Controversial Restaurant Policies: Should You Have to Ask For the Check? 0 comments

By James Mulcahy and Kelly Dobkin

No one should feel rushed out at the end of a restaurant meal, but those who linger at their tables can delay dinner for everyone else who is waiting. Restaurants have one key way to move things along - the check drop. Once that bill is on the table, it's only a matter of time before the diners pay and skedaddle. But, is putting the check down before it's asked for too pushy? Check out this week's installment of Controversial Restaurant Policies to see our editors debate proper check timing:

James: The other night I was dining in the West Village, and the servers totally tried to give us the rush out - they dropped the check while the desserts were being cleared, before we even asked for it.

Kelly: I mean, how long were you sitting there after finishing your desserts?

Soho News: Cinnamon Soho, Vinoteca, Ceviche and Polpo 0 comments

Courtesy of whatleydude, Flickr

By Claire Coleman

As we flagged in our end of year round-up, Soho is on the up as the capital's foremost culinary quarter, and the good news continues to roll on in. Hot on the heels of the news about Cinnamon Soho comes an anouncement from Vinoteca. They already boast outposts in Farringdon and Marylebone, and, from April, will be taking over a spot on Beak Street for a new restaurant, wine bar and shop.But if you prefer your eats accompanied by Pisco rather than Pinot, you're in luck. From mid-March Ceviche hits Frith Street, bringing with it the best of Peruvian delicacies and Europe's first dedicated Pisco bar. And finally, in other exciting news, Polpo is now open continuously from midday until 11 PM Monday to Saturday, so should a craving for Venetian tapas strike at 4 PM, you know where to go.

How To Survive a Restaurant on Valentine's Day; Portland's DIY Coffee Culture 0 comments

Image via Flickr/spaetz

By Kelly Dobkin

• The DIY Coffee Culture of Portland [NYT]
• What Rene Redzepi Cooks at Home [Bon App]
• Neighborhood Taverns Disappear From Chicago, Other Cities [USAT]
• How To Survive a Restaurant On Valentine's Day [Telegraph]
• Real Time Farms Make Eating Local Transparent [Fast Co]

This Week's Top Restaurant and Food News 0 comments

Conch Chowder at Oceana NYC; Image by Noah Fecks

By Kelly Dobkin

This week can be summed up in three words: "best meal ever." Yes, our epic slideshow featuring the meals of 47 chefs and notables (including our 5 contest winners) topped the list of most popular posts this week. After that, our round-up of overrated NYC food icons came in second and Philly's 10 best restaurants in third. In case you missed any of these, check out our 10 most popular posts of the week. Happy weekend!

1. Best Meal Ever: An Epic Look at Favorite Meals
2. The 9 Most Overrated NYC Food Icons
3. Philadelphia's 10 Best Restaurants: What Are Your Favorites?
4. Best Meal Ever: And the Winners Are…
5. 9 Awesome Healthy Dishes For Foodies
6. DC's 12 Most Romantic Restaurants: Vote For Your Favorites
7. 7 Hottest Spots in the South Bay
8. Boston's 5 Best Mexican Restaurants
9. The West Loop's 5 Best Restaurants
10. Chowder Smackdown: Tasting 8 of New York's Best Bowls

Outtake of the Week 0 comments

"Excellent game dishes. Safer to eat here than hunt with Dick Cheney."

Galvin Demoiselle to open at Harrods 0 comments

Photo: Lorenzo G, Flickr

By Claire Coleman

In our interview with Hawksmoor’s Will Beckett, he flagged up Galvin Demoiselle as the 2012 opening he’s most excited about, so we thought we’d give you a bit of a rundown about the launch. With a planned March opening, Galvin Demoiselle will be the fifth London venture from the Galvin Restaurants group. Taking up residence in Harrods, one of London’s most iconic department stores, the restaurant will take over the mezzanine space that overlooks the Food Hall that was once home to the Espresso Café. With banquette seating for over 60 covers, the menu will be a lighter version of the French cuisine that the Galvin empire is known for, and in addition to featuring signature dishes from the group, such as confit pork cheeks and tarte tatin, there will be new plates, including a baked lobster fishcake. The entire project will be overseen by Chris’s wife, Sara, who will take on the role of patron, and a head chef that will be appointed from with the Galvin group. But both Sara and the new chef will be working with the existing Harrods team.

Quote of the Day: Jonathan Waxman Says Get a Business Degree Before You Get a Culinary Degree 0 comments

"There are three things I wish I had known. One - how hard it really was. And two - that I should have gotten a business degree before a cooking degree."

-Top Chef Masters star and Barbuto chef Jonathan Waxman on the things he wished he had known before becoming a chef. [FITR]

Eating Sushi Like a Pro With Morimoto; Chipotle Is Revolutionizing Food Industry 0 comments

Image via Flickr/joanna8555

By Kelly Dobkin

• Arby's Planning a Total Relaunch [BI]
• Eating Sushi Like a Pro With Morimoto [WSJ]
• Moving Beyond Factory: Pastured Poultry [Wired]
• How Top Chef Texas Misrepresents the Lone Star State [HuffPo]
• Chipotle Revolutionizing Food Industry [Slate]

Quote of the Day: Sandra Lee Is a Maverick For Making Cocktails 1 comments

"They told me I needed to be different and I wanted to make a cocktail. I'm from Wisconsin - and the Food Network told me I couldn't do that and we can't put alcohol on TV - you can't wake up at 10 AM saying 'here's a cocktail."

-Food Network personality Sandra Lee on her rise to stardom and how her Wisconsin heritage is somehow behind her gutsy move to include cocktails on her show. [HuffPo]

Open Call: Are There "Signs" That You May Be In Bad Restaurant? 15 comments

Where did that staple gun come from? Image via Flickr/Steve Snodgrass

By Kelly Dobkin

As any good restaurateur will tell you - details matter. From ice to music to decor, sometimes it's the little things that can make a bad first impression with diners (and others may really annoy them). Some will tell you that an empty restaurant (at peak hours) may say something about the quality of the food. While for many a food snob, paper napkins or the opening line of "hi, I'm ____ and I'll be your server tonight," may signal disaster as well. What are the "red flags" of a bad restaurant? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Best Meal Ever: An Epic Look At Favorite Meals 22 comments

Coi Restaurant, San Francisco, Image via Coi Website

By James Mulcahy and Kelly Dobkin

The three words "best meal ever" bring back a flood of memories - the mind starts paging through the index of dinners at fancy restaurants, impromptu meals prepared by the family in the kitchen, first bites of a food that changed the trajectory of a life. Is it the cuisine that makes a meal the best ever? The company? A combination of the two? Our Best Meal Ever contest garnered hundreds of such stories, and we decided to expand the call to chefs, food world celebrities and other notables. After a lot of agonizing on the part of participants, we collected some of the most evocative Best Meal Ever tales into the slideshow below - if you have a Best Meal Ever to share, please make us drool in the comments.

Obsession of the Week: Flaming the Garnish 0 comments

By James Mulcahy

High-end cocktail bar Booker and Dax just opened in the back of New York's Momofuku Ssam Bar, and if you haven't heard, they take a flaming hot poker and dip it into the cocktails to caramelize the sugars and add a little char to the libations. But, what if you don't have a 1,500 degree metal rod lying around?

The other night, we dropped by perennially popular Flatiron Lounge and were reminded that you don't need fancy bells and whistles to add a little smoke to your beverage. All you need is a citrus peel and a match. The tenders at Flatiron hold a lit match slightly above the cocktail, take the peel, and squeeze that oil right into the flame. There is a little burst of fire and a bit of smoky citrus added to the drink. For the full effect, you can take the burnt section of the garnish and rim the glass with it.

Top Chef Texas Episode 14: There's No Crying In Fine Dining 1 comments

Image via Bravo

By Kelly Dobkin

She's baaaaack! At the beginning of last night's episode the winner of Last Chance Kitchen (Bravo's online-only show in which eliminated chefs fight it out to re-enter the competition) was revealed to be Beverly, to the chagrin of Lindsay and Sarah (who thought they had seen the last of her whiny-ass antics). Sarah doesn't waste time sharing her feelings on Bev's return: "I'm not happy to see Bev. She is off in her own Bev land, and I'm not buying a ticket there anytime soon." Hiyo! Tell us how you really feel, girl.

Anyway, last night's quickfire challenge is revealed to have crazy twist - the winner gets to choose between a new Prius and or a guaranteed spot in the finale. The challenge is to hunt for ingredients while blindfolded which makes for some pretty amusing television. There are obvious snafus as the contestants are unable to see what ingredients they are selecting (and must use every selected item in their basket). Beverly accidentally grabs avocado and more tragically, Ed accidentally grabs pork casings thinking the package is pancetta. Yikes. Sarah's dish is declared the winner and goes for the guaranteed spot in the finale, despite what the other chefs might think. Ed equates it with a lack of confidence and the other chefs vow that they would gone with the car because they want to "earn their spot" by competing in the elimination challenge. Yeah yeah whateves...

Missouri Farmers Lay Groundwork For Truffle Market; Michael Chiarello Appears On TV Game Show 0 comments

Black winter truffles; Image via Flickr/ehfisher

By Kelly Dobkin

• Chef Michael Chiarello On The Price Is Right [ISSF]
• Missouri Farmers Lay Groundwork For Truffle Market [Missourian]
• Pick the Perfect Restaurant For Your Astrological Sign [HuffPo]
• Hotel Mini-Bars Turn Exotic/Healthy [USAT]
• Restaurant Lobby Tries To Slash Servers' Minimum Wage [HuffPo]

Check Out the Tasting Menu at the NYC Cinnamon Club Pop-Up 0 comments

By Susan Kessler

There are just a few more nights left to sample the Cinnamon Club at Desmond's in NYC. Chef Vivek Singh is there until February 11, so you better get your skates on if you want to snare a table. In addition to the a la carte menu, there is a tasting menu at $95 per person that includes:

Quote of the Day: People Who Love Cupcakes May Be "Hungry For Hugs" 0 comments

Image via Flickr/Shiny Things

"People are lining up not just because the cupcakes taste good. A lot of things taste good. They’re looking for that same feeling inside. They’re all hungry for hugs.”

-LA psychiatrist Carole Lieberman in a Washington Post article that attempts to explain America's recent cupcake obsession. [WaPo]

What's Up With: Restaurants Being Stingy With the Bread? 1 comments

Image via Flickr/stu_spivak

By Kelly Dobkin

What's Up With...is a column in which we point out controversial dining trends or restaurant policies that we've noticed at bars or restaurants.

At a recent meal in NYC we ordered a dish that was described as a "crab and avocado dip" - so naturally we were expecting it to come with an ample supply of carb-laden accoutrement (chips, crostini what have you). When the dish arrived, beautifully plated (a hefty portion mind you), a dainty wooden box filled with housemade chips was also served to us - problem was - at first glance we could actually count the number of chips inside the box (seven, in case you were wondering). Clearly this was not going to be even close to enough for the amount of dip served unless we piled a gigantic mound on each chip. Duh.

Toronto Survey Results are Live! 0 comments

By James Mulcahy

Today, it's 23 degrees in Toronto - brrr! The folks there must really love to warm up by hitting the city's restaurants, as our just-released 2012 Toronto Restaurants Survey found that the city's residents eat out an average of 3.1 times each week. That beats out foodie meccas like New York (3.0) and Chicago (2.8) - very impressive! City residents report that they spend a pretty penny when they dine out, with 34% reporting that they spent more than last year. Oh, and servers thinking of a move to Canada might be spurred on by the news that the average tip in the city is 17.1% - cha-ching!

Chef Q&A: Jacob Kenedy On Pro Pitt Cue, McDonald's and More 0 comments

By Claire Coleman

Jacob Kenedy, chef-patron of Soho's Bocca di Lupo and the more recently opened ice cream joint Gelupo is the next in our series of interviews with London's culinary movers and shakers. It's all in honor of our current London survey (go vote here!).We discover the new cocktail that's rocking his world and hear his views on the world's biggest McDonald's opening up in London...

What has been your favourite opening of the last 12 months and why? If Russell hadn’t nominated Jeremy Lee at Quo Vadis already I’d say the same - one of the loveliest people, and one of my very favourite chefs, now on my very own doorstep - and quite a coup for the Brothers Hart! Aside from him, it has to be Pitt Cue Co. - even though it only opened about a week ago, and it is the last meal I have eaten out. Simple, cheap, honest, fun, unpretentious and delicious. What more could you ask for?

Open Call: Which Iconic Eateries Are Overrated In Your City? 13 comments

Pat's Steaks, Philly; Image via Flickr/afagen

By Kelly Dobkin

Yesterday, we rounded-up some of the most overrated eateries and food items of NYC, and today - we open up the debate to the rest of the country. Every U.S. city has its share of iconic eateries - you know, those ones that have been around forever and still have long lines snaking down the block. But are these iconic joints all up to snuff or do they just rest on the laurels of a killer reputation? Do Pat's and Geno's really have the best cheesesteaks in Philly? Is In-N-Out really as good as Angelenos say it is? What iconic eateries are overrated in your town? Shout out your thoughts the comments.