Nothing is more heartbreaking than losing a memory card, especially one with photos of your favorite annual food event. But thanks to the sensitive fingers of our dry cleaner, we not only got our memory card back, we got a quarter and a ten-pence coin out of the lining of a favorite blazer. We popped all the photos onto our Flickr site post-haste, and we hope you take a gander.

Of all the dishes we ate at the event, our favorite was not made by a New York chef. Instead, it was Tom Aikens (of the eponymous London restaurant) who absolutely floored us with his silky, subtly herbal salt cod brandade (pictured above right). It was the best mouthful of food I have eaten in months. A very close second was Le Bernardin’s thick, decadent brown butter cream–almost a pudding–with sweet potato caviar and red wine reduction. I went back three times, I confess. So, London for mains and New York for dessert? Seems just about perfect.

3 things we’re loving this week:

1. Tonight’s New York Magazine’s annual New York Taste event. This has become our very favorite food shindig of the year, the point around which our autumn calendar pivots. Not only is the event a fantastic charity fundraiser for the very worthy City Harvest, it is a slick night of some of the city’s best nibbles. Best of all, it is not too late to make plans to attend, as there will be a small number of tickets available at the door at Skylight (Hudson and Dominick Streets). See you there!

2. Insieme’s tortelli di zucca ($10 as an appetizer, $19 as a lunch entrée), quite possibly the best pumpkin pasta we have eaten in years, and certainly our favorite stuffed pasta of the season. What makes Insieme’s take on the classic pumpkin ravioli so special is the crunch from the amaretti biscuits, the bittersweet flavors from the mostardi fruits, and a subtly musky hit of fried sage. If only every Fall lunch could be like this.

3. The pilaf resurgence. Doing more with less does not always mean sacrificing flavor. Where risotto once ruled, pilafs–which require less expensive rice and are generally much more forgiving of overcooking–are now staking their claim. We’re happy to see it, especially since it means that one of our old Russian/Uzbek favorites, plov, an ultra-garlicky version of the dish, stands a real chance of making its way onto a few local menus. The name will need a little tweaking to make it sound as appetizing as the dish really is, but the idea is right for these economic times.

If Tokyo can support a few thousand ramen houses, surely Manhattan can play host to a dozen without creating the perfect conditions for a Starbucksian surfeit of choice. Already, there are a few whose presence we would miss if they disappeared: Setagaya and Ippudo, chief among them. We have even been known to duck–quite happily–into Rai Rai Ken or Minca when the weather is oppressively cold and there are no taxis on the streets. So when we heard that Minca’s owner, Shigeto Kamada, had his sights set on opening another ramen joint in the East Village, we figured that there was enough market share left to support another decent noodle house.

But perhaps we made one too many assumptions. Foremost, that Kambi would be as good as its sister, Minca. This is not to say that Minca is more than just decent, but it is is consistently satisfactory, and a few dishes, like the intensely porcine tsukemen dipping noodles, are often wonderful. At Kambi, these same dishes–many nearly identical to their Minca counterparts–falter. Not to pick on the poor tsukemen (pictured left, $11.50), but it is as disappointing as ramen gets, with a bland, almost fishy broth that, when mixed with the springy noodles and their toppings, tastes more of preserved ingredients than of slow-cooked pork.

The chicken broth wahoo ramen (pictured on Flickr, $9.50)–served mixed as a soup and not available as a dipping platter–suffers just as much from a stale, flat flavor profile that makes eating it a bit of a chore. Nothing is as damning as eating an indulgent meal like ramen and feeling after a few bites and slurps as if you would rather be eating a salad. Unfortunately, even the special kimchi miso ramen (pictured right, $14.50) is inferior to a big plate of undressed mesclun. Just like Kambi’s other ramen dishes, the kimchi miso offers no real punch of flavor, too little seasoning, and most surprising, no spicy zip whatsoever. The most flavorful item in the bowl is the corn.

Of all the dishes we have eaten at Kambi, just one stands out as truly excellent: the radish salad appetizer (pictured below left, $4.00). Served in a gigantic, softball-sized mound, the salad is deceptively simple–just freshly julienned daikon radish with a generous ladling of sesame-soy dressing. All the elements of the dish, from the subtle pepper notes of the daikon to the heady, nutty dressing, balance beautifully. Better still, eating this dish right now, in the middle of peak daikon season, no doubt improves its flavors a few hundred percent.

Kambi is no starter-savant, though. We found the shrimp gyoza (pictured on Flickr, $5.75 for four) to be tough, overcharred and dry, not to mention seared in a manner that flayed most of the dough from their exteriors, leaving behind chewy prawn and burned black ash. We have eaten better gyoza cooked on a camp stove. Sadly, that sentiment is the rule, not the exception at Kambi. This city really should be big enough for another ramen house, but we do have standards.

Kambi, 351 East 14th Street (at First Avenue), 212-228-1366.

3 things we’re loving this week:

1. Cake Wrecks, an online rogues gallery of bakery disasters, some so tragic they leave us wheezing with laughter. We love it for its exhaustive attempt to catalog the dozen ways to misspell “congratulations” (our favorite: “cangrtalation”), as well as for its round denunciation of the fused cupcake cake. But most of all, I now know what to bring to my next office gathering.

2. Soba Totto’s fresh green beans with crushed sesame dressing (pictured right, $7.00), a cool, nutty bowl of bite-sized green bean pieces that reminds us of how special green beans can be. The dish uses a very light, gently savory coating of crushed black goma to contrast and highlight the natural sweetness of the green beans–an absolute haricot revelation, and unlike anything anywhere else in the city.

3. Steven Shaw’s Asian Dining Rules: Essential Strategies for Eating Out at Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Korean, and Indian Restaurants, out this week in paperback, a perfect vademecum for any diner venturing out to explore authentic Asian cooking. Shaw’s tone is accessible and informative, and he really hits his stride with the book’s superb primer on Korean cuisine–the book pays for itself with this chapter alone. But it is not all about the basics; there is something here–whether it is Indian dopeaja fish stew or Cambodian salor kor-ko sap, a sweet-sour coconut milk soup reminiscent of Thai tom yum–for even the most advanced Asian nosher.

Restaurants in the Garment District, one of the borough’s last remaining gritty, industrial patches, have perhaps the toughest row to hoe in Manhattan. Not only must they lure diners in without the advantage of any real architectural appeal, they must also survive in an area that offers little residential space. Imagine a dirtier Wall Street, populated with zipper sellers instead of investment bankers, and you have the idea.

At the same time, the neighborhood has always offered rents low enough to attract risky, creative food ventures that might never have a chance elsewhere–Macaron Café and Go-Go Curry are two of the best examples of this. Lazzara’s Pizza, hidden upstairs in a nondescript stone building on 38th Street, is another. But, in the strangest synergy imaginable, Lazzara’s on 38th exploited its bargain Garment District rent even further by cleaving half its business into a recording studio that lives upstairs from the dining room. This, quite literally, is what they call vertical integration.

The downside to serving food from a GD address, especially one that requires climbing stairs, is that it is hard to build up a clientele of devoted patrons, no matter how good your chef is. So a few months ago, Lazzara made its move to a second location in the space left behind by Sawa BBQ on 9th Avenue, between 43rd and 44th Streets, right in the heart of booming Hell’s Kitchen. No matter that the storefront is narrow and features just three barstools and a slim wooden counter for diners–takeout and delivery are what this location is all about. Indeed, the décor, while inviting with its exposed brick and chunky dark wood detail, is so sparse that all attention inside is directed to the counter. No hip-hop beats to keep you hanging around, no tables or waitstaff to bother you. Come in, order your pizza, and go somewhere else to eat, it says quite plainly.

This message should not dissuade you, however. The pizza at Lazzara’s 9th Avenue location is quite possibly even better than at the Garment District location, and absolutely worth a visit, even if it means finding a local resident willing to host you while you snack on a few slices.

Sold in rectangular, thin-crust pies, Lazzara’s pizza looks like a crossbreed between Sicilian and Neopolitan styles, with crunchy, pleated edges and a tender, almost pasta-like base crust. At the (slightly further) uptown location, the pies all seem to be a bit crisper and with less of the bottom char that sometimes marred the pies on 38th. Of the several dozen toppings on offer at the 9th Avenue storefront, we have a few firm favorites: the Alorna (pictured above, $18/pie), a deconstructed meatball pie covered in peppers, Italian sausage, and ground beef; the vodka sauce and spinach pie ($16.50/pie), a piquant and very savory gloss on a 1970s pasta favorite; and the Tony’s Anchovies with a Twist (pictured right, $16.00/pie), where the ‘twist’ is succulent, sweet pan-fried onions that temper the intense saltiness of the briny anchovies–also quite easily the best anchovy pizza I have eaten all year.

Yes, there are appetizers, pastas and heros on the menu, but ignore them all, apart from the perfectly adequate salads and a super-gooey chicken parm. Really, Lazzara’s curious little oblong pies are the only thing that deserves your attention–and they only seem to be getting better. Which makes us wonder: If starting over sans recording studio improved the pizza as much as it seems to have done, what might losing the rest of the menu’s culinary dead weight do?

Lazzara’s Pizza, 617 9th Avenue (between 43rd and 44th Streets), 212-245-4440.

Just in case you missed it: Those traffic jams eight or nine days ago were due to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI for short)–one of the most exclusive do-gooder confabs this city produces. Each year, former President Bill Clinton convenes several thousand of his closest and most jargonophilic friends to “catalyze for action” in areas of education, health, climate change and poverty. It’s a wonderful cause that Nosher and I strongly support, even if–as neither Matt Damon nor the installers of 1,000 solar panels in an Ethiopian village–we never seem to get an invite.

Our well-connected friend Noshingtonienne did, however, and by living vicariously through her, we got the chance to experience the best part of the CGI: The goody bag. And because Bubba does nothing by half measures, attendees walked away with enough swag to fill a bag the size of a collie. Tucked inside every smart, brown microsuede duffel was all manner of organic, cruelty-free, renewable, wind-powered goodness. There was a candle made from micro-climate soy, sustainable lip gloss, a ‘Planet Earth’ board game–even one of Apple’s new 8GB iPod nanos. Yet of course, all we could focus on when Noshingtonienne tossed the bag on the floor of the Noshpad was the food, very little of which would have come to our attention had it not been for the producers’ involvement with the CGI.

Among them, we were most taken by two of the sustainable noshables:

Vere Organic Chocolate: 75 percent cocoa, single origin dark chocolate, from Ecuador. We tried the raspberry-lemon flavor and found it bitter–only Nosher likes his chocolate with this much bite–with the fruit notes struggling to peek out from under the aggressively tannic flavors. As a pure bittersweet chocolate bar, this would work well, but Vere needs a little milk to allow its fruit aromas to penetrate the candy. Available at Amish Market, Whole Foods, Garden of Eden and other locations. www.veregoods.com

Organic, whole-grain ‘Forbidden Rice,’ imported from China by Lotus Foods. This came as one of a quartet of rices, each originating from small, family-run “terroir” rice farms that use new low-water methods for grain cultivation. The Forbidden Rice appears black, but releases a rich purple tint as it cooks. We prepared some in a risotto and found it to have a much nuttier taste than a typical arborio or carnaroli rice–a very pleasant contribution to the flavors of the dish. Because the forbidden rice is a whole grain, it takes twice as long to cook and produces a chewier texture. All rice may be ordered online at www.lotusfoods.com.

Finally, there’s Rwandan Farmers Coffee, a fair trade, carbon neutral coffee company wholly owned by a collective of growers in Rwanda. We sent this back with Noshingtonienne, because unfortunately, it is only available at Sainsbury’s supermarkets in the U.K. Even though the coffee comes pre-ground, we’ll still grab a canister if it shows up stateside, primarily because, if the coffee is good, we’d like to see a small Rwandan farm benefit. And really, what kind of Scrooge can argue with the idea of saving the world when it involves risotto, chocolate and a cup of coffee?

Single mindedness rules on the corner of 45th Street and Ninth Avenue. Out of what used to be the over-draperied rococo mess that was Jezebel have emerged two discrete restaurants that both take their names from a single dish. The Jezebel business has been scaled down to about a tenth of its former size and has re-emerged as Piece of Chicken, a table-free kitchenfront that sells $1 portions of ribs, greens and fried chicken. Some might view the move as a decline into reduced circumstances, but the focus has done Jezebel’s kitchen a world of good–the food is consistently wonderful, and now that it has no seating (nor piano player, nor porch swing), its overhead is laughably low. All of this adds up to a profitable business that adds real value to the neighborhood.

The teensy kitchen’s new neighbor–actually the occupant of its former space–is a familiar one. Five Napkin Burger is another collaborative effort from Andy D’Amico and Simon Oren, the Nice Matin duo that brought first Marseille and then Nizza to the very same block of Ninth Avenue. If this were Monopoly, the pair would be buying hotels right now.

Five Napkin Burger differs from its siblings in its rejection of a regional theme of any sort–the menu features the eponymous ten ounce chuck burger alongside sushi, pork chili, and Tunisian salmon tabbouleh. You could broadly call the food Amerasian Fusion Plus, but above all else, the restaurant’s repertoire always comes second to its mammoth burger (pictured top, $13.75). This hierarchy is just about right: The signature dish is Five Napkin Burger’s best, and despite its copious goopiness (pictured below right) it is worth a visit on its own. We are especially fond of the caramelized onions and aromatic rosemary aioli, even though they lubricate the bun so much that it is hard to even keep the sandwich intact enough to take a first bite. On our initial visit, we spotted a neighboring table anchoring slippery bun to patty with toothpicks, which is a tactic that works, but simply cutting the burger into quarters achieves the same results without the danger of puncturing a cheek.

Indeed, burgers make up the best items on the menu: the Italian turkey burger ($10.95), prepared with tomato sauce and peppers, reminds us of a very decent meatball sub, and the Ahi tuna burger (pictured left, $13.95) benefits from the contrast between the sweetness of the soft, brioche roll and the savory soy and wasabi mayonnaise. As much as we enjoy Five Napkin’s medium rare tuna burger, the tempura onion ring really ought to be served as a side–it adds nothing to the sandwich apart from more calories.

Most other dishes on the menu are adequate but not very special, especially the bland smoked tomato grits with shrimp (brunch only, $14.25) and the greasy, heavy pork chili (brunch or starter, $12.75). Similarly, the sushi, a puzzling companion to a hamburger-focused menu, is only satisfactory and probably ought to be ditched in favor of more light salads. We would also love to visit once when the waitstaff did not try to upsell us so wantonly at every stage of our meal.

But really, the timing could not be more perfect for Five Napkin Burger. Hell’s Kitchen has needed a casual, pretty reliable American bistro for quite some months–a gaping market void that can be traced neatly back to the day when Film Center Café got its extreme chrome makeover and suddenly decided it was Cookshop North. Sure, Five Napkin Burger could be 20% better than it is right now with very little effort, but with all signs pointing in the right direction in its early days, D’Amico’s kitchen should have plenty of time to revise and edit–as long as they leave their delightfully messy burger alone.

Five Napkin Burger, 630 Ninth Avenue (at 45th Street), 212-757-2277.