While the Unfancy Food Show held its humble affair in Williamsburg this past Sunday, the Fancy Food Show (yes, actual names) has been holding court this week with its annual massive event over at the Jacob Javits Center. Over 6,000 vendors from around the world will give out close to 200,000 samples in what is North America's largest specialty food event. Out of that cast of thousands, the weirdest specimen we spotted was Jelly Belly's......

Let’s not let the bitter turf war between the Fancy Food Show and the Unfancy Food Show eclipse the other fine food event going down this weekend. Sunday marks the third seasonal New Amsterdam Public market – the winter version was a big hit last December, drawing thousands despite a huge snowstorm. The one day-only event draws fine artisanal food vendors to the plaza fronting the New Market Building down by the South Street Seaport.......

The Brooklyn community board that covers Bay Ridge is fed up with the food vendors who clog 86th Street – all three of them. “The issue is cleanliness,” asserts the board’s District Manager Josephine Beckmann, whose husband is a police lieutenant. “It would be best to have no vending at all. It just causes problems.” So the board has unanimously urged the city’s Department of Small Business Services to banish them from the block. Sam......

Just as fast food chains Taco Bell and Wendy's are bringing the tomatoes back to their menus, the NYC Health Department announced that there have been six more reported cases of salmonella, bringing the total of NYC area cases of the disease to seven. For the past few weeks, more and more cases of salmonella connected to tainted tomatoes have been reported across the country, forcing restaurants--especially national chains--to reconsider the role of raw tomatoes......

Shalizar: Bangladesh native Parvez Eliaas and his Iranian partner Kaz Bayati have just opened their second Persian restaurant on the Upper East Side, not far from their original venture, Persepolis. According to Thrillist, the new bistro is distinguished by exposed brick and a spacious bar, where old world wines, pomegranate cocktails and wild berry-infused vodkas can be savored. The Middle Eastern menu includes delicacies like baby lamb stew and salmon kebab. 1420 Third Avenue near......

If "butter" flavored popcorn and Sour Patch Kids aren’t your ideal movie snack food, then you'll probably find the New York City Food Film Festival much more palatable. Starting Saturday at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, Queens, the festival will pair 18 movies with relevant munchies under the night sky. George Motz, who started the festival last year with chef Harry Hawk, says he wanted to create “a cinematic scratch 'n sniff......

It was a big night for New York at last night’s James Beard Awards. The "Oscars of food" took place at Avery Fisher Hall complete with red carpet and celebrity hosts--Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall joined Iron Chef Bobby Flay at the podium, and much like the Oscars, engaged in some rather awkward “witty” banter: Kim: I’d like to have a throwdown with you, Bobby. Bobby: Sure, I’d challenge you in the kitchen anytime.......

While skyrocketing food prices are sparking riots around the world, in New York the crisis is forcing restaurants like Good Enough to Eat to make due with frozen blueberries in their pancakes! The owner tells the Times the blueberries she gets shipped from Maine are now $38 per flat, up from $24 last summer. A five gallon jug of Canadian maple syrup is now $250, up from $200. And a 100-pound sack of flour costs......

Red Hook residents who used to party at Lillie’s bar on Beard Street may be surprised to discover that right next door to the decadent nightspot was an elegant restaurant waiting to be born. What was previously storage space has been thoroughly overhauled into a French bistro called La Bouillabaisse, which owner Neil Ganic (Petite Crevette) hopes to have running in time for the June 18th grand opening of IKEA, conveniently located across the street.......

Photo of Tavern on the Green petting zoo courtesy Pixietart. Central Park’s Tavern on the Green – which Wallace Shawn best described in a thinly-veiled allusion as that “always overcrowded café to whose allure all visitors to the park would eventually succumb on even the nicest days, despite the well-known quality of its ambiance and food” – has agreed to cough up $2.2 million dollars in a discrimination lawsuit. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity......

If you’ve got an adventurous appetite and don’t mind a mob scene, tonight’s Taste of Times Square shindig is for you. Starting at 5 p.m., 46th Street between Ninth Avenue and Broadway will be turned over to vendors serving samples from local restaurants. They’ve got everything from Applebee’s to the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, bros! Peruse the full list here; there are also plenty of non-chains like Chop Suey and Chilean restaurant Pomaire. Tickets redeemable for......

When we first noted this incoming Brazilian restaurant/bar back at the beginning of January, we incorrectly referred to it as Favela. Turns out it's Miss Favela to you (and us); the South Williamsburg "Brazilian Botequim" is currently in soft opening mode. Co-owner Alain Denneulin (of Soho's French Bistro Felix) tells us they're shooting for an official opening June 2nd. And once Miss Favela is in full swing, they'll be serving lunch and dinner until midnight......

Over the weekend, hungry visitors to the Red Hook ball fields were disappointed to find that the famous Latin American food vendors were nowhere to be found. Back in March the Parks Department bent to considerable public outcry and dropped its threat to evict the longstanding vendors, instead granting them a six-year permit. But it seems the permit approval process – which requires equipment upgrades estimated to cost $15,000 to $30,000 – have delayed......

Those retro TV dinners with the pre-formulated portions aren’t just for Eisenhower-era loners anymore; the factory-made frozen meals have been cleverly revived for big city sophisticates dining at the Regency Hotel's 540 Park restaurant. The first Swanson TV Brand Frozen Dinner sold for 98 cents in 1953; at the Regency it’s been brought up to date for $30. Chef Andrew Rubin is offering three iterations on the classic, each one served on that famous, sectioned......

As the weather warms up, restaurants who keep their windows open wide maintain a serious advantage over their stuffier competitors. On a recent heated evening, this is how we stumbled upon the LES's Kampuchea, a crowded spot that riffs on Cambodian street food. While hardly authentic, Chef Ratha Chau's menu is heavy in chili, lime, coconut, and lemongrass: sweet meets sour meets spicy all over your palate. Soups and noodles comprise most of the......

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. New York will be well represented this year by Hill Country, Rack and Soul, Blue Smoke, and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que; other purveyors range......

Beast, on the corner of Vanderbilt and Bergen Streets in Prospect Heights, serves a wide range of tapas and brunch plates with a Spanish flare. As befits the restaurant's bristling name, the first of two dining rooms is dark – almost medieval – and dotted with appropriately colorful creatures: monsters, gargoyles, and demons. The kitchen is open and separates the front from the back room; curious diners can usually observe a small army of......

After undergraduate studies in French Literature at Columbia, Michigan-born chef Anita Lo found herself unable to resist the call of the kitchen, and relocated to France to study at the esteemed Ritz-Escoffier school. Graduating first in her class, Lo soon got her start in New York in the kitchen of David Bouley. Eight years ago she struck out on her own with the Greenwich Village favorite Annisa, which serves contemporary American cuisine with accents......

The earlier reports of the city’s sudden shutdown of Veniero’s pastry café have been followed up with some rather revolting details, sent to Eater by a tipster at the Department of Health. The beloved East Village institution, founded in 1894 by Antonio Veniero, had posted a sign on the door next to the DOH sticker blaming the shut-down on a “pest problem” caused by “a large Capital Improvement Project.” Pest problem, indeed: Veniero’s Café was......

As if offering a final coda (or is it?) to the suspenseful Momofuku Ko reservation saga, the Times’s Frank Bruni has officially opined on the breathlessly hyped, 12-seat restaurant from rock star chef David Chang. Bruni extols it with three stars, calling it “noteworthy beyond its addling all-computer reservation system and the intense, revelatory pleasures of its partly Asian, partly French, wholly inventive food… Ko in its early months serves a few dishes that merely......

To bring the Momofuku Ko Craigslist reservation controversy full circle, Insatiable Critic Gael Greene (pictured incognito) has finally published her side of the story. For those just joining us, one Tom Dobrowski posted a Craigslist ad inviting a guest to buy him dinner in exchange for his impossible-to-get reservation at David Chang’s 14-seat Momofuku Ko. Greene took him up on the offer, but last week witnesses from Eater reported that their date was meal by......

Map via The NY Times Because of rising rents and lowering profit margins, supermarkets city-wide have been disappearing, according to a recent study. New York's boroughs have been especially hard hit, forcing low-income residents like Fort Greene's Della Dorsett to power her electric wheelchair several blocks uphill along Myrtle Avenue, "returning home with plastic bags dangling from handles and nestled between her feet." Something to think about next time the lines jam up at......

Starting tonight (Cinco de Mayo) and continuing through Friday, Crema Restaurante will be offering a special five course prix fixe menu, with tequila drink pairings, that dovetails Mexican and French cuisines. Chef Julieta Ballesteros, from Monterrey, Mexico, calls the menu a “peace offering” of sorts to the French, and most of the dishes draw heavily upon her training at New York's French Culinary Institute. Even if you're not up for dinner, you might want......

That Momofuku Ko "resi" that hit Craigslist recently, where the poster was looking for a culinary companion, was not only filled -- but the story gets juicier than kimchi consommé with pork belly. The woman who accompanied the Craigslist poster, Tom Dobrowski (a real estate investment expert), was none other than the Insatiable Critic, Gael Greene (pictured). She got her in by responding to his post with: “Momofuko Ko with a mouth that has forty......

Freshly fried plantain chips and homemade chimichurri sauce start the meal off right Shachis, the Venezuelan spot in South Williamsburg run by Pedro Boyer and his partner Alan Rodriguez. You can snack on the chips while perusing the menu, which specializes in arepas – Venezualan corn cakes – but also offers delightful Latin American entrees incorporating flavors of saffron and piquillo peppers, yuca, and sweet plantains. A handful of simple salads are a gateway......

The term "diner" usually evokes thoughts of breakfast at midnight and dense menus of Dickensian length. But at the Jackson Diner in the heart of Jackson Heights in Queens, crowds assemble for some of the city's best North Indian food. In the heart of the borough's "little India," a large and casual banquet room with deep purple paper placemats is the go-to spot for a reasonably-priced unlimited lunch buffet and Indian food hankerings of......

The most eco-friendly way to eat on Earth Day – and any day – is by growing your own food, eating it raw and composting the scraps. But for those of us who aren’t urban farmers, there are some good green options happening on or around April 22nd. il Buco (pictured), the Mediterranean restaurant on Bond Street, will be offering a $30 prix fixe lunch menu Tuesday through Saturday, and donating 100% of the proceeds......

Photo of Orphic Memory Sausage by Matthew Weinreb 2008, printed with permission from the artists: Mimi Oka and Doug Fitch. Lots of chefs consider their food to be art, but few artists see their art as food. A new festival called Umami – a Japanese word meaning "savory" or "meaty" – is trying to change all that. The ten day smorgasbord, which started Tuesday, spotlights artists and performers who use food as a medium, and......

Here is one last winter recipe before all the glorious spring and summer produce sweeps in. Chickpea-Stuffed Delicata Squash for the chickpeas 1 C (200 g) dried chickpeas 4 C water (or, better yet, mushroom broth) 1/2 C dried cranberries 1/2 C tawny port 2 large (4" diameter) delicata squash Salt, sugar, olive oil, and macademia nuts to taste Preheat your oven to 475 F. Mix the dried cranberries and port together in a bowl.......

Starbucks unveiled its new everyday coffee brew--the Pike Place Roast--in stores today. The Seattle-based chain's press release explains the new brew has "Starbucks signature bold flavor with a smoother finish balanced by soft acidity and subtle, rich flavors of cocoa and toasted nuts." Additionally, the stores indicate when the coffee was roasted and will "brew smaller batches with a hold time of no more than 30 minutes." A store in Chicago actually ran out......