This weekend, Madison Square Park will be filled with the sweet smell of smoked flesh, as the ninth annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party rolls into town. We spoke to pitmaster Ed Mitchell last week about his plans for the gut-busting party, and today we're checking in with a few of the other pitmasters (there's 16 total—that's a lot of meat). more ›

There was a lot of tall talk around the Gothamist offices yesterday about taking on the Hill Country BBQ challenge (eating two pounds of meat, two sides, a cupcake, and a 32-ounce drink within an hour gets your $65 meal comped). But while some were just talking, others were already gorging. Grub Street's Daniel Maurer strapped it on yesterday: "Around that 37-minute mark, you hit the wall. You begin feeling a little bit high, and not in a good way: time slows to a crawl; things become very grotesque; your friend is talking to you but you’re not really listening (mostly because hearing him ask the waitress to recommend a cupcake is making you nauseated); and suddenly it’s like you’re in the bar from Fear and Loathing." But Maurer persevered and finished with five minutes to spare, and now his photo's up on the Hill Country "Wall of Cue." You gonna take that, Tien? more ›

Looks like The City of New York has stepped in to examine how Bed Stuy-based Kings County Barbecue Truck owner Chris McGee makes ends meet from serving burnt ends. A few weeks back, the pitmaster’s Twitter went dark, and one week ago the truck’s Facebook page was updated with the following wall post: "Kings County BBQ is sorry about the absence. The "man" is demanding the truck do its part to balance the city budget! Have to clear up some administrative nuisance before we are smoking again. Hopefully soon, but not likely real soon. Keep posted." McGee—who is originally from KCMO but also cooked at Jean-Georges and Blue Smoke—is known for his apple-brined wings, pulled pork, and duly serving all BBQ with “pickles and white bread for mopping up the sauce.” Reached earlier today, McGee declined to comment; in the meantime, we'll speculate that any smoked brisket loving lawyers might eventually benefit by befriending the pitmaster on Facebook. more ›

Note to fabulously good-looking, scrupulously healthy restaurant Rouge Tomate (pictured): the Times's Frank Bruni doesn't appreciate your good intentions. He opines, "In addition to a head chef with obvious talent, it employs a nutritionist, who makes certain that dishes have optimal ratios of meats to vegetables and fruits to nuts and don’t traffic recklessly in calories or the wrong fats...While about a quarter of the dishes are knockouts, at least as many are overly calculated and fastidious, suggesting there’s such a thing as too much balance. The same fruity, nutty, seedy notes pop up too often: during one meal I felt tyrannized by pomegranate, antioxidized to a fare-thee-well." more ›

Here, pour yourself a morning cup o' contempt, courtesy Frank Bruni's review of Delicatessen (pictured), the overpriced, overcrowded Soho comfort food lounge where tools and over-privileged scenesters flock to judge each other. (You know, the place that's driving neighbors to urinate on it.) After conceding that "this seriously mediocre but ingeniously conceived restaurant" isn't catering to epicures, but rather "night crawlers looking for foodstuffs that double as alcohol sponges," Bruni decides that "many of these dishes are clever, but their execution is usually matter of fact and sometimes quite sloppy...How to pass the time? During dinner I enjoyed watching the Delicatessen pirouette, a 360-degree spin some patrons perform on the way to their seats, allowing them to appraise the room fully and be fully appraised by it." more ›

After serving tours in the Middle East, it was a Brooklyn backyard barbecue that proved deadly for Sergeant Kidson George. The 26-year-old man was gunned down on the porch of a Crown Heights home where he was celebrating the 4th of July with his girlfriend and others. George was shot twice in the chest by his girlfriend's former boyfriend, sending children screaming and dashing for cover. more ›

Fresh from attending the Bronx Food and Arts Festival on Sunday, Dave Cook of the highly recommended food site Eating in Translation reports that Hunts Point barbecue rig Mo Gridder’s – famous for its St. Louis cut smoked rib platter served in the parking lot of an auto center – is moving into its very first restaurant space without axles. Owner Fred Donnelly will open Mo Gridder’s II in the Belmont Section of the Bronx, in the space vacated by Roberto restaurant at 632 East 186th Street at Crescent Avenue. Barbecued pulled pork and smoked brisket will soon be just a squishy, sesame seed bun’s throw from Arthur Avenue. Score one more for the Bronx – most of which, at least food-wise, has been down so long that up looks like a pallid Domino's slice. more ›

New Yorkers love their barbecue, and they're certainly not going to let a little near-record-breaking heat get between them and their meat. Throngs of sweaty 'cue lovers waited in line at the sixth annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party to get a taste of dishes served up by award-winning pitmasters from across the country including brisket, sausage and coleslaw from The Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas; pulled pork shoulder from Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama; and whole hog and coleslaw from Ed Mitchell's The Pit in Raleigh, North Carolina. more ›

Sometimes you have to eat a species in order to save it. To raise awareness about threatened Pacific wild salmon, Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City will be adding wild salmon barbecue to the menu this Saturday. The feast is being held in cooperation with Save Our Wild Salmon, a group that’s traveling the country to educate people about the Northwest salmon crisis. more ›

Saturday's thunderstorm ended just in time for Brooklyn Pigfest benefiting the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. Beer, BBQ and bluegrass were promised and that's exactly what was delivered, along with an impromptu game of "tip cup". more ›

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni reviews The Harrison (pictured) in Tribeca; the paper gave it two stars in 2001 and Bruni maintains status quo with two stars today. There’s a different chef in the kitchen, Amanda Freitag, and Bruni digs the restaurant’s “populist bent, its awareness that breaded or fried objects are a sure path to many a diner’s heart.” But don’t get him started on the ambiance: “The Harrison’s visual evocation of a country inn in the big city still strikes me as more stodgy than cozy. And its soundtrack, too heavy on pop rock from 15 to 25 years ago, needs help. It’s neither classic nor cool. Just odd.” more ›

A 7-year-old Manhattan boy is hospitalized today with burns over 70% of his body after an attempt to make S'mores in a Murray Hill basement went horribly wrong. As opposed to the usual case of youthful misadventure, responsibility for the boys injuries appears to lie with a supervising parent, who allegedly threw a volatile flammable liquid on an open flame, which exploded in the boy's face. more ›

Barbecue fans will want to start bracing their colons for the 6th Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, which has been announced for June 7th and 8th in Madison Square Park. Gothamist tore through the festival of regional barbecue last year, devouring everything from pork shoulder to Brunswick stew to candied ribs. more ›

Even though it had been open less than a week Wildwood Barbeque, the latest addition to the burgeoning New York City barbeque scene, was mobbed with merry meatheads Wednesday night. Folks were queued up at the entranceway, as they waited to taste meats from Pitmaster Big Lou Elrose. more ›

Wildwood: Pit master “Big Lou” Elrose has come a long way from his Ozone Park lunch wagon; the 6’4 Brooklyn-born behemoth has now transferred from Hill Country to this new Park Avenue South barbecue restaurant, part of the B.R. Guest empire. The atmosphere is urban industrial and reclaimed rustic, with high ceilings and a 50-foot-long bar. Big Lou’s famous ribs, pork brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken can be paired with such sides as Cast Iron Honey Cornbread or even vegetarian chili with smoked tofu. Blogger Beef Aficionado says Wildwood’s “beef brisket was absolutely superb. Even better than the brisket was the massive beef short rib which had a wonderful caramelized crust and comes served on a Bowe knife sized bone.” 225 Park Avenue South, (212) 533-2500. more ›

Chef Anita Lo, whose intimate and sophisticated Barrow Street restaurant Annisa has been a hit for years, has now opened a bigger venture in the West Village. It’s a 120-seat Asian barbecue restaurant called Bar Q, which specializes in dishes like baby back ribs made with Lo’s mother’s “special sauce.” more ›

Sunday’s 3rd Avenue In Brooklyn Is About To Be Rampant With Yuppies Times article glossed over the presence of a new restaurant on the block, Brick Oven Bar Be Que & Pizza. One gets the sense that owner Emmanuel Maropakis is involved in something downright quixotic here. Messages like “Free Coffee” are spray painted on the outside of the brick building, and at different times during the day such words appear only with considerable eye strain, just like one of those old Magic Eye illustrations. Most of the time they’re plainly visible: “Grand Opening NOW SOON says another one. The restaurant’s interior is sprawling and curved, airbrushed with cloudy purple-pink accents. Mr. Maropakis built the restaurant’s brick oven himself, and the Times says it can handle an insane “1,000 pounds of meat at a time.” A big oven is clearly visible from the dining area. more ›

Barbecue and sushi aren’t the first two cuisines you'd expect to find cohabitating under one roof. Leave it to Jim Goldman, a.k.a Brother Jimmy, to open Lucky Mojo, which features that oddball pairing – plus Tex-Mex and New Orleans fare. An eclectic, highly uneven menu isn’t the only challenge this new Long Island City spot faces. Lucky Mojo’s space has been afflicted with bad juju of late. In the ’90s it was home to the critically acclaimed Pearson’s Texas Barbecue. more ›

Good news for old-school New Yorkers: the new 2nd Ave Delicatessen is expected to open sometime next week in its new Murray Hill Location on 33rd Street, near Third Avenue. Lovers of the deli’s famous matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches were devastated last year when, after a half-century in business, the 2nd Ave and 10th Street legend was snuffed out. The closure came in the wake of a bitter rent dispute between deli owner Jack Lebewohl and the landlord over rent increases; the soul was promptly siphoned from the site and turned into a Chase bank (though the Yiddish theater “Walk of Fame” on the sidewalk remains). more ›

BENEFIT: Tonight catch a special performance by Alanis Morissette, while rubbing elbows with Matt Dillon...all for a good cause! The inaugural fundraising benefit for the Adrienne Shelly Foundation will be held this evening, and you can get in with a ticket from $150 to...well, $10,000 bucks. You'll be supporting the late Shelly's foundation which "supports the artistic achievements of female actors, writers and directors through a series of scholarships and grants." 6pm // Skirball Center... more ›

An Avis truck exploded at 64th Road and 108th Street in Queens, injuring one person and damaging windows in surrounding buildings. The box truck was parked behind some businesses and blew up around 8AM. At first, residents were concerned it might be some sort of attack, but it seems that a propane gas-barbecue inside the truck ignited, causing the explosion. And authorities say the vehicle was a catering truck. WCBS 2 has video of the... more ›

• On a hunt for the best mac and cheese in the city? See if you can make your way through this list. Enjoy the food coma afterwards and ponder the origin of the word "marconus".
• Texas barbecue shrine Hill Country now delivers. Amen.
• Adam Roberts, a.k.a. The Amateur Gourmet, has made the blog-to-book leap, with How to Shop, Chop, and Table Hop Like a Pro (Almost), and is parading around the internets on a virtual book tour.

September 3: West Indian–American Day Carnival more ›

This week's New York Mag runs down some of this season's upcoming restaurant openings -- better start planning now. We've already given you the scoop on Will Goldfarb's Picnick and Peter Hoffman's Back Forty, due in September and October respectively, but we're looking forward to some of the other spots highlighted by Rob and Robin, especially noodle shop Bun, from Mai House chef Michael Huynh and his wife, Thao Nguyen, and El Quinto Pino, from the Tia Pol gang. more ›

Since the spring, the Post’s Page Six gossip column has for some reason been following the strange saga of the love life of Long Island native and Philadelphia television anchor Alycia Lane, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Liz Cho. It has, of course but it has provided some strange entertainment since May when the tabloid revealed that she had sent e-mails containing private photos of herself to NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen that were discovered by his wife, ABC Sports reporter Suzy Shuster. more ›

A 16-year-old Bronx boy was arrested for the Sunday murder of Rayquon Story aboard a 5 train. The police tracked down the suspect after someone gave Story's aunt a Myspace picture and said, "This is the kid who shot your nephew." more ›