The neighborhood is more fun now that crazy chef Eddie Huang’s Baohaus 2 is open on 14th between 2nd and 3rd. A bao is a little Chinese sandwich usually stuffed with some kind of pork. The inventive and very funny Huang, who has Taiwanese roots, is making many variations on the theme, plus coming up with all kinds of other funky Chinese home cooking. Check it out.
Everyone complains that Whole Foods is too expensive. What to do? Track the weekly sales, which sometimes have excellent deals on fresh meat and vegetables. Friend Whole Foods Market NYC on Facebook 
or follow on Twitter, and you’ll see the deals every week.
Au Bon Pain on 5th Avenue….dunzo.
From the Observer:
Jason Scherr, owner of the cafe that the New York Press named best new coffee shop in 2008, has signed a lease for about 1,600 square feet at 123 Fourth Avenue, between 12th and 13th streets, in which he will open his third Think Coffee by the end of the summer, according to Jason Turner, his broker at Zelnik & Company Real Estate. Think is taking the space of the closed Panorama Galleries on an otherwise rather shoddy block that just happens to be steps away from N.Y.U.’s Third Avenue North dorms and its soon-to-be-completed new dorm on 12th Street.
Think Coffee’s two other cafes are at One Bleecker Street and 248 Mercer Street.
“Think Coffee thought it was an emerging street that had some upside,” Mr. Turner said. “Rents are significantly lower than on Broadway or University, so he can be within the Union Square submarket without having to pay Union Square rents.”
