[.ca] The Slow Food Guide to New York City: Restaurants, ... (ISBN 193149827X)

Trumps the Zagat!:
I LOVE and RELY ON my Slow Foods of NYC book. It's really a great resource--thorough with a special focus on restaurants that use local/organic produce. I use it far more than my Zagats!

The Best guide to eating in NYC:
So much more comprehensive and caring than Zagat's. Thoughtful reviews and insights into the City's more worthwhile restaurants and food stores. Great for visitors and NYers alike. I just bought a dozen of these as holiday presents.

NYC Eating Guide:
This book covers the spectrum of eating at a street cart or a high-end restaurant. You'll discover gems right in your own neighborhood that you weren't aware of before and also have the chance to explore other regions of the boroughs. A must-have guidebook for food lovers who live in New York or are coming to visit.

Excellent summary of the best NYC eats:
As a frequent traveller to Italy, I have found the Slow Food Guide to be invaluable for restaurant recommendations throughout that entire country. The Slow Food organization has consistently provided knowledgeable reviews of places that offer traditional regional cuisine for excellent value. Now that Slow Food is expanding its scope to other cities and countries, I am happy to report that its New York guide also provides reliable reviews of some of the city's best eating establishments. Note that, unlike Zagat, the Slow Food guide is not meant to be comprehensive. Instead, the contributors have chosen to write about a handful of some of the best restaurants for each cuisine category, ranging from cheap takeout places to famous four star establishments. Inevitably, some noteworthy restaurants have been left off of the list -- but those that have been included are highly worthy representatives of their respective cuisines. Also, unlike Zagat, the reviews contain far more knowledgeable insights about ethnic restaurants in the city. Instead of providing entries about places that are popular but have watered-down cuisine for Western tastes, the contributors provide descriptions of outstanding and occasionally lesser-known restaurants that serve more authentic fare. In particular, the guide highlights some of the best ethnic restaurants in the outer boroughs, which are too frequently ignored by the Zagat reviewers and clientele. For example, the guide recommends Sripraphai Thai restaurant in Woodside, Queens -- and their inclusion of this relatively overlooked gem indicates that this is a guide well worth following. In summary, the Slow Food guide is not necessarily meant to be a comprehensive survey book like Zagat's, but its focus on some of the best New York restaurants -- regardless of cost or borough -- makes this guide potentially even more valuable to New York visitors. I look forward to seeing more excellent city guides appearing State-side from the Slow Food organization.

A comically inept production.:
Any book that characterizes Katz's Delicatessen as a place to "see and be seen" is not a great source of dining wisdom, although it's good for a laugh. Clearly, this thing was put together by amateurs -- amateurs who write as if they've just arrived in New York and haven't quite figured it out yet. And they don't stay on topic very well: there are far more fast-food joints than you'd expect to find in a slow-food book. There may be a book to be written about slow food in New York. This isn't it.