A summit of angry internet types took place last night; it may have ended in a lasting peace. Not since Yalta have three leaders as large as Lockhart Steele (who is at least technically our boss) and Ben Leventhal from Eater and Abbe Diaz, the Koreshian mercurial leader of PXthis (the forum-land for nightlife, hospitality, and seedy underbellyness) been in the same place at the same time. Diaz, who bears a grudge against Gawker ranking somewhere between Mayweather v. De La Hoya and Red Sox v. Yankees, met the two for a late dinner at Balthazar. Later she triumphantly reported on the evening to her minions.

The author needed to meet some very important person from the world of publishing, and his tightly-wound editor let him know it by waving frantically and then physically dragging him over to the corner of the bar. Dana Vachon had been born wealthy and healthy and handsome and he was right to view himself as entirely blessed, especially considering that his first novel, Mergers & Acquisitions had already gone to a second printing that very day. No one wore costumes on the night of his book party at Felix, that Eurotrash magnet on West Broadway, but there was no need for costumes to have a masque ball. Everyone knew their role and played it.

Our inbox here is constantly inundated with press releases announcing such groundbreaking news as a Bulgarian legend going on tour or an interview with some dude from Maroon 5 on Sirius. That is to say, each day we lose our love for life a little more. But some days—one or two a year, if you're lucky— there's a little gem that lodges itself there that makes the other 12,000 Cialis emails worth it. Here's one for the ages. "To celebrate the success of the past 10 years, Balthazar will be offering diners lots of complimentary Champagne." Yes, c'est vrai. On April 23rd, Keith McNally is giving away more flutes of Champagne than Marie Antoinette ever did.

Say hello to Racked, a new blog about shopping and retail from the folks who brought you Curbed and Eater. One of those folks happens to be Lockhart Steele, managing editor of Gawker Media! Feel the non-synergy! We're not sure how to navigate the massive maze of conflicts this one presents, but it's not like we begrudge Lock the action: Given Nick Denton's mercurial temperament it's probably a good idea to have something to fall back on when he suddenly decides to let you go. Those Balthazar brunch bills don't pay themselves!

The marketing geniuses at Calvin Klein think they can replicate the success of "generation-defining" CKOne by marketing their new smell, CKIn2U, to today's hip young "technosexuals," with lines like "She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It's intense. For right now." But are the technosexuals buying it? Huh! No! "What's most interesting about our generation is that it is very obvious when brands are attempting to market down to us when they use our own vernacular or types of personal technology," ex-College Humor rich dude Zach Klein (pictured) opined, adding "abbreviating in2u like that is lame." His friend Youngna "Gothamist food lady" Park (snapped by the Times at her laptop!) agreed: "I just imagine kids putting on cologne to sit behind their computers. That's really weird." We're withholding judgment until our Balthazar-going chief Lockhart Steele weighs in. He would totally know.

In case you haven't yet made plans for Valentine's Day, might we suggest you take your sweetie over to Balthazar? It's a neighborhood favorite, you know. We're not going to tell you what to order, but we will let you know that our publisher Nick Denton and his editorial sidekick Lockhart Steele always enjoy sharing six inches of glistening berries.

Next month in Styles: "For Lockhart Steele, Quotewhoring Is More Than Just a Night Out."

You catch that Styles piece on the bright young things who like to breakfast late? Seems that what with the rise of disposable income and "late-rising professions like fashion, art, publicity and Web publishing," (we were up at 5:30, but whatever) a new "social tribe" of douchebags who dine after dawn has emerged. The article centers around Balthazar, and tells you everything you want to know about, uh, having coffee after eight, but is particularly notable for the following:

• New York-based e-mail startup Daily Candy gets a sweet deal: an investment valuing the company at $130 mil, which lets the company take down its "For Sale" sign and get back to the important business of making urban women feel inadequately shoed. [Gawker, link being fixed]

Restaurateur Wylie Dufresne, or someone who ought to be him, responds to criticism on Lockhart Steele's blog of the Lower East Side, and by extension, his new restaurant on Clinton Street, WD-50: "To Mr Negative and his supporters - I am so terribly sorry that my restaurant is of no value to you. You've lived here since 1997 - wow, that's old-skool. You must be the chairman of the community board. I must have forgotten to get your hancock before I single-handedly turned a piece-of-shit nail-salon and bodega alley into the hottest little street in NY. You don't like it? Obviously you don't own your apartment. I also apologize for my robbing you of cheap chicken. If you come around back at closing time, I'll feed you the leftover goose liver gnocchi, or whatever the hell it is I serve. And writing stuff like this on poor Lockhart's blog? If he has any more of my oysters, he's gonna get frisky enough to mount you, wherever you are. Then he'll make you scream not only his name, but the names of all the hot, new 'Below 14th' establishments that you can't afford to go to."
WD-50 review comments [Lockhart Steele]

Lower East Side evangelist Lockhart Steele has revamped his blog and added comments to his review section. Lockhart's review of WD-50: "The prices establish a new high-water mark for the neighborhood, but for that one special meal, this is one special place." A reader's response: "I've lived around the corner from Clinton Street since 1997 and the restaurant-row infusion has done little for me. The only place I've *ever* eaten at on the entire block is the Clinton Bakery Company. The rest of those places are for uptowners. It's always comical to walk by Clinton Fresh Food and see all the WASPs and preppies stuffing their faces in there. How they even find Clinton street on a map is beyond me."
WD-50 review [Lockhart Steele]

LES evangelist and blogger Lockhart Steele was right. The Lower East Side is the coolest neighborhood in Manhattan. Or so says the NY Post. (I'm not sure anyone reads the Post to find out what's cool, but we'll just go with it.)
Sweet 'n' Ludlow [Post]

LES correspondent Lockhart Steele reviews the newly-opened Ruby Lounge: "We'd heard rumors it was going to be a pleasant place to hang out, with cuisine as well as drink, but the vibrating techno beats (which don't usually phase us) drilled so deep into the skull that we felt like we were experiencing that new sound technology that beams music inside the brain."
Below 14th [Lockhart Steele]

Lockhart Steele reports from, as usual, the Lower East Side: The bartender to a patron at The Magician: "You know, if you smoke in the back room, I probably won't notice. But don't get used to it. This isn't going to be one of those smoking bars." Spotted on Ludlow: petitions to "ban the ban." Also: JVG's dissenting opinion and Aaron Bailey notes some additional downsides.
Scenes from week one of the smoking ban [Lockhart Steele]

The Gothamist's Jake Dobkin takes Lockhart Steele up on his challenge and reviews Rice to Riches in excruciating detail. Jake's description of the interior: "do you remember that place Bot that opened next to Rice on Mott Street? Well, if that place got into a threesome with the Remote Lounge on Bowery and a Haagen Daas, this is the mutant child that would result." Another Gawker reader writes, "I have, along with my friend who lives on Bowery and Spring, decided to do a box contest on when Rice to Riches will go down in flames and then be rebuilt into the seed bodega it should be. For 5 dollars you can buy a box - the X axis will be month and the Y axis will be day. I expect the X axis to be no more than two rows deep."
Rice to Riches reviewed [Gothamist]

Lockhart Steele reviews the much-ballyhooed (particularly by Lockhart himself) Nolita rice pudding shop Rice-to-Riches: "The crowd was pulsating, the servers too chipper, the flavors obtuse. We tried the Strawberry Floozy, which tasted like a goopy strawberry sherbert, with lumpsalbeityespleasing lumps. Today we read in a Times article about the phenomenon that the owner 'spent a lot of time looking for words that go together.' Right-o."
Rice to Riches [Lockhart Steele]

Nolita rice pudding shop Rice to Riches opens today in what appears to be a concerted but potentially futile attempt to force LES blogger Lockhart Steele to stop pounding on the locked door and demanding information.
Rice to Riches [Daily Candy]

Blogger JVG takes issue with Lockhart Steele's Lower East Side obsessions: "WHEREAS Lockhart Steele, author of the eponymous weblog lockhartsteele.com, has for months on end been incessantly and with utter disregard for the welfare of his readers posting disinformation about the hotel under construction across the street from his house, WHEREAS that same author, regularly and with intent to deceive, posts photographs of boarded-up local businesses, including a bar named after a lubricant, and WHEREAS he shows no signs of letting up until the goddamn things are built, IT IS CLEAR TO THIS COUNCIL that said author of said website is in the process of developing a blog of mass annoyance." Lockhart responds.
Resolution 1454 [JVG.com]

Newsday reports that hit-and-run publicist Lizzie Grubman will be returning to the Hamptons this year. "...I want to make it loud and clear that the Hamptons have been my second home since I was a child, and I want to show Long Island and the Hamptons how much I love them by doing positive things." Like not running over people in hysterical fits of rage.
[Newsday via Lockhart Steele]

Film maker Peter Sollett on why the Lower East Side is rarely depicted in film "unless it's a shot of Matt Damon walking through": because people on the Lower East Side are ugly. Okay, so he didn't say that exactly. He said, "Because the people who live in this neighbourhood don't look like the kind of people who draw mass numbers of audiences to theatres on opening weekend." Same thing, no? [Somewhere on the Lower East Side, LES evangelist Lockhart Steele is silently screaming "Nooooooo! It's because they're too hiiiiiiiip!"]
Circus Vargas: Interview with Peter Sollett [via Lockhart Steele]