"dining guides" news and stories

• In a city where it seems most everyone drives everywhere, two sisters lead a taste tour, on foot.
• But a trip on the light rail can be just as delicious.
• Now that Gourmet is gone -- and with it, Ruth Reichl -- Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Barbara Fairchild steps into the spotlight at Condé Nast.
• A round-up of gravy and stuffing recipes from the Los Angeles Times' test kitchen.
• Drinking juice at breakfast? You might as well be chugging soda.
• Raising your child on a vegetarian diet? If so, meat may become the forbidden fruit.
• Even though the picks may not be perfect, it's lime season in California.
• Dining guide "EAT: Los Angeles 2010" hits bookstore shelves Dec. 1.

At first, a project called Taste of the New York Subway System doesn't sound that appetizing. The concept, however, is a good one: a stop-by-stop guide to restaurants within 200 meters of NYC subway stations. Just pick a line, the "G" for instance, and you get all the restaurants near each stop on that line. Restaurants are linked to their respective Yahoo! Local pages. Those of you with a daily subway routine probably know what's in your neighborhood, but I could see this being quite useful if you had to travel out of your way for some reason and wanted to know what your eating options were.

American diners got pretty excited when the Michelin Guide for New York was released last fall. Now, the organization that reviewed 507 restaurants in New York has announced its plans for a guide on the opposite coast: San Francisco.

San Francisco is abundant with excellent dining opportunities from Chez Panisse in Berkeley to Thomas Keller's French Laundry, but even New York, with its own wealth of stellar restaurants, had but four restaurants that were awarded Michelin's top honor of three stars. Thomas Keller's NY restaurant, Per Se, was among them.

The guide is due to be published in October of this year, and the anonymous reviewing group of one American and four European inspectors have already started making their way around the Bay Area.