Lucky Peach Issue 4 is Coming Next Month

The fourth installment of David Chang, Peter Meehan, and Chris Ying's food mag Lucky Peach is a month away.  McSweeney's website revealed the cover with a few details about what to expect in Issue 4, the American Food Issue. 

David Simon, creator of HBO hit series The Wire and Treme, contributes with "Salty Comforts," an article that remembers his dad via pickles and cream.  Marco Canora, Wylie Dufresne (talking about his new tasting menu?), Harold McGee and Anthony Bourdain all have a hand in the next issue which gets published July 10th.  You can order your copy now at Amazon or wait until Friday, July 13th, the date "Issue Four will be in stores and on newsstands by."  As always, it'll also be available at all the Momofuku spots.

Sam Sifton Had a Date With Blanca, a Bluefin Tuna Head, and Our Friend Paul

Former New York Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton sheds some light on Blanca, the new project from the Roberta's team that, compared to Roberta's, approaches eating from the other end of the food spectrum.

Sifton draws comparisons to Momofuku Ko and Brooklyn Fare, restaurants that share a similar vision.  At all three restaurants, Blanca included, the chefs only offer a tasting menu.  The dishes get served to guests seated around the kitchen, where they're able to watch chefs prepare a series of plates that get placed in front of them.  At Blanca, this happens around 20 times, at a pace Sifton defines as "measured and relentless."

Blanca is serving their $180 tasting menu four nights a week, Wednesday through Satruday, with one seating each night at 6pm.  It's an exclusive affair, one Mr. Mirarchi hopes to eventually expand to include a fifth night and two seatings.  Part of the price tag allows you to choose the soundtrack to your meal.  Records brought in from some of the owner's collections are on hand with a turntable, allowing guests to play what they want to hear.  The food, though, is all Mirarchi.

Our good friend Paul Tortora was there Saturday with his brother Jonathan.  Paul's the guy with the ponytail pictured under the tuna head, he's a (brilliant) wine rep for Rare Wine Co.  We asked him about dinner: "The meal, in a word, was dialed-in."

Pete Files on Neta

Pete Wells awards two stars to Neta, the sushi spot a couple of Masa vets opened earlier this year on West 8th Street in G Village. 

Wells says of the decor, "The interior of Neta is defiantly plain," and that, "There are diners on Route 4 in New Jersey that give you more to look at."  It isn't until certain creations by Nick Kim and Jimmy Lau are placed in front of him that he forgets about his surroundings.  "In the presence of unusually well-made sushi, a kind of tunnel vision sets in. Anything else in the room might as well be invisible as the world narrows down to a gleam of fish on a finger of rice in a tight circle of light."

Allergic to fish?  No problem!  Neta has nearly a dozen different vegetable rolls available a la carte, a part of the menu Pete "might have read with as much attention as I give to sponsored posts on Twitter.  Curious, I tried grilled shiitake caps pressed around rice, a lotus root roll with minty shiso and another roll of asparagus tempura. They were some of the purest vegetable preparations I’ve tasted all spring."

Jean-Georges To Open ABC Cocina

Jean-Georges opened ABC Kitchen in March of 2010. When the restaurant opened, he refered to it as his "new, farm-to-table restaurant," with a "market-driven menu." Shortly after opening, Sam Sifton gave the restaurant two stars. 

In lieu of the restaurant's continuing success, Jean-Georges will take over the Pipa space at ABC Carpet & Home. Pipa, known "for its innovative take on traditional Spanish tapas," will close this winter and reopen early next year, after Paulette Cole, CEO and Creative Director of ABC Home, redoes the space. She is responsible for the farmhouse effect and recycled materials that adorn ABC Kitchen's interior. The new project will be called ABC Cocina and look to Spanish speaking countries for inspiration for its small plates menu.

Is This What That Show on Cartoon Network was Getting At?

In the first decade of the fifth century B.C., two chickens in Greece were fighting on the side of the road.  Fast forward just a few years, to the middle of the 20th century, and impossibly distant cousins of those two fiesty chickens were being mass produced to accommodate the American diet, which in 1970, included an annual intake of 40 pounds of chicken per person.  That number has since doubled, as we now individually consume over 80 pounds of chicken annually.

Logically, the next step is to invent robots to do the butchering for us.  Gary McMurray has been leading a team of robot builders at the Georgia Institute of Technology for eight years.  The machine they've created is equipped with robotic arms that are "guided by a three-dimensional imaging system that can determine in a split second the size of each chicken and where its skin, meat and bone are."

Starting Tomorrow, You Can Lounge Hillside in Brooklyn

The owners of Vinegar Hill House are opening Hillside tomorrow on 70 Hudson Ave, right nextdoor to VHH in Brooklyn's quaint Vinegar Hill neighborhood.  The 30-seat venue will act as a cafe/wine bar/breakfast/lunch/dinner space and provide diners a place to lounge while they wait for a table at Vinegar Hill House, Hudson Avenue's perennially packed food haven.

Grubstreet tells us Hillside will have a rotating wine list that features 20 to 30 wines by the glass.  The list focuses on "Island Wines" that come from Ischia, Corsica, and the Canaries.  There is also a section dedicated to Beaujolais Crus.  These wines come from north of the Rhone Valley in eastern France and are comprised of the thin skinned Gamay grape.  Their subtle tannic structure and bright acidity make them exceptional summer reds.

Pastries and sandwiches will be available for breakfast and lunch.  The dinner menu will offer cheese, cured meats, and small plates, including oysters and bone marrow.

First Bite: Mission Chinese Food

Welcome to First Bite, a new feature at digestny where we post about some of the city's most anticipated restaurants shortly after they open. We'll take some pics, eat some food, digest, and then report back to you. This time around its Mission Chinese Food, Danny Bowien's San Fran import. On our recent visit, it was made clear why the hot spot is so... hot.

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Donde Dinner?

Welcome to Donde Dinner?, a new weekly feature where DigestNY does the work choosing your next dinner spot.

In this new feature, digestny will pick a restaurant and post its address for you every Friday.  The catch is, the address is all the information we're giving you.  No name, no type of cuisine, and no googling allowed!  Price, quality, and accessibility are all being taken into concern, restrictions that result from trendy diets are not.  We promise not to have you waiting at the bar for two hours with $15 cocktails, and since we're not fancy folk, you never have to worry about a dress code.  Just hop on the train, or your feet, or your bike, and head to:

267 Elizabeth Street