BlackBook Magazine

Adding to the (short) list of white things we actually like.

By Katherine Faw Morris

White has a bad rap. It’s the color of bad dancing, yodeling, printer paper. Yet there does exist a select list of enjoyable colorlessness: Snow. Polar bears. Wifebeaters. You get the drift. Add to this bunch Bar Blanc, a new French of bleached walls and banquettes in the the W.Vil. As my latest unguilty pleasure, Gossip Girl, has taught me, living off interest just gives you more time to party.

XOXO. Bring on the baby pig head terrine.

As an early April Fools' Day joke, bring all your lactose intolerant friends to this gorgonzola gridiron.

By Katherine Faw Morris

I do love an animal print. A gold glitter shoe. A hot pink faux fur. All together—even better. But often, ’tis a gift to be simple. Smith’s, a new G. Village upper American with a pronounced Italian accent, has already learned this lesson. Driving a path of maturity straight to the heart of what elegant, unfussy adulthood is all about—cheese.

Mexican in the Meatpacking: Who you tryin' to get crazy with, esse?

By Katherine Faw Morris

My high school Spanish intuition tells me that “los dados” translates as “the dice,” preferably the red fuzzy kind that are meant for the rearview mirror of a 1986 Camaro. Not that I could spot any at Los Dados, a homey Mexican addition to Meatpacking’s après-shopping scene. Nor after a soothing dip in the margarita and tortilla chip ocean did I care. That whole name connoting meaning thing is way overrated.

Eating healthy on the E.Vil—and actually liking it.

By Katherine Faw Morris

Eating healthy is not always fun. Lentils are the librarian to pizza’s punk rocker. But not feeling like a bloated grease elephant is super exciting, too, and if I have to eat my brussels sprouts I’d rather it be at Back Forty, the stylin’ new farmhouse shaping up Avenue B.

Sam Mason and his confectionary looking glass.

By Katherine Faw Morris

Tailor, the solo debut of pastry pinup Sam Mason, is a curious place. A vaudevillian wonderland where I more than half-expected to find young men with marceled hair lounging about on divans, discussing their collections of pinned butterflies and sloshing tumblers of gin. There’s mix ’n’ match wallpaper, creaky wide-plank wood floors, pheasant statuettes, and the lingering stench of child labor left over from when the place housed the American Nut & Screw factory. It all screams turn-of-the-century dandy, but then there’s that smoked pineapple foam. That chocolate soil. That fluffy egg white capping off a peculiarly purple gin fizz—all of it leaving me with the distinct feeling that I’m not in 1907 anymore.

Because it feels so good to be bad.

By Katherine Faw Morris

I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t taste good fried. Doughnuts? Duh. Snickers bars? Scrumptious. Beef Beignet? Bring it on. Everything can benefit from a skinny dip in popping peanut oil. A fact not lost on BarFry, a new West Village emporium centered around the belly bombing art of tempura. That most non-kimono, anti-geisha, un-origami of Japanese imports. Abandoning my cherry blossom hairpiece, I came prepared to tackle BarFry with a sumo wrestler’s stomach of steel, determined not to be bucked by this wild ride of fried.

Vampy Chinese in Gramercy Park Hotel doesn’t bring the bling.

By Katherine Faw Morris

I thought Wakiya would test my sense of the ridiculous. All the elements were in place: House restaurant for Ian Schrager’s extreme makeover of the Gramercy Park Hotel from musty love in the afternoon-er to overstimulated, members only urban dream. Luxe Chinese fare prepared by a Japanese chef and overseen by the management posse from sushi heaven Nobu. Drunken anorexic 15-year-old Belarusians. It should have been train-wreck spectacular. It should have been Bianca Jagger on a white horse and coke spoons in every bathroom. But it wasn’t. It was Russell Simmons. In a sweater vest.

I saw Russell just as he was leaving, and I was being seated at Wakiya, in a stiff straight back chair upholstered in black damask. He was my only celebutard sighting of the night. I wasn’t even surrounded anonymous hordes of vertebrae-baring preteens of vaguely Slavic, Brazilian, and/or alien descent, but by, like, normals. My deflated expectations were somewhat lifted, though, when I took in Wakiya’s décor. The place looked like a straight-up vampire boudoir. Everything red and black and severe. The tables were arranged on either side of a long corridor laid with a scarlet runner and shielded by curtains of silky tassel. Twisty candelabra, tapestries, and matte black porcelain place settings emblazoned with tiny phoenixes. It was way Blade.

By Katherine Faw Morris

Caminito
If you think you’re big time, get your ravenous booty up to Spanish Harlem for some Uruguayan cow, blood sausage, and Malbec at Caminito, the nuevo Argentine fleshhouse taking over from a barbershop that was featured in Carlito’s Way. Primo. 1664 Park Ave., 212-289-1343

Forum
Picking up the slack in the old Pop Burger space on Fourth Avenue, Forum has got sliders, natch, but also kielbasa meatballs, foie gras and truffle oil pizzas, mango saffron mussels, and cocktails galore. Drown your discount sorrows after that clandestine Forever 21 shopping spree. 127 Fourth Ave., 212-505-0301

Getting schooled on the art of whole-fish cooking.

By Katherine Faw Morris

Last weekend I decided to cook a whole bluefish. After scraping weirdness out of its belly, cramming it bent in half into the oven with a few garlic cloves, and waiting for-ever, what emerged was something that tasted pretty much like, well, chicken. That’s when it occurred to me, it’s kind of a challenge to make a tasty piscine. It ain’t exactly bacon—just throw it on the skillet and yum. There’s a real art behind a simple, lightly seasoned whole fish. Luckily, Sea Salt has recently arrived on the lower Second Ave. resto scene to learn me a few things.