Bear's Second Act, Cafe Altro Paradiso Launches Weekend Lunch, and More Intel

— Natasha Pogrebinsky closed her Long Island City Eastern European restaurant Bear in April, but now some of the dishes are available for delivery via Caviar and as take-away items at Chateau le Woof in Astoria. Pogrebinsky and her team are also serving some dishes from Bear at Starlight Bar in Williamsburg, and they hope to eventually find another space for a full revival of the restaurant.

— The Meatball Shop team faced some opposition from the neighbors at a recent CB4 meeting over a proposed 4 a.m. closing time for a new Hell's Kitchen branch of the restaurant. But Daniel Holzman said he would agree to a 2 a.m. closing time, and the board unanimously voted to approve the liquor license application.

— A handful of new coffee shops have opened in the South Bronx recently, including outposts of Filtered and Birch. Majora Carter, the head of an influential South Bronx-based economic consulting and planning group, collaborated with Birch's Jeremy Lyman and Paul Schlader on the opening of the new cafe. Carter tells the Times: "We like to see the work that we do as self-gentrification....People in low-status communities like nice things, too."

— Spring Street hot spot Cafe Altro Paradiso is kicking off weekend lunch tomorrow, with a menu that will be similar to the one offered with dinner, plus a few new additions like bruschetta with tomato and burrata, and "uovo fritta con bottarga."

— A vandal spray-painted the words "Bad Cop" and "No Cronut" on a police car in Williamsburg this week.

— Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd had yet another blow-out party at Lucky Strike in Midtown this week.

— When asked which presidential candidate he'd like to dine with, Anthony Bourdain replied: "Trump. But for all the wrong reasons. I'd like to see him struggle with chopsticks and eat a well done f---ing steak."

— Frederik Berselius and his crew are hard at work on their hotly-anticipated Nordic restaurant in the shadow of the Williamsburg bridge:

— Liz Johnson — who did stints at Noma, Toro, Ma Peche, and Grace — is earning rave reviews for her work at Mimi in Greenwich Village. The chef tells Grub Street: "Literally Mimi just kind of fell into my lap." When the restaurant opened, she was cooking things that the owners wanted, but now she has complete control of the food. Johnson notes: "Now I'm writing the menu every day because it's just easier, and also if I write the menu by hand every day, they can't be so on top of me, because they wouldn't get the menu until, like, 4:30 p.m. Now they just give me full rein, so that's awesome."

— The opening of Ridgewood's forthcoming beach bar is delayed because the operators got a stop work order from the DOB.

— A man with a baseball bat was caught on camera threatening a bouncer outside Pianos on the Lower East Side on Wednesday night. According to police, this fellow was arrested later in the evening for a DWI.

— And finally, here's a silly new video from the Dos Toros crew called "Quesadilla Love"