Previous pop-up cafés have included samples, demonstrations, and appearances by celebrity chefs. It’s not clear if those will be part of this year’s event as well, but there are plenty of new perks this time around. For starters, the café is closely tied with Fashion Week, so it will be taking place in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Also, for the first time, the café will remain open to the public in the evening as a wine bar (in past years, it converted into an exclusive supper club after dark) and it will serve small plates from the likes of Daniel Boulud, Mario Batali, and Emeril Lagasse.

Now for the main event: the fabulous food! The menu is made up of soups, salads, sandwiches, and desserts concocted by New York-based chefs including Laurent Tourondel, Bill Telepan, and pastry chef Christina Tosi, as well as some imports like Chicago’s Rick Bayless. With a roster of chefs that varied, it’s no wonder the menu is so eclectic. Highlights include Missy Robbins’ prosciutto sandwich (ricotta, Prosciutto di Parma, roasted fig and arugula on ciabatta), Laurent Tourondel’s lobster roll, and Bon Appétit’s shrimp, mango and avocado salad with sweet chili-ginger vinaigrette. And the Café pulls out all the stops on dessert, with pumpkin whoopie pies, blueberry cream cookies, and bacon brittle on the menu.

The Bon Appétit Café will be open for breakfast, lunch, and small plates from the 12th-16th. There are no reservations, so make sure you have an extra-long lunch hour blocked out before heading uptown. But rest assured, for the delicious dishes the Café always offers, it’s worth the trip.

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Price: $-$$
Location: Avery Fisher Hall, 64th St. and Columbus Ave.
Type of Food: American
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.bacafe.com

Posted by: Kim Partrick
Price: $-$$
Location: 62 Prince Street (at Lafayette)
Type of Food: American
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.sohoparknyc.com

I’ve been hearing for a long time about how good the sandwiches are at Bierkraft and I finally made it over this past weekend. The menu offers build-your-own sandwich options of course, but where it really shines is in the sandwich creations.

I opted to get the special of the evening: the meatloaf sandwich. I’ll start with the meatloaf, which was composed of veal and pork wrapped in smoked bacon and seasoned with onions, garlic, and herbs. It was made fresh and was plenty juicy and flavorful. The meatloaf is served up on crispy bread and topped with dijon-spiked mayo, pickled celery and fiddleheads, sun-dried tomatoes, red onions, arugula, and cheese curds. I was particularly excited to try the fiddleheads, which are the unfurled fronds of young ferns. They were crunchy and earthy, though it’s hard to describe the flavor beyond that, as there was so much going on in the sandwich. Each bite was a surprise, a different combination of flavors and textures that made the sandwich a lot of fun to eat. And isn’t a little bit of playfulness what makes for the best kind of meals?

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: meatloaf special sandwich, voodoo kettle chips, Fentiman’s dandelion and burdock drink
Price: $$
Location: 191 5th Avenue (between Berkeley Pl. and Union St.), Brooklyn
Type of Food: American
Veggie Friendly? N
www.bierkraft.com

Now, as for the all-important food, it was a hit from the very beginning. To start, we shared orders of biscuits and doughnuts, and … heavens, where do I begin with those? First of all, don’t be fooled into ordering multiple plates of biscuits just because there are “only two.” These are hefty hunks of deliciousness that are only made better by the homemade apple butter and raspberry jam that accompany them. And the doughnuts…oh, the doughnuts. The dough on these suckers seems to have been just fried enough, so that the centers are perfectly gooey, even more so when they’re soaked in the fantastic lemon crème anglaise. For my main dish, the Mexican food junkie in me went straight for the chilaquiles, a baked dish of tortilla chips, tomatillo sauce, fried eggs, pickled radishes and cilantro. Served in an adorable single-serving skillet, the dish is best when you cut up the eggs and mix all of the ingredients together to make the perfect bite. It might have been better had I requested runnier yolks, since the tomatillo sauce is normally great when mixed in with them, but overall it was a lovely, generous finale to a truly pleasant Manhattan meal.

Since my choice of entrée might have been one of the more difficult decisions of my life, with so many mouthwatering alternatives available, I’ll certainly be back here soon. Same time next weekend?

Posted by: Kim Partrick
Order: biscuits, doughnuts, chilaquiles
Price: $$
Location: 38 MacDougal Street (near Prince)
Type of Food: American (mostly)
Veggie Friendly? Y
www.hundredacresnyc.com

The only rule for the Brooklyn Roots Experiment is that the dish has to exemplify local cuisine. That means it either features a Brooklyn-grown ingredient, an ingredient created in Brooklyn, or has some historical or cultural significance for the borough. You can learn more about the event, which is taking place on September 12th in conjunction with the Farm City Fair, on the Food Experiments site. Be sure to note that the latest competition is taking place at a new venue as well: Invisible Dog Art Center at 51 Bergen Street. I already have my ticket and I can’t wait to sample that best that my home base borrough has to offer!

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Price: $$$
Location: Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St. (between Boerum Pl. and Smith St.), Brooklyn
www.thefoodexperiments.com

A couple of weeks ago I wrote up some of our favorite lobster deals in the city. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of sampling Dylan Prime’s decadent weekend offering. As I mentioned in the original post, for a mere $39.95, you get two 1.25-pound lobsters, plus clams, mussels, corn on the cob, and potatoes. As you can see from the photo above, that’s quite the feast. Even with my massive marathon-training appetite, I wasn’t able to get through the whole thing, and the more modest eaters at the table strategically saved the claw meat for later lobster rolls.

I realized mid-meal that I’d never had steamed clams before, and I think those were the most pleasant surprise of the meal. The lobster was fresh and flavorful of course, and I wasn’t stingy with the drawn butter. Dylan Prime also offers a wonderfully creative cocktail menu. I opted to get a white peppercorn caiparinha, and was not disappointed.

Surprisingly, the restaurant was relatively empty when we wandered in at 7pm, but was filling up as we left as 9pm, so be sure to book your reservations. The clam bake is every Friday through Sunday, through the end of the summer.

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: clam bake
Price: $$$$
Location: 62 Laight St. (at Greenwich St.)
Type of Food: American, Seafood
Veggie Friendly? N
www.dylanprime.com

Tucked in among touristy gift shops and the occasional tattoo parlor, it’s all too easy to stroll right by this skinny little gem of a restaurant, but I’ll certainly never make that mistake again. Not quite as well-known as other Korean staples like barbecue or fried chicken, the restaurant’s namesake mandoo is a type of dumpling that you’ll see being hand-made as you walk in to find your table.

We chose the kimchee variety, which is stuffed with a slightly spicy blend of kimchee, veggies, pork, and tofu. The combination was delicious, and the dumplings perfectly made, the dough substantial without being too heavy, the texture soft but not fragile (i.e. you don’t end up with delicious filling all over your hand instead of in your mouth). But if dumplings aren’t your cup of tea, there are plenty of other intriguing options. We sampled the japchae, a noodle dish made with sweet potato noodles(!), pork, and mixed vegetables. Sweet potato noodles, you say? I, too, was a bit wary, but the flavor is only nicely hinted at rather than overpowering the entire dish. For those like me with a hankering for all things spicy, the flavorful sauce on the noodles goes quite nicely with sriracha for a little kick.

So next time you’re looking for an alternative to the dime-a-dozen joints on 32nd Street, push past the tourists and into this nondescript eatery, which will surely have you coming back for more.

Posted by: Kim Partrick
Order: kimchee mandoo, japchae
Price: $-$$
Location: 2 West 32nd Street (between 5th and 6th Aves.)
Type of Food: Korean
Veggie friendly? Y

I’m not sure I can picture a better way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon, than by lazing on the back patio of Williamsburg bar d.b.a., sipping an oversized Pimm’s Cup, sopping up sumptuous red beans and rice with a homemade biscuit, and watching chef Simon Glenn prepare the day’s seasonal, New Orleans cuisine-inspired menu. Beers are $3, pint-size Pimm’s Cups are $5, and nothing on the menu will set you back more than $10. With prices like that, you can camp out for a long afternoon of indulgence.

As I mentioned, the menu changes every weekend. When my group visited, we sampled wonderful, traditional Cajun cuisine, including Simon’s famous BBQ shrimp, old school gumbo, and red beans and rice. I opted for one of the more exotic menu offerings: the crawfish maque choux. Maque choux is a traditional Louisiana dish composed of corn, green peppers, tomatoes, onion, celery, and garlic, braised, simmered, and seasoned with salt, red and black pepper, hot sauce, and sugar. In Tchoup Shop’s case, the maque choux was also prepared with crawfish and tasso ham. The dish as a whole was rich and complex, but the bacon-like tasso really did it for me. Paired with Cajun-style hot buttered corn on the cob and a fresh buttermilk biscuit, it was the perfect end to a lovely summer weekend.

The Tchoup Shop (pronounced “Chop Shop”) is open every Sunday from 2:30pm until the food runs out and it’s running every Sunday through October.

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: crawfish maque choux, hot buttered corn on the cob, famous buttermilk biscuit, Pimm’s Cup
Price: $-$$
Location: 113 N. 7th St. (between Berry St. and Wythe Ave.), Brooklyn
Type of Food: Cajun
Veggie Friendly? Y
Check out the August 8th menu here

Sick of tjhe buffets and fast food that litter the Midtown lunch scene? Try something lighter and much more delicious on the lucky days when these two food truck gems park on the same block, often right next to each other.

Rickshaw’s boxes of six dumplings ($6) might not seem hefty enough for a meal, but paired with one of Treats Truck’s raspberry brownies or any other tasty creation, it may just be the perfect, well-rounded lunch your work day has been missing. On a recent visit, I tried the chicken and Thai basil dumplings and will definitely be back to try the rest. The dough was paper-thin and well cooked so that the tasty chicken inside was allowed to be the real star of the show. The spicy peanut sauce was a nice accompaniment as well, though I personally could have wished for more spice.

And what can I say about that raspberry brownie other than tell you that it’s everything you could hope for from a combination as glorious as dark chocolate and raspberry? Besides, after a light little lunch of dumplings, you totally deserve the indulgence.

Posted by: Kim Partrick
Order: chicken and Thai basil dumplings, raspberry brownie
Location: Varies, check Twitter for Rickshaw Dumplings and Treats Truck locations
Veggie friendly? Y

Back in May, we wrote up Surfer Sunday at West Village outpost Ditch Plains. That’s still a great deal (and still going, as far as we know). Fishtail by David Burke also offers a Sunday special: their $35 Lobster Fest menu. Special items include lobster dumplings with soy-ginger butter and Thai vegetables, lobster carbonara, and Burke’s signature “angry lobster,” lobster fried and seasoned with chili powder, cayenne, garlic, sea salt, basil, chili oil, and much more. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

If you need a little more flexibility, there’s always Dylan Prime’s $40 clam bake, offered Fridays through Sundays, through the end of the summer. For your money, you get two 1.25-pound lobsters, plus clams, mussels, corn on the cob, and potatoes. You can feast your eyes on a mouthwatering preview here courtesy of Dylan Prime’s twitterfeed.

Last but not least, if you’re looking for a weekday deal, you’re in luck. With the extension of Restaurant Week, that also means more glorious weeks to sample City Crab’s prix fixe menu, including such offerings as a Maine lobster and clam bake (complete with all the fixin’s) for lunch or twin steamed lobsters for dinner. And I’d definitely recommend signing up for City Crab’s newsletter. Beyond the initial 15 percent offer you get just for registering, City Crab will send along frequent deals including half-off lobster nights (like this past Tuesday).

Get your lobster bib ready and prepare to chow down. It’s going to be a seafood-filled rest of the summer.

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Price: $$$$
Type of Food: Seafood
Veggie Friendly? N