Progress at Carla Hall's Chicken Restaurant, Rajeev Vaidya's Promotion, and More Intel

— An update on one of the spring's most-anticipated restaurants: Carla Hall's new hot chicken shack in the old Whiskey Soda Lounge space is now slated to soft-open on Memorial Day. The TV chef launched the project with a Kickstarter campaign a year and a half ago. Hall started serving some of the dishes at a Barclays Center stand last fall, and she also previewed the desserts at Gansevoort Market before it closed for its move around the corner. The new Columbia Street restaurant, dubbed Carla Hall's Southern Kitchen, will have its grand opening on June 17.

— Daniel's head sommelier Rajeev Vaidya just got a promotion — he's now the head sommelier for the entire Dinex group. In this new role, he'll oversee the group's 17 restaurants worldwide, while working the floor at Daniel Boulud's flagship five nights a week. Lettie Teague notes that Daniel Johnnes is still the group's wine director.

— Here's why Pete Wells didn't file a review this week:

— Steve Cuozzo thinks a lot of this year's James Beard Awards are bogus, especially the Best Chef: New York City medal for Jonathan Waxman: "How can this apply to a guy whose new restaurant Jams, a supposed second coming of his 1980s modern-American classic, is universally acknowledged to be a stinker? When I dined there, I had its 'famous' chicken scorched to cinders and a salmon-and-(cheap)-caviar pancake affair that was a complete mess. I was too polite to write about it, but other critics turned Jams to jelly." As Cuozzo notes, technically, the award was for Barbuto, which "seems mainly of interest because landlord problems might force it to move or close."

— Clio Goodman, the operator of now-defunct swets shop Puddin' by Clio, is planning a new project at 71 Orchard street called Bing Kitchen. This restaurant will specialize in the Chinese breakfast crepes called jianbing. Bowery Boogie hears that it's slated to open next month.

— Hungry City critic Ligaya Mishan visits Angela's in Bed-Stuy: "Jerk chicken, its skin a fine charred quilt, is more subtle here than elsewhere in town. The marinade tastes strong rather than brazenly hot, the Scotch bonnets playing nice with the other seasonings. The most insistent ingredient is smoke; sweetness is teased out of cinnamon and allspice, with no interference from sugar."

— A new menswear boutique/cocktail bar called VK Nagrani is moving into the Bowery space that previously housed Bowery Coffee and B4 It Was Cool. This is actually a new iteration of a business that operated out of an Upper East Side art gallery for a few years. In addition to cocktails, the shop will offer "luxury men's clothing," "bespoke jeans," and "organic men’s grooming products." It's slated to open this summer.

— And finally, watch the journey of Eataly's bluefish, from dock to dish: