Z news: New Zahtar may open, but Zimmern won't be there

Martini Blu may remade into a Fhima restaurant with Mediterranean flair.

Restaurant-chef David Fhima said another Zahtar by Fhima may go where Martini Blu is located in the Grand Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. He opened a Zahtar at the Eden Prairie outpost of Life Time Fitness, which is open only to athletic club members. A downtown Zahtar would be open to the public.

"That's what is planned right now," he said. "My work right now with Life Time is really to create synergy between eating well and working out. They go hand and hand.

"I've got to give Bahram [Akradi, rhymes with "hottie," Life Time's CEO] credit. I've known him for many years and we are very good friends. [Akradi had] the vision to know if you work out and don't eat well, it doesn't work. Your body needs to be taken care of externally and internally; he wants to do it not just by feeding you but with epicurean, gourmet food. More natural and true to the brand of whole foods. That's sort of the premise of the work I am doing at Life Time."

If that's the premise of those Zahtar drumsticks, the food makes a delicious transition from assumption to consumption.

"That was a free-range chicken drumstick, but we call it a tulip," he said. "We push the meat down, to look like a tulip, take the skin off; we bake it in a combination of Moroccan and Jamaican spices. That's a perfect example of something that's completely healthy, no fat."

Those tulips are healthy right up until you stick them in the gorgonzola dip that comes with them. Fhima just laughed. "I am all about satisfying the senses," he said. "A food that doesn't look right or smell right is like a beautiful woman with terrible clothes."

"I am no different from anybody who has been in business for many years," he said. "The more you are out there, the more you're going to fail. The more people are going to take shots at it. It is what it is. But the more failures you have, the more ready you are for success and this is it for me. I'm so ecstatic about being involved with Life Time and the work that we do. My style of cooking has always been Mediterranean by nature."

Got beef? What is going on between Fhima and Andrew Zimmern?

People are curious about the blood-sausage feud between Fhima and Zimmern, the Twin Cities chef and food critic who stars in Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods."

"Nothing from me; I have no idea, honey," Fhima said. "It's not from me."

Said Zimmern, via e-mail: "I haven't seen, spoken of or eaten in a Fhima restaurant in over two years. Several years ago he took exception with some of the things I wrote about him. His track record speaks for itself, no need for me to pile on. Unless he has said something [lately] he has been quiet on the subject of his restaurants as well. No surprise there given their record setting levels of mediocrity.

That may be part of why people have asked me to get to the bottom of whatever has happened between two of the most colorful food characters around.

WaMu Wayne Glamour mag calls the WaMu dude cute.

Page 30 of the February issue of Glamour has a little feature about "Cute Guys in Ads."

The Verizon "Test Man," Paul Marcarelli; the freecreditreport.com guy, Eric Violette, and Kenwood neighborhood's Wayne Wilderson are the three mentioned.

"Better known as 'the WaMu guy,' Wilderson also plays the purple grape in Fruit of the Loom ads. Protecting your assets? Underpants? Not necessarily unrelated," writes Jihan Thompson.

Wild child? Actor-singer Scarlett Johansson hinted at having a wild side recently while here for caucus training sponsored by the Minnesota Young Progressive Majority.

After she and actor Kal Penn stepped up on a bench at St. Paul's Sweeney's bar, she averred: "This is weird; I never did this before. Not when I can remember it."

It was one of several amusing exchanges between the two, videotaped for your viewing pleasure at startribune.com/cj. C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS