Ever wonder what life would be like if you went to NYU? Take a trip to NYU's favorite coffee spot for a cup of joe and your daily dose of meta!

Grade inflation isn't the only reason to wish you went to NYU. Just a few blocks south of Washington Square Park, Think Coffee serves up some of the city's best coffee to NYU students and downtown denizens alike. Although Oren is a classic campus spot and Hungarian perfects the bohemian coffee house aesthetic, neither of these places are appropriate for studying.

Living up to its all too apropos name, Think Coffee on the other hand is an ideal place to study. The space is well lit and equipped with plenty of power outlets. Indeed, you'll find many Macbook users here, enjoying Think Coffee's free Wi-Fi service. With three separate seating areas and plenty of plush couches, it's easy for students to spread out their books and make themselves at home. Like any well-equipped home, Think Coffee has a collection of board games, including Scrabble. And there's even a book nook where patrons can borrow and swap books.

Despite the accommodating digs, Think Coffee is free of the common coffee shop blights. The couches remarkably are free of coffee stains and coffee stench and even the archetypal stained and stinky coffee shop bum.

Jarid Maged wrote a "17 page admissions essay" to get into GS, which apparently doesn't impose a word limit. (Also, the title of this column makes only weird, self-referential sense.)

The Spec is extremely comfortable cursing in print now. And, apparently, fellating the Arcade Fire. Quite literally.

Tegan and Sara... still fresh. Still cool.

Apparently Columbia should "move on" from the whole 1968 thing. An eight hundred word editorial and 40-year anniversary conference are good first steps.

Take-out food... it's delicious! Um, unless you take this article's advice and go to Milano.

More news from the Fu Foundation from Bureau Chief Tony Gong. Featuring colorful commentary and discussions about food!

I love ESC. I'll love ESC through impeachments, seven-hour meetings, and god knows how many viewings of Homeward Bound. But I love seeing The National perform for free in Roone Arledge just a little more. Nevertheless, at the opportunity cost of missing the second-half of Grizzly Bear's performance, I stuck with my "Satow buds" (please don't tell them I call them that) for a bit last night, and learned about some valuable new initiatives Columbia Dining is cooking up.

Student Services Rep Peter Valeiras' silky, student servicing voice delineated most of the policy I was present to hear. First up was a "local brunch" program that John Jay is pushing. The idea for this brunch, in Peter's words, will be to "emphasize that everything is within one hundred miles from the campus." I think this basically means that the food will come from a supermarket in New Jersey.

Ferris Booth is looking to diversify its selection: fish tacos and burritos may be added to its night cuisine. Peter was particularly excited to notice: "Asian during the day... and Mexican at night!"

(Read more...)

Bwog loves food, especially cheap food. Bwog also loves Brooklyn. Indeed, Bwog loves Brooklyn Restaurant Week. Here, Bwog offers a selective assortment of some Brooklyn Restaurant Week stand-outs. If lines are long at the participating restaurants, Bwog provides a few noteworthy non-participating restaurants.

Unfortunately the borough publicizes rather humbly and Bwog just learned of the event. But don't despair! Restaurant Week lasts until Monday night.

Participating Restaurants:

Bacchus Bistro: 409 Atlantic Avenue (718) 852 1572
Simple French fare in an elegant and understated atmosphere. As its name suggests, the wine list is excellent.

Blue Ribbon/ Blue Ribbon Sushi: 280 (718) 840 0408 5th Avenue
Large menus and large portions is the MO at the Brooklyn outpost of the Manhattan favorite by the same name. Bwog recommends their pulled pork sandwich!

Competitive cooking came to Columbia this afternoon. Read on to see who proved their culinary capacity and who fell short.

Coinciding with the premiere of season four of Bravo's Top Chef, the Hartley-Wallach Living and Learning Center hosted their own cooking competition this afternoon. The first Annual LLC Iron Chef Competition pitted fellow Hartley-Wallach residents against each other. Thirteen teams of two faced off to decide who could whip together the most sophisticated and savory dishes.

At the commencement of today's events, the LLC Iron Chef Committee unveiled the secret ingredient: Rice Krispies. The organizing committee of the LLC Iron Chef incorporated a special ingredient into the competition's parameters both as an homage to their titular predecessor, Iron Chef, and also to unify the different teams' dishes with common ingredient. The teams were then given twenty dollars and three hours to come up with an entrée and dessert of their own creation.

Seven-hundred and eight feet of sub sandwiches, to get consumed at Barnard at 7:00 pm! Tables of sandwiches are just beginning to wrap from the edge of Lehman library to Sulz Hall. Bwog was told it's some kind of annual tradition?

In an attempt to recreate the magic of Coney Island's 92-year-old tradition, kosher frat Alpha Epsilon Pi hosted a hot dog eating contest that was a real sausage fest. In fact, that's what they called it: "Sausage Fest." Justin Vlasits filed some photos and an account of what went down.

AEPi's hot dog eating contest began with a hail of smack-talking, much of it from AEPi junior Michael Drabkin. Freshman Kevin Elder, however, took it up a notch with a self-designed T-shirt proclaiming "Joey Chestnut Who?" referring to this year's Nathan's world champion who scarfed down 67 dogs on the way to a new world record.

At the last minute, Sausage Fest mastermind Aaron Goldman (right) entered the fray, deciding a showdown with only three contestants would be worse than the stomachache he'd get from several quickly devoured hot dogs plus his recently consumed lunch -- a Spicy Special.

Our second weekly photo contest, on the theme of consumption, also attracted manifold worthy entrants, forcing some difficult choices. However, by the highly objective standards of the Bwog editorial staff, Janna Herman, B'10, came out on top again! Her winning photo, below, is entitled "Couples Dine Out." See the rest of our picks after the jump, and submit photos for next week's contest, with the theme of conviction HOW-TO.

Restaurant Week is upon us! It's your semiannual shot at climbing into the City's swankest restaurants through the backdoor--you best hurry to make those reservations before your time runs out next Friday. Surveying the offerings, Bwog freelancer Bari Weiss takes us to Bolo, the Spanish sensation run by that guy you may have seen on TV.

I must admit, I don't get Bobby Flay's appeal. As an avid Iron Chef America enthusiast, Flay always struck me as awkward in front of the camera, at times even coming off as irritated. For his fans, this is precisely Flay's allure; his awkwardness is charming, his irritation is edgy, his furrowed brow evidence of the ingenious recipes marinating in his head.

But what most of us know of Flay is just branding. And though image seems increasingly important in the world of food, chefs still earn their reputations with what comes out of the kitchen. Flay may not have been able to woo me with any of his four shows on the Food Network—but could he win me over with the recipes that have won him high praise? I set off for Bolo (23 East 22^nd Street), a participant in this year's Restaurant Week, to try some of the food that earned the joint a rare three stars from the New York Times.

Bolo calls itself contemporary Spanish cuisine and gets its name not from the tie or the hat, but from its two partners: Bobby Flay ("Bo") and Laurence Kretchmer ("Lo"). Unlike similarly priced bistros, it doesn't take itself too seriously. Excellent service creates a warm atmosphere, even as the Picasso-esque wallpaper feels a bit dizzying (perhaps "eclectic" and "fun" in interior design-speak, but strikingly similar to the mass-produced collage paper swathing your neighborhood Starbucks).

Eash Cumarasamy discovered this thought-provoking juxtaposition of flyers on one of the pillars of Lerner Hall- "Intercultural Cook-Off" vs. "Obesity Panel: Is America Too Fat?" It reminded Bwog of a similar double-take it did earlier this year, when Toward Reconciliation, the conflict resolution group, posted a "Why Can't We Be Friends?" flyer atop one asking "Want to Rule the World?"

-CJS

Finally, proof that our world is a world of inexplicable contradictions! Right now, on Low Plaza, two representatives from LiNK—students for Liberty in North Korea—are sitting at a table, trying to get students to sign up for a fast, to take place on October 24th, in solidarity with those going hungry in North Korea. Which would all be well and good, of course, if they hadn't set up their table RIGHT NEXT TO A BAKE SALE. Also, look closely at the picture and you'll see that both of the representatives are—you guessed it—eating food, while trying to convince other people not to eat food, in front of an overflowing bounty of baked goods. One has a bagel with jelly wrapped in a napkin, while the other has an iced coffee and an as-yet-unidentified baked good, purchased not from the bake sale adjacent to their table, but from Starbucks. And, while a little internet research does confirm that there are ten Starbucks stores in South Korea, so far their neighbors to the north have none—although Bwog supposes it's only a matter of time.

In related news, one might suggest that the starving citizens of North Korea visit Altschul Plaza, in front of Mac on the Barnard campus, this afternoon—the carnival in celebration of Latino Heritage Month is overflowing with free food.