At the New York Film Festival premiere of Broken Embraces:

● PENELOPE CRUZ - Favorite restaurant in New York? "Oh, I have many because I love food so much!" And in Madrid? "I go to many that are out in the countryside, but whoever goes there for the first time should go to Botin. It's the oldest restaurant in the world." What did you like about it? "Everything!"

● PEDRO ALMODOVAR - Favorite restaurant in New York? "Mr. Chow's -- we had dinner there the other day, and it was really very impressive." And in Madrid? "In Madrid, there are many. Casa Lucio is one of my favorites."

At the opening of Hair on Broadway, March 31:

● ROSIE O'DONNELL: We have just little local ones in our neighborhood that we go to, but we don't really "hang out," you know. I mean, we have four kids under the age of 13. You don't really hang out a lot, when that happens. You know, the local Irish pub in our town, the OBI or the Casa del Sol, the Mexican restaurant. You know, there's some kid-friendly places that we go -- we're kinda dull.

● TIM ROBBINS: Oh, uh, yeah -- I'm tryin' to think of someone that needs help right now. [laughs] A lot of people are hurtin' with this economy. I can't, I can't -- I don't go out much. No, I don't go to bars. We like Basta Pasta on 17th Street -- great food. It's an Italian restaurant run by Japanese people. Pasta with the cheese -- they put it into a big wheel of cheese, and it's really yummy.

Mob Candy magazine publisher Frank DiMateo is preparing to sue activist and WABC talk radio host Curtis Sliwa in federal court in Brooklyn for Sliwa's claims that the magazine is "put out by the Gambino-Gotti crime family." Sliwa asked in a January 20 YouTube video, "How are they able to exist when they have no advertising?" He pointed out other magazines, which he claimed had little or no advertising, then posited: "Maybe they're laundering money through vendors, drug dealers, criminals -- people with lots of fat cash, who got to be able to launder it properly before they can use it -- [a] great opportunity for these mags."

The most disappointing thing about the Rolling Stones press conference for their Martin Scorsese documentary, Shine a Light, on Sunday at the Palace Hotel was that it lasted only 23 minutes, instead of the promised 60. Some journos observed Mick Jagger signaling to the publicist for only two more questions. Was he displeased? After all, the very few archival scenes in the film which were added to footage of the 2006 concerts at the Beacon Theater, focused on, according to Scorsese, "the same questions asked over and over to the point where they don't mean anything anymore."