Tats Cru Mural in the East Village

Brats

Poor Daniel Angerer. Thanks to a stroke of culinary innovation he had last year, no one can write or talk about him without saying, "The breast milk cheese guy." So there, we said it. In the sort of development that jokes are made of, he's shifted his focus from breasts to wieners with his new Chelsea hot dog shop, Brats. On a drizzly Saturday, we pulled up stools and enjoyed the lively country chicken sausage, which has paprika and coriander mixed in and an intriguing blueberry mustard on the side, as well as the French duck sausage, a snappy Muscovy link atop a country pate.

And then there was the giant pretzel. You might balk at ordering a $9 pretzel, but we've had $30 main courses smaller and less satisfying than this Bavarian beast.

Stephen Burks at the Studio Museum

Our first thought upon seeing a young lady jump onto a platform in the center of Stephen Burks: Man Made was, boy, that security guard is gonna be pissed. As it turned out, the woman was there to perform a demonstration with the artist himself. Together, she and Burks attempted to wrap bungee cord around the frame of a butterfly chair while Burks's adorable young son took photos and gave his dad the thumbs up. 

Burks studied both architecture and industrial design, perspectives that continue to inform his work in its dual attention to form and function. The objects on view at his first solo show apply traditional Senegalese weaving techniques to nontraditional materials (baskets woven from rock climbing cord, for example) and objects (baskets turned into chairs and chandeliers). Their purpose made the works even lovelier: to ensure that the techniques aren't lost as the areas change and traditional materials disappear.   

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Tim Rollins and K.O.S. at Lehmann Maupin

In the mid-80s, Tim Rollins started an art workshop with at-risk children in the South Bronx, a group that became known as K.O.S. (Kids of Survival). In the intervening years, they've exhibited all over the world; until the end of this week, some of their new work can be seen at Lehmann Maupin in Chelsea. These pieces recast Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, and Weill and Brecht's opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, overwhelming the originals with their own images and colors, emphasizing the interpretive filter that always stands between art and its audience.

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oM: Vernon Boulevard

Hey everyone, we wrote and shot a column about exploring for offManhattan. 

Exploring the stretch between 51st and 46th Avenues provides an excellent sense of Long Island City’s newly trendy spirit while making sure you don’t overly tax yourself or get too thirsty [read more]. 
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Serious Eats: 1001 Nights

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for Serious Eats. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there.

This week's Date Night finds us at 1001 Nights, a little bit of the Silk Road on Neptune Avenue in Brooklyn [read more].
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Thelewala

Thelewala, a kitchen-sized new spot in Greenwich Village, specializes in the nizami rolls popular in Calcutta. While we enjoyed our achari aloo tikka roll, we preferred the tawa chicken fry, with a blast of coriander and a house masala, and the two chaats we tried. Bel poori combines puffed rice, red onions, chickpeas, and potatoes with two chutneys, while jaal moori tosses peanuts, olive oil, and lime into the mix. Both jump with flavor and come street-ready in small plastic tubs. Shagotom, Thelewala.

One Foot in the Grave at Icosahedron

Famed street artist / Obama imagemaker Shepard Fairey teamed up with more than 100 young New Yorkers to create a mural that will appear at the World Financial Center in May. Fairey's images have all of their usual pop and panache, but we admired Bjorn Treuter's distorted faces and Cesar Arechiga's long-armed portrait of memories even more. In any case, judging by the panels on display at Icosahedron, the mural should be outstanding.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame at the TFF

Steampunk set in ancient China? You didn't have to ask us twice. We bought our tickets and our popcorn and settled into the US premiere last night at the Tribeca Film Festival. Despite a gorgeous shape-shifting warrior, an evil albino with a heart of gold, and a nutty doctor named Donkey Wang, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame wasn't nearly as intense as we were hoping. Dee, imprisoned for treason, is released to figure out why some key officials have been spontaneously combusting on the eve of the coronation of the first empress of China. The plot and dialogue felt lifted from a 1970s action flick --- we expected to read "thwack" and "bonk" on the subtitles at any moment. We left marveling at some cool special effects, such as a charred torso falling hundreds of feet down the center of an enormous Buddha, and trying to see it as an allegory about contemporary China, whose government frequently forces its citizens into unquestioning acceptance, even as it does some very bad things.       

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Harlem Brownstones

Adrienne's Pizzabar

Located on what's thought to be one of the city's oldest streets, Adrienne's Pizzabar serves what's known to be one of the city's favorite foods: pizza. Sure, you could order pasta or antipasto, but pizza is the draw and pizza is what we got. And so our old-fashioned arrived, a rectangular pie topped with sausage, cheese, tomato sauce, and a wee sprinkling of broccoli.  Often called "grandma style," the crust here basically crosses the traditional Sicilian shape with newfangled New York thinness, a coming together of diverse styles that resulted in a uniquely shaped, nicely cooked crispiness.      
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The World's Largest Dinosaurs at the AMNH

Bipedal primates have been around for about 4.5 million years; anatomically modern humans, only about 200,000 years. By humbling contrast, sauropod dinosaurs thundered across the earth for 140 million years. The newest exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History highlights their incredible evolutionary success and their sheer awesomeness.