There was a smorgasbord of inter-borough hamburger love last night at the chandelier-bedazzled Astoria World Manor in Queens for the inaugural Burger Battle of the Boroughs. Representing good taste in general at event sponsor Pat LaFrieda Meats's table, Seymour Burton chef de cuisine (and non-competitor) Josh Shuffman cooked the restaurant’s signature burger for spectators while the event was judged. At the judges’ table, author Arthur Schwartz seemed to have a beef (sorry) with Grub Street......

At the Ethnic Market highlights international specialty foods and ingredients you're very unlikely to find at your local Gristedes. The Japanese can claim responsibility for introducing kobe beef burgers to such temples of meat as the The Old Homestead Steak House. Now comes a startling new burger development: Japanese miniburgers. Actually they’re more like nanoburgers; each is barely the size of a nickel. If you’ve guessed by now that this snazzy little box doesn’t contain......

Imagine that final beach scene in Planet of the Apes, but substitute every small patch of sand for a chain restaurant and that’ll give you an idea of where the NY restaurant scene might be heading – all blown up, with Charlton Heston eventually smashing his fists into a huge pile of thermal cardboard coffee cup sleeves instead of foamy surf. Just a few weeks after Heston’s 2nd birthday in 1926, the very first White......