Top 10 NYC Food Blogs

October 16, 2009

Best NYC Food Blogs: Top 10

It’s no secret that we here at the NYC Neighborhood Pleasures love to eat… and that we love to eat out… and that we love to eat out in new, interesting places. And in established, extraordinary places. And in elegant, pricey restaurants. And in tasty, quick-bite spots. And… well, in this glorious, food-crazy city, with more than 18,000 restaurants and food shops, the choices are almost literally endless. So how do we keep track of what’s out there: the new, the hot, the good, the great? A big appetite, an adventurous spirit, a whole lot of help from our friends. Namely:

The Establishment: Best NYC Food Blogs, corporate / professional division

1. Eater
Our favorite of all the pro NYC Food Blogs. An excellent source of restaurant news and chef gossip, as well as information about openings and closings, and plenty of links to all the major–and lots of minor–reviews. We love the reporting, the Deathwatch, the Plywood report, the irreverent (but never sneering) copy. A must-read for NYC foodies.

2. Serious Eats
Sprawling, chaotic, undeniably a NYC food blog treasure. Lots of lists, food porn, reviews, news, recipes. all done with a sense of fun and palpable love of good eating across all categories and price ranges.

3. Grub Street
New York Magazine’s food blog is clever, fun, and with frequent scoops about menu changes, restaurant openings, food specials and the like. This NYC food blog is updated many, many times a day.

4. Fork in the Road
Unsurprisingly, the Village Voice’s food blog Fork in the Road is a great place to learn about your more obscure culinary offerings?Mitai from Bengali Sweets anyone??as well read grumpy reports on your mainstream food establishments. It’s food news with an old-school New York City attitude, and it’s always welcome in our home.

5. Diner’s Journal

For all the talk of the death of newspapers, The New York Times weekly restaurant review remains the most influential in the City. Diner’s Journal is the Times’ NYC food blog, and in the past year or so had grown into a smart, knowing daily complement to the paper’s Wednesday Dining section. Of course, it remains to be seen what Frank Bruni’s replacement Sam Sifton will do here, but the blog has other fine writers as well, making this one of our favorite stops on the NYC food blog circuit.

The Independents: Best NYC Food Blogs, labor of love – or obsession – division

1. Food In Mouth
Danny, aka Mr. Food-in-Mouth, serves up some of the best food porn on the Net. And, bonus, he loves the quick-bite sort of meal that most of us eat most of the time. So if you’re looking to get some great cheap-eats ideas?AND see some amazing shots of, say, hand-pulled noodle soup, or a peanut butter cookie, check out this New York City food blog. We also love Danny’s writing style, always refreshingly open and unpretentious.

2. Midtown Lunch
Founded by Zach Brooks, who was tired of eating bad sandwiches at bad delis for his lunch in midtown, this insanely comprehensive and useful NYC food blog now includes more than 400 reviews, organized by both food type and, brilliantly, block by block. Also: breaking news about today’s specials.

3. Blondie and Brownie
Subtitled “Two Girls’ Adventures In Food”, this always appealing blog is basically just that: a heavily photographed record of Blondie, or Brownie, or both, roaming around the City eating. Especially eating dessert. With a new, winning post every weekday, Blondie and Brownie makes us smile. And hungry.

4. Immaculate Infatuation
Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal are young, hungry and having a blast eating their way through New York City. Immaculate Infatuation is filled with easy-to-scan reviews of restaurants all over town, serving all sorts of food, for all sorts of prices. We don’t always agree with their ratings (only a 7.9 for The Spotted Pig?!) but we do appreciate the duo’s seemingly bottomless appetite, and inexhaustible enthusiasm.

5. At the Sign of the Pink Pig
Every Monday morning, the Englishman Wilfred posts about a meal or three he’s enjoyed the previous week? often at just-opened, trendy, pricey places we don’t often get to. Eating vicariously, then.

Not New York City food blog, but very useful:

Menupages
The original, and recently–and very nicely well–redesigned compendium of menus and basic information. If they don’t have a menu, no one does.