PX This.

hey remember when i said everybody is travelling this month? well in honor of peoples gallivanting alls over the globe when they should really probably be back home honoring all their responsibilites and whatnot, PX This is proud to bring you the third installation of our ongoing TRAVEL SERIES…

… wherein some of the coolest and most important peoples in NYC’s F&B/Nightlife world share a bit of their glorious travel experiences with YOU. yay!
and when i say "coolest" and "most important," i’m not kidding. ha aha ahaa for serious now, if you don’t recognize some of the upcoming names of the contributors to the Travel Series— ummmm… well… you might kinda have to finally face the reality that you are decidedly NOT a PX in this town, mutherfukker.
[oh okay--- there's a possibility you totally are PX, but you just don't recognize the NAMES, cuz you're either too busy being self-absorbed, or your gracious hosts have just been too modest (and/or scared of you) to introduce themselves (and/or give you their real names). fair enough.]

so. without further ado, a treat for your eyeballs instead of your other senses (for a change) from the people who really truly make F&B/Nightlife/Hospitality the experience you so immensely enjoy.

St. Barth — by Arty Dozortsev

St. Barth 02 — by Arty Dozortsev

My First Trip to India — by Kenny Kenny

My First Trip to India 02 — by Kenny Kenny

My First Trip to India 03 — by Kenny Kenny

Marrakech — by Sasha Muniak

Marrakech 02 — by Sasha Muniak

In keeping with this month’s “Travel Series” @ PX This, for my next recommendation, I would like to heartily suggest the beautiful and critically acclaimed film (and one of my personal favorites), Water.

Seeing as you’re stuck here in the big city while we incessantly shove gorgeous images of exotic locales down your petulant throat and rub other peoples’ euphoria all up in your face, you may as well try and revel in it as best you can.

Enjoy!

OK, did you catch that? They do that WITH THE CLOTHES THEY’RE WEARING! Come on, that’s amazing! Admit it – most days, you can’t even tie your shoelaces properly.

* thanks to Catherine Lim

• Adrien Brody lunching at La Esquina (with a male hipster friend)— looking pale, scrawny, and headshaved enough to possibly be filming The Pianist II. Rode off into the sunset (down Lafayette St.) on his bicycle afterward.

• Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds dining at Mr. Chow Tribeca with his son, wearing an olive military-style fatigue jacket, matching cap and dark sunglasses. Ate pretty quickly and left. Little Babyface Jr fist bumped Michael "Mr" Chow on the way out. Mr Chow tried to make it fancy and fly, but little homeslice wasn’t havin’ it – he likes it plain and classic.

• Real Housewives’ Kelly Killoren Bensimmon chatting with a shorter woman outside Cafe Select in the mid-afternoon. Wearing sparkly black leggings, and a short, black, suede fringed jacket and ballet flats. Supposedly "filming" for an upcoming episode.

• Über-photographer Sante D’Orazio lunching at Bar Pitti with an übertall, leggy, beautiful model-type. What else is new.

So! This is What Happened to Mason Reese

believe it or not, every once in a while some anonymous commentator on the interwebs actually says something nice about me. "Old Man" was one of those people.
after a few messages lobbed back and forth here and there between us in cyberspace, i discovered "Old Man" actually has a real name, it’s: mason-reese.

anyways, to make an interminable story long, i accidentally doublebooked my lunch(es) yesterday— one at 1PM and the other at 3:30PM. i scheduled the 1:00 at CentroVinoteca with my friend, tracey. the 3:30 was at BarPitti, to meet mason-reese in real live flesh and blood person for the very first time.
since tracey and i were having so much fun at our 1:00, i didn’t want it to end so abruptly so i asked her to join me for a stroll to BarPitti. and so she assented.

we get to BarPitti a few minutes early, so we decide to have a seat on the benches out front. suddenly tracey blurts out "hey, that guy looks just like mason reese!" i look over to where she’s pointing and i respond: "no, that’s richie-akiva."
she answers: "well, he looks like mason reese."
i say: "wait, what did you say? the guy i’m meeting is named mason reese!"
and the dude to whom richie-akiva is speaking immediately turns his head. lo and behold, it is indeed the person i recognize from my facebook friendships, mason-reese.
tracey asks: "you’re here to meet mason reese?! why didn’t you say so?!"

ha ha ha ha hahahahahahaa. the whole scenario was pretty bizarro. at the time. i guess you had to be there.

so dig this
it turns out mason-reese is this hugely famous actor from like the 70’s! i only know this cuz the way tracey was babbling away about her favorite childhood teevee shows and commercials and whatnot, you could have sworn it was like fucking lee-majors or some shit sitting across the table from her.

oh and it was so much fun, mason-reese had great stories!
like there was the one about how brett-ratner made a short film about mason-reese for his NYU graduation project called "Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?"
evidently this movie won some awards or whatever and even scored funding from steven-spielberg for brett-ratner’s film short. wow what a small planetoid.
then tracey had a notsogreat story about brett-ratner being a big creepie and sticking his hand down her shirt back when she used to work at Nell’s. oh but hahahaaa tracey got to bitchslap brett-ratner in the face, so there is that.

and there were other random fun tidbits too, like how mark-baker used to wear pink spandex leggings to busboy at ummm CafeParadiso (was it? i forget now) or someplace.
and how mason-reese used to own the famous NowBar (where apparently richie-akiva was once a promoter).

i felt really badly cuz i couldn’t remember any of the commercials tracey was talking about even though i totally should have, being such a teevee junkie myself back when i was just a wee tot.
so today i googled all the mason-reese commercials, and holy crap. i soooo recall that RaisinBran one, i musta seen that thing like a bazillion times.

anyhoo
mason-reese owns Paladar restaurant on ludlow street and Destination Bar and Grille (where all the bloggers go and get drunk in the middle of the day) on Ave A.

and so
to answer that decades old burning question—

that’s what happened to mason-reese, bitches.

hey remember when i said everybody is travelling this month? well in honor of peoples gallivanting alls over the globe when they should really probably be back home honoring all their responsibilites and whatnot, PX This is proud to bring you the second installation of our new, ongoing TRAVEL SERIES…

… wherein some of the coolest and most important peoples in NYC’s F&B/Nightlife world share a bit of their glorious travel experiences with YOU. yay!
and when i say "coolest" and "most important," i’m not kidding. ha aha ahaa for serious now, if you don’t recognize some of the upcoming names of the contributors to the Travel Series— ummmm… well… you might kinda have to finally face the reality that you are decidedly NOT a PX in this town, mutherfukker.
[oh okay--- there's a possibility you totally are PX, but you just don't recognize the NAMES, cuz you're either too busy being self-absorbed, or your gracious hosts have just been too modest (and/or scared of you) to introduce themselves (and/or give you their real names). fair enough.]

so. without further ado, a treat for your eyeballs instead of your other senses (for a change) from the people who really truly make F&B/Nightlife/Hospitality the experience you so immensely enjoy.

Party in Punte del Este — by Rocco Ancarola

Clos Roche Blanche Vineyard, Loire — by Laurent Saillard

Rainbow Over Vineyard — by Laurent Saillard

Miami — by Kamil Parchomienko

Tanzania — by Wesley Wang

Tanzania 02 — by Wesley Wang

Ridge Lytton Springs 2006 – Red Table Wine – Sonoma, California
Cost: $29/bottle ($16.99/half-bottle)

This predominantly zinfandel wine is perhaps one of the finer offerings from Ridge, and here I am drinking a half-bottle knowing full well I could have easily polished off a full bottle myself this evening— it was that good. Aromas of candied cherry gum drops with vanilla icing and sweet raspberry jam. It is young and fruity, candied, but remains dry on the palate. Ridge is no big secret; they provide perhaps the region’s finest Zinfandels, and this one is a textbook example of seriously good juice. Step up to the plate for some fine Zin. This is the one. Outstanding!

Rating: 92

Memorial for Dash Snow

Thursday, October 1, 2009 – 3:30 to 7:00PM

East River Ampitheater on the East River

All are welcome to attend.

This just in from a tipster: “…Victoria’s Secret is shooting at Surf Lodge all this week… it’s supposed to be hush hush…”

Thanks, tipster! Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone! We promise!

yah so. everybody’s been buzzing bout theBoomBoom! and evidently, pxthis was no exception (it also seems we were the ones who got the information correctly the quickest, but hey what else is new).

then apparently yesterday, our ole buddy steve-lewis (and then grubstreet) broke the news "Kamil Parchomienko will handle the room…" !!

wow! and yay!

those of us who know and love and/or remember former original subMercer GM/Maitre d’ kamil-parchomienko (also of MercerKitchen, SunsetBeach, StandardMiami, and StandardLA) are of course totally delighted that kamil, the prodigal son, has returned to NYC after a loooong time away. hooray!
oh but i kinda feel a little bad for him though, cuz i don’t know whether or not kamil will appreciate his name being alls out there right before he is about to open the hottest spot in town. i mean like for example,
we alls know the WaverlyInn’s emil-varda has a fake name (and business cards). i also know two of my pals who run LaEsquina refrain as best they can from giving out their names too. and for sure, back in the day, i rarely ever gave peoples my real name either.
not that "the press" ever gave a shit who the GM or Maiterdees were before, so that’s a new one, but whatever.
but i digress.

anyhoo. steve-lewis goes on to describe "They want to do two seatings, 4–9 for small plates and 10–2/3 for late night. Super high-end Rainbow Room/Rose Bar/Windows on the World style $18–25 drinks and DP by the glass…"

wow again! and uhhh… kinda… THANK GAWD (?!)
i don’t know about you, but i’m a little sick of places that only cater to young unkempt insomniac kids whose trust funds haven’t quite kicked in yet. not that i ever went to any of those places (mostly cuz ha ahaa i couldn’t get in), but i just think it’s really really great somebody is finally thinking of us "olds" (ya know— the ones with TASTE) and giving us a place we can go and have fun before one o’clock in the fucking morning.

oh! yah— and since you were wondering
the answer is YES! that’s the kamil you’re thinking of. of course it is! who else would it be.
he’s also one half the character "michael" in the series (the other half is current BlueHill@StoneBarns GM, philippe-gouze) and if all goes well, he’ll be played by actor (and former clubUSA bartender) darren-kendrick.

hmmm how many is that now? ha ha ha ahaa haaah i’ll give a crisp new benjamin to the first person who can correctly identify every person in the book who now works at theStandard.

*

… came into existence and utterly devastated nightlife, special guests of the clubs were given “drink tickets” as a token of appreciation for their patronage, decorum and all around magnificence. Indeed, the true mark of a PX was measured in the enormity of one’s “stack.” The drink ticket (stamped nightly on the back with varying images) was the one bestowable voucher that could conceivably make an individual more popular than the coke dealer.

Cheers to the good ol’ days.

*Thanks to Joyce Bagner Hetherington

OK, so I promised at some point I would go back to recommending movies with F&B related themes. Certainly, no F&B film appreciation repertoire is complete without three of the best movies ever made about food and/or wine— Vatel, Eat Drink Man Woman, and the more recently released, Bottle Shock.

Visually stunning, viscerally moving, and intellectually elevating, these three films will make you truly love food and wine all over again— because, let’s face it, after your long, laborious, arduous stints in some of the creepiest establishments on earth, you’re a little bit sick of food right now, aren’t you?

Well, if you don’t thoroughly enjoy these movies as much as I did, you’re no Foodist, damn it! You’re just some awful, ridiculous, pretentious Foodie or something! Eewww, Foodie! Get out of here, Foodie! Don’t make us have to break out the torches and pitchforks.

This one goes out to our good friend with our profound delight and gratitude.

:)

hey remember when i said everybody is travelling this month? well in honor of peoples gallivanting alls over the globe when they should really probably be back home honoring all their responsibilites and whatnot, PX This is proud to bring you the first installation of our new, ongoing TRAVEL SERIES…

… wherein some of the coolest and most important peoples in NYC’s F&B/Nightlife world share a bit of their glorious travel experiences with YOU. yay!
and when i say "coolest" and "most important," i’m not kidding. ha aha ahaa for serious now, if you don’t recognize some of the upcoming names of the contributors to the Travel Series— ummmm… well… you might kinda have to finally face the reality that you are decidedly NOT a PX in this town, mutherfukker.
[oh okay--- there's a possibility you totally are PX, but you just don't recognize the NAMES, cuz you're either too busy being self-absorbed, or your gracious hosts have just been too modest (and/or scared of you) to introduce themselves (and/or give you their real names). fair enough.]

so. without further ado, a treat for your eyeballs instead of your other senses (for a change) from the people who really truly make F&B/Nightlife/Hospitality the experience you so immensely enjoy.

Bali — by Mark Baker

Beach at Night — by Mark Baker

View from the Bagatelle Restaurant, Turks & Caicos Islands — by Jean-Baptiste Parvaix

Beach by Day — by Miye McCullough

Juicy — by Miye McCullough

Lizard — by Miye McCullough

• Urban Daddy does all you losers a favor by letting you know how you can finally get into theJane. Then the comments section of Down by the Hipster reminds you all again why it is exactly you are such a fucking bunch of losers. -Vanilla Ice

• Speaking of reminders, Joshua David Stein grabs another opportunity to exhibit how he is such a knowledgable and insidery genius, and that Abbe Diaz is just a "batshit crazy, angry, petty" person— by graciously informing you pretty much the exact same shit Abbe Diaz already told you. -Vanilla Ice

• Jennifer Aniston reports on Conan O’Brien that she wants to possibly maybe open a Mexican restaurant— because "usually a great night is had in a Mexican restaurant, no?" And also: "New York City needs a great [Mexican restaurant]."
OH SNAP! Ya hear that, La Esquina? All that hospitality you’ve been showing Jennifer (we’ve spotted her there with our very own eyes on two separate occasions, both times with John Mayer. And we hear she’s "there all the time") is only going to end up with her biting yer stilo and stealing your patrons, à la Graydon Carter and Ron Perelman.
So much for gratitude! -Vanilla Ice

• SPOTTED: Last week at BarPitti, all dining on the same evening— Tony Shafrazi (business), Carmen Kass (pleasure), and Mena Suvari (business/pleasure ?). Look out for the paparazzi pics of Mena Suvari somewhere (she was properly attired and bespackled for them) since the photogs were plentiful and relentless. (Carmen Kass they completely missed, however.)

• SPOTTED: Nightlife impresario Richie Akiva celebrating his birthday over Saturday (September 19th) brunch at Cercle Rouge— with three super-tall babes and one beefy bruiser in tow. And his little dog too.
Nobody sang for him (aww, booo!). And kudos to him for being the only at the table not too hungover and/or stoned to have to hide behind big bugeyed beblackened spectacles.
As they were departing after their meal, one model reprimanded Richie Akiva like his mom, "The waiter just said ‘Happy Birthday’ to you!" And Akiva retorted, "I said, ‘thank you’!"
Yes, he certainly did, and quite sweetly, too. So there.

"It’s been a remarkable year, but I have decided to continue pursuing my culinary education abroad," says Executive Chef Leah Cohen. So far, cursory plans include possible months-long stints in Spain, Italy, and Asia to further enhance her knowledge and technique, "I am very thankful for the opportunities that Sasha Muniak and his team have given me, but I do feel that now is an opportune moment to travel and study and continue to develop myself into a more well rounded chef."

"We are very proud of Leah and what she has accomplished for both herself and the restaurant," adds proprietor Muniak, "I have no doubt Leah’s enthusiasm in furthering her education will benefit her and her career immensely."

Current sous chef Richard Furey (formerly of The Grand Hotel Amrâth, Amsterdam) will take over control of the kitchen. "It’s been my experience that in transitional phases such as this, it’s best to prevent disruption in the kitchen as much as possible. I’ve been very happy with the success of Leah Cohen rising up from sous chef under Anne Burrell, and with Saul Montiel (Gusto Ristorante) taking over the kitchen after his ample experience as sous under both Jody Williams and Amanda Freitag."

Muniak further remarks, "Leah Cohen was very much in demand after her appearance on Top Chef. The team very capably handled her absence while she was called away to represent Centro Vinoteca in both off-site events and TV appearances. I am confident Richard and the team will competently live up to their new challenge."