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8 Reasons Why Brunch is the Best

By Khushbu Shah on May 23, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Listicle

Brunch has been getting a bad rap lately from plenty of nay-sayers. Hating brunch is apparently the “cool kid” thing to do. Everyone from Buzzfeed to Gawker has listed out their complaints against this portmanteau of breakfast and lunch. Yet there are plenty of people who are willing to brave hour-long waits for a mimosa and pancake-driven meal and most of them are not yearning to fulfill some twisted fantasy of pretending that they are in some inane episode from Sex and the City. Want to know why they are standing there? It’s because they know something that the food media feels is “uncool” to admit – Brunch is f***ing awesome. Here’s why:

1) Perfect excuse to drink Champagne and epic Bloody Mary’s for no real reason at all. Sure, some places might serve not-so-high-end versions of mimosas and bellinis but not everybody can afford to baller-out every time or know bartenders who can provide hook-ups. If you want pricey Champagne there’s also pricey places that serve brunch.

2) Brunch is an all-accepting meal. Brunch doesn’t really care what you look like (helloo leggings and a sweatshirt) or how many friends (or well… people from the night before) you show up with. It will still feed you pancakes or eggs or whatever your heart desires. No matter how much, or how little, you have in your wallet, there is a brunch place for everyone.

Chef Craig Thornton of L.A. is bringing his Wolvesmouth supper club to NYC on June 14th

Quick Bites

By Mikaela Flynn on May 22, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Fundraisers, Pop-Ups, Quick Bites, Supper Clubs

Popular L.A.-based supper club, Wolvesmouth is heading eastbound to NYC for one night only on June 14th to host two dinners at a Manhattan loft. Chef Craig Thornton’s Wolvesmouth has generated a cult following over the years and has recently been featured in an extensive article in The New Yorker about the “rise of the secret supper club.” No longer a “secret,” Wolvesmouth has gained continued attention from press, food blogs, celebrities, and “foodies.” Stay tuned for more details about his trip to NYC.

While one chef heads east, another heads west. Chef Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese Food announced he will be traveling to his native Oklahoma to do a pop-up dinner with a number of local chefs to help raise money for victims of the recent tornado destruction. The pop-up is entitled OK Chefs and 100% of proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross. The pop-up will take place this coming Sunday and will offer a three-course meal for a minimum donation of $35. Follow hashtag #OKChefsRelief for more info.

Peruvian supper club de Porres has kicked off the summer season and will be offering its next dinner on May 27th. The brooklyn-based supper club is headed up by Danielle Bell and Pablo Osorio. Pablo, who hails from Peru, is the “executive chef” in the kitchen and creates unique tasting menus inspired by food from his native country. Meanwhile Danielle, an American Southerner does her part by curating special beverage pairings for each dinner and cooking up delicious desserts typical of the Deep South. For the dinner on the 27th, they will be celebrating “Meatless Monday” with an all-vegetaian tasting menu of dishes like asparagus gribiche, artichoke a la barigoule, and nettle ravioli.

More than a year after the epic fried chicken twitter battle between The Roots’ Questlove and Momofuku’s David Chang that culminated on Jimmy Fallon with cook-off (David Chang unsurprisingly took the win), Questlove is back in the food game with the May 18th opening of his new food stand in Chelsea Market called Hybird. Hybird will not only offer Questlove’s famous drumsticks, but will also have menu items like “Questfucious Cupcakes” and dumplings.

Louro offers a Great Gatsby themed menu this evening

4 Food Events Happening This Week

By Mikaela Flynn on May 20, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Quick Bites, Round Up, Unique Dinners, Unique Events

After this past rainy weekend, many of you are probably aching to get out of the house or office and go out and do something. As a New Yorker, more often than not, “getting out of the house” involves going out to eat, and so in order to make your planning easier, we’ve curated a list of exciting food events this week that will brighten up your week (especially for those who missed out on yesterday’s Great GoogaMooga and whose food cravings were never properly satisfied!).

TONIGHT: GATSBY DINNER

Yesterday, with its gloom, wind, and rain, would have been the perfect day to go out and see the new film Gatsby. Whether or not you have been able to catch the movie, chances are you have been affected by the latest Gatsby fever that has taken over the nation. Nobody can seem to get enough of the 1920′s these days as Gatsby themed parties are popping up everywhere and nostalgia for the jazz age grows stronger. One chef that has jumped on the Gatsby bandwagon is Chef David Santos at Louro who will be offering a Gatsby/1920′s-themed tasting menu at his Nossa Mesa Supper Club tonight. The dishes are inspired by food that was typical of the era of Gatsby along with a welcome cocktail hour with drinks that were mentioned in the film. The dinner includes five courses and a cocktail and is $60. Find tickets here.

TUESDAY: LOBSTER & BEER LOVERS CRUISE

Mostly sunny, high of 79 degrees. The perfect forecast for tomorrow’s Lobster & Beer Lovers Cruise with Luke’s Lobster and Dogfish Head Craft Ale. The two-hour sunset cruise includes lobster rolls and unlimited craft beer by one of our favorite breweries. The ship sets sail at 7:00pm out of Pier 17 in the Seaport. Tickets can be found here.

TUESDAY: FILIPINO FIESTA

As part of this week’s booze fest a.k.a. The Manhattan Cocktail Classic, the Philippine Department of Tourism is throwing a dinner and tropical cocktail party featuring favorite restaurants like The Ugly Kitchen, Jeepney, Zengo, Kuma Inn /Umi Nom, and a drink menu by Maharlika‘s mixologist Enzo Lim. The dinner will take place at The Bowery Hotel Rooftop and will feature Asian dishes with colorful, exotic flair. The event begins at 6:30pm tomorrow and dinner (with cocktails) is $75. Grab tickets here.

SAT + SUN: CRAFT BEER TASTING SAIL

Enjoy the long weekend with an afternoon sail and craft beer tasting on either Saturday or Sunday with Manhattan by Sail and the beer experts from Urban Oyster. Aboard the largest sailboat in Manhattan for a cruise around the city harbor as your learn about various craft beers (and taste them all). The tasting includes charcuterie bites and cheeses. Tickets, originally $105, are now only $60 and can be found here.

New Underground Supper Club Arrives in TriBeCa

By Mikaela Flynn on May 19, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Supper Clubs, Unique Dinners

Watch out, there’s a new member to the world of underground dining here in NYC. Welcome to the scene, Suite ThreeOhSix!

The new venue and supper club Suite ThreeOhSix has officially arrived in TriBeCa and kicked things off this past Saturday night with a grand opening reception. The supper club and culinary academy is the brainchild of young Daphne Cheng, who dropped out of UC Berkley to pursue culinary school in NYC. During her (only) two and a half years of professional cooking, she has had the opportunity to cook for celebrities, various non-profits, individuals, and businesses. With her new venture Suite ThreeOhSix, Daphne hopes to share her love of food with culinary professionals, beginner chefs, and food enthusiasts alike by hosting Saturday night dinners with secret menus and a wide selection of cooking classes from knife skills to molecular gastronomy.

What makes Suite ThreeOhSix even more unique is that her supper club menus are typically vegan. However, Daphne is not advertising her supper club as an official vegan supper club, mostly because she feels a lot of people who are really into food are scared or turned off by the term. She wants to be known for her innovative “ethnically ambiguous” cuisine, not because it is entirely vegan, but because it simply tastes so damn delicious.

Her first supper club will take place this coming Saturday, May 25th. It will feature a six-course menu for $69. Her website distinctly states: “No picky eaters allowed” offering fair warning since you won’t know what will be served until the menu is placed in front of you at the table. At that point, it will be too late to say, “Oh but I don’t like mushrooms!” Supper club dinners will continue on June 8th (which is already sold out) and June 15th.

If the small bites she served at her grand opening are of any indication, this girl definitely knows how to cook up some delicious and unique veggie-centric food. See a sample menu below:

WTF [Weird Things Food-Related]

By Khushbu Shah on May 17, 2013 / No Comments / Categorized Featured, Strange Eats, WTF (Weird Things Food-Related)

The Weirdest Ice Cream Flavor, Ever.
With hot summertime weather finally making itself a more permanent mainstay, ice cream is now justifiable at any meal of the day. We love innovative ice cream flavors as much as the next person, but the following ones just have us going, “WTF?” A Japanese company has created a line of ice creams with pet bird flavors. Seriously, pet birds. They apparently only use all natural ingredients and the flavors that can be purchased include Java Sparrow, Parakeet, and Cockatiel. If you were ever curious as to what Parakeet tastes like, according to the makers it’s similar to “eating some vanilla ice cream in one hand and then taking a whiff of a parakeet in your other hand.” Uhhhh, yeah, that’s one sundae we’ll definitely pass on.

London: Fish, Chips, & Crazy Cocktails
London may have the reputation of being a relatively proper city with Royalty, tea parties, scones, and with the drinking culture relegated to pubs. While the city definitely can throw back a pint (or ten), these bars are off to prove that London is the home of perhaps the craziest cocktail experiences in the world. The road to global innovation domination is filled with drinks raging from radiation (!!!) aged absinthe cocktails, drinks made from distilled clay and lichen, and a “walk-in gin and tonic” which is quite literally the cocktail in mist form and can get you wasted.

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