Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

♦  Former Country chef Willis Loughhead has signed on as executive chef of Table 8 inside the Cooper Square Hotel. The restaurant is expected to open in January. [The Feedbag, Eater]
♦  The 10 best places to go on a cheap dinner date in NYC. [NYO]
♦  To celebrate ten years in business, Café Boulud is debuting a new $75 five-course menu. [The Feedbag]
♦  A few impressions from Txikito's opening last night. [Strong Buzz]
♦  Gael Green offers up her take on Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz's 20-course dinner at Per Se the other night. [GS]
♦  Village Pourhouse near Columbia is testing out a novel way to lure customers to 109th Street: Take a cab to the bar, save your receipt, and the bartender will "match your cab fare in the form of a bar tab." [The Feed]

♦  A very modest Daniel Boulud says his restaurant on the Bowery will be "the greatest diner on earth." [NYP]
♦  Serge Becker's new Swiss restaurant, Cafe Select, is finally open to the public, albeit only for lunch for the moment. [Eater]
♦  Frank Bruni says he doesn't understand the concept of bottle service. This might have something to do with the fact that he's 43. [NYT]
♦  Apparently you can find some decent food in Little Italy. [Metromix]
♦  Photos from Little Italy's festival of San Gennaro. [GoaG]
♦  Marco Pierre White thinks fellow Brit chef Gordon Ramsay is boring and only interested in money. [NY Sun]
♦  A round-up of the best bagels in New York.  [VV via Eater]
♦  Alaskans really do eat moose meat. They serve it as steak, make it into hamburger meat, and even use it as a pizza topping. Yum. [NYT]

Maccioni v. Tihany | Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni isn't very happy with Adam Tihany, the restaurant design maestro who crafted the look of Maccioni's own eateries but then "betrayed" him by coming up with the new look of arch-enemy Daniel Boulud's Daniel. "Adam Tihany will never do anything for me again," he starts off with Gael Greene. "Adam did five restaurants for me. He was always six months late and two million over budget... I should have 10% cent of everything Adam earns." [Insatiable Critic via Gothamist]

• Daniel Boulud chats about the re-opening of Daniel on Monday (photos here) and explains why he shouldn't be held responsible if you get fat from eating too much of his food. [HuffPo via GS]
• A list of the 10 best wine bars in New York. [NYO]
• Dinosaur BBQ has 4,837 more Facebook fans than Florent. [GS]
• The endlessly-embattled SoHo restaurant Lola has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [NYO]
• The East Village bakery Vesuvio's is still closed but still very much missed. [Eater]

• More detail on Zak Pelaccio's upcoming projects, including the Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side and the Southeast Asian restaurant in Williamsburg called Fatty 'Cue. [Metromix]
• Jerry's Cafe, the SoHo staple that closed last year, is re-opening in a slightly smaller location at 90 Chambers Street in September. [NY Sun]
• The US Open is probably the only sporting event where you'll find Indian kati rolls, crepes, and flaming ouzo shrimp. [NYDN]
• City Harvest is going eco-friendly with a fleet of hybrid refrigerated trucks. [NYDN]
• More details on Daniel Boulud's Maison Boulud in Beijing. [TONY]
• Michael Phelps' massive breakfast of pancakes, french toasts, fried egg sandwiches, grits, an omelet and two cups of coffee? No match for competitive eater Crazy Legs Conti! [VV]

If it feels like every week brings news of yet another cash-strapped American company raising money from Abu Dhabi or Dubai or selling itself entirely to one of these emirates, it isn't your imagination. From real estate (the GM building) to finance (Citigroup), cash has been pouring in from the Middle East as of late. But the expressway of money goes in both directions. Today the Times covered many of the banks setting up shop in Dubai. But loads of other prominent New Yorkers are heading East to take advantage of the petro-dollar gravy train. Here's a look at the growing list of prominent restaurateurs, fashion designers, architects, and real estate developers setting up shop in one of the world's fastest-growing—and richest—regions.

Fashion
You don't have to manufacture diamond-encrusted burkas to get in on petrobillionaires' wives' ravenous appetite for designer duds. New York-based fashion gurus are opening boutiques in Dubai's constantly multiplying high-end malls (places like the famous Mall of the Emirates, which sports the world's largest indoor ski slope). So far Michael Kors and Betsey Johnson have gotten in on the action, there are two Calvin Klein boutiques in the emirate, an outpost of Saks Fifth Avenue recently opened there, and designer Karl Lagerfeld has signed a deal to design 80 limited-edition homes on Isla Moda, the world's "first dedicated fashion island." A Dubai outpost of Barneys seems likely in light of its 2007 takeover by Dubai-based investment firm Isthimar.More

• A former employee at Wakiya, the restaurant locatede in Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel, has filed a $5 million suit against the restaurant, the hotel, and Schrager's company. She claims she was assaulted by a co-worker and fired because she spoke Spanish. [NYS]
• Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud is expanding: It will take over the space next to it on West 64th Street, which is currently occupied by a Chase branch. [NYP]
• Now you can get Michael Psilakis' grilled quail spiedini from his and Donatella Arpaia's Mia Dona delivered to your doorstep. [VV]
• Has Rose Bar jumped the shark? [DBTH]
• Jeffrey Chodorow is still so not over Frank Bruni's 2007 zero-star review of Kobe Club. [Grub Street]

• A throng of more than 120,000 pig eaters is expected to descend on Danny Meyer's annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in Madison Square Park on Sunday. The temperature is supposed to be 95 degrees. Hope you like other people's sweat on your pulled pork. [NY Sun]
• Daniel Boulud now has a completely meaningless statuette to put next to his James Beard Awards: He won the "A-List Chef" award at Bravo's A-List Awards. [NY Post]