Street food goes 5th Ave.

By official foodie standards, street foods are a mere Food Network hit away from being pronounced a fine-dining phenomenon. We already have big-name chefs spotlighting simple boulevard fare in Los Angeles (Susan Fenniger, at Street), Chicago (Rick Bayless at Xoco), New York (David Chang at Momofuku Ssam Bar, Zakary Pelaccio with his vegetable and pork buns at Fatty crab), and even Boston (Ming Tsai with his “bing” street dumplings at Blue Ginger.)

C’mon, San Francisco and Minneapolis, you need to get with it.

Otherwise you’re going to be left in the road dust from one of the more sensible trends to hit high-end dining in some time. Flavorful fare that’s inexpensive, a great complement to drinks, and likely at its best in an informal setting—I’m starting to tear up over here.

No doubt more momentum was added this morning with the news that Paul Kahan, the talent behind Chicago’s The Publican and Blackbird, will unveil his entry, Big Star, within the next few months (Kahan gets extra credit for naming the place after one of the greatest bands of all time; I’ll wear a sandwich board and hawk the place myself if he involves Alex Chilton in the publicity).

But the real sonic boom may well come next month, when the Culinary Institute of America devotes its annual foodie fest, the Worlds of Flavor conference in Napa Valley, to street foods. The culinary Harvard’s Greystone campus, one of the most advanced cooking facilities in the world, will focus on the simple fares of Latin, Asian and European marketplaces. Is there any doubt the trend is building to gale force?

Speaking as a consumer who always preferred casual over haute, I view this current right up there with the spread of electricity and the invention of the electric guitar. For the smokey delight of some unfamiliar protein or vegetable, cooked over flame or in some similarly simple fashion to deliver flavor, this is world-changing. It’s also the perfect antidote to molecular gastronomy, or what I tend to view as good eating’s NASA Period.

I may even have to celebrate by heading out to Queens for some real street food. Unlike the high-end variety now sweeping the market, it comes with the added thrill of a food-safety roll of the dice.

But have you tried that roasted ears of corn slathered with mayo and cheese--all for two or three bucks?

Man bites dog, sets own price

It's now a yawner for restaurants to flycast for customers by letting them pay whatever they decide a meal is worth. But you're definitely in man-bites-dog territory when the place resorting to that ploy is Le Bec Fin, the old Brahmin of Philadelphia's fine-dining scene.

Yet, for the next two months, patrons can visit the landmark on any Monday through Thursday nights, dine on a special menu created by chef George Perrier, and pay what they deem to be appropriate.

Of course, as always with deals too good to be true, there is some fine print. The offer is only available to the first 20 people who reserve a seat. They'll be served in a group, as if they were attending a banquet, and in family style (i.e., from big platters).

Still, it says a lot about the state of fine-dining that a place as renowned as Le Bec Fin has to resort to such a ploy.

Okay, time to go jockey for position. There's a rumor that Tavern on the Green is staging a flag-pole sitting stunt.

Blood stains on NY's white tablecloths

Mumsy, Biff-ster, alert the help to prepare for class war. Turns out there’s a recession underway, and it’s cutting our New York dining options. Pizza from Ray’s just won’t do, old boy. If this keeps up we’ll be dressing in black and eating downtown at one of Keith McNally’s places.   

Lever House, Country and Atria have already closed. Now Tailor, that quaint place in Soho with all the crazy desserts and cocktails, has gone bankrupt. There’s talk of Le Bernardin hanging up the fillet knife, and even Sirio is complaining about business at Le Cirque. We should’ve suspected something when Per Se put in a bar menu.   

It seems hedge-fund managers and other hoi polloi just can’t afford to drop hundreds or thousands a night, and there aren’t enough of us sclerotics left to keep a starched-tablecloth place in the black.  

Landlords set their rents with the expectation that restaurant prices and spending could climb forever, much the way new money types bet all those houses between Park Avenue and the Hamptons would keep rising in value. But gravity won out.   

Now the places of the moment are burger joints, and people are getting the visas needed to dine in Brooklyn—out past Peter Luger! Could jaunts to Queens be far behind?   

So rally the staff to dress us for an old-time hurrah, a true blue-blood blowout on the town. And what’ll it be? Russian Tea Room, the Rainbow Room, or Tavern on the Green?