Small Bites: 50% off at the Smoke House; Pinkberry introduces chocolate yogurt; Stone Fire Pizza reborn as Oak Fire

Half off at the Smoke House: If you're not utterly sick of food by the day after Thanksgiving, old-school steakhouse Smoke House will be offering 50% off its entire menu Friday from 3 to 11 p.m. Slip into a red leather booth, order a basket of its famous cheese bread and sip a martini while soaking up the ambiance of this classic restaurant, which celebrated its 63rd birthday in October. Reservations recommended. 4420 W. Lakeside Drive, Burbank. (818) 845-3731, www.smokehouse1946.com.

Pinkberry goes brown: The fro-yo purveyor will make its newest flavor, chocolate, available in California on Friday.

The name game: It didn't happen in summer as Greg Morris had planned, but Stone Fire Pizza has finally and officially rechristened itself as Oak Fire Pizzeria & Pub. Morris, the man behind the Spanish Kitchen, the Belmont, the upcoming Olive and most recently the Oaks gourmet market, made the change to eliminate any brand confusion with a similarly named L.A. chain (cough, cough, Pitfire Pizza). In addition to thin-crust and deep-dish Chicago-style pies, it boasts a full bar with artisanal liquors and a rotating selection of microbrews. 829 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood. (310) 659-8848, www.oakfirepizza.com.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo credit: Jill Connelly / For The Times

Sampler Platter: 7-Eleven makes its own wine, MasterChef cooks endangered eel, 70 cases of brat pizza stolen

How will two-buck Chuck compete against 7-Eleven's new wines? How does someone steal 70 cases of pizza? How do you open a bottle of wine with nothing but willpower and your shoe? All this and more in today's food news roundup.

-- How to open a bottle of wine in France: For those times when you've been up all night, you're drunk and all you want to do is drink another bottle of wine, but you're in the street, you have no corkscrew and the stores aren't open yet. Happens all the time. YouTube
-- Speaking of which ... 7-Eleven's making its own wine. Oh, thank heavens. Dallas Observer
-- Hotel and nightclub impresario Sam Nazarian slams into ugly financial reality. Could this be part of the reason behind SBE's recent split with Brent Bolthouse? Wall Street Journal
-- Auntie Em's tops list for best cupcake shop; Sprinkles left out. LAist
-- A $47,000 lunch tab from Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Buzzfeed
-- In the ongoing Tavern on the Green saga, the venue hosted the Halloween party from hell, say booted patrons. New York Daily News
-- BBC's "MasterChef" cooks critically endangered eel. Oops. The Telegraph
-- It's cloudy with a chance of record-setting meatballs in New Hampshire. Yahoo! News
-- Tasting ecstasy and agony at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa. New York Times
-- 70 cases of brat pizzas stolen from Wisconsin company. Sheboygan Press
-- A preview of the apocalypse: Boston Markets will all run dry. Consumerist

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Meatball appetizers, distant cousins of the New Hampshire record setters, at the Crow Bar and Grill in Corona Del Mar. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

N.Y. & C. Pizza plans grand opening this week

There's New York pizza. And there's Chicago pizza. Leave it to four guys who own a Southern-themed sports bar in Santa Monica to come up with the idea of opening a pizza joint wholly devoted to both. That idea comes to fruition this week when N.Y. & C. Pizza celebrates its grand opening on Thursday.

The left side of the restaurant is representative of New York, decorated with Big Apple memorabilia, and the right side is dedicated to Chicago. The same kitchen makes both "authentic deep-dish Chicago-style pizza and thin-crust New York pizza," says partner Adam Milstein. (He and his partners, Philip Boyd, Robyn Landrum and Chris Shanley, also own and operate South, the Westside bar that serves Hurricanes and 'gator wings.) Says Milstein: "We thought, why not do both?" 

Why not, indeed.

1120 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, www.nyandcpizza.com. Beer and wine. Open till 4 a.m.

-- Betty Hallock

Sampler Platter: Novel Cafe expected to close, advice to Starbucks, sugar prices shoot up

Whale meat, pizza, goofy names for otherwise reasonable dishes and a giant tuna lead today's roundup of food news.

• Detroit's Peaches & Greens produce truck encourages healthful eating. NPR
• Top chefs pick their favorite fast food. Esquire
• There's a big, delicious rumor that N.Y.C.'s Magnolia Bakery might come to West 3rd Street. And it's a fact that D’Amore’s Pizza is open and serving late-night slices in the area. Blackburn + Sweetzer
• A beautiful ode to whale meat. YouTube
• Novel Cafe on Pier Avenue in Santa Monica will likely close. LA Observed
• Sugar prices shoot to 28-year highs, on shortage fears. Los Angeles Times
• Seven restaurant dishes that are too embarrassing to order by name. Consumerist
• Calgary, Canada, restaurant pays $25K for giant tuna. CBC
• Advice to Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz from someone who actually works there. Fortune

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: A fisherman slaughters a Baird's beaked whale at Wada Port, Japan. Dating back to the 16th century, coastal whaling is a tradition in Japan, and Wada is one of the last ports where fishermen hunt in Japanese waters. Credit: Franck Robichon / EPA

Deep dish versus thin(ner) crust: Pizza battle at the new N.Y. & C. pizzeria

The four guys behind South in Santa Monica are getting ready to strike again with another Westside spot. This time, instead of paying homage to comforts of Southern culture with mint juleps served in Mason jars, they’re embracing the pizza cultures of both New York and Chicago in the former Toi space at 1120 Wilshire Blvd. “We took the space and split it in the middle,” says co-owner Adam Milstein. The right side looks like New York, with tabletops covered and varnished with New York Times pages dating back 40 years. The left side captures the spirit of Chicago, complete with photos of the Sears Tower and Wrigley Field. They’re calling it N.Y. & C.

The pizzeria, which will stay open until 3:30 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, goes beyond a clever design scheme and a cute name. Milstein says his partners went all over New York to research pizzerias – some went further and even got jobs in kitchens for some hands-on learning. For the inside track on Chicago-style deep dish, Milstein hit up his grandfather’s best friend, owner of Wapaghetti's in Illinois. “He sent me ingredients and secret family recipes,” says Milstein.

The results? The New York menu will offer thin(ner) crust pizzas such as the “Central Park” made with sausage, pepperoni, meatballs and extra cheese and the “Empire State,” which is similar to a Margherita with mozzarella, marinara and fresh basil. The Chicago options include the meaty deep dish “Windy City” topped with sausage, pepperoni, sliced beef, mushroom and extra cheese. And to wash it down: about 45 kinds of beer, 14 of them bottled.

N.Y. & C. is targeted to open at the end of July or early August and will also offer delivery.

-- Alexandra Le Tellier

Photo: Brian VanderBrug / Los Angeles Times

Desert lobsters, Texas-sized pizza and a golden age for vino

 

A sampling of stories from across the Los Angeles Times:

-- Bob and Pam Eddy have fought to make a go of it selling live "desert lobsters," or Australian red claw crayfish. But wildlife officials have made the state of Nevada -- yes, Nevada -- even less hospitable to the crustaceans.

--Bewildered by the number of wine choices in the supermarket? (It's about the only downside to living in a golden age for wine, especially California wine.) There are now more than 2,800 wineries in California, reports the Wine Institute.

--Texas isn't exactly known for its pizza. But that's not stopping our man in Houston, who's on a reader-driven, music-inspired road trip.

-- Rene Lynch

Follow us on Twitter @LATimesFood

Wine picks from Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila

Photo credit: Jeff Scheid / Las Vegas Review-Journal

A dining guide for USC and UCLA grads

 

Graduating from college is kind of a big deal.

After four or more years of midterms and finals, Mom, Dad, and every other relative in the western United States will want to see little Josephine Bruin or little Tommy Trojan shake the dean's hand and move that tassel from right to left.

The big question is: how to feed them all after the ceremony and into the weekend?

We picked 10 restaurants, with a variety of price ranges and cuisines, where UCLA and USC graduates and their families can celebrate a well-deserved brunch or dinner. (And thank goodness that true-blue and cardinal-red blood need not be shed in a battle over one of these restaurants: USC’s graduations begin this weekend on Friday, and UCLA’s are not until mid-June.)

So, class of 2009, after you toss your hats, get ready to fill your bellies:

Chef Ferran Adria wants a piece of the (pizza) pie

 

Ferran Adrià, the internationally acclaimed chef whose El Bulli in Spain is revered as the world’s premier outpost of gastronomic inventiveness, has ventured to Italy to learn a more humble art: pizza making.

And perhaps, not unsurprisingly, some Italians have a problem with that.

Photo: Phil Gallo / For The Times 

Pizza box of the future?

When is someone going to invent a reusable plastic-lined pizza box that you take to the pizza parlor?

Hey! I think I just did! I'm going to be rich!

Pizza places could sell them or hand them out for free. And advertise all over them. You'd never have to look for that greasy old menu again. If you get delivery, the delivery guy could just slide it on over. Now, I just need some investors....

Laugh now, but remember that there was a time when it seemed absurd to bring your own bags to the market.

-- Rene Lynch

Join us on Twitter @LATimesFood

Sampler Platter: Inhalable chocolate, raccoon barbecue and deep-dish pizza

A special Tuesday mix of legitimate food news and random silliness...

• Inhalable chocolate: Art project, hoax or humanity's greatest invention? FOX News
• Chicagoans miffed, angered, brokenhearted that Obama orders a deep-dish pizza from St. Louis. Chicago Tribune
• In a quick over-the-weekend sleight-of-hand, the Groundwork outpost in the arts district of downtown L.A. closed and re-emerged as the Novel Café. Downtown News
• Man stabbed after he allegedly wouldn’t cough up $5 for beer run. Philadelphia Inquirer
• Although Democratic Rep. Jimmy Naifeh's 18-year stint as speaker of the Tennessee House is over, his annual raccoon barbecue, the Coon Supper, will continue. Phew. WHNT
• Burger King will scrap a controversial ad for the Texican Whopper, a Whopper topped with chili con carne, jalapeños and spicy mayo that's being sold in Europe. The ads, which Mexico had protested, feature a short Mexican luchador draped in his country's flag. Reuters
• Hugo Molina (Parkway Grill) once again steps behind the stove with Seta, a "New American" restaurant that's "part steakhouse, part Latin, part Asian and all Hugo." Zagat
• Fullerton-based chain the Flame Broiler will replace Wienerschnitzel‎ and Steak Escape at the Crossroads in Irvine. Stick A Fork In It

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: The Calabrese pizza topped with San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella, Chino Farms rapini, Calabrian chiles and bottarga at Pizza Ortica in Costa Mesa. Credit: Brian VanderBrug / Los Angeles Times.