There's always so much talk in the summer surrounding who has the best lobster roll in New York City—but is there really a best, or are writers just looking for an excuse to eat (and expense) 16 lobster rolls? Recently a Bloomberg News reporter had exactly that many, and came out with this bit of knowledge: "New York’s best lobster rolls cost half as much as New York’s best-known lobster rolls." more ›

This week Sam Sifton at the Times upgraded untrendy Italian restaurant Novitá from one star to two, calling it "a perfect neighborhood trattoria." The neighborhood is Gramercy, the city New York, and "in any other metropolis in North America, it would be well known among that city’s best places to eat. In many cities, it would sit atop the heap. But in New York, a lot of people have never heard of the place. (How cool is that?) This is testament to the strength of our restaurant scene, to the sheer abundance of good restaurants here. And Novitá is a very good restaurant." The Times Dining section also highlights Ghanaian restaurant Papaye in the Bronx as a great "$25 and under" option, noting that it "may challenge your expectations as well as your dexterity, but it can be deeply satisfying." more ›

In a stunning reversal, New York City has lost its claim to the title of #1 filthiest hotel in America (based on TripAdvisor traveler reviews). Last year Hotel Carter in Times Square placed #1, with an unstoppable combination of rats, mice, horrible smells, dirty sheets, horrifying bathrooms, outlets that hang out of walls, and a dead body under a bed. more ›

In New York, when we talk about the year in food, we talk about the year in restaurants, because who has the time (or counter space) to cook? (You do? Can we come over for dinner?) Also, one of the enduring pleasures of life in NYC is, obviously, a leisurely meal in a peaceful restaurant. And for those whose incomes don't have much room for dining, 2009 was a pretty good year, with more high-quality restaurants opening at a lower price point, and (sadly for us) the death of the obscenely overpriced menu gimmick, which attained apotheosis when Steven Colbert luxuriated in the $25,000 Golden Opulence Sundae at Serendipity 3. Anyway, who's got room for one more listicle? more ›

This week Sam Sifton at the Times files a twofer on impresario Jeffrey Chodorow's restaurants Tanuki Tavern and Ed's Chowder House. This is exciting because Chodorow famously bought full page ads in the Times after Sifton's predecessor, Frank Bruni, slammed his ventures Kobe Club and Wild Salmon. But instead of publishing separate reviews (and raking in twice the ad revenue), Sifton's consolidated, one star critique issues merits and demerits to both restaurants. At Tanuki Tavern, a plate of corn and white miso tempura cakes are "like something out of a fantasy high school cafeteria: sweet, crunchy and addictive." But Ed's Chowder House serves skate that tastes like ammonia and "a rubbery dish of 'moist grilled lobster' with 'spaghetti vegetables & lemon butter sauce' that might as well have been shipped direct from a grim summer wedding in a beachside catering mill." Daaaaamn! You gonna take that, Chodorow? more ›

It it's December, it must be time to visit Dyker Heights, that Brooklyn neighborhood famous for its transcendent Christmas light displays. The spectacle draws onlookers from around the world, and was immortalized in a truly hilarious documentary called Dyker Lights, which takes a priceless "behind-the-scenes" look at the predominantly Italian-American families during preparations for the annual festivities. (PBS will be broadcasting Dyker Lights again this year on Christmas Eve and Christmas day—it's not to be missed.) more ›

This week Sam Sifton at the Times files enthusiastically on Madangsui, which he deems Manhattan’s best Korean barbecue restaurant. The informative review instructs readers how to order and when, plus how to eat: "Now use your chopsticks to drag a piece of cooked meat through the mixture of sesame oil, salt and pepper. Place it on a piece of fresh romaine cupped in your opposite hand in the manner of a tortilla. Add to this some banchan, some slaw, perhaps a dot or two of bean paste or kochujang. Wrap and eat: heaven in Midtown, with cold beer besides. Dessert’s an orange cut into eighths. It tastes of magic and happiness." Sifton also reviews the Tipsy Parson and says, "The food’s not great." more ›

This week Sam Sifton at the Times tosses one measly star to SD26, the big glitzy Flatiron district reboot of San Domenico, which used to operate on Central Park South. Given the restaurant's lofty ambitions, one star is certainly a disappointment for gregarious owner Tony May, who used to run what many agreed to be "Manhattan’s best classically Italian restaurant. Some elements of that excellence remain in the cooking at SD26 and in the wine list put together by the affable Jason Ferris, the restaurant’s wine director. Others have been buried beneath attempts to modernize the kind of dining that Mr. May says has gone out of fashion: the elegant Italian cuisine he helped bring to New York. more ›

Click on the images for details on newcomers Spot Dessert Bar, Obao, Lucy's Cantina Royale, and the latest at Emporio and Death & Co, which just introduced their fall menu. more ›

This week Sam Sifton at the Times re-reviews the new location of Oceana for the paper; it previously received an impressive three stars from Frank Bruni, but the seafood restaurant recently moved from a cozy townhouse space to a big new home on the ground floor of the McGraw Hill building, in the theater district. New York's Adam Platt deems the reboot "a cavernous expense-account joint," and Sifton also downgrades the new Oceana to two stars. more ›

Click on the images here for more details on The Vanderbilt in Prospect Heights, Bill's Burger in the Meatpacking District, Corsino in the West Village, and Giano in the East Village. more ›

Click on the images for details on Scarpetta's new five course tasting menu, The JakeWalk's new fall food and cocktail menu, and Dokebi's Korean tacos and weekend brunch. more ›

This week the new chief dining critic at the NY Times, Sam Sifton, debuts with a rave for DBGB, Daniel Boulud's casual sausage/beer/etc. joint on the Bowery. The first review from the former NY Press reporter boasts references to The Ramones, Talking Heads, and a declaration that "[Boulud's] food game, as they say in rap precincts, is tight... one bite of the crispy lamb ribs that were served in the bar area when the place first opened — sweetly glazed, grassy meat, with a dab of creamy mint-flecked yogurt sauce — ended all snark: Boulud has opened a very good restaurant. The lamb was sublime, earthy and spicy and rich, evidence of superb technique, the sort of snack that separates his empire from others in the celebrity firmament." more ›

After earning the adoration of the hipster masses with his killer Neapolitan-style pizza, Belgian-born chef Mathieu Palombino has recently opened his second Motorino location across the river in Manhattan. The East Village spot (49 East 12th Street) is cozy compared to the spacious original, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in charm and legend: It's the former home of beloved Una Pizza Napoletana, and with the lease Palombino got his hands on the restaurant's prized Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples. more ›

After two entertaining yet vicious slams on Hotel Griffou and Gus & Gabriel, interim Times dining heavy Pete Wells throws a one-star bone to The Standard Grill, which has been winning over critics despite the grotesquely exclusive velvet rope scene at the door. Wells declares that "it is not the place I would send friends who want to study the latest contortions of the yoga masters of haute cuisine. But it is exactly where I would direct anybody who needs to recharge by plugging straight into the abundant, renewable energy source that is downtown Manhattan." And yet! "The tiled, barrel-vaulted ceiling makes for treacherous acoustics. At times conversations across the room are beamed directly to your table. Sitting by the open kitchen one night, we heard an expediter shouting out orders as if he were communicating with cooks in Jersey City." Still, "with 100 seats in this room, another 100 in an even noisier antechamber, and 85 more on the sidewalk, it is a marvel that the kitchen reliably bangs out solid, flavorful food." more ›

Just when we thought we'd have to go all the way to New Haven for the best slice of pizza pie, the 5 Borough Pizza Tour declares the best slice can be found right over in Staten Island. Salvatore of Soho (of Staten Island) came out on top; however, our resident pizza and Staten Island expert, John Kuhner, tells us "My favorite is Nunzio's, but the most famous is probably Denino's." Either way, it sounds like a good amount of our city's top slices are over there, so let's steal their recipes before selling the borough off to New Jersey. more ›

This week the Times's interim chief dining critic Pete Wells takes a hammer to deservedly acclaimed chef Michael Psilakis, whose latest venture, Gus & Gabriel, is inspired by the culinary tastes of his son, TGI Friday's, and whiskey. Wells's review is disastrous, which means it's a fun read: "When three children under age 10 leave their milkshakes almost untouched, you know there’s trouble." The restaurant's "colossal misfires are almost impossible to believe and harder still to explain." Specifically: "Almost every chef in town is experimenting with techniques for building a better burger. Mr. Psilakis may be the only one to have perfected a new technology that magically strips out all the taste. The skin on what is advertised as 'crispy chicken' was as crisp as a balloon, and the biscuits on the plate were wet and doughy, as if the cook had decided halfway through that he would rather make dumplings." more ›

Noooo! When the old sheepfold occupied by Tavern on the Green is taken over by a new operator in January, the notoriously mediocre tourist trap will lose the one thing that justified its existence: immaculately maintained public restrooms. The alternative, for the uninitiated, is the gross public restroom in Sheep Meadow, but since the '70s Tavern's facilities have served as a idyllic alternative. A spokeswoman for Tavern tells the Times, "We’ve always had the position we’re on public land, so certainly the bathrooms are open to the public." The new leaseholder, Dean J. Poll, who runs the Central Park Boathouse, isn't such a populist, but he actually spins the upcoming privatization as a thoughtful gesture for the bathroom-starved rabble: "Going past the bride or groom or people dressed to go to dinner, maybe that’s not what someone wants to do, and feels uncomfortable about it." Also, he adds, "the people in the restaurant feel uncomfortable." Good Heavens, Thurston, hoi polloi are in the powder room wearing short pantaloons! As a sop to the masses, Poll promises to construct a food concession stand outside the building with public restrooms, but nothing will ever, ever replace the satisfaction of using Tavern for its toilets. more ›

Times dining critic Frank Bruni has finally left the building in a fusillade of publicity, and his replacement Sam Sifton didn't file this week. But in the "Dining Briefs" section, Betsy Andrews reviews the Brooklyn Star, a cozy Southern comfort restaurant in Williamsburg run by Joaquin Baca, a former partner in the Momofuku empire. She says Baca "excels at making veggies fattening, and good. His casseroles ($8) — garlicky summer squash and mushroom-rich green bean with slivered almonds — are toasted to gooey goodness in his open kitchen’s 100-year-old brick oven. Creamed corn with smoked trout ($4) and earthy black-eyed peas and rice ($4) are spoonful-by-spoonful delicious. Surprisingly for the former Momofuku partner, meats are a mixed bag." more ›

The "who has the best pizza in town" debate could, and likely will, go on forever. It'll be the End of Days and we'll all be sitting around, like, "Grimaldi's!" "DiFara's!" "Totonno's!" "Patsy's in East Harlem!" Anyway, there's a new blogger in town with an insatiable hunger for pizza pies, and he declares his mission is to "eat a slice of pizza at every pizzeria in New York City. I'm going by neighborhood, starting in Manhattan, getting a plain slice at every place." And just to clarify, he is not interested in your shark fin truffle oil flatbread gourmet non-pizzas, he simply wants to sample "every single plain slice in New York City to scientifically determine which is the absolute best one." This sounds amazing, but it'll be so sad when he finally finishes up with his 5-borough survey only to find his winning pizzeria has since shut down, and 150 more have popped up. This blog, like the debate, has the potential to never end... but it already has us craving a slice from Frank Pepe (yeah we said it: the best slice might just be found in New Haven). [via Slice] more ›

Who among us can sit comfortably for longer than 90 minutes without urinating? Okay, maybe adults under 30 and sober people, but we're neither, and our path to utter incontinence keeps depriving us of pivotal Hollywood plot points. Thankfully, a new technology is giving moviegoers with disadvantaged bladders an alternative to unsightly catheters and adult undergarments: the website RunPee.com, which is now available as an iPhone application, compiles the best opportunities to race to the restroom during motion pictures. The app gives you a cue for your exit, tells you how long you've got and even summarizes what you missed. It's the work of 42-year-old Flash developer Dan Florio, who tells 1010 Wins he got the idea while watching Peter Jackson's three-hour-plus King Kong remake. (Funny, we couldn't wait to go to the bathroom during that.) Florio's currently raking in about $800 a month with RunPee, and he spends his days watching movies to take notes. So basically, he's living the dream. But if he really wants to cash in, he'll get a RunSmokeJoint app ready in time for Tron Legacy. more ›

This week Frank Bruni at the Times, approaching his last month with the Gray Lady, goes gaga for Aldea (photos), where "the cooking is precious, lusty, ultramodern, rustic and a host of other adjectives that don’t normally squeeze together but find themselves in a tight, mostly happy clutch here. Although Aldea has a clean, sleek and relatively spare look, it has a much more complex taste. One minute you’re nibbling on crisp pig’s ears. The next you’re carefully maneuvering your spoon under a translucent, quivering orb of concentrated mushroom broth—one of those liquid ravioli that the Spanish alchemist Ferran Adrià made famous—in an avant-garde consommé." Bruni also takes a look at artisanal pizza parlors this week. more ›

Here's Bar Luna, the casual Upper West Side wine bar that opened recently in the space formerly occupied by the Neptune Room on Amsterdam Avenue. There was a bit of a delay last month when owner Turgut Balikci, who cut his teeth twenty years ago with Bella Luna on Columbus Avenue, sent out an email canceling the opening because of a liquor license issue. But a source tells the Village Voice that the opening was actually pushed back because the chef, Sean Chudoba (who ran the kitchen at Balikci's restaurant AYZA) quit at the last minute. Bar Luna is now up and running with chef Jacque Belanger (West Branch), whom Balicki says is "better suited for the style of restaurant, and more experienced in the neighborhood." more ›

Photographer Katie Sokoler went shopping for a sympathy card at a 99 cent store in Williamsburg today but she says all she found were "tons" of "Congratulations on Your New Condo" cards. Does this mean more people are buying condos than dying? We thought condos were dying; according to The Real Deal, 1,841 condos are expected to enter the Williamsburg market by the end of this year. more ›

Click on the images above for details on 13 other sweet spots for al fresco drinking, including the Extreme WOW (Presidential) Suites in Midtown East, Ortine in Prospect Heights, Spuyten Duyvil in Williamsburg, T.B.D. in Greenpoint, Studio Square in Long Island City, The Diamond in Greenpoint, LIC Bar in Long Island City, Nita Nita in Williamsburg, Huckleberry Bar in East Williamsburg, The Hotel Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District, Vutera in Williamsburg, 5 Ninth in the Meatpacking District, and The Brooklyn Ice House in Red Hook. more ›

The Village Voice's Robert Sietsema discovers South Indian restaurant Southern Spice in Flushing, and files a rave review that begins, "Sometimes a restaurant makes such an impression that it changes your way of thinking about an entire cuisine...Dish after dish was astonishing in the power and immediacy of its flavors." His colleague Sarah DiGregorio checks out two East Village cured-meat "specialists," Cure and Ballaro. The former "looks like a boudoir—a boudoir stocked with meat and cheese...Stick with the meat for best results. Even the most successful salad is made mostly of meat—a mess of a half-dozen kinds of chopped charcuterie, rendered even less healthy by the addition of sliced fresh mozzarella, all on top of a portion of mixed greens. The quiches, unfortunately, are heated to sogginess in a microwave." And over at Ballaro, "the proprietors are more serious about their food." more ›

Brooklyn Star: Former Momofuku partner Joaquin Baca has gone solo in Williamsburg, with this handsome little restaurant a few blocks from the L train. The Southern comfort menu includes options such as corn bread ($4), Dr. Pepper Ribs ($16), Fried Pig Tails ($11), BBQ Catfish with grits and fried cucumbers ($13), and Smothered Porkchop with scalloped tomatoes and string beans. Inside the open kitchen, a 100-plus-year-old oven, a relic from when the place used to be a pizzeria, imbues the food with the appropriate degree of smokiness. NY Mag finds out how much money Baca spent to make his dream a reality, and here's the menu from Brooklyn Star's website. No liquor license yet, but they do have plenty of cool, refreshing ice tea and root beer! 33 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn; (718) 599-9899 more ›

If you follow along with this sort of thing, you'll know how earth shattering it is that outgoing Times dining critic Frank Bruni has bestowed three out of four precious stars on Keith McNally's casual-yet-elitist reboot of Minetta Tavern. That's a lot of stars for a place like this, especially considering Bruni's past ambivalence to the restaurateur, who famously accused Bruni of sexism after the critic gave his restaurant Morandi (which had a female chef) a tough review. Anyway, Bruni hearts McNally's Minetta, which he declares "the best steakhouse in the city." Meanwhile, the Post's Steve Cuozzo has some thoughts on Bruni's depature. (The take away's basically, Who cares, the Times is now a paper tiger.) more ›