Some seem to think that restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow's grudge against NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni runs deeper than just one bad review. Chodorow has, after all, said that he feels his restaurants have always gotten the short stick from the reviewer. A recent piece on Page Six of the NY Post seems to confirm this, as Chodorow has just announce that Bruni is banned from all of his 29 restaurants.

For those of you wondering how the Chodorow plans to ban someone whose looks are supposed to be a secret, just know that restaurant staffs make it their business to unmask restaurant critics whenever possible, many kitchens will have a wall of critics and other notable people to keep an eye out for. Chodorow's employees have an extra reason to look for Bruni because Jeffrey has offered a free trip for two to the Caribbean to the first person to recognize him. As insurance to make sure he is seen, Chodorow plans to post a photo of Bruni on his personal blog sometime soon.

The concept of a restaurant guidebook is becoming increasingly outdated. The books are rarely up to date and, although they can be carried around by travelers easily, just can't offer the user the same kind of immediate response - and an interactive one, at that - as online, user-driven restaurant guides. Chowhound, Yelp and Citysearch are some of the leaders of this genre, along with similar user-review driven online forums. Zagat, which was unique in the restaurant guide book field in that it based its "reviews" on user commentary, recently decided that it needed to move to a similar online format, where users could offer real-time opinions, in order to remain competitive.

Or, at least, to attempt to remain competitive.

Is there any more room left in the restaurant discussion board field for a newcomer? Given that people have expressed dissatisfaction with the way that Chowhound is run (and they way that the site looks), there just might be.

[via eater la ]

I think that Cybele, who writes Candy Blog, gets a lot of her candy samples from convenience stores, which are more likely to stock the limited edition varieties of bars than the average grocery store. It just so happened that, while on a little bit of a road trip, I spotted this Limited Edition Triple Chocolate Twix in such a store.

The bar had the same milky, sweet chocolate covering that most Twix bars do, but also had a layer of chocolate caramel on top of a chocolate cookie. The cookie went wonderfully in the bar. It had a good chocolate flavor and was very light and tender, especially when compared to the much firmer cookie that is usually included in the candy bar. The caramel did not seem all that chocolaty when eaten alone, but it really tied the chocolate coating in to the chocolate cookie. When taken as a whole, the bar was excellent. It was lighter and more addictive than the standard Twix, with a good balance of chocolate and sweetness. It's hard to say how long a limited edition bar will stick around once it has been released, but this flavor is clearly a winner, so let's hope it is available for more than a couple of weeks.

Even before Chowhound became a part of the Chow network, users frequently had problems with deletions. Controversial posts and less than glowing reviews of certain restaurants were deleted without explanation and some users found that their posts were deleted with a high frequency, regardless of the topic. Since the message board is a public forum, it is perfectly appropriate for moderators to remove offensive content, but when non-offensive reviews of "off the table restaurants" and other posts relevant to the website were taken down without explanation, many users grew frustrated. The problems persist with the new Chowhound, leaving many former contributors to head to different, more open minded, websites.

It appears that Eater is one such site because they have just offered to post anything that has been inexplicably removed from the Chowhound site. They are able to do this because the "offending" posts are not removed from the Chowhound feed as quickly as they are from the site, so there is a window of time where it is possible to retrieve the posts. Of course, you will have to contact the staff to let them know if your post was stricken, but it will be interesting to see what types of pieces are selected for removal.

The first aerated chocolate that I tasted was a Nestle's Aero bar. Never having seen aerated chocolate before, I was intrigued by the prospect of bubble filled chocolate and eager to find out what it tasted like. It was light, crumbly and quite unlike any other chocolates that I had had. I wasn't hugely impressed at the time, but many years and many chocolate bars later, I realize that I was probably expecting a more impressive sensation from the bar.

Aerated chocolate is chocolate that has lots of small air bubbles suspended in it, giving it a somewhat honeycombed appearance and a light texture. The thin walls separating the bubbles snap easily, so the chocolate crumbles into your mouth before melting from the heat. In the past, this type of chocolate has not been very popular in the US and it is generally only found in stores that stock Aeros imported from Australia, Canada or the UK, but that may change because Bubble Chocolate is an American company that is hoping to capture the hearts, and tongues, with their version of the candy.

I picked up a box of the Fleur de Sel Caramels from Trader Joe's last week as a holiday treat with the intention of reviewing them, as well as enjoying them. At less than $7 for 14-ounces of one of the hottest candy items of the year, they were a terrific deal and I wondered how well they would stack up to some of the other salted caramels that I'm familiar with.

Individually wrapped, the large candies are very sticky and chewy, exactly the sort of things that your orthodontist would have told you to avoid if you ever had braces. They have a pleasant, but relatively mild (compared to some other salted caramels) saltiness that makes your mouth water as you eat them and tempers the naturally sugary taste of caramel. Buttery and smooth, these are very good caramels, especially at the price.

Cybele, from Candyblog, wrote up her own review of these the other day, so be sure to check hers out for another perspective on their flavor and a fantastic shot of what the caramels look like when unwrapped.

For a foodie, especially a Slashfoodie, one of the best things about winter is that it signifies a changing of the guard, so to speak, when it comes to produce. Apples, pears and citrus replace the berries and melons of summer, opening up a whole new season of possibilities. Capogiro Gelato expresses all these possibilities with their seasonally changing menu, now geared up for winter. I was fortunate enough to sample some of the flavors from their summer line earlier this year and, this week, had the opportunity to indulge in a few of their winter offerings, as well.

While they still have their classic Italian and chocolate flavors available, Capogiro's holiday table menu is extensive, including Apple Cider with Clove Sorbetto, Castagne (Chestnut) Gelato, Cannella di Saigon (Cinnamon) and Melograno (Pomegranate). The flavors I tried were Zucca (Lancaster County Neck Pumpkin), Apple Cider with Clove, Sweet Potato with Pecan Praline, Meyer Lemon with Vodka, Moro (Blood Orange) and Pure King Leo Stracciatella.

A mince pie is the quintessential food of Christmas - at least, it is if you're British. A mince pie is a small, sweet pastry that contains a mixture of dried fruits, spices, nuts, suet (beef fat) and alcohol. Some versions of mince pies, especially in older or very traditional settings, use a meat filling, but it is the boozy fruit one that is popular during the holidays. In their quest to find the best mince pies, Custom PC went around to the shops and picked some out for their mince pie megatest. If you're in the UK, their guide will definitely help prepare you for the holidays. Read their post for the full details (and some laughs, because these guys are hilarious), but here are their very abridged results, from worst to best:

• Sainsbury's Basics Mince Pies - "tasted only marginally better than said serrated ninja projectile"
• Mr Kipling's Mince Pies - "the pastry and the filling failed to impress, though thankfully nobody died"
• Sainsbury Deep Filled Mince Pies - "left a nasty chemical aftertaste in the palates of our review squad"
• Duchy Originals Mince Pies - "slightly fragile and curiously salty"
• Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Mince Pies - "a good filling, a nice crispy crust and a boozy, Christmassy taste"
• Marks and Spencer Deep Filled Mince Pies - "full of goodness, like grandma used to bake."
• Waitrose Mince Pies - "tasted really good, with lots of strong, boozy filling."
• Harrods Mince Pies - "Definitely too good to be left out for Santa Claus."

If,like me, you don't live where there is a ready supply of mince pies available, making your own is a good idea. This recipe from Nigella Lawson uses butter instead of suet, though you should try to track down some premade mincemeat, as most recipes call for letting it sit for several weeks before use.

In this week's Wall Street Journal, the ever savvy Catalogue Critic took on one of the most popular types of holiday desserts, cheesecake, to see if a good mail-order one could be found. Cheesecake may not sound like the perfect seasonal dessert, but more than one company that they interviewed reported that holiday sales had "increased in the double digits" over each of the last few years, and virtually all said that November and December were their biggest months of the year.

Orders were placed at five bakeries and testers, including the executive chef of the Four Seasons, were enlisted to judge. They looked for "a firm outside, a creamy interior and a balanced flavor" in each of the plain/vanilla cheesecakes. Their two favorite cakes came from Eli's Cheesecake Company and Junior's. Eli's ($28) was rich and creamy, with a shortbread cookie crust, but had a lemon flavor that not everyone enjoyed. Junior's ($29.95) was picked as the "best overall," as it was creamy, not crumbly, and had a slightly moist sponge cake base instead of a graham cracker crust. They also noted that Junior's is adding 12 flavors to their holiday menu for anyone who wants more than plain cheesecake.

Incidentally, shipping was not a problem for the testers, as all the cakes arrived in pristine condition via overnight shipping, so the cost of getting the cheesecake to your door is probably going to be a bigger concern than what it will look like when it gets there.

There are a lot of foods that, usually because of their serving size, end up being "calorie free" according to the nutritional label on their package. Cooking sprays, which are oil in a pressurized can, are a good example of this because if you use a 1/3 second spray, you'll get no calories, but more sprays will start to add up. You can keep these foods calorie free by sticking religiously to the serving size. There are some other calorie-free "foods" that are made with, essentially, flavorings and water. So, some edible things are calorie free, but just because you can eat them doesn't mean you'll want to. Should you give them a try? The answer depends on what you're planning to eat. Hungry Girl bravely taste-tested four fat-free, calorie-free foods, including the bizarre sounding David Burke's Flavor Sprays, and found most of them to be lacking in more than calories. To find out which one(s) made her list of things worth trying, you'll have to read the reviews.

I'm not usually a big fan of cold breakfast cereals and usually will opt for something like oatmeal (steel-cut or regular), pancakes or maybe even fruit salad. I do like breakfast to be simple, though, so I keep a couple boxes of cold cereals around. This weekend, I stumbled upon a box of Post's new Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinnamon Clusters at the supermarket and must confess that the entire box is almost gone after only a few days.

Honey Bunches of Oats consists of three kinds of slightly sweetened whole grain flakes and , in this case, cinnamon coated oat clusters that don't skimp on the cinnamon. The cereal is not overly sweet and reminds me very much of french toast, since I add vanilla and cinnamon to my french toast batter.

This cereal is fantastic, even when eaten dry, as a snack in the afternoon. It's a lighter, more flavorful alternative to granola and worth a taste if you come across a box at the store.