• The Grill at the Standard hotel is in friends-and-family mode at the moment. (It should be open to the public sometime next week.) In the meantime, though, you'll be pleased to hear (and see—left) that some serious bartender training is currently underway. [HotelChatter, Flickr]
• New York's very first spot for 24-hour-a-day pho is coming soon. [GS]
• Chocolate mousse is popping up all over town, according to Kate Krader. Exhibits 1-4: Monkey Bar, Minetta Tavern, Bar Artisanal, and Kefi. [F&W]
• Another list of downturn-friendly bars offering free food with drinks. [NYT]
• Good news for strip club fans: Drink prices, cover charges are down. [WSJ]
• Some breaking news from Tuesday evening's screening of Food, Inc.: Rocco DiSpirito says he's been known to occasionally eat a Cinnabon or two. [NYDN]

• Another great restaurant humbled: It looks like Per Se is planning to introduce an à la carte menu in its salon and bar area. [Eater]
• Two armed men stormed Mario Batali's Esca. Instead of taking cash, though, they made off with envelopes stuffed with "worthless paper receipts." [NYP]
• Looks like Park Avenue Winter's PR stunt of giving free meals to girls dressed up as schoolgirls is paying off. Some 250 girls turned up last night. [Eater]
• Lawyer/enemy of NYC restaurateurs Maimon Kirshenbaum: He's back. [NYT]
• A caviar lounge really is opening at the Four Seasons Hotel. [Zagat]
• If you ask nicely (and perhaps make up a story about losing your job), you might be able to negotiate a discount at Starbucks and Cosi. [NYP]
• Some tips on where to go tonight to drink yourself silly in honor of St. Paddy's Day if you're still in need of recommendations. [Metromix, Citysearch]

Another week, another lawsuit against a restaurant on behalf of waiters who claim they were denied minimum wage and stiffed on tips. This week's target for the very prolific lawyer Maimon Kirschenbaum: Japonais and its owners Miae Lim, Lester Burgher, Richard Wahlstedt and Jeffrey Beers. If you're keeping count at home, you can now add Japonais to a list that includes Nobu, Jean Georges, Le Cirque, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, 1OAK, One Little W. 12, 40/40, B.B. King's, Heartland Brewery, Haru, BLT Steak, BLT Prime, BLT Fish, and Wolfgang's Steakhouse. The full suit is below.

Add Wolfgang and Peter Zwiener to the list of restaurateurs facing a lawsuit filed by Maimon Kirschenbaum. The most despised attorney in New York restaurant history is now taking aim at Wolfgang's Steakhouse (and the Zwieners), slapping a class action suit against the company on behalf of employees at its Park Avenue and Greenwich Street locations. The suit accuses the Zwieners of failing to pay workers minimum wage and withholding overtime pay. It's basically the same suit that Kirshenbaum has filed against every other restaurant in town, a list that includes Nobu, Jean Georges, Le Cirque, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, Haru, BLT Steak, BLT Prime. The only bad news for Kirshenbaum is that at the rate he's going—and given the number of restaurants closing down these days—he'll probably be out of people to sue by 2011 or so. Maimon's latest legal offensive appears below.

Robert De Niro's Nobu has agreed to pay out $2.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of 200 workers, who sued the sushi chain in 2007 for forcing them to share tips and failing to pay overtime wages. Each plaintiff in the case will receive $3,300, except for four workers who recruited other "victims," who will take home an additional $10,000 apiece. The balance? That will go to Maimon Kirshenbaum, naturally. [NYP]

Maimon Kirschenbaum, the lawyer that restaurant owners love to hate, has a new target: He's filed a class-action lawsuit against Le Cirque on behalf of cater-waiters. So if in the future you have to start tipping the guy who hands you a glass of champagne at a party, now you know who to thank! [Grub Street]

It looks like Maimon Kirschenbaum didn't make any plans to take time off for Hanukkah. The lawyer famous for filing suit against just about every other restaurant in town for underpaying employees has picked the Japanese sushi chain Haru (which, in turn, is owned by Benihana Inc.) as his latest target. According to a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court on behalf of former Haru waiter Jin-Yi Hong (as well as any other Haru employees who have yet to come forward, naturally), Kirschenbaum argues that the restaurant failed to pay its waiters minimum wage, withheld overtime pay, and forced them to share tips with managers. Haru is in fine company, of course: Kirschenbaum's previous targets have included Nobu, Jean Georges, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, BLT Steak, BLT Prime, and BLT Fish. The details of his latest legal offensive after the jump!

Meet Daniel "Maimon" Kirschenbaum, Esq. He's only 29—he graduated law school in 2005—but it's safe to say that if the James Beard Foundation gave out an award to the biggest thorn in the side of New York-area restaurateurs, he'd rank up there with inspectors from the Department of Health and ungenerous restaurant critics. Kirschenbaum is a partner at a firm called Joseph & Herzfeld and the go-to man for servers and other restaurant employees when they take on their bosses for skimming tips or firing them without cause. Thanks to word of mouth (and well-placed ads on certain websites), Kirshenbaum has been obscenely prolific in the past couple of years. Just a few of his targets: Heartland Brewery, Nobu, Jean Georges, B.B. King, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, One Little W 12, Abigail Kirsch, BLT Steak, BLT Prime, BLT Fish, and 40/40.