DRINK FOR A CAUSE The New Orleans-based Museum of the American Cocktail and Southern Comfort have figured out a way to let you help victims of Hurricane Katrina by drinking. On Monday, September 12 from 5 to 7 p.m., participating bars and restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn will be offering classic New Orleans cocktails, such as the Sazerac and Pimm’s Cup, for $10. Proceeds will be sent to a tax-deductible relief fund to be distributed to food and beverage workers who are out of work because of the hurricane. For a list of participating restaurants, visit www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/cocktail200.

EAT FOR A CAUSE This Saturday, World Yacht’s Pier Party will benefit the Careers through Culinary Arts Program, which provides scholarships and mentoring to underprivileged students who are pursuing a career in restaurants. The party takes place on Pier 81 (41st Street and the Hudson River) from 2 to 5 p.m. The party includes free food, as well as beer and wine for a suggested donation of $2 and an oyster-shucking contest between participating restaurants, hosted by WABC-TV meteorologist Bill Evans. Donations and proceeds from sales of T-shirts, for $15 each, will benefit C-CAP.

THE ASIAN STREET Zakary Pelaccio, the chef of meatpacking district hot spot 5 Ninth, is about to open a new restaurant nearby: Fatty Crab (643 Hudson St., between Gansevoort and Horatio streets, 212-352-3590). Mr. Pelaccio and his business partners, John Stevens and Rick Camak, expect to open between September 15 and September 25. Mr. Pelaccio will be jogging between the two restaurants.

This chef knows what he’s doing when it comes to Southeast Asian street food. He worked in a local Malaysian restaurant when he moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with his investment-banker wife, Ana Jovancicevic. He worked as a cook in Chiang Mai, Thailand, too.

Fatty Crab is also the name of a restaurant outside of Kuala Lumpur, and the meatpacking district incarnation will feature some of the same menu items, including Singaporean chile crab served with white-bread slices and Malaysian rotisserie chicken wings. The beer offered will mostly be Asian, plus Pabst Blue Ribbon. Wines will focus on the somewhat sweet Austrian and German whites that are popular with spicy Asian dishes. Fatty Crab’s license for hard liquor is in the works.

A SICILIAN COMEBACK Don Pintabona, who was chef at Tribeca Grill for 10 years, is returning to the New York restaurant scene after an absence of nearly three years with next month’s opening of Dani (333 Hudson St., between Vandam and Charlton streets), pronounced “don-nee.”

An American with roots in Sicily, Mr. Pintabona’s cuisine at Dani will draw inspiration from that Italian island as well as from surrounding areas of the Mediterranean. Items planned for the menu include chickpea-fried calamari with cracked pepper and lemon aioli, tagine-baked sea bass with pinenut couscous, and braised-beef short-rib kebabs with fava-bean ragout.

For dessert, expect almond-milk pannacotta with blood-orange gelee, and warm chocolate cake with Sicilian pistachio ice cream and marsala cherries.

ALL NEW PEACOCK Cedric Tovar is leaving his post as executive chef of Django to head up the kitchen of Peacock Alley at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (301 Park Ave. at 49th Street, 212-355-3000), which will reopen November 1 after a $5.5 million face-lift is completed. Jean-Pierre Duteron, who was managing partner of Man Ray in Chelsea, will be general manager. Peacock Alley closed on September 20, 2001.

Mr.Thorn is food editor at Nation’s Restaurant News. He can be reached at bthorn@nrn.com.