As Feast reported on Friday, the tiny Taiwanese steamed bun joint Baohaus is expanding, just four months after opening on the Lower East Side. Chef/owner Eddie Huang is opening Crackhaus (yes that’s really the name), a full service restaurant on Orchard, somewhere between Houston and Delancey.
It’s been quite a ride for Huang. Great reviews and a stint on the Food Network has made him a popular guy (especially with investors, it seems). It just so happens, Huang is also a fairly prolific blogger (where does he find the time?) After the news about Crackhaus made the rounds in the blogosphere on Friday, Huang chimed in with some thoughts (controversial ones) of his own. See excerpts from his post, after the jump:
The Voice had a funny post (about Crackhaus)… They had a line about the LES being a neighborhood “on the rocks” as a post-ironic post-collegiate amusement park. I couldn’t have said it better. I do hate the LES above Delancey and west of Norfolk. Ever since Libation and Spitzer’s came it sucked. I mean, it started sucking a little before that, but spitzer’s was extra sucky. Its a good bar and I go there when no one else is there, it just attracts really shitty people after 5pm. Clinton is still cool and I like the Baohaus block, but when we were looking for locations we wanted something below Delancey. Then we thought, why not do a place above Delancey that we would want to hang out at? That’s what all my homies have been begging for the last few years. I remember when BOB was dope (its still cool, just too packed) and there were random no name places like the bar on orchard with a fish tank full of dead fish in the front that played 80s mashups (around 2003, gone now…). I was never sober enough to remember the name, I just always ended up there. You could roll around and run into cool stuff and there weren’t a bunch of idiots in lacoste shirts all over. Now, its a stampede friday, saturday, and sunday morning. I don’t even work at Baohaus those days cause the people that come suck. Its not the neighborhood peeps. We honestly don’t have anywhere to go to hang out. Crackhaus, Im sure is going to attract a lot of people outside the neighborhood, but I’m trying to establish an abrasive enough vibe so that they come once, try the food, and feel uncomfortable enough not to come back. Like all those yelpers that complain about our music and service at Baohaus, they don’t come back and its awesome! This is the goal! Could we be the Taiwanese Rao’s (where regulars own seats) down the line? I hope so. If you like golden era hip hop, ABT (american born taiwanese) food, and over the top ridiculousness, you’ll like Crackhaus. The restaurant, the neighborhood, we all on the rocks….
Oh, and what about that name?
For the record, the name “crack” isn’t about dope, its about the food. We’re doing a stew that I make at home and people always said it was crack. SO that’s what its about. Obviously i like puns, but its about food. We’ll probably donate to “just say no to drugs” so old people don’t shit a brick but any donation is 100% disgenuine (is this a word? the spell check says no, but i disagree) and purely for marketing purposes.
