Kitchen Dish

By BRET THORN | October 11, 2006

MYRIAD'S NEW HOUSE

Myriad Restaurant Group is teaming up with chef Michael Bao Huynh, a partner in Bao 111, to open Mai House (186 Franklin St., between Greenwich and Hudson streets).

The 120-seat restaurant will feature Mr. Huynh's contemporary Vietnamese cuisine in a style along the same lines as the Mexican food at Centrico and the Japanese food at Nobu, two other Myriad restaurants.

Mr. Huynh also is the architect of the restaurant, which is scheduled to open at the end of the month.

BURKE'S NEW CHEFS

Chef de cuisine David Amorelli and pastry chef Richard Bies are no longer at davidburke & donatella (133 E. 61st St., between Lexington and Park avenues, 212-813-2121).

Now Eric Hara is manning the kitchen. The former executive chef of Chez Josephine most recently was working under Rick Laakonen at Tao. It was through Mr. Laakonen that he met davidburke & donatella's chef-owner, David Burke.

Mr. Hara said he was not really preparing his style of food at Tao, but he did learn how to run a $26-million-a-year restaurant, "which was good."

He has already added some items of his own to the menu in his new job, including a roulade of bacon-wrapped duck with braised bibb lettuce, shrimp and pistachios, served with creamy white polenta and roasted corn relish.

The new pastry chef is Monica Belissimo, who was the pastry chef at Jovia. "I'm trying to see where I fit in here," she said, offering special desserts each week to gauge her new clientele's preferences.

Some of her desserts have made it to the menu, including a chocolate bread pudding with caramel chibouste, chocolate ice cream, and a chocolate egg cream served in a hollowed-out eggshell.

CHOCOLATE AFTERNOON

Get your season's chocolate eating out of the way in one fell swoop this Sunday at Chanterelle (2 Harrison St. at Hudson Street, 212-966-6960). Between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., pastry chef Kate Zuckerman will discuss how to select and bake with chocolate, and attendees will get to sample chocolate desserts from her new book, "The Sweet Life: Desserts at Chanterelle."

The cost is $55 a person.

Mr. Thorn is food editor of Nation's Restaurant News. He maintains nrnfoodwriter.blogspot.com.