New York Food Blog

It's Friday afternoon, and thus time for a round-up of the best posts of the week:

We listed Our 10 Best Williamsburg Restaurants.

Our Man Sietsema stalked the single white truffle.

Coolio talked about his new cookbook, Cookin' with Coolio, as well as several other things that should be read to be believed.

Jimmy's No. 43's Jimmy Carbone gave a two-part interview about beer, locavores, bacon, and numerous other topics.

For the Liddabit's Jen King and Liz Gutman, life is sweet.

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​Even though there's seating upstairs in the tiny shop, many would prefer to eat their sandwich al fresco.

Num Pang is a sandwich shop whose purpose is to tweak the banh mi formula in unexpected directions. If you go there jonesing for a traditional banh mi, you'll be sadly disappointed, but many of the sandwiches have an exciting traction all their own. Because chef Ratha Chau was born in Cambodia, some of the sandwiches swing in that direction, tastewise.

Somewhat paradoxically (since many of the selections are relentlessly meaty), my favorite sandwich is the only vegetarian selection on the regular menu.

​Tune in to the CBS Sunday Morning Show from 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m. this Sunday, when their annual food show airs, including a segment on sliders.

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The Iris Cafe isn't the only new tenant of the Riverside Apartment complex on Columbia Place: Down the block, the old River Deli space will soon be home to an Italian wine bar, according to one of Iris's proprietors.

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The pocket of Brooklyn Heights located almost beneath the BQE is now home to the Iris Cafe, an airy, high-ceilinged place that opened yesterday on Columbia Place near Joralemon Street. It's one of several storefronts in the historic Riverside Apartment complex, many of which are empty. One of the cafe's three proprietors used to work at the River Cafe, while another has worked for Edible Brooklyn. A glimpse inside and a description of the menu follow on the next page.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Chicken soup from Russ and Daughters

​ Over at the New York Times, Sarah Kramer has penned a piece on the best chicken soups in New York, a perennial topic this time of year. She calls out the chicken-snow pea soup at the Ninth Avenue location of Grand Sichuan, the black chicken soup with ginseng at Yuen Yuen in Chinatown, and of course, the classic Jewish brew at Russ and Daughters. What's your favorite spot for chicken soup?

This week in food blogs...

Eat Me Daily sent the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck's Doug Quint and Bryan Petroff to the Guy Fieri Road Show to witness flair bartending and a pork-cooking encore.

The Food Section unearths a new site called TasteStopping that solely publishes food photographs rejected by other food porn sites.

Eater discovered a loophole to the SLA's 500-foot rule limiting the number of licensed bars in that space to three: It doesn't apply to wine and beer.

Grub Street noticed that the Monster Taco Truck has moved some 25 blocks south from 110th Street to 86th and Lex.

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Being passed over for a job can lead a man to make drastic decisions.

For Martin Olsen, the result was Taza Churros, a bathroom-sized Latin donuts shop he owns with his younger brother Miguel Llinas in the Port Richmond section of Staten Island. A low-income housing counselor by day, Olsen spends his spare time manning a bricks-and-mortar churros shop he claims is the only one in the five boroughs. (Olsen may be on to something. A quick search revealed a few street vendors and dessert items on restaurant menus, but no standing churros-only spots.)

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In the annals of bad restaurant behavior, this past week has been a doozy. Scarcely a day has gone by without news of stolen wages, indictment for tax evasion, or just plain crazy-ass behavior. Obviously, shady business practices and shitty treatment of workers are nothing new in the restaurant industry, but with any luck would-be miscreants will take a lesson from the sins that were exposed over the past five days. After the jump, the week's greatest hits.

​'Tis the season of cooking... but don't let yourself get caught without a proper manual. Housing Works Used Book Cafe is celebrating the holiday season with a cookbook sale, which runs through this Sunday.