A selection of dishes at Huda | Louise Palmberg/Huda Checking out Sawa in Park Slope and Huda in Williamsburg Two Levantine restaurants have recently opened in Brooklyn that have modernized traditional dishes. Both have all the accoutrements of the modern bistro, including sleek designs, creative cocktails, carefully constructed wine lists, and a limited menu that pushes boundaries. Here, we compare dishes between Sawa in Park Slope (75 Fifth Avenue, at Prospect Place), which opened earlier this month, and characterizes itself as a modern Lebanese restaurant; and Huda, which debuted in William ..read more

Cha Cha Tang, from Wilson Tang, will take over Hancock Street restaurant through June. | Evan Sung/Hancock St Plus, a Rockaways taco stand returns — and more intel Wilson Tang is known for helping give new life to the Doyers Street Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown. After disbanding from that role, he has tacked his name to several new projects including an East Village bar called Romeo’s. His latest move is transforming restaurateur John McDonald’s Hancock St. restaurant in the West Village into a pop-up version of Hong Kong-style diners called cha chaan tengs. Starting May 12, on Sundays and M ..read more

Royal red shrimp from Dock to Dish. | Dock to Dish Royal red shrimp caught off Montauk is catching attention on some high-end menus Americans eat more than 1.5 billion pounds of shrimp a year, making it by far our most popular seafood. Most of the shrimp we buy at the fish market, grocery store, or at a restaurant comes from abroad, which carries with it a multitude of issues, from forced labor to the high carbon footprint caused by shrimp farming. When wild shrimp is US-harvested, it’s pulled in-season from the waters off Louisiana, Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas. Increasingly, though, a s ..read more

Inside Urbanspace at 570 Lexington Avenue. | Alex Staniloff/Eater NY Plus, Austin restaurant Suerte will host a pop-up in NYC — and more intel Last April, restaurateurs Steve Hanson and Alex Gaudelet (who make up Hospitality Firm) first announced they’d be taking over underperforming Urbanspace food halls, the latest move in a string of attempts to make food halls viable. This past week, New York Post reported they’d be relaunching the five locations, now under the HF Food Halls umbrella. “We are acquiring each of the halls individually and rebranding them,” Gaudelet told the Post. A year past ..read more

Curry chicken potato bun at Ho Won Bake. | Robert Sietsema/Eater NY Buns stuffed with curry chicken, dressed-up lasagna, and bathhouse pierogi With Eater editors dining out sometimes several times a day, we come across lots of standout dishes, and we don’t want to keep any secrets. Check back weekly for the best things we ate this week. Curry chicken potato bun at Ho Won Bake As restaurant meals soar in price, cheap meal alternatives become more of a necessity than ever. And the bakeries of Chinatown — which seem to be increasing in number — willingly step up to feed the people. While they may ..read more

Mission Chinese classics: ma po tofu and kung pao pastrami. A return to the classics — and a few new dishes, too A few days ago, Mission Chinese popped up on the premises of Cha Kee, a restaurant in the heart of Chinatown at 43 Mott Street, at Bayard Street, that debuted in 2021 with a Japanese-influenced Chinese menu. On its Instagram account, it announced Mission Chinese was taking over the space at 5 p.m. every Wednesday through Sunday through the end of the summer, while Cha Kee would serve a Hong Kong-style bill of fare in the morning and afternoon. The colorful back-lit wall menu of the ..read more

Two guard dogs at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture went rogue, injuring a woman and killing her dog. | STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images Plus, Kossar’s is finally ready to open on the UWS — and more intel Two livestock guard dogs had escaped from Stone Barns, a non-profit farm adjacent to Blue Hill, the nearly $400 per person restaurant from chef Dan Barber, injuring a local Westchester woman and killing her poodle in February, resulting in a judge-ordered euthanization of the dogs. On Thursday, Stone Barns filed an appeal, which will stay the order to have the dogs euthanized, pe ..read more

A tri-colored scallop dish at Daphne’s. | Lanna Apisukh/Eater NY Daphne’s opens in Bed-Stuy For anyone who wants to open a Brooklyn Italian restaurant that feels like it has something new to say, they’ll probably want to do away with conventions: gingham red-and-white tablecloths and chicken Parm, as lovable as they are, need not apply. Daphne’s, opening on Saturday, April 20, bears little resemblance to the red sauce joints that co-owners Gary Fishkop and Paul Cacici, grew up with in Sheepshead Bay, and the North End of Boston, respectively. The 50-seat restaurant located at 299 Halsey Street ..read more

A gleaming new entranceway leads to the downstairs mall. Plus the layout of the updated stalls The opening of Flushing’s Golden Mall, 41-28 Main Street, near 41st Road, marked a major turning point in the city’s romance with Chinese food. The basement food court opened in 1990, but it wasn’t until the early aughts that it began to attract widespread attention. Chowhound posted excited descriptions of every stall, and soon food celebrities joined the crowds stumbling down the rickety stairs into its maze-like premises, including Jonathan Gold, Jamie Oliver, Anthony Bourdain, and Eric Ripert. En ..read more

Salt and Straw is opening in New York. | Salt and Straw Plus, Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles expands in Chinatown — and more intel The Danny Meyer-backed Salt and Straw, the Portland-based ice cream shop, is opening its first locations in New York City this summer, at 540 Hudson Street in the West Village, 360 Amsterdam Avenue, on the Upper West Side, the Strong Buzz reported. Salt and Straw was first opened in 2011, by Kim and Tyler Malek, known for its innovative scoop flavors like buttered mashed potatoes and gravy. Ahead of the opening, the team will host pop-ups. There’s one on Thursday, April ..read more