Choice Tables

Alive and Evolving: the Paris Bistro

By MARK BITTMAN

Julien Goldstein for The New York Times

Les Papilles, the provisions and wine shop and bistro in the Fifth Arrondissement.

Offering reliable and affordable food, the bistro choices are better than they have been in years.

Journeys

Japanese baseball fans, like these at a Yomiuri Giants game in the Tokyo Dome, don’t sit on their hands.

Japanese Baseball: Root, Root, Root and Buy Me Some Eel

By INGRID K. WILLIAMS

Attending a baseball game provides an illuminating peek into Japanese culture and an opportunity to taste some culinary curiosities.

Slide Show: Fanatic for Baseball in Japan

Explorer

A small vineyard sits next to a hayfield in the Karst region of southwest Slovenia.

Tasting Slovenian Cuisine Right at the Source

By HANNAH WALLACE

The Karst, in the country’s southwest region, is known for its gastronomic heritage and family farms that welcome travelers.

Slide Show: On the Family Farm in Slovenia

Bites

Restaurant Review: BioMio, Copenhagen

By SALLY McGRANE

The dishes at this entirely organic restaurant are vegetable-loaded, simple and tasty.

The Minimalist

A New Spin Cycle for the Common Dip

By MARK BITTMAN

If you substitute “thick purée” for “dip,” the options are limitless — like this one, made from peas, mint and Parmesan.

Video: Pea Dip With Parmesan

Field Report

$Renato Sardo and Anya Fernald prepare a fraction of the menu.$

Home Sweet (Urban) Homestead

By CHRISTINE MUHLKE

A new kind of preservation society attends a D.I.Y. dinner party in Oakland.

Street Farmer

By ELIZABETH ROYTE

Can Will Allen make the inner city the next front in the good-food movement?

IT'S AN ART Hold the tomato: the Frenchie burger at DBGB includes a compote instead.

The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts

By JANE SIGAL

Interviews with 30 chefs provided dozens of burger-making lessons for the home cook that aren’t terribly difficult and don’t cost much money. And it all yielded the ideal burger.

Interactive Feature: Elements of an Ideal Burger

In the Garden

FRUIT OF THE VINE Ben Granger makes home brews with the hops that he grows in his Brooklyn backyard.

Grow Yourself a Six-Pack

By ANNE RAVER

Ben Granger, an owner of a Brooklyn shop that specializes in beers, planted hop vines so he could make his own home brew. But you don’t have to make beer to enjoy the beauty of those dramatic leaves.

Turf War at the Hot Dog Cart

By JULIA MOSKIN

A new wave of upscale food trucks, offering everything from artisanal ice cream to vegan tacos, has sparked a street vendors’ food fight.

Restaurants

COW REVERENCE The décor at Bar Artisanal, in TriBeCa, plays on a black and white theme.

Another Wedge From the Wheel

By FRANK BRUNI

Cheese animates and dominates Bar Artisanal, Terrance Brennan’s TriBeCa spinoff of Artisanal in Midtown — and helps give it what modest appeal it has.