Coq au vin is no rarity on New York menus, but, then again, what New Yorkers usually get is not really coq au vin: It's just chicken braised in wine. The gamey, bold flavor of a sinewy old rooster, its tough flesh turned velvety by twenty hours or more of braising, is a different thing entirely and one of the summits of French cooking. For a few days, anyway, you can get it at Paris Commune. The restaurant, which has a rooster as its symbol, has gotten some old birds and added them to the menu tonight and through the weekend as a $22 special, with the traditional accompaniment of bacon, pearl onion, button mushrooms, and baby carrots steeped in Burgundy and brandy. As with any true coq au vin, the real draw is the intense broth, which is to standard chicken broth what George Clooney is to Chad Michael Murray.

So what’s the best way to blow these precious last days of short-sleeved weather? Those with cars should grab a windbreaker and jet up — like, now! — to City Island. After you’ve indulged in the obligatory fried lobster tails, frog legs, and mai tais on the waterfront deck of the inimitable Johnny’s Famous Reef Restaurant, board the Riptide III, leaving at 6:30 p.m., for seafood straight out of the water rather than out of the deep fryer.

For years, Indian mangoes have enjoyed the reputation, among food writers and gourmands, as the world’s best. But since the things were never allowed into this country, those of us who rarely left home were forced to take it on faith. The government has now allowed the forbidden fruit at last, but you still can’t taste them – unless you go to Tabla, where chef Floyd Cardoz has more or less cornered the market on Indian mangoes.

The impending arrival of Morandi, the amply covered, Sicilian-inflected restaurant from Keith McNally, may have whetted your appetite for the island’s regional cooking. (Seeing the menu certainly did it for us.) But Morandi won’t be open for another week, and if you’re anything like Jeffrey Chodorow, you’ll want to be prepared to offer your own informed critiques of the place should the mean ole major critics review it harshly. So where can you train your tongue by sampling Sicilian specialties in the meantime? We’ve got just the three places for you.

With Fashion Week almost here, some of you may have switched gears, thinking less about “Where can I find the perfect piece of foie gras?” and more about “How can I fit into a size 0 by Saturday?” We can’t presume to help you with that one, but we can recommend three guilt-free, non-Atkins options for eating well as the models parade into town.

Since the Lower Eastpacking District so closely resembles a bum's paradise, you'd think do-gooders would be giving away food left and right. But outside of actual soup kitchens, we know of only once place where you can get a free snack: Between 1 and 7 p.m. on weekends, new wine bar SavorNY is offering complimentary small plates, representing different world cuisines, that come with two-ounce wine pairings. (You can find a list of both after the jump.) Still, lagniappes don't make for a proper meal, even if you're fashionably emaciated, so the owners have thoughtfully provided a full lunch menu as well. Because you didn't go to that neighborhood not to spend money, did you?

Oysters are born in the summer and get nice and fat with the onset of winter. This year has brought an especially good crop of New York varieties: Pine Island, Fisher's Island, Blue Point, Great South Bay, etc. They're all the same species (Crassostrea virginica), but their flavors are marked by the waters in which they're raised. Here are three top places to slurp your share of the local abundance.

Tyson Ophaso and Joe Ng, the chefs at Chinatown Brasserie, are also on the Thanksgiving bandwagon, and will be cooking turkeys in the restaurant's custom-built Perking-duck oven. Expect crisp, laquered skin like you've never seen on your family table. The birds will be accompanied by the restaurant's delicate, supple steamed Mandarin pancakes, cranberry-ginger chutney, and hoisin sauce. On top of that, Ng will also be preparing turkey spring rolls, baked turkey buns, and other Thanksgiving-inspired dim sum items. The menu will be available all weekend.

After our recent pilgrimage to upstate New York for a first look at the next stage in pig evolution, courtesy of Cesare Casella, we started thinking about the places serving breeds that have been around for centuries — the so-called "heritage" pigs whose noble lineage makes them extra-tasty.

The mushrooms of autumn are appearing on some of the city's best season-driven menus. Here's where to get your fix.