I just picked up a great little book on the history of Horn & Hardart's Automat eating establishments, those very cool restaurants from decades ago (the last one close in the early 90s) where you would serve yourself from these giant machines that housed the food in little compartments. The first one opened in Philadelphia in 1902, and the last one close in the early 90s. The restaurants were used in many, many NYC movies over the years, and Edward Hopper has a famous painting set in one.

Customers and fans swear by the food, and the book has a bunch of great, authentic recipes, including Macaroni and Cheese and Baked Beans.

If you'd like to buy one of the machines, go here. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is having an Edward Hopper exhibit until August 19.

When I go into a fast food place such as McDonald's, Burger King, or Wendy's (which I think I've done maybe 3 times in the past 3 years), I know beforehand that I have made a decision to eat badly that day. I don't care if these places have "salads" or "low-fat foods," it's still fast food to me, and I don't need anyone to tell me what I'm about to eat probably has a lot of fat and calories.

Having said that, I see no real problem with New York City restaurants having to show calorie info where customers can see it. The law took effect earlier this week. Some of the fast food companies argued that it "violated their First Amendment rights," which I still don't understand. Some places are putting the info in areas where they're not immediately accessible to customers, while other places, like Subway, have the info upfront.

Fines will start being issued October 1 for restaurants that violate the law.

Fried chicken. Funnel cakes. Doughnuts. If you ever thought deep-fried foods could never be sexy, think again. This is a picture of fish and chips as taken by The Girl Who Ate Everything. She is currently making her way through various parts of Europe on vacation, but these fish and chips are from Chip Shop in New York (obviously - I can't imagine they'd serve fish and chips with Ranch dressing in England). What can I say? It's not just food porn, this baby is sexy. Maybe it's the lighting. Maybe it's the way the French fries (chips) are tumbling all over each other. Maybe it's the naughty pose of the deep-fried fish on the edge of the plate.

From the sound of it, everyone who's anyone is opening a restaurant in New York, from Graydon Carter (editor of Vanity Fair) to chefs like Gordon Ramsey. Hotel restaurants are getting revamped to compete with non-hotel restaurants and chefs who haven't been seen for years, like Michael Lomonaco, the chef from Windows on the World, the restaurant at the World Trade Center.

As chefs and restaurants try to turn names into global brands, they are either bringing branches of existing restaurants to New York, or taking them out of New York and to other parts of the country. Is the dining scene in NY loosing some of its individuality? And do you have to be a multi-national powerhouse to make it in the city?

Last year's hits and misses and what it's like in the kitchen at Buddakan.

September restaurant openings, including a bar that is staffed by women in designer bikinis, and openings to look forward to later in fall.

Frank Bruni dines at Japonais and gives it 1 star.

Mark Bittman, the minimalist, makes blueberry cobbler.

Broadway Panhandler

And you thought a two-month advance reservation for French Laundry in California's Napa Valley was a big deal? Try going out in New York City. If you were lucky enough to have a hotel room at the Marriott Marquis, you made that reservation in 1983. Dinner too? The Rainbow Room was completely booked for New Year's Eve 1999 four years in advance.

It's not quite so difficult to land reservations in premier spots these days. Sure it takes some careful planning, a lot of patience, and some quick reflexes on the redial button. An article in the New York Times lists some of the slightly more difficult tables in the city -- Per Se, Mario Batali's Babbo, Le Bernardin -- and a good strategy for "getting in."

If you follow the New York restaurant and dining scene at all, then the name Gael Greene is familiar. Gael Greene spent thirty-two years writing a column for New York magazine entitled "The Insatiable Critic." Though she was writing restaurant reviews, her columns revealed her life as a social diva, who ended up in bed with the likes of Elvis Presley as well as chefs of notable New York restaurants.

Gael Greene has a new book, Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess, which is a memoir of those days and nights. Nerve.com has done an interview with the writer in which they ask such questions as "Do you think there's a connection between the physical experiences of eating and sex?" and "Do you have any suggestions for in-the-bedroom treats?" all of which she answers very straight-forwardly.

Chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin in mid-town Manhattan will be opening two new restaurants in the Caribbean. The two, to be called Blue and Periwinkle at the new Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, will be seafood restaurants, like Le Bernardin. Blue will be fine-dining and Periwinkle will be a casual restaurant.

The new $440 million Ritz-Carlton will be a 144-acre luxury resort that is scheduled to open in late fall. Ripert has asked Le Bernardin's sous chef, Richard Brower to serve as chef de cuisine for both restaurants. In order to ensure quality standards, Ripert also plans to fly to the restaurants in the Caribbean with a whole team every month. From Manhattan to the Caribbean once a month? What a life!

For a foodie voyeur, MenuPages is highly addictive. The site has been around for a while as a resource for people who dine out in NY. It has addresses, phone numbers, and most importantly, scanned images of the restaurant's menu so that we can see what's available and for how much. Sure, lots of restaurant review sites have dollar signs to indicate about how much one would spend on a three course meal, tax and tip (not) included, but for me, those three $$$ mean nothing. I like to know how much certain things are. 

MenuPages has recently launched in LA. Not a few days later, MenuPix also launched its site, offering the exact same kind of resource! And to think I was going to do the same thing on my own blog! I guess great minds think alike.

Has anyone used either or both sites? What do you think? Which is better?

Steakhouses, as a rule, all used to market themselves the same way. The place was presented as a sanctum sanctorum, an all-male preserve where men could drink whiskey, eat charred beef, and revel in their temporary liberation from the tyranny of women.

But times have changed; and the New York steakhouse has changed with them, giving yesteryear's cultural baggage the heave-ho. A few classic exemplars of the old school persist, and are rightly celebrated as temples of meat-worship; but now they compete with a new generation of steakhouses, all of whom bring a new, metrosexual take to the most primal of all restaurant concepts.

Typical of this breed is Quality Meats, a tarted-up meatery from the corporate group that brought you 78 different Smith and Wollensky restaurants, not to mention Cite, Maloney and Porcelli, and the Post House.

Motivated by the new rotisserie and fried chicken takeout spot from Alison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing (formerly of Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar) called Dirty Bird To Go, the Village Voice did a blind taste test to see if Dirty Bird's claims of "an exciting alternative to conventional fast food to satisfy families and foodies alike" were accurate. Dirty Bird went up against the real dirty birds, KFC and Popeye's.

Dirty Bird won for surviving travel, maintaining its crunch, and having the moistest, best tasting meat. However, taste-testers were disappointed with seasonings.

KFC was found to be the greasiest and least crispy of the three. Popeye's was reported as "trashy, delicious chicken. The flesh is shiny with fat, the fried shell puffy and golden brown." One of the taste-testers hypothesized that perhaps there was some sort of addictive chemical added to the chicken.

Who cares about the chicken? I could eat a dozen of Popeye's buttermilk biscuits, which I am quite certain they deep fry right alongside their chicken.

 

New York City food writer and blogger Andrea Strong is in the beginning of putting together an event scheduled for April 30th to benefit the war-besieged area of Darfur in southwestern Sudan. In conjunction with a rally in Washington DC, Dining for Darfur will be a city-wide dining out event in which participating restaurants make a pledge, and diners participate by dining at those restaurants. Currently, there are five restaurants in New York listed (Avenue X, Lassi, Naidre's Carroll Gardens, Naidre's Park Slope, and The Stanton Social) but the event is not for another few weeks.