••• Truffles Tribeca is feeling frisky for Valentine’s Day. This week, it held a special ladies-only class: “Would you like to add a little extra sizzle to your step in time for Valentine’s Day? Well please join us [...] as Gabrielle Valliere, Senior Instructor at New York Pole Dancing and 2011 2nd place winner of the United Stated Pole Dance Federation National Championship hosts our annual Exotic Dance class. [...] Don’t forget to bring a little something extra to ‘strip’ off. (High heels are suggested, but optional.)”

••• From the NYPD’s 1st Precinct: “Here is a link to download the Crime Stoppers poster for the residential Burglary Pattern in Soho. Please send it out to all your contacts.”

••• Women’s fitness-clothing store Lolë has begun hosting free events on Thursdays from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The next two are yoga-related; you can sign up through the Facebook page.

••• Thanks to everyone who heard my plea to get to 1,000 “likes” on Facebook! (Actually, thanks to those who acted on it. The rest of you are bums.)

••• A reader sent in this photo of the impressive lines at the new WFC food truck clusterfudge (my love for rhyme is being trumped by the urge not to swear—for now). I do hope they managed to get their lunch before the giant thumb crushed them.

By Eliot Brown for the WSJ

••• The Wall Street Journal has a slideshow of Four World Trade Center.

••• The New York Post argues against the World Trade Center Performing Arts Center.

••• Laughing Man now sells chocolate. —CNN

••• Eater gets a “design tour” of Macao Trading Co., which is looking at opening an outpost in L.A.

••• “After residents complained about feeling unsafe crossing [Battery Park City's] streets, the Department of Transportation began studying three intersections—North End Avenue and Warren Street, North End Avenue and Murray Street, and South End Avenue and West Thames Street—to determine whether they need different traffic signals, a DOT official said Tuesday.” —DNAinfo

••• The African Burial Ground National Monument Park Office is getting banners on Broadway. —Broadsheet

I don’t remember Delphi well enough to say if anything remains beyond the arches and atrium, but I doubt it. There’s a check-in window in the foyer, and then—if you’re approved?—you’re in the restaurant proper. A bar with around 10 stools is on the right. Whenever I peeked in the windows over the past few weeks, I was surprised to see the dropped ceiling. Naturally, that got the treatment, too.

To the left are various booths and tables—seating around 70—with the atrium on a slightly lower level. My photos make it look dingy, but it’s not.

The place is an encyclopedia of design iconography: Japanese lanterns, Spanish tiles, striped awnings, burlap-sack custom upholstery, bistro light fixtures, wooden blinds, South American bar signage, that dropped ceiling….But as soon as you get comfortable with the general global-cantina vibe, something else catches your eye—such as ’80s photos of the likes of Siouxise Sioux and Debbie Harry, or the Robert Longo-y image at the top of the staircase (which leads to the Tenoverten nail salon, co-owned by Abramcyk’s wife? For margarita deliveries?).

The space struck me as better-looking in person than it’s probably appearing here, and likely to come alive when it’s full of people—and it will be. I’m hesitant about exactly who will be eating here—and how raucous they’ll be—because unlike Tiny’s and S&M, Super Linda feels less like a neighborhood restaurant and more like a party waiting to happen. Maybe it was those ’80s photos, but the restaurant that kept popping into my mind was Indochine, back when it mattered.

In any event, if you thought upstairs was a bit of a hothouse, wait till you see the downstairs bar.

Not to get all grad student on you, but wood paneling is a signifier for anyone of a certain age (i.e., around 40) that we’re in cherry-popping territory. (Or maybe it’s just me and Fiona Apple.) From the looks of the private rooms, your Latin lover likes horses. Do you like to ride?

No, really. Do you like to ride?

You have to admire it; no, you have to crown it Restaurant Artwork of the Year. This was the point, however, when I wondered what Super Linda was doing in Tribeca. I love the neighborhood, but not because it’s fun. Then again, I’m not sure Super Linda would be half as charming if it were in Williamsburg or the East Village. The adjacent rooms, meanwhile, have an entirely different sensibility. The colors reminded me of a bowling-alley cocktail bar, and yet I don’t think that’s an insult—I think that may have been what they were going for.

When I imagine my partner and myself sitting on that little red banquette, I giggle. Which might be the point? At the end of the day, the downstairs is probably for a demographic that no longer includes me. It’s possible Super Linda itself is for a different demo; I’ll have to return when it’s crowded to tell. Then again, maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe we should just be happy to have a lively, creative, new restaurant. After all, why look a gift horse in the mouth?

P.S. I forgot to take a photo of the menu.

Super Linda is at 109 W. Broadway (at Reade), superlindanyc.com.

Recent New Kid on the Block/First Impressions articles:
• Lotus Blue
• Art Projects International
• Annelore
• North End Grill
• Vintry Fine Wines
• Blue Smoke
• Damon Liss Design/Liss Real Estate Group
• French Kiss Boudoir Photography
• CrossFit 212
• Polarn O. Pyret

STREET ACTIVITY PERMIT: CB1
The organizer for CB1′s street fair on W. Broadway between Chambers and Barclay on Friday, Aug. 10, didn’t show, so the application was held over.

STREET ACTIVITY PERMIT: TRIBECA FAMILY FESTIVAL
The massive annual event will be Saturday, April 28, on Greenwich from Beach to Reade, including on various streets in between. Vote: 8-0. (It was mentioned that Regal still refuses to lease its theaters, so don’t expect many Tribeca Film Festival screenings in the area.)

412 GREENWICH: APPLICATION FOR AMENDMENT TO ZONING RESOLUTION
As I mentioned here, the wonderful single-story parking garage at Greenwich and Laight is doomed. What I hadn’t realized what that the address (412 Greenwich) is also 71 Laight, which I’d written about before and had always thought was 401 Washington, next door. Taconic Investment Partners is buying the site with the garage and 401 Washington (where Capitol Glass once was), combining the two into one development. The facade of the new building at 412 Greenwich will mirror the one at 401 Washington, which will be restored and a penthouse added on top. (I had read about the mirroring, but I thought that was about another building. All the buildings up there do kind of look alike.) Anyway, the current owner of the site didn’t get the paperwork done in time, so the zoning resolution from years ago has to be amended to allow the site to be developed by 2016 (instead of January 2012). CB1 Landmarks Committee, CB1 Tribeca Committee, and CB1 proper had already approved architect Morris Adjmi‘s design years ago. Each building will have around 18 apartments, and there will be separate retail lots on the ground floor (I like the idea of retail, but northwest Tribeca has an awful lot of empty storefronts…). A committee member asked if there was language in the resolution to protect against “density,” which seems to go against CB1′s general goal of affordable housing, but whatever. Any change along those lines would have to go back before Landmarks, which no one wants to do. Pictured (click to enlarge): A rendering, looking southwest, of the new building (where the garage is now), and what the two buildings will look like from Laight. Vote: 7-0; the chair recused himself because his company is involved in the project.

SIDEWALK SEATING PERMIT: TURKS & FROGS
Renewal. Vote: 8-0.

WINE & BEER LICENSE: RBC NYC
Held over at the applicant’s request (the phrase “lease negotiation difficulties” was mentioned).

WINE & BEER LICENSE: MASLOW 6 WINE BAR
As we could tell from the agenda, Maslow 6 wine shop is taking over Vinovino (which has closed, by the way). Maslow’s Keri Jackson says we can expect more reasonably priced wines (good!), that it’ll be a place for people who want to appreciate wine or just drink it. Also: better beers, more food, and real tables and chairs. A potential menu is pictured; click away. Vote: 8-0.

IN CONCLUSION
There was a discussion about the committee’s 2011 achievements and 2012 goals that I mostly ignored—until one member mentioned something I had heard about a long time ago (but neglected to follow up on): The strip-mall Japanese restaurant at the base of Independence Plaza North apparently draws huge crowds of reveling young people on Friday and Saturday nights; it may be an all-you-can-eat/drink situation. Another member said the NYPD’s 1st precinct had said they’d look into it, but nothing seems to have come of it.

WHAT WASN’T DISCUSSED…
A new liquor-license application for the Barzinho space on W. Broadway, which must have been held over at the applicant’s request.

••• Reader Dave wrote in asking if there was any update on Aamanns/Copenhagen, the Danish restaurant opening on Laight, so I checked in with the PR rep: No opening date has been set.

••• Tribeca Citizen has 999 “likes” on Facebook. I do my best not to care about that number, but would someone please make it 1,000?

••• It’s so nice to have the southern sidewalk of Reade between Church and Broadway back. I don’t even mind the scaffolding.

••• Brick Underground interviews an anonymous Tribeca doorman. It’s not exactly juicy.

••• The New York Times reviews Kutsher’s: “The food here’s not bad. And such big portions!”

by Ruby Washington for the New York Times

••• Soho Rep’s “The Ugly One” is reviewed in the New York Times.

••• The New York Times looks at Hudson Square and Trinity Church’s role in creating it. Isn’t this a story they’ve done many times before?

••• Director Abel Ferrara is planning a film based on the Dominique Straus-Kahn situation. It’ll star Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Adjani. —ArtInfo

••• Aarón Sánchez of Centrico has opened a restaurant called Mestizo in Kansas City; it was reviewed by the Kansas City Star.

••• American Icon is opening another outpost on Fifth Avenue above Madison Square Park. —New York Post

••• “Pizza & Pasta [Delight] is operating on a month-to-month lease and in danger of losing its spot in the Southbridge complex at Fulton and Gold Street. [...] The Southbridge Towers Board of Directors voted on Feb. 2 to scrap plans to boot the restaurant and replace it—and the soon-to-be-vacant Key Food store next to it—with what it was describing as a ‘high end wine and spirits’ store. [But] with the next door Key Food relocating to a bigger space at 55 Fulton St. this spring, Southbridge needs to find a new tenant. The board is not convinced it will be able to do so without packaging it with the Pizza & Pasta space.” —Tribeca Trib

••• “The Historic Districts Council is objecting to the demolition of 52 [Lispenard] and alteration of 54 Lispenard. The council feels that 52 Lispenard retains some significant architectural details that would change the character of the district if it were destroyed and replaced with a nondescript structure.” —Curbed

••• A parade report from the New York Times. (Photo by Todd Heisler for the NYT.) Personally, I left the area before 8 a.m., and I haven’t regretted my decision once.

From left: Robert Zhu and Jeffrey Lim

Lotus Blue, serving food inspired by China’s Yunnan Province, has soft-opened in the Reade Street space that was formerly Nam. “Yunnan is in the southwest of China,” says Jeffrey Lim, one of the four partners behind the restaurant. “It borders Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, and the cuisine is infused by many cultures, with Southeast Asian ingredients like cilantro, banana leaf, and ginger.”

While Lotus Blue isn’t serving traditional Yunnan food (“It’s been adapted for modern palates, for New Yorkers,” says Lim), it’s still the only Yunnan restaurant in New York City and possibly on the East Coast. “There are Yunnan restaurants in L.A., Las Vegas, Chicago…” says Robert Zhu, another Lotus Blue partner, explaining how they were surprised there weren’t any here. [UPDATE: See comments]

The menu (click to enlarge)

“Yunnan cuisine is actually popular in many cities around the world,” adds Lim.

They originally looked at locations in Hell’s Kitchen, but the area was too price-competitive. “We were drawn to Tribeca because people are a little more educated about food,” says Lim. “It’s more upscale.” They saw Nam, and met with the owner, who was looking to get out—and it certainly didn’t hurt that the kitchen lent itself to Asian cooking (“We have three huge woks”).

The Lotus Blue folks turned the back of the space into more of a bar, sectioning it off by raising it about six inches. And while Nam’s tiny bar counter was against the rear of the right-hand wall, Lotus Blue has pulled it away from the wall just enough for the kitchen door to be moved behind it (instead of opening into the dining room). “Nam wasn’t really about interesting cocktails,” says Lim. “Our specialty cocktail menu has spice-infused drinks and savory flavors such as chili, Szechuan peppercorns, and basil-muddled vodka and rum.”

They invited Adam and me to dinner on the first night of soft-opening. We tried a gorgeous and delicious mango-and-banana-flower salad, matchstick fries with fried basil and mint (hard to maneuver but worth the effort), fried red snapper with a chili sweet and sour sauce, stir-fried trumpet mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and Yunnan seared buns. The Southeast Asian flavors were abundant—mint, basil, and chili, in particular—and I made a mental note to remind anyone seeing “Modern Chinese Cooking” on the sandwich board outside not to go in expecting Chinese-Chinese.

The cultural cross-pollination, meanwhile, extends to the team, with members from Korea, Tibet, Vietnam, China, the Philippines…. And it was a Thai artist who painted the lotus on one of the restaurant’s walls.

The soft opening—including 10% off the entire bill—will continue for a week or so, and happy-hour specials are in effect. As for delivery, Lotus Blue has no plans to offer it at this time. “But we’ve already received lots of requests,” says Lim. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Lotus Blue is at 110 Reade (between W. Broadway and Church), 212-267-3777; lotusbluebar.com, facebook.com/lotusbluenyc.

Recent New Kid on the Block/First Impressions articles:
• Art Projects International
• Annelore
• North End Grill
• Vintry Fine Wines
• Blue Smoke
• Damon Liss Design/Liss Real Estate Group
• French Kiss Boudoir Photography
• CrossFit 212
• Polarn O. Pyret
• Ristorante Aglio

••• New York magazine reviews Kutsher’s, and more or less likes it. Judging to what extent the restaurant pays respect to tradition seems to be missing the point….

••• “Lower Manhattan will receive 100 more beds for the homeless thanks to a $2.7 million grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York to the New York City Rescue Mission. [...] Construction will begin in the next few months and continue into 2013. [...] By doubling the Mission’s facilities, the organization will be able to serve homeless single women for the first time. Out of the 100 additional beds, 12 to 15 will be reserved for homeless women.” —Broadsheet

••• “Last September, the Belgian design duo behind the label A.F. Vandevorst launched a traveling pop-up shop [...] and tonight it begins its first American residency at the Patron of the New [...]. Called ‘TSTSITW,’ or ‘The Smallest Traveling Store in the World,’ the shop showcases the designers’ clothes alongside medical accessories like a hospital bed and a dentist’s lamp.” Through Feb. 23. —Racked

••• “Karl Fischer’s 24 story tower dormitory for Pace University is beginning to rise at 180 Broadway and John Street. A reader’s photos show the first three floors going up at the construction site, all slated for retail in the new building, and it looks like the first two will be part of one store.” —Curbed

••• “Louis F. Latilla, 65, and his wife, Terrie Latilla, 59 [who] live in Tribeca and own the Manhattan Fruit Exchange at Chelsea Market,” told the New York Times about dining at the West Village restaurant RedFarm. No offense to the Latillas, but it’s a pretty dumb column—although not as dumb as the NYT article about how the Giants have fairy dust on their side.

••• “Battery Park City’s Liberty Luxe Penthouse Wants $29,500/Month,” laughs Curbed.

A few Seen & Heard items that don’t quite warrant their own post:

••• “Coming soon” signage has been put up at the new Kaffe 1668 (on Greenwich bet Beach and Hubert).

••• I hear Super Linda isn’t opening until at least Wednesday.

••• I had to spend most of Saturday night in the emergency room—not because of me (I would never get sick at such an inconvenient time)—and it was my first experience of any kind with the New York Downtown Hospital. I’ve never gotten the impression that anyone there reads this site, but if they do, thanks again for being extremely considerate.