There’s Always a Wedding Banquet at Madam Ji Ki Shaadi

Odysseus has hit home port, so to speak, with the long awaited arrival of gas to fuel the kitchen. After a hampered opening about a year ago, and with some financial help from the nearby East Harlem community, the chef Johan Halsberghe is now serving the full menu at this homage to his native Belgium (Anvers is French for Antwerp). Moules frites, carbonnades à la Flamande, shrimp croquettes, waffles and chocolate mousse to wash down with Trappist brews are on the menu. In addition, there’s a to-go window, a “freitkot,” dispensing frites, sausages, veal croquettes, burgers and chocolate mousse.

1567 Lexington Avenue (100th Street), 917-723-3005, cafedanversnyc.com.

Hear and There

A bar serving cocktails like the Rice & Nori with seaweed-infused Toki,, along with otsumami (small bites) and larger plates, is the veneer. Behind it is a 22-seat green quartzite omakase counter serving a 13-course tasting ($105) and a more lavish version with “luxury otsumami,” some of which include caviar ($165). The owners, Howard Ng and Samantha Nie, are working with the executive chef, Mark Garcia, formerly of the Kissaki Group.

109 South Sixth Street (Bedford Avenue), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, hearandthereny.com.

Branches

Okdongsik

This chain has shrunk the tasting menu to one, maybe two dishes. As Pete Wells said in his two-star review in 2023 of the Koreatown branch of the flagship in Seoul, slurping dweji-gomtang, a rich slowly simmered Korean broth served over rice is the only reason to score one of 13 seats at the counter at Okdongsik, named for its founder and chef. Mandu dumplings are the other option. Founded in 2017 in Seoul, it has expanded to other American cities (with locations in Tokyo and Paris set to open this summer) and has now opened a second New York location that broadens the menu a bit, adding haemul wanja (seafood cake) and naeng jeyuk (cold sliced pork) and two more seats. More branches are on the way, including a nine-month pop-up at Stile, 929 South Broadway in Los Angeles, starting April 1.

43-13 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, Queens, 347- 804-9984, okdongsik.net.

Looking Ahead

F&F Pizzeria Restaurant and Bar

Have pizza, will travel. Now that they’ve taken over a small stretch of Court Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, with their pizzerias and more, Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo (the Franks) will be expanding their footprint and opening a couple of pizza restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. As first reported by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the first one, coming this spring in Mount Lebanon will be a spacious affair selling slices but also whole pies, both classic, including clam pies, and inventive like croque monsieur pie, and full-service dinners with pastas, salads and dishes like scampi with polenta. Another leaner version, F&F Pizzeria, is planned for later in the year at the Original Pittsburgh Winery in the strip district. The Franks have longstanding Pittsburgh connections and are opening these branches with Steel City partners, Robert Mullin and Anthony Simasek.

307 Beverly Road (Overlook Drive), Mount Lebanon, Pa.; 2809 Penn Avenue (28th Street), Pittsburgh.