It's time for the Lunar New Year, which starts February 7th and lasts for 14 days, and this year is the Year of the Rat, 4706. Sure, there are plenty of things to do to celebrate the holiday, but to us, it means one thing -- a new year banquet. We've found a few places that are offering banquets in honor of the Year of the Rat, including variations of traditional Chinese Lunar New Year......

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is in charge of construction on the new 1 World Trade Center – AKA the Freedom Tower – is now seeking developers to design, build and operate a 34,000-square-foot restaurant on the 100th and 101st floors; whoever wins the bid may also win rights to operate the observation deck planned for the 102nd floor. The Authority is gazing into its crystal construction ball and seeing......

What do you get when you mix hot chefs like Seamus Mullen, Joey Campanero, and Josh DeChellis with top mixologists like David Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders, Julie Reiner, Jim Meehan and Eben Freeman (and many more, pictured above), a brand new space in the East Village and swirl in a dash of festive atmosphere? The opening party for the Astor Culinary Center. The new Astor Center is offering classes for food and wine......

Bun: Chef Michael Bao Huynh and his wife, Thao Nguyen, who has amazing noodle preparation expertise, have opened this Vietnamese rice-noodle and small-plate spot in SoHo. Although he has gotten some financial backing from Warren Cuccurullo, formerly of Missing Persons and Duran Duran, Huynh designed the designed the 45-seat space himself. The menu is affordable, with a cap at around $12, and features four varieties of pho, among other dishes. 143 Grand Street, near Lafayette......

There was a fuss - and VitaminWater truck - at the FDNY's Ladder 20 Engine 13 firehouse on Lafayette Street. With good reason: Mets third baseman David Wright was filming a commercial for vitaminwater. Wright, New York's hottie come lately athlete, plays a vitaminwater delivery man - see how his uniform says "David"? Firefighters were taking photographs with their cellphones and Wright seemed to be having a good time. We just hope he's well-rested......

TOMORROW!: (Due to expected rain, this event will take place tomorrow.) It's that time again...Shakespeare in the Park is back and kicking off its season tonight. Want to add some tragedy to your summer sunset this evening? Then head over to get tickets starting at 1pm today for Romeo and Juliet. You can pick up your free tickets starting at 1pm at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, or from 1 to 3pm at The......

MUSIC: You know summer is just around the corner when the Seaport Music Festival has their first show of the season. Tonight Animal Collective, Danielson and XXXChange (Spank Rock) will all be on Pier 17 for a FREE show! Come, drink, listen. Friday // 7pm // South Street Seaport, Pier 17 // Free THEATER: Critics are loving Passing Strange and now it’s extending its run at The Public Theater to July 1st. The sly yet......

That first sip of wine after six painful hours of meetings is as liberating as loosening up your tie or slipping off your heels. After all, it’s not called happy hour for nothing. Throw in a good deal on top of it, whether it’s a buy one get one free or 50% off, and you may have one of the great pleasures of the work week. With so many deals all over the city, it’s......

If you've ever been to Pearl Oyster Bar, you might recognize Ed McFarland, who was the sous-chef there for six years. Ed has now struck out on his own with Ed's Lobster Bar, a spot for "New York seafood cuisine inspired by New England's long tradition." We stopped in on opening night for a peek and found a crisp bright interior dominated by a long, white marble bar, with appropriate sea-themed artwork adorning the......

Since opening day, Joe Ng's dumplings have been proclaimed by critics to be the highlight of the Chinatown Brasserie menu. Since opening, the original Chef, Tyson Wong Ophaso, has left, elevating Joe's position in the kitchen. Thankfully, the quality of the dumplings has remained intact through the change. Although you can't expect Chinatown prices (each order of dim sum ranges from $6 to $15 at lunchtime, a buck or two more at dinner), the......

We wrote about someone we called "The Splasher" splattering - and essentially damaging - street art back in January. Since then, we've been following the Splasher's activities, as well as how street artists are reacting. Now the NY Times enters the Splasher fray again, this time with an article, "Defacer With Mystery Agenda Is Attacking Street Art" and a big front-of-Metro-section photograph of one of the Splasher's attacks in the Lower East Side. Sorry,......

November 10 - 12: Ninth Annual Chocolate Show Time for a major sugar rush. Head over to the ninth annual Chocolate Show for chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate, with some culinary demonstrations and art thrown in for good measure. $25 tickets, for one day's admission, are available online (via Ticketmaster.com or calling 212-307-7171), and will also be on sale at the door (cash and checks only at the door). Metropolitan Pavillion & Altman Building, 125......

New Yorkers couldn't walk a step without having a leaf, plastic bag or other sundry bit of city detritus hurtle towards them yesterday! It really was insanely windy. Central Park had measured winds of 46 MPH, and the winds were 48 MPH at LaGuardia Airport, causing delays there as well as JFK Airport. Almost two thousand residents in the Bronx and Westchester were without power, and the winds fanned flames of a Bronx blaze. The......

You know we love it. It’s the largest collection of delicious wines under one roof. For the wine novice who is looking to expand his palate to the experienced taster looking to find the next big thing, it’s the best way to support a great cause (City Harvest) and get all liquored up in the process. The P.J. Wine Grand Tasting is one of our favorite wine events of the year, partially because we get......

ART: Local artist Jen Dunlap is having an art show tonight. It's called Yeep! Yeep!, so it's sure to be fun. Check out her work here, then head over there to see it all up close, while enjoying some free drinks! 7 to 10pm // Riverfawn [11 Harrison St #1] // Free THEATER: Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist begins previews tonight. Originally presented in 2004, it’s about a young American businessman assigned to an unspecified foreign......

THEATER: Emergence-See! is a new one-man show in previews at the Public Theater. Conceived and performed by Daniel Beaty, the work imagines what would happen in present-day New York if, say, a slave ship were to rise out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty. Beaty portrays 40 New York characters and uses slam poetry and song to examine the toll that centuries of slavery have taken on the human psyche.......

THEATER: Stephen Belber, whose Tape was made into a riveting film by Richard Linkater, unveils his latest opus, A Small, Melodramatic Story at The Public Theater. Previews start tonight so there are no reviews yet, but the synopsis is intriguing: “In Washington, D.C., a widow struggles to figure out whether life is worth re-engaging with. In her path are the 1968 riots, the first Gulf War, the Freedom of Information Act, and herself. There's also......

READINGS: Another double-bill this week at the 92nd Street Y - Janet Fitch (White Oleander, and her new novel, Paint it Black) and A.M. Holmes (The Safety of Objects, This Book Will Save Your Life) are reading from new work tonight, introduced respectively to the stage by Will Allison and Ben Marcus. Plus, the under-35 gets a limited number of tickets for just ten dollars. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras 8pm // 92nd Street Y [E.......

Last week, we were walking down Lafayette Street and saw this well-timed display in a store window. The store, Moonlight Graham, has locations in LA and Chicago and sells "'modern vintage' clothing" (they have licenses from different organizations and companies, including MLB and Cadbury-Schweppes. Moonlight Graham isn't open yet - perhaps Friday - but when we peeked in, we saw lots of retro Mets gear to take advantage of Mr. Met enthusiasts. And "modern......

THEATER: Playwright Tina Howe delivers the first play of Atlantic Theater’s fall season: “Birth and After Birth”. Though originally conceived in 1972, the comedy has yet to break water in New York City. It details the clash between Sandy and Bill, who were up all night preparing a birthday party for their four year-old son, and their guests Jeffrey and Mia, childless anthropologists who study primitive children in remote cultures. Be sure to capitalize on......

Are new parents a little too worried about their $800 Bugaboos? Some Tribeca residents are petitioning to have cobblestone streets paved over to make them more pedestrian friendly. The Post reports that people who live at 44 Laight Street wanted to "rip up the [cobblestones] directly in front of the building and create a level sidewalk," while leaving others in tact. The community board rejected the proposal - and apparently didn't treat the idea with......

A real live trailer parked in Soho? We didn't quite know what to expect either, so we headed to the northern tip of Petrosino Square at Lafayette Street and Cleveland Place to see for ourselves. And, from about a block away, walking south on Lafayette, we spotted the metallic silver trailer nestled between some trees on a sliver of concrete just large enough to accommodate it. "Trailer Park," part of the Storefront for Art......

It's skateboarders versus the neighborhood as Soho residents and city agencies are eyeing the Greene Street skate shop, Etnies, for its rooftop skate ramp in a historical district. The Landmarks Preservation Commission said, "We received an application from the company, but it was never completed. So the ramp was never approved." Ha - that's totally feeding into the stereotype of irresponsible skaters! Residents have also complained about the noise from the ramp; the Post says......

There was a fire this afternoon on Lafayette Street, and Eric Brown took some photographs that are on Flickr. And what we found interesting is that the fire seems to be on the roof - most fires we see seem to come from the inside of the building. We hope no one was hurt. [Related: There was another brush fire in Staten Island's Great Kills area last night...arson or just brush fire season?] And......

The NYPD's test results on various pieces of evidence in the Imette St. Guillen murder case are starting to emerge - DNA evidence is inconclusive at this point but carpet fibers found in suspect Darryl Littlejohn's home match fibers found on packing tape used to bind St. Guillen. Littlejohn, who was a bouncer at The Falls, the bar St. Guillen was last seen on February 25, still has not been charged in connection to the......

Is this a break? The police have questioned a bouncer at The Falls yesterday, as well as conducted more investigations at the 218 Lafayette Street bar and restaurant over the weekend, as they try to solve the murder of graduate student Imette St. Guillen. The NY Times calls the bouncer a "potential suspect," and the NY Post says that the bouncer is a "hardened criminal still on parole for a robbery rap." While the Post......

Police believe that Imette St. Guillen, the John Jay College graduate student who was murdered last Saturday, was probably targeted by a stranger. After confirming that St. Guillen was last at The Falls, a restaurant and bar on Lafayette Street just south of Spring (near the Andre Balazs Kenmare Square development, across the street from La Esquina) where she headed after the Pioneer Bar, witnesses say she left the restaurant alone. The current theory: A......

After falling one degree short of a record high temperature on Friday, the air came back on Saturday to set a new record of 63 degrees. That's the normal high temperature for April 21st not January 21st. Congratulations Saturday! By our calculations this month is shaping up to be the fifth warmest January on record. Yes, we love obscure statistics. While we enjoyed the warm weather, we saw clowns riding bicycles up Lafayette Street, we......

Alice Arnold wrote in to tell us about her new movie To Be Seen, which profiles some of our favorite NYC streetartists. Her site has some clips from the movie, including a great interview with Swoon-- the infamous stenciler, posterist, and painter. She gives some insight into her work, and best of all, you get to see what she actually looks like-- she definitely bears a striking resemblance to some of the women in......

As with most things involving pets and technology, we loved the story about dog owners watching their pets via webcams at a downtown "pet resort." Happy Paws on Lafayette Street has high end canine day care and gives owners the perfect reason to feel secure and to procrastinate with web cams positioned in various play rooms. The owner tells the post, "The owners go online all day to watch their pets. Some say they can't......