Since it first brought its popular-in-Europe restaurant guides for New York six years ago, there has been something of a cold war going between Michelin and the other publisher of red-toned restaurant guides, the recently-Googled Zagat Survey. The two companies put their New York guides out within days of each other and regularly try and steal each other's media thunder while distracting consumers from the plethora of free online reviews available (*cough* Yelp *cough*). Now, with both companies' 2012 guides set for release next month, the French tire company has gone and fired this year's opening shot today by releasing its "Bib Gourmand" list of restaurants serving two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less (excluding tax and gratuity). Interestingly, it seems the fancy restaurant guide is taking the Times' lead and starting to look beyond Manhattan a bit. more ›

The new edition of the Michelin guide to NYC restaurants hits shelves next week, but the highly-regarded dining roundup has already released their "Bib Gourmand" selections (facebook). Though most of the restaurants that get a star from the exacting Michelin inspectors are pricey fine dining establishments, the Bib Gourmand group consists of 95 places serving two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less (tax and gratuity not included). The envelope, please: more ›

This week Sam Sifton revisited Aretsky's Patroon, which he deems the meeting place of the "modern American Mad Men." This is eating for the powerful, with "steaks the size of weights at the gym" served under photographs of old New York. Aretsky's remains a standby in midtown, with the food still holding its own after nearly 15 years. "Grilled smoked prawns, with roasted tomato vinaigrette and a pillow of mâche ($19), are as close to a good cigar as you’re going to find in a foodstuff," and the perfectly carved Porterhouse is "a sign that the old boy has a little life in him yet." more ›

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni destroys Ago (pictured), the new Italian restaurant in Tribeca’s Greenwich Hotel owned by Robert De Niro. It’s a savage burn, and way more entertaining than any movie De Niro’s been involved with during the last decade. Things go sideways immediately when the bartender unleashes “the Poseidon Adventure of wine spills” on Bruni’s lady friend and his party of four has to wait almost an hour for their table, which is “little bigger than a bike wheel… The table was pressed so close to a column that I couldn’t lower my right arm all the way, and if my wine-drenched friend leaned back in her chair, the column obstructed her view of me and mine of her.” With a couple exceptions, the overpriced food sucks too. Zero stars, fun read. more ›

Writing for the Post, Andrea Strong feasts at Broadway East (pictured), the chic new Lower East Side organic restaurant with the dainty carbon footprint: The restaurant composts, filters and carbonates its own water, uses a green linen company, and donates waste cooking oil to the Environmental Energy Recycling Corp. Oh, and the food? Strong calls it “a brilliant compromise” between carnivores and vegetarians, “showcasing veggies along with organic meat and sustainably harvested and locally procured seafood.” more ›

On Moore Street in Bushwick, you'll be hard pressed to find a better place to eat than Roberta's, the newly opened and very discreet wood-fired pizza haven. A fire engine red wood-fueled oven with the restaurant's namesake painted in white churns out thin and perfectly crispy pizzas (and the occasional calzone) for a spacious wood-paneled room with a cafeteria-table set up that still sports remnants of industrial garage doors. more ›