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Take a restaurateur with an amazing West Village track record; give him a historical neighborhood restaurant; toss in a chef from Au Pied de Cochon, an ambitious drink menu, and a whole lot of animal parts. What you get is Fedora—and we're pretty darn happy with it. More

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Given how well Xi'an Famous Foods (full review here), the Flushing noodle and soup joint that made a successful leap across the East River to the East Village is doing, it was only a matter of time before a few of its competitors began to follow suit. Henan Flavor, the brand new Chinatown spinoff of Flushing's Henan Feng Wei, serves a menu that resembles Xi'an's in many ways. Wide hand-pulled noodles available in soups or platters, simple homestyle stews, and pork-stuffed sandwiches. But despite these superficial parallels, a few bites in and it's quite clear that you're in a different province entirely. More

Perhaps it's because we've so often found ourselves at The Spotted Pig well after midnight that it's never occurred to us as a destination for brunch the next morning. (Even though we're the kind of people who often start dreaming about meals a day before.) But once we were struck by the idea of a Spotted Pig brunch, we couldn't get it out of our heads. For a weekend day's kickoff meal, we usually want (or, well, need) something fatty and salty and gut-satisfyingly delicious, and that's just the kind of food the Spotted Pig excels at. More

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I'm not one for suspense, so I'll give it up right away: Zabb Elee has easily the best Isan Thai food in Manhattan. A couple weeks back, Serious Eats Drinks editor Maggie mentioned that Le Da Nang, the East village Thai spot, had just been converted to a Manhattan branch of Zabb Elee, a popular Queens Isan Thai restaurant. Preliminary reports of takeout seemed promising. About a week later, I received a hastily written email from Harold Dieterle, Chef at Kin Shop, and authority on Thai cuisine—and his recommendation meant that we just had to visit. More

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When you combine chef Bradford Thompson's cooking chops with the fact that his Jamaican wife Kerry-Ann's family owned several seminal jerk chicken restaurants in the Bronx, you have the potential for Jamaican food that's probably better than most of us have experienced in the Caribbean. The only thing that worried us as we walked into the restaurant is that Lily's is a Serge Becker joint, and Becker is much better known as a club owner and scene maker (The Box, La Esquina) than as a restaurateur. We had a real fear that the scene would trump the food. But we needn't have worried. More

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High-end dim sum is what Ed Schoenfeld and Joe Ng do best. The former is the man behind Chinatown Brasserie, Shun Lee, and Shun Lee Palace; the latter, a dim sum chef Schoenfeld met in Sunset Park and brought on board at Chinatown Brasserie. Almost a year ago, the chef-restauteur pair launched the RedFarm stall in the upscale food court FoodParc, where we loved the dumplings and pastrami egg rolls and quite a bit else. And finally, after a number of delays and what seemed like weeks of preview dinners, they've opened their newest restaurant, also called RedFarm, in a townhouse in the West Village. More

The Brown Cafe sits in the crook of Hester Street that's part Lower East Side, part Chinatown; it's a small spot, but a good-looking one, particularly before noon, all wood in the morning light through the full-length windows. Since it doesn't open for breakfast until 9:00am, it's perhaps not the best pre-work stop-off, unless you're located in the area or you're just snagging a pastry. But if you've got time for a leisurely morning meal, the fresh, thoughtful food at Brown will do you right. More

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So we've been through guo tie (fried dumplings), the thick-skinned, crisp-on-the-bottom potstickers from Beijing, but what about their Shanghai counterparts? I'm talking the delicate xiao long bar of Shanghai; the ones that appear to be your standard dumplings, but miraculously burst open in a mouthful of savory broth with a tender meatball floating inside as you bite into them. More

Most of us consider cheesecake something to enjoy after a meal, not first thing in the morning, but this Baked Breakfast Cheesecake from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Every Day is full of breakfasty ingredients such as orange juice, oats, eggs, and jam, making it entirely morning-friendly. More

[Photographs: Erin Zimmer] Souvlaki GR, the winners of last year's Vendy for Rookie vendor, now have a wheel-less home on Stanton Street. Don't worry though, they're not ditching the mobile business. They'll still be parked at 21st and 6th... More

While Bananas Foster is typically served with ice cream, milkshake maven Adam Ried decided to blend the caramelized bananas into ice cream for this Bananas Foster Shake. To make this shake you begin by slowly sautéing bananas with butter and brown sugar until gooey and soft and then finish with a dramatic rum flambé. (Watch out, that stuff really does flame up!) More

The two Franks turn out some of the most reliably good breakfast fare in the city, with French toast so buttery you might not want to try and recreate it at home. More

[Photographs: Lucy Baker] This pistachio butter is rich and nutty. The honey adds a mild, floral sweetness. Try it on toast, or sandwich it between two sugar cookies or gingersnaps. It will keep for up to two months in the... More

Notes: Marshmallows can be very sticky. For the neatest bars, use a clean, sharp knife to cut the bars, rinsing and wiping the knife thoroughly between cuts.... More

The French version of the "complete meal in a box" is the en croûte ("in crust"). Consider puff pastry your packing material. Then pack everything you need for your meal—your protein, your vegetable, your sauce—inside, with the package doubling as your carb. Foolproof. Genius, even. More

Adapted from Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen by Elizabeth Andoh... More

This recipe from Amanda Hesser's The Essential New York Times Cookbook, is straightforward. The chicken pieces are sauteed in butter then cooked with a bit of chicken stock. Only at the very end is the sour cream added. With so few ingredients, the quality of the paprika is paramount. You can use a standard paprika, but I took the Hesser's advice and went with a smoked sweet paprika. More

Faith Durand, author of Not Your Mother's Casseroles has a pretty loose definition when it comes to defining the word "casserole." She basically says that any baked dish falls into the category. Using this definition, all sorts of desserts fall under the casserole category, including these insanely delicious Salted Caramel and Walnut Slices. While I'm not totally sold on these crazy rich chocolate-caramel-coconut-walnut cookies as a casserole, I sure am glad that Durand shared the recipe. More

One of my favorite meals these days is a whole chicken roasted on top of potatoes. The chicken is flavorful with garlic, olive oil, and herbs. The potatoes are perhaps even better: they get seasoned with the chicken's juices, plus more olive oil and more herbs. But easy as it may be, roasting a whole chicken isn't that cheap, and it takes a while. So I've been experimenting with roasting chicken thighs and legs, and adding flavor even during a shorter cooking time. More

The Ultimate Sriracha Burger from The Sriracha Cookbook is a mouthful. It begins with a grilled patty infused with Sriracha and soy, and is topped with a towering pile of bacon caramelized onions, Swiss cheese, tomato, arugula, bacon, and an improbably delicious blue cheese-Sriracha dressing. More

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In her latest cookbook Nuts in the Kitchen Susan Herrmann Loomis describes the Heavenly Chocolate Hazelnut Spread as the "chunky" version of Nutella. Um, sold. More

This Sweet Potato Sausage Stuffing from Lyniece North Talmadge's The Sweet Potato Lover's Cookbook is pretty incredible in that it combines three Thanksgiving sides into one—cornbread stuffing plus sausage stuffing plus mashed sweet potatoes. The combo is a savory-sweet-meaty-bready Thanksgiving explosion, ideal for stuffing the bird or as a dressing, cooked on its own. More

I am a well-roasted cauliflower fanatic. It's one of my favorite vegetables to roast. Roasting can bring one of the most boring vegetables to life. Gorgeous nutty aromas start coming out, the color changes to brown, and the flavor transforms from flat to multidimensional. So I was all over this recipe from Saveur, which roasted the vegetable with a dusting of cumin in a 500°F oven and served it with a tahini sauce. My only question was how to make this more of a main dish. More