Candy experience, "Since opening Dirt Candy in the East Village almost four years ago, the chef Amanda Cohen has been waging war on the “eat your vegetables” mind-set, using humor as one of her weapons." Cohen's sense of humor is found throughout the restaurant's website and menu, wine list included, where a sparkling wine on offer from the Veneto is described as, "A fresh, lively sparkling wine from Italy that dances on your face." "Humor is so integral to Ms. Cohen’s work," Wells writes, "that she may be the only chef in America who could publish her first cookbook in comic-book form and make the decision seem not just sensible but inevitable."

Writing a menu is never a simple task, and when the menu is completely void of an entire food group, a heightened level of creativity is called for to ensure seats will be filled on a nightly basis, even if there are only 18, as is the case at Dirt Candy. This creativity shows up at the restaurant in dishes like eggplant tiramisu and the cauliflower entree, where "Ms. Cohen gives cauliflower florets a long bath in maple smoke, dips them in cornflakes, fries them to a golden crisp and serves them on waffles." It's a playful twist on the chicken and waffles classic. There are a few misses on the menu, but, ultimately, Wells finds Cohen is "not adapting the vegetarian cuisine of some other culture. She is inventing her own."

Another One for Michael White's Altamarea Group?

In addition to the Butterfly and Ristorante Morini, Michael White and his partner Ahmass Fakahany may have another project in the works. The Post learns that BR Guest's Stephen Hanson sold the building at 206 Spring Street that once housed Fiamma, and that the new owner has leased out the three storys of restaurant space to White's Altamarea Group.

Should White open a restaurant in the former space, it would complete a sort of culinary circle in his career. He was the original chef at Fiamma when the restaurant opened in 2002. White left in 2006 to take Scott Conant's place at L'Impero before going on to build his AMG Empire. "The buyer was Corigin Real Estate Group," the Post notes, and "sources said White has been “in and out” of the Spring Street location."

The possiblilty of another new venture comes just in time. Michael White will be speaking on the topic of restaurant expansion at the Gabarron Foundation December 5th with Danny Bowien and Andy Ricker. Tickets for that event are $50 for non members and $35 for members. [NYPost] [Culintro]

Stream the First Ten Episodes of the Mind of a Chef

Ten episodes of the new PBS series Mind of a Chef have aired since the show premiered Friday, November 9th. The first season explores the mind of David Chang as he takes viewers on a wild ride exploring culinary happenings around the world. The show airs in blocks on Fridays starting at 8pm. Four aired on the 9th, two on the 16th, and another four last Friday the 23rd. For now, all ten episodes are available to watch for free over at PBS.

Episodes will only be available to stream for three weeks after they air on TV. So the first block of four episodes that aired on the 9th will come down this Friday, but we wanted to give you a chance to catch the episodes before they go. Do the show titles read to anyone else like a cross between the seven deadly sins and a hodge podge of song titles from Johnny Mathis, Jerry Garcia, and Raekwon? [PBS]

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