A number of the city's hottest restaurants will be serving Chinese food specials this week to celebrate the Year of the Dragon. Here's a guide to Chinese New Year dining in New York City:

Above is an ad for clubby tiki-themed restaurant The Hurricane Club found on a phone booth outside the Maritime Hotel near the Hiro Ballroom entrance. Apparently, if the pisco sours, mai tais, and pu pu platters don't entice diners, perhaps the oh so subtle hint of girl on girl action will. If there's anything smoking hot lesbians like it's some crispy Peking pig.

Check out a clearer version below, found, naturally enough, in an Urban Daddy newsletter.

Peck the Beak

Boo hoo, you're not going to the Hamptons. Couldn't make it to Fire Island either? That's okay, New York City has plenty of events, deals and exciting openings to have a wonderful long weekend filled with plenty of eating and drinking to kick off the summer. And here are some of the best options, conveniently mapped out:

Like spicy food? Here's a list of ten new dishes that will melt your face off.

In New York, it can be hard to find a place to eat for a party of ten or more. A lot of the city's hot new restaurants don't have tables that can comfortably seat more than six diners, and many of the ones that do require you to buy into a meal contract, or shell out for pricey prix fixe menus. But have no fear: here's a map of New York's Ten Best Tables for Ten. They all serve great food in cool dining rooms, and will be more than happy to accommodate you and your crew. A few offer special packages, but they're well worth it.

It's time for another edition of Adventures in Shilling, in which we fight shilling the best way we can, by shaming tasteless, unscrupulous shills into submission. Well, that's the plan, at least. Fight shills yourself by dropping offensive links to tips@eater.com.

Today we've got shills for The Hurricane Club, Lowcountry, The National Bar & Dining Rooms and Ballato's.

Our first shill, the least suspect of the bunch, comes from an Eater commenter of The Hurricane Club's Early Word, whose only comment reads:

I've had the good fortune of eating there as well. It seems like everyone agrees on the decor, the drinks, and the atmosphere but I must say I had the short ribs when I went and they were extraordinary. I mean melt in your mouth good. I want more right now just thinking about them. Also I loved the sharing aspect until I realized that reduced my share of the short ribs. ;p

Shill Probability: 49%

There have always been great upscale and fast food-style burgers in New York, but recently the city has seen an influx of extreme burgers. These are sandwiches with bespoke beef blends, decadent toppings, crazy preparations, and often times huge price tags. Here's a guide to the 12 most over-the-top new burgers in New York, all from restaurants that have opened within the last year or so.

[Krieger, 9/24/10]

As noted yesterday, Sam Sifton just dropped a two spot on Jonathan Benno's massive, ambitious Italian fine-dining concept, Lincoln. Sifton, like others before him, loves much of the food but finds the space to be lacking excitement, the prices to be steep, and the service to be on point, but lacking warmth. His takeaway: "Yes, the food is terrific. But we go to Lincoln Center for both more and less than that." Sifton continues to ponder just what, exactly, a restaurant at Lincoln Center should be like on the Diner's Journal Blog, asking for readers to chime in with their thoughts.

[Krieger, 9/23/10]

It's noisy, it's overcrowded, it's silly. But The Hurricane Club is fun, Sam Sifton argues this week, and it's serving some pretty decent grub. He gives it one star:

It might not be the best, the most interesting or the most important new restaurant in town. It may not prove to be the longest lasting. But it is among the most enjoyable places to open in recent months...

...Dover sole arrives with a delicate ginger-scallion sauce, addictive and luscious against the sweet of the fish...Best of all is a large serving board loaded with crisp-fried pork chunks served as if the dish were Peking duck, with scallions, cucumbers, a rich hoisin sauce and some spiced applesauce alongside, along with a large number of steamed buns. Accompanied by a plate of long-cooked pork ribs with a tamarind-chipotle barbecue sauce, and perhaps some Hawaiian fried rice as well, the combination makes for deeply serious dinner theater, in a deeply unserious space.

Sifton reiterates on the blog: "understand that the point of the restaurant is to have mindless fun in a difficult city, it is really a nice place to spend an evening." [NYT]

GOSSIP—After Star magazine published a story about how Food Network's Giada De Laurentiis (who is married) had a "steamy hookup" with musician John Mayer, Giada fired back on her blog with an "Official Statement on Behalf of Giada De Laurentiis," demanding an apology. [GDL Blog]

WILLIAMSBURG— Fork in the Road reminds that the second annual Brooklyn Pie Bake-Off is taking place from 1 - 4 PM this Sunday at Williamsburg's Spacecraft. Admission costs $10, and includes three slices of pie and drinks from Ronnybrook and Brooklyn Brewery. [FitR]

FLATIRON—Starting on Monday and running through the end of December, The Hurricane Club will offer diners free shoe shines for free during lunch, from 11:30 AM - 3:30 PM.
[Photos: Star]

Four years after Frank Bruni slapped Taavo Somer and partner William Tigertt with a goose egg for their hip LES joint Freemans, Sam Sifton hands down victory...of sorts. Today he awards one star to their three month-old "vaguely Southern" restaurant on the Bowery, Peels. He seems equally annoyed and delighted by the scene, cutely poking fun at the models and the surfers but ending the review by saying, "The aesthetic of the room is warm and welcoming, a diner put into a home, perhaps the kitchen at Hyannis Port. It is for this feeling that we go to restaurants."

As for the food. It can be good—the granola, the biscuits, the Baja salad, squid rings—and it can also disappoint:

[Krieger, 9/23/10]

The Hurricane Club, the biggest of the three tiki/Polynesian projects to open in New York this year, made its debut last week after a star-studded New York Wine & Food Festival kickoff party hosted by Eater. Now that the dining world followers have had time to weigh in on more than just the passed snacks and hollowed out coconuts at the opening bash, it's time to check in on the good news and that always present bad news. So far, it seems that the crowds dig the space and love the drinks even more. The food? Well...did we mention they love the drinks? Here, the early word: