The Herald unleashed an expose of Boston restaurants who haven't been separating recyclables from the trash. In a time in when it's crystal clear that people need to at least try to be less wasteful, restaurants don't think they need to pitch in. City Councilor Michael Ross wanted restaurants to recycle, but they fought him on it. This affects the mayor's attempts to "turn Beantown into Greentown" and bring in all those green-collar jobs: Boston......

--Carl Stanley McGee, the Patrick aide who was cleared of charges that he sexually assaulted a teen boy in Florida, is back at work, but the governor isn't taking his donations. [Boston Herald] --Find out which restaurants are open after the water main/natural gas mess downtown. [Boston Globe/fidoboston] --Stop the presses! Someone in New England is showing off a "MILF" license plate. [Barstool Sports] --Are wild turkeys gracing South Boston with their presence? [Platinum......

--Bechtel, Parsons & Brinckerhoff still keeps this city on a tight leash. They received $5.3 million after the Big Dig was supposedly finished. [Boston Herald] --Local restaurants are going to stop selling bottled water and get people who want water to drink tap. This news leads to the following question--how do you feel about the local tap water? [WCVB] --The Boston City Council wants to move voting day to Saturday. Voter turnout is so......

So we weren't the only ones who were ticked at a woman's comment about South End wait staff and how they handle children eating in their restaurant. Let's reflect on what the woman said: Well, the entire article brought The South End Is Over out of hibernation, and the blogger is pissed. As we said before, wait staff are there to serve, but asking them to clean up the Cheerios messy little critters leave behind......

Mike of The Food Monkey has joined Bostonist to share his thoughts about cooking, food history, restaurant trends, and any other Epicurean issues. He promises to discuss what tastes good, but not always what is in good taste. For more on consuming the opponents and other food news, go to The Food Monkey website. To contact Mike, go to the Food Monkey's contact page. It’s that time again. Time to spin the wheel and......

Mike of The Food Monkey shares his thoughts about cooking, food history, restaurant trends, and any other Epicurean issues. He promises to discuss what tastes good, but not always what is in good taste. For more on consuming the opponents and other food news, go to the Food Monkey website. To contact Mike, go to the Food Monkey's contact page. Chef Rebecca Newell from The Beehive in Boston’s South End, has sent me the recipe......

Bostonist finds that food makes a great gift for even the most difficult to shop for. Some of our favorite local food purveyors have made it easy for us with food-of-the-month clubs. We’d be thrilled to receive the gift of pork from Savenor’s, which has a bacon-of-the-month club. For something sweet, Pemberton Farms of Cambridge has a coffee-cake-of-the-month club and plenty of locally themed gift baskets. Formaggio Kitchen, famous for having its own cheese......

--Where have all the gay bars gone? Robert David Sullivan writes that we should be concerned about their disappearance: "In the Boston area, many of Harvard Square's bookstores, Kenmore Square's student eateries, and myriad other places that guaranteed a diverse urban experience have closed their doors, replaced by a far more uniform lineup of bank branches, chain stores, and upscale restaurants." A must-read. [Boston Globe] --If you haven't noticed with the cold temperatures and long......

The mayor has opened his virtual food court so you can find out if your favorite Boston eatery is a squeaky-clean bastion of hygiene or a rat-infested hellhole. We wondered what happened to the swanky spots that Northeastern journalism students found to be filthy back in September, so we looked them up: Figs (As in Todd English's Figs) - Failed on Aug. 2, for many reasons, including "Management has not properly trained staff to use......

This Bostonist swung by the newest sushi restaurant to invade Back Bay last week, and the overall impression was a good one. First off, Haru is a New York city implant, and the location in Dick's Last Resort's old spot in the Prudential Building is the chain's first in the city. Thank you very much, New York. We'll take your trophy AND your sushi. That'll be just fine. But Bostonist digresses. The decor at......

Meal and Chat With Rudolph Chelminski Sunday, November 4, 5:00 pm Chez Henri 1 Shepard St, Cambridge Make reservations at 617.354.8980 More info Goodies With the Phantom Gourmet Tuesday, November 6, 7:00 pm Z Square 14 JFK, Cambridge More info Who knew that a bookstore would know how to feed the people so well? But Porter Square Books will be serving up two culinary treats. First off, brace yourself for some Beaujolais. Author Rudolph Chelminski......

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival Saturday, Oct 20, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm Reggie Lewis Athletic Center 1350 Tremont Street Free More info Boston is proud of its efforts to become a foodie-haven; and the success of such chefs as Ken Oringer, Barbara Lynch, and Michael Schlow have brought well-deserved publicity to the Hub. So while cutting-edge cuisine is on the rise, Beantown has not been known to fully live up to its legume-y name.......

For a town that has a good number of vegetarians, Boston has surprisingly few vegetarian restaurants. Luckily, some of our favorite restaurants have veggie options that make even the most devoted carnivore think twice about their order. Chief among them is Mediterreanean- and Arabic-influenced Oleana’s six-course vegetarian tasting menu. Bostonist has tried it out several times, and it is never exactly the same twice—it varies from night to night with what’s fresh and best, and......

Wagamama, the wildly popular UK-based noodle chain that opened restaurants in Faneuil Hall last April and Harvard Square last month, reminds us of IKEA: slick, modern, not terrible quality for the prices, and definitely designed to appeal to the masses. Like the London Wagamamas we’ve visited, the Harvard Square restaurant has a spare, modern aesthetic—diners sit cafeteria-style at long wooden tables set with paper placemats, which also serve as dessert menus and as a place......

Massachusetts has plenty of temptations – donuts, chowdah, beer, and all kinds of goodies. Despite all that, a report shows that the residents of Massachusetts the least obese in the nation, second only to Colorado. These stats come from the Trust for America's health, which notes that 19.8% of adults in the state are obese, and that number went up 1.2 percentage points from last year. 19.8% seems rather high, so if Massachusetts is doing......

The city is still reeling from the deaths of firefighters Paul Cahill and Warren Payne in West Roxbury on Wednesday night. Residents expressed their thanks to Cahill, Payne, and the other injured firefighters by bringing flowers and cards to the West Roxbury fire station. Cahill and Payne were, by all accounts, men who were devoted to their jobs. Cahill discovered his life's passion when he became a firefighter at age 40. Payne had EMT......

In a massive media blitz, Dunkin Donuts has announced that they're going the way of Brookline and cutting out most of the trans fats in their products. Now, the company can say they have "zero grams trans fat," but the rules say that Dunkin Donuts can have half a gram of trans fats per serving and still make that declaration. Those who are completely off the Crisco or anyone who tries to eat healthy will......

--Why toss a bucket of paint on a richie's fur coat when you can stop furs at the source? In Hinsdale on Monday, someone set about 400 to 500 mink who were destined to become pricey furs free from a farm. That's a lot of mink to let loose! The owner of Berkshire Furs is naturally blaming the "antifur people." No one's been caught yet, and the owner said the animals wouldn't be able to......

During Restaurant Week, which runs from now to August 17 (skipping Saturday, August 11), you can eat three-course lunches for $20.07 and three-course dinners for $33.07 all over town. You still have to pay for tips, tax, and beverages alcoholic and otherwise, but that's still not a bad deal. You can see a full list of participating restaurants here, and you can make reservations through OpenTable. From there, it's beg, borrow, or steal to get......

Before he left the House of Representatives to helm U-Mass Lowell, Marty Meehan spent wildly all over Washington. He basically rewarded his supporters before heading off. That's mighty polite of him, and the money comes from the $4.8 million campaign war chest. He can do what he likes with it. But shouldn't his supporters be irked because he's basically wasting the money? He could make some grand, impressive gestures with that cash, but he chose......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches......

--We thought copper was the new hot thing for thieves, but a group of perps have started a new trend - the stealing of toilet parts. The individuals, whom the Herald calls "bathroom bandits," have been swiping "flushometers" from restaurant bathrooms in Methuen. The funniest line of an already funny article? "Methuen police have advised restaurants to keep an eye on their toilets." Sorry, but we don't think that anyone is going to be lining......

It's official - Brookline will purge trans fats, which increase bad cholesterol, from all foods made within its restaurants and schools. Per the ban, restaurants must "stop using trans fats for frying by Nov. 30, 2008, and to end their use in baked goods by April 30, 2009." The ban proposal enjoyed overwhelming approval, and, since more and more food products are phasing out trans fats, these bans don't seem that ridiculous after all. "Trans......

Trans fat, the substance that keeps certain foods mysteriously moist for an artificial length of time, might be banned in Brookline effective May 29, during the town meeting. Studies show that trans fats increase bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease. They became such a concern that the amount of trans fats in a food is listed on food labels - which you don't get in restaurants. If the ban......

Boston just got its own food scare thanks to tabloid TV show Inside Edition. They brought their "Rat Patrol" into several restaurants, including the Quincy Market McCormick & Schmick's, Ruth's Chris, China Pearl, and other establishments. After having to sit through some crap about Anna Nicole's momma, we discovered that Inside Edition really does have a dedicated "Rat Patrol" of five people standing around and looking tough while they sniff out rats under the cover......

Usually when we feature a map we only give it the title of map of the day, even if we don't feature one every day. Today we feature the map of the week. Why? Because this week is Boston's Winter Restaurant Week 2007. The map comes from BostonChefs.com and their "unofficial guide" to Restaurant Week. It appears that the little chef icon on the map indicates the restaurants who have upgraded their listing with......

The Red Sox have us all dreaming. Dreaming of warmer weather. Dreaming of baseball. Dreaming of the Fall Classic. We're just a week and a half away from the first matchup of the spring training opening match up – so there is a lot of time to consume with daydreaming about baseball. Because we don't have enough vacation time to spend the entire spring training season in Ft. Meyers we'll have to rely on......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Urban Spoon just opened up their Boston edition on their corner of the internets this week. The site pulls reviews from the Globe, Phoenix, Boston Magazine, City Pages, along with user comments for what they report as all 5054 of Boston's restaurants. What you see above is their "Boston Restaurants at Night" mash-up which plots a little point of light for every restaurant - mouse over the neighborhood names at the bottom of the......