Night of Knitting at City Bakery’s Hot Chocolate Festival
If you’ve missed some of City Bakery’s imaginative flavors during their month-long festival (we haven’t), catch up at this evening of knitting, eating and drinking. For $30 you can drink as much hot chocolate as you can bear, eat a three-course meal plus dessert and knit yourself a hot chocolate mug cozy. Think of it as the whipped cream atop the cocoa festival. City Bakery. 7–11pm, $30.

The P(art)y of Eating In
Celebrate the joys of home cooking and saving money at this combined book party and crostini cook-off. Cathy Erway will read from her forthcoming memoir, The Art of Eating In, and serve appetizers mentioned in the text. Meanwhile, attendees can nosh on crostini samples from up to 20 contestants, who will be judged by a panel including Erway’s mother; e-mail katarina@theartofeatingin.com to enter the competition. The Bell House. 7–11pm, $10.

Honey-Pairing Dinner
Savannah Bee Company founder Ted Dennard teams up with chef Amanda Cohen for this culinary ode to bees. Dennard will explain the process that goes into making each honey featured in the four-course prix-fixe menu, which includes hush puppies with sourwood honey butter, and Acacia-honey-lacquered tofu with grapefruit beurre blanc. Reservations are required; the price includes wine pairings. Dirt Candy. Seatings 6, 9pm; $65 per person.

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Dirt Candy—the vegetarian restaurant described as “nature’s candy store” by its chef, Amanda Cohen—will celebrate birthday numero uno next Thursday, October 29. To mark the occasion, appetizers that evening—such as the jalapeño hush puppies with maple butter—will all be $5.30. Entrées—like ricotta fritters with green-tomato marmalade—will cost you $10.29. Dinner is by reservation only, so call 212-228-7732 or hop on opentable.com to secure a table. Of course, no birthday would be complete without cake: Enjoy a free slice of red-pepper velvet with your meal through the 31st. Many happy returns!—Kate Wertheimer

The Roseland Ballroom was host to a parade of avid eaters (and nearly 50 top restos) last night at epic taste-around Taste of the Nation. This sort of thing is rarely revelatory, but we were impressed by last night’s showing, which benefited Share our Strength. Jean Georges pulled off a stellar egg yolk sandwiched within tiny toasts and topped with Petrossian caviar.  Matsugen presented some miniature homemade tofu and uni in an exquisite yuzu gelée—the ocean in a swallow. Other notable bites included Rouge Tomate’s spectacular duck breast, cooked sous vide and finished à la plancha to crisp the skin. Porter House aced its brisket, and Dirt Candy’s Portobello mousse with peach fennel compote was rich and earthy. Brawny cocktails by bars like Dutch Kills and Mayahuel kept the crowd properly anaesthetized, which, given the swarm induced by no less than 1,200 attendees, was wholly necessary. We’ll let the slide show say the rest.—Michael Anstendig

Maybe it was the promise of sampling grub curated by The Village Voice’s resto mavens Robert Sietsema and Sarah DiGregorio, the oceans of craft beer freely poured or perhaps the (merciful) $35 ticket price. For whatever reason, a locust swarm of 2,200 famished New Yorkers overran the 69th Regiment Armory for the newspaper’s second annual Choice Eats event last night. Read more »

The New Yorker's Bruce McCall may hate veggies, but he loves Cafe Luxembourg.

In this week’s issue, TONY tags along with Dirt Candy chef Amanda Cohen to learn her favorite (and not always healthy) vegetarian picks in the East Village. Bonus recipes from Cohen are available online only.

Jay Cheshes visits Tom Valenti’s new Upper West Side restaurant, West Branch, grants it four stars, and says that it “may be the most solid fit for the neighborhood in years.” The East Village’s tiny Porchetta also earns four stars thanks to its superb roasted pork, while midtown’s La Vineria gets three stars, its unsuccessful entrées and desserts saved by top-notch pastas. Sasha Petraske’s bar White Star (three stars) has great cocktails, but the novelty of its featured drink, absinthe, wears thin due to its time-consuming preparation.

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