BlackBook

When you’re feasting on a platter of cheese pierogies at Veselka, and loaded nachos from Wildwood BBQ, it’s nice to temper your finger-shaking “you said you’d order kale!” conscience with the fact that hey, you’re going green so scram. In NYC, only a select bunch of restaurants are actually Certified Green – meaning they’re using eco-friendly products and conserving energy and water – and the list just might surprise you (where are all those vegan restaurants?) Here are our favorites:

Perhaps no New York restaurant "empire" has been built as quietly at that of Blue Ribbon. McNally and Batali are forever in the headlines, while the Bromberg Brothers and their Blue Ribbon restaurants have carried on with the business of cultivating the most devout following in NYC. But the new Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya will be their first foray into the world of fashionable hotel dining--replacing, as it is, the Susur Lee's ambitious Shang at the Thompson LES.

The weekend started in my brain a couple days ago. Watching Cash Cab reruns in my apartment was all I could do to keep from checking out completely. But now it's Friday, which usually marks the beginning of my aimlessly wandering around town in an alcohol-induced stupor, just happy my fingers aren't hovering over a keyboard. (Or, I may remain in my apartment in the fetal position, clutching the remote control, paranoid that my computer is staring at me.) Assuming all goes well, I'll be joining society to participate in the following weekend goings-ons, perhaps a little too enthusiastically (yay guest model DJs at Spice Market!). Otherwise, see you all on Monday, none the wiser, but probably caught up on Mad Men.

● Mario Batali at the opening of Eataly: My favorite places to eat are generally downtown in the Village: Pearl Oyster Bar, Spotted Pig, Grand Sichuan. My favorite thing to eat is anything anyone else makes! Da Silvano has an octopus salad and octopus grill that's really beautiful. ● Mayor Mike Bloomberg at the opening of Eataly: There are 20,000 restaurants in New York City, and I try to eat at every single one of them. ● Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen at GLAAD Summer Rooftop Party: wd-50, and in Brooklyn, Pacifico, the Mexican restaurant on Pacific St.

After months of anticipation, Italian mega-market Eataly has finally opened its doors in New York. At 50,000 square feet, it's a specialty foods colossus like no other, with everything from seafood to spumoni on sale in various in-store boutiques, as well as a half-dozen or so restaurants where you can sample the goods without leaving the premises. In a city and country where bigger is better until things reach a tipping point (Lehman, GM...) this undeniably bold foray into the fancy bites business prompts all sorts of questions. Having spent the better part of two lunch hours wandering Eataly's shiny floors and perusing its endless offerings, I've got a few thoughts on what it all means.

So, maybe Batali and Babbo partner Joseph Bastianich didn't pay their employees. We'll have to see what happens with the lawsuit. Nonetheless, in an interview with SlashFood, Batali told Allen Salkin all his deepest, darkest secrets. Well, not really, but at least he announced another delay in opening the Flatiron food complex, Eataly.

From his perch in the Rooftop Bar high above Kittichai, Robert d’Arcangelo -- general manager of the Thom Bar and A60 -- calls the shots at 60 Thompson (and sometimes pours them).

At the peak of a successful directing career, Bob Giraldi -- the creative genius behind Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video -- channeled his talents for creation into the culinary scene, resulting in collaborations with famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and a slew of successful restaurants. After the February opening of Butcher Bay, his ode to Americana and boardwalk food, Giraldi is focusing his energy on his new, "authentic" Italian-style pizza joint Tonda, in the East Village.

● Nick Cave’s son Jethro is a model. Jethro embodies that pale, alien look so popular on European runways these days. [TFS] ● Benjamin Button has been losing left and right this award season and could lose all 13 awards at the Oscars (from Best Picture to Best Sound Editing). Here’s how. [Defamer] ● Janet Jackson has canceled her one-week tour in Japan “due to the impact of economic crisis.” Last year, Jackson canceled seven performances due to migraines. "Economic crisis" is this year's "exhaustion." [Us Weekly]