http://www.nypress.com/articles.sec-29-1-food-news.html If you ask Rob Shamlian, one of the Lower East Side 's most voracious entrepreneurs, he'll immediately expound on the problems in the neighborhood. "I'm done with the Lower East Side," Shamlian says. "I've had enough."]]> Plain old iced coffee is passé. These five takes on coffee and cubes promise to chill us out without any of the same old, well, grind(s).]]> So you’ve been outside all day, checking out your very favorite performers and swigging cheap beer out of a plastic cup. You’re tipsy, dehydrated and on the verge of heatstroke. Life is rough! And you’re hungry! Have no fear, sweet friend— we’ve got all your food needs covered.]]> Dipsomaniacal doomsayers might find it hard to believe that anything good can happen bar-wise. But this month in Park Slope they would be wrong, because Freddy’s is coming back to life Feb. 4. ]]> Which do you like better, Coke or Pepsi? You may be surprised by the answer. The Pepsi Challenge TV commercials from the ’70s and ’80s featured people blind-tasting Pepsi or Coke. Not surprisingly, people chose Pepsi. Yet Coke continued to outsell Pepsi. In 2003, neuroscientist Read Montague decided to repeat the Pepsi Challenge with subjects lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which tracks changes in blood flow related to neural activity in the brain.]]> Feeling repentant about how my perpetually broke self (along with my perpetually broke boyfriend) manages to spend such a pretty penny going out, I recently set out on a quest for the barfly’s Holy Grail: The $1 beer. I’m happy to report that I found New York offers a surprising number of options to quench your boozy thirst on the cheap. Here’s a selection of spots for each day of the week.]]> Before it even properly launched, K! Pizzacone became a legend. A to-go box from the restaurant’s opening day sold for $56 on eBay, and one man from Charlottesville, Va., was so enamored with the idea of the pizzacone that he took a bus to New York during a category-5 blizzard, just to get a taste. “It was delicious,” he wrote in a blog post, which was merely signed “Alex.” But Alex’s excitement for K! Pizzacone isn’t unusual. On opening day last month the tiny, day-glow take-out joint was packed with the hungry, the curious and, of course, the food bloggers.]]> WHEN IT COMES to feeding time, there are basically two types of New Yorkers. The first type shows up at The Minetta Tavern on a Friday night, deliriously happy to have scored a reservation, oblivious to the glares and the stares from the...]]> Union Square Whole Foods, 2:08 p.m. on a Thursday The Food Broker, age 34 This guy didn’t give his name because he was shopping during work hours and was afraid he’d get in trouble at work. He shops night by night exclusively at either Whole Foods or Fairway. Being a broker for Amy’s frozen foods line, he told us that sales over the last two years have been rising, which he attributes to people staying in to eat—but still being busy.]]> Feb. 17, Roberta’s Pizzeria, 261 Moore St. (at Bogart St.), Brooklyn, 718- 417-1118; 7, $32..]]> In the ever-changing world of wine, there are few constants. But every once in a while, you stumble on a wine that makes you remember why everyone makes such a fuss out of the stuff in the first place. I have found such a wine, and it has made me re-obsessed with a grape that I had all but forgotten. First, the grape: Grenache, or Garnacha if you’re in Spain (we’ll get to that later).]]> It was another bleak-looking New Year’s Eve in Omaha, Nebraska. My visits home during winter breaks in college always started with so much promise, and ended with so many townies. I knew that I didn’t want to end up at a local bar that night. I also knew that I wasn’t going to drink frothy swill.]]> After years of trying to find the perfect balance of healthy, inexpensive meals that could be picked up while on-the-go, Anthony Leone finally got fed up with over-priced egg white sandwiches from the deli. So the entrepreneur took matters into his own hands and created Energy Kitchen.]]> South America has been one of the rising stars in the wine world for the last two decades. Unlike Australia, however, the prices of most South American wines have not risen significantly. Chilean Merlots began showing up in North American wine stores decades ago and they remain bargains, while ultra-expensive wines like Australia’s “Australis” are becoming more and more common.]]> Every year on the third Thursday of November it happens: the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. Much hoopla and fanfare is given to this event, especially here in New York City, where the wine receives its unofficial U.S. welcome party. What is all the fuss about, you ask? Good question. Even those in the wine industry don’t really understand exactly why everyone is so incredibly excited by this often mediocre (and occasionally downright terrible) juice. To be fair, Beaujolais wines tend to be good predictors of that year’s vintage, especially for wines from the Burgundy area. But that doesn’t exactly excuse the over-hyping of this middle-of-the-road product.]]> I love Thanksgiving! And hate it. The holiday itself is a wonderful excuse to gather ’round family and friends for a conveniently short amount of time. Just enough hours to get in, reminisce for a day, get a ridiculously sized meal into your gullet and leave before the fam starts to work your nerves.]]> My friend Chris looked up from his glass of Yellowtail Chardonnay (which I did not buy). He squinted at me, pointed and creaked out, “I think you wine people are totally full of BS.” To his surprise, I nodded and replied, “Yeah, your pretty right on...mostly.”]]> THE BIGGEST FOOD-RELATED uproar in New York this past summer had to be the daring invasion of Manhattan by Canadian donut chain Tim Hortons. NYC residents were taken aback by the almost overnight appearance of multiple maple-leafed breakfast stations throughout the city in July, ramping up fears that our northern borders are not entirely secure. As a tireless Hortons supporter, it warmed my cockles to see Tim flex his sugar n’ coffee muscle through the city that never sleeps. However, I was far more excited to learn a Checkers had quietly snuck its way into Brooklyn a month earlier.]]> Like Fashion Week for Foodies, the NYFWF features a slew of events from the Oct. 10 Bob Dylan Wine Pairing to appearances by every celeb chef—that term is used loosely—out there, including a cooking demonstration by Alicia Silverstone.There are also more established dining deities like Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Alain Ducasse and Ming Tsai strutting their stuff all weekend. ]]> When is a Montepulciano not a montepulciano? When it’s a montepulciano, and not from Montepulciano. Confused? So are most people when trying to buy Italian wine. The amount of grape varietals grown in the big, European boot is staggering—estimated at more than 2,000—and the regions are just as prolific.]]>