This story originally appeared on Grub Street.

French bakery Beny’s Delice opened July 9 in Clinton Hill, joining restaurant Autour de Monde and wine shop Olivino on the increasingly Euro blocks of Fulton Street near Clinton Avenue. Owner David Benizeri was a caterer in New York and the south of France, and did a stint in the kitchen at Ten Bells before deciding it was time “to have a window on the street.” The former barbershop has a dark counter made of reclaimed wood, a shiny black tin ceiling, and four high stools for those who wish to dine in. The bakery is open daily between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Benizeri’s savory offerings reflect a Mediterranean influence. There’s pan bagna, bread filled with a mix of tuna, olives, cucumbers, boiled egg, radish, and other veggies (“like a Nicoise salad but without the potatoes,” he says); a selection of salads, classic jambeur (ham, cornichons, and butter on baguette); and a rotating selection of friands filled with things like spiced ground beef or pear and goat cheese. Tarik Slamani, Benizeri’s former catering collaborator, oversees the sweet side of the operation with a “very, very, traditional French” pastry case. Look for berry tartlettes, puffy religieuses filled with chocolate pastry cream, and a selection of madeleines and other small cookies packed to travel in tiny cellophane bags. Coffee is La Colombe and the bread comes from Pain d’Avignon.

Beny’s Delice, 903 Fulton St., nr. Clinton Ave., Clinton Hill; 646-704-1315.

Read the original story on Grub Street.

If we have to put up with New Orleans-style mugginess this summer, we should at least do so in the company of NOLA-style cuisine and bon temps.

Both can be found at Tchoup (“chop”) Shop, a pop-up party that throws down Sunday afternoons at d.b.a. Brooklyn. There, chef and NOLA native Simon Glenn prepares a dozen or so dishes each week on his makeshift grill.

The chef’s down-home touch has attracted a cadre of regulars and Louisiana ex-pats. Some come for Glenn’s more contemporary creations: A recent Sunday brought a memorable grilled boudin sausage (shipped in from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana) topped with his homemade pickles and Cajun mustard; sweet-sour chicken wings coated in homemade Cajun pepper jelly; and divine duck-fat-roasted asparagus punctuated with Chinese sausage, walnuts and blue cheese.

And there are others who just want to grab an above-par burger and some peel-and-eat shrimp accompanied by a sweaty mug of beer and listen to the tunes of a live Louisiana band.

Is it Sunday yet?

Tchoup Shop takes place every Sunday through October from 2:30 p.m. until the food runs out (usually around 8 p.m.). d.b.a. Brooklyn, 113 N. Seventh St. (between Berry St. and Wythe Ave.), Brooklyn; 718-218-6006 or tchoupshop.com

Photo: Alex Solmssen

Read the original story on Tasting Table.

Last summer’s fro-yo war continues, this year in truck form. Competing with Berry Froyo as of July will be a combination fro-yo–and-coffee truck called Joyride. There are two flavors: original and Buzzed (original, but caffeinated). Expect organic, seasonal fruits for toppings, as well as bittersweet chocolate croquants, coconut shavings, and jaggery, a sweet Sri Lankan palm syrup. “I love everything from the hot-dog vendors to haute cuisine on food trucks, but there’s so much out there that’s just really, really unhealthy. Frozen yogurt is actually pretty healthy,” asserts co-founder Lev Brie.

Joyride will also serve Brooklyn-roasted Stumptown coffee and a selection of specialty drinks like the “flat white,” a New Zealand drink that’s “in between a macchiato and cappuccino,” Brie says. Follow the truck on Twitter to track its launch and location.

Brisket blowout! Top pitmasters keep the ‘cues smoking and the crowds coming.

As the 17 pitmasters at the Big Apple BBQ demonstrated, there’s no right way to cook a pig—or cow, or sheep. Barbecue mavens rolled in from 13 states, including NYC’s own Blue Smoke, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and Rack & Soul. And, as Charles Grund—who presided over Hill Country‘s1,500 pounds of brisket—explained, ”Barbecue is a thing where everybody does something just a little bit different: their own flavor, and their own different technique. There’s not a whole lot of people doing it exactly the same way, so there’s not a whole lot of cutthroat.”

Indeed, the 125,000 atendees who were expected for the two-day festival chomped on barbecued brisket, whole hogs cooked up two ways, ribs done in myriad technqiues, a smorgasbord of sausages, and even that Owensboro, Ky., special, barbecued mutton. Everyone had set up the night before, and some stayed up all night tending fires and preparing meat.

But it was all worth it the next day, when the hungry crowds showed up toting kids, dogs and Wet-Naps. “Taste the meat, taste the spice, taste the salt,” exulted ‘cue granddaddy Mike Mills, of 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro, Ill., gesturing at his baby back ribs. “You’ve got a rodeo in your mouth.” …

Read the rest and see more photos on Metromix.com.

Photos by Gabi Porter

Photo: Marcus Price

Music scenester Dante Gonzales will be frying up chicken and tofu in New York for the next ten days or so, before he leaves for L.A. to open a food truck. After rising through the ranks at San Francisco’s Zuni Café and Seattle’s Flying Fish and then deciding he “didn’t feel the same kind of love and energy” there as he had cooking with his grandma, Gonzales began serving his grub at parties and shows around the world, for artists like M.I.A., Theophilus London, and Santigold. Now, for the first time, he’s offering bicycle delivery.

The chef hopes that Ride or Fry, as he’s calling the project, will show people that “fried chicken is not junk food— it’s a character dish; it’s like gumbo.” His “Sock It to Me” chicken consists of Murray’s free-range breasts coated in a batter that includes nuts, seeds, and fresh herbs (Grandma’s trick during times when flour was scarce). Greenmarket sides include a cucumber-corn-and-string-bean salad, a roasted-paprika-corn macaroni and cheese, and a daily pie. …

Read the rest of the story on Grub Street.

Downtown’s hungriest turned out for the 16th annual Taste of Tribeca, and they couldn’t have had a nicer day for it. Among the 65 neighborhood restaurants serving small bites (attendees had the tough choice of selecting six) were big names like Nobu and Bouley, along with old favorites like Walker’s and Tribeca Grill.

The event benefits arts programs at P.S. 150 and P.S. 234, and the short set turned out in full force, many with painted faces, dancing to the sounds of City Winery’s live bluegrass band. Diners queued up for dishes like pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw and watermelon from Walker’s and Duane Park Patisserie’s molten chocolate cake. Maybe it was the sunshine and the outdoor setting, but barbecue seemed to be on every plate—from the bratwurst at Schaller & Weber’s hot dog cart to further mini-pulled pork sliders from Tribeca Grand Hotel.

Restuarateur Drew Nieporent, whose Nobu, Tribeca Grill, and Centrico all made showings, emceed the American Lamb Meatball Challenge (a dumpling cookoff sponsored by Tang’s Natural Dumplings also went down). The Tribeca pioneer pronounced this year’s event “spectacular,” and had to think hard when asked how many years he’d been in attendance. “This started 16 years ago and Montrachet opened 25 years ago,” he said, as though he couldn’t quite believe it. 

Read the rest of the story and see more photos on Metromix.com.

More than 300 revelers stormed The Bell House on Cinco de Mayo for the second-annual Guactacular. Clutching cans of free beer, would-be chip-dippers waited in lines that snaked around, and then around again, to sample 20 guacamoles competing for avocado accolades. Even co-founder Lee Frank, of NachosNY, a nacho reviews Web site, admitted things were un poco off-the-hook. “It’s a little bit crazy, but that’s to be expected,” he conceded. When Alex Meixner got onstage with his accordion and proceeded to churn out out Tejano sounds, things only got wilder.

The guac monikers turned out to be as fun as the flavors, which ranged from a BLT mash-up to a mango dip with some bite. We were tempted to vote for Tu-Guac Shakur or @Awesomeguac (which has its own Twitter account) just for the names, and literary dips like a Guac to Remember and the Hunt for Red Guactober also tickled our punny bones. Speaking of Twitter, a large screen scrolled tweets with the #Guactacular hashtag, including a plea from cupcake peddler Allison Robicelli, who’d been stuck in the lobby pushing her $3 cakes, to pretty please bring her a plate of the green stuff.

Ultimately, Peter Borenstein’s Tu-Guac Shakur (can we pick ‘em?), Chris Willets’ (of Skint fame) Johnny 5, and Marcia Bunda‘s Cumin at Ya took home top honors. Afterward, partygoers filed into the front bar for free tequila shots. It was quite a night…and let’s just say we have no desire to encounter another avocado any time soon. …

Read the rest of the story on Metromix.com.

Photos by Sam Horine.

Amatullah Lewis had been climbing the career ladder as an HR professional until, like many, she got laid off during the recent recession. “I was having that little pity party, ‘Woe is me,’” she recalls. Until she realized she had a talent to share: baking bread, which she’d done for her family for years.

Sweet Spice & Honey Halal Baked Goods is Lewis’s collection of 10 breads, which come in creative flavors such as Yami-Yami–a round, rustic loaf containing roasted beets, squash, and yam–and Extra_Ordinary, a dense, chewy, and heavily seeded dinner bread. For treats that are healthy but not cloying or heavy, Lewis makes a banana bread, a carrot cake, a cherry and coconut loaf, and one laced with chipotle and cocoa dubbed Seattle Swirl, all of which taste not too sweet, and substantial rather than oily. Like a mother tricking her kids into ingesting vegetables, Lewis tucks the unexpected into these loaves: pineapple in the Seattle Swirl and flax seeds in the Extra_Ordinary. These are breads with real heft, the savory ones worthy of playing a big role in a meal, the sweet ones ideal as a nutritious yet satisfying snack.

The baker emphasizes that she uses local ingredients as much as possible, and shops at farm stands and an Amish market near her New Jersey home. “It helps to promote sustainability. It helps to promote local farming,” Lewis says of her approach. “Any time you buy local, you’re guaranteed it’s going to be fresh–you can smell it and you can taste it.”

She recently began sampling her breads at private events, and loaves currently may be purchased directly from her by e-mailing sweetspiceandhoney@gmail.com. Large loaves are (a somewhat pricey) $18 to $21, and smaller ones go for $7 to $10.

In addition, the Brooklyn native will begin offering Sweet Spice & Honey at the
Bushwick Farmers Market when it starts around the end of May, where shoppers will also be able to buy individual slices. “It’s down-home basics,” Lewis says of her products. “Eggs, milk, butter, wheat, whole grains, whole fruit. These are natural ingredients from the Earth. Everybody needs to eat, but what we put into our systems usually hurts us. I know what I’m baking will not hurt you.”

Read the original story on Fork in the Road.

Photo by Amatullah Lewis.

Star chefs lit up the Mandarin Oriental’s 36th-floor ballroom for the Grand Feast, the biggest party of the weeklong Lucky Rice Asian Food Festival. Among the luminaries dishing Asian delicacies to several hundred guests were chefs from Daniel, Le Bernardin, Morimoto and Jean Georges.

Standout bites included Jean Georges’ buttery sea urchin with jalapeno and yuzu (though sadly, the man himself did not seem to be in attendance), and plump and crispy fried oysters with wasabi-yuzu sauce by chef Brad Farmerie at Public. Daniel Boulud’s smiling face beamed out from behind his booth, where pastry chef Dominique Ansel was serving an elaborate, Asian-inflected dessert soup.

We caught Daniel making the rounds as well, posing for photographers with a bevy of beautiful women, sampling the pork belly and radish hash at Michael “Bao” Huynh’s booth (as Huynh looked on anxiously—wouldn’t you?), and even pausing to chat with us. “I have a restaurant in Beijing and a restaurant in Singapore, so I’m excited to have a focus on Asia,” said the venerable chef. “For a premier event, I think it’s a huge success.” …

Read the rest of the story on Metromix.com.

Photos by Natasha Ryan

To fete Mother’s Day, six chefs dish about their favorite recipes from Mom.

It’s not often we’re shown the softer side of celebrity chefs. More frequently, they seem to be releasing profane cookbooks or abandoning brides at the altar—makes for better tabloid fodder, we suppose. Yet there’s nothing like Mother’s Day to bring out the biggest softie in anyone—especially us.

To that end, we’ve handpicked six top New York chefs and quizzed them about their favorite dishes from Mom, and the inspiration gained at Mom’s apron strings.

Read on to learn about Harrison chef Amanda Freitag’s third-generation meatballs; the chicken-wing dish that Kuma Inn’s King Phojanakong named after his mother; the Bromberg brothers’ mom, who was a locavore before her time; and other important culinary mommas. It’s Mother’s Day after all, so don’t forget to call yours. And maybe treat her to a bite to eat: All of the dishes featured in this story are available at the chefs’ respective restaurants …

Read the rest of the story on Metromix.com.

Photo by Jori Klein Jacobs.