Yesterday, The Insider posted its 2009 restaurant forecast with lots of tasty morsels from big to small. Among the new to us, S & H Kebab House will be a Turkish kabob BYOB at the former Overtures. VargaBar is the name for the Valanni backed redo of Azul. Saute and Slate are aiming to be open by the end of the month and Girasole, is not dead after all. [The Insider]

As you may have noticed in the ad to the left, John Mims, formerly of Carmine’s and Les Bons Temps is going to be opening Mims in Wayne, where he’ll be serving contemporary New Orleans comfort food.

Neil Stein to South Street? Could it be? [Ice Pack, City Paper]

Table Talk higlights the new MangoMoon in Manayunk. It’s “warm but dramatic,” featuring Thai small plates and no Pad Thai! [Table Talk, Philadelphia Inquirer]

Pasqual Cancelliere, who ran Butcher’s Cafe with his father before selling the spot, is coming back to 9th Street with 943 , a Argentine and Italian themed restaurant. [Meal Ticket]

Pico de Gallo is expanding but not going far. The 15th and South Mexican is opening across the street in a larger space and will be turning the existing Pico into a cheaper takeout and delivery spot. [The Insider]

We do love ourselves some crêpes, so we’re ready to check out the new Crêpe Maker in 30th Street Station. [Meal Ticket]

Neil Stein talks to Dan Gross, noting the wine wasn’t for him, and he’s still working on a restaurant at the Morris Hotel near Washington Square and a possible conglomeration with developer Carl Dranoff on South Broad. Dranoff has a green building planned for Broad and Bainbridge. [Philadelphia Daily News]

11th and Washington is set to be the location of Wokano, a 200-seat Chinese restaurant set to open “no later than the first of September.” [Feeding Frenzy, City Paper]

Newbold has a new bar. The former Noah’s Ark has been replaced by Station Bar & Grill. The new spot offers a serious beer and food menu. The chef wants to keep his name out of the press, who the devil could he be? [Bite This]

Penn’s campus will be getting another decadent offering to go with their soon to open Naked Chocolate Cafe. The third Capogiro will be opening in the Radian building at 39th and Walnut. Capogiro is also getting a 15,000 sqft production kitchen. We hear that will be in East Falls. [Food and Drinq]

We can just imagine the Citizens Bank Park peeps showing PETA around the ballpark trying to distract them from the cheesesteaks and Schmidters. Maybe it was how they explained no fries were injured in the production of Chickie’s and Pete’s crab fries. It must work because for the second straight year PETA has named CBP tops in Vegetarian-Friendly-Ballparks. [PETA]

White table cloth dining on Frankford between Susquehanna and Dauphin? That’s the plan at Pickled Heron. A 50-seater run by two Ritz-Carlton alums hoping to open in November. [Food and Drinq]

Joseph Poon is back, this time at 108 Chestnut Street with Joe’s Peking Duck Original 1984. Poon was originally looking at the old Griffin Cafe on the 200 block but structural problems ended that idea. [Food and Drinq]

The grossest part of this beef recall is the fact that Philly school cafeterias served beef for lunch four times in one week. Even hard-core carnivores don’t need that much red meat. [philly.com]

Chatting with Neil Stein, twice in one day! He’s still out of jail and doesn’t care about money anymore. Which is easy when you don’t have any left. [philly.com]

Surprise! Dairy products taste better when they’re not part of the industrial complex. [NY Times]

Attention: you will now be consuming cocktails in the form of tiny pearls of liquid encapsulated in a skin. Or not. [NY Times]

John Mims, the man behind the popular Carmine’s Creole Cafe is promising to come on down to Center City with a new Cajun-Creole spot, Les Bons Temps on 12th Street where TPDS once lived. [Food & Drinq]

Isaac McCrimmon is looking for a cool half million to get his Heroes concept off the ground. He wants to turn the old Engine 46 Steakhouse into a comic book themed restaurant with arcade gaming and Belgian beer. [Feeding Frenzy, City Paper]

Manayunk Tavern is the first of a slate of new Manayunk restaurants gearing to open up in the next few months. The tavern will aim to attract an older crowd than many of Main Street’s bars by plying customers with 24 microbrews and affordable comfort food. [Table Talk, Philadelphia Inquirer]

Philly Chit Chat was at the 10 Arts presser and has photos to prove it, including a couple of shots of what Eric Ripert’s spot will look like when complete. [Philly Chit Chat]

There’s Friday brunch on the horizon at Las Bugambilias, Saturday and Sunday too. [Feeding Frenzy, City Paper]

Highlights from today’s NY Times’ Dining Section:

George Costanza was wrong, double dipping is nasty, according to this study inspired by the Seinfeld episode. Think about this scientist’s comment when you’re at your Super Bowl celebration:

“The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

This is not a concern in New Jersey, where men communally eat meat dipped in margarine at silverware-less banquets called ‘beefsteaks’.

More news on mercury levels in seafood and a helpful piece on what types of seafood have the lowest levels of mercury. Stock up on oysters and anchovies!

A long article on interstate wine shipping, which might make your eyes cross just a little bit.

Customers in Cambridge, Mass raised $30,000 to save legendary ice cream parlor Toscanini’s, which was going to close because the owners owed back taxes. Wonder if anyone would have held a fundraiser like that for Neil Stein?

Oddly, we were just speculating about this last night. Looks like Neil Stein might be getting in the restaurant business.

People were wondering why they kept seeing Neil Stein east of Broad Street. We may have the answer. The restaurateur-turned-federal-inmate-turned-free-man is working with Morris House Hotel (225 S. 8th) owners Michael DiPaolo and Gene LeFevre in bringing a restaurant to their hotel where M recently closed.
DiPaolo confirmed yesterday that he and LeFevre are looking to lease the space to a restaurant and that he’s working with Stein on that and on possibly expanding the popular 16-room boutique hotel elsewhere on the block of South 8th.

Dan Gross | Neil Stein back in action? [Philadelphia Daily News]

Former Philadelphia restaurateur Neil Stein calls federal prison “the experience of a lifetime” – but one he should not have had to experience.

Neil also says he is in great shape and recently won a three-point shooting contest!

In prison, ‘we’re all human’ [Philly.com]