On your next trip to New York you could do worse than try out the eats on the streets, which Benji Lanyado in The Guardian UK has been sampling.

“Within the space of a few blocks, there's a breadth and density of street food from nearly every continent and a passion for its refinement. For under $10, an atlas of food can be yours,” he writes.
The most successful street chefs don’t stay on the sidewalks, though.

“We've already discovered the best street food on the street, but now let's delve indoors to where the hasty cuisine of carts has been stabilised and blossomed in the comforts of a kitchen,” says Benji.

Find out where New York street eats meet haute cuisine here.

Big, bad but happening

It's grim to look at and as grey as a Mao suit, its climate is generally awful, it's built on the most inhuman scale imaginable – and it's going to be the capital of the 21st century.

Beijing doesn't so much sprawl as replicate some sort of cybercity, but it is a place where things are happening, says Chris Moss, editor of the Time Out Beijing guide.

Writing in the UK Telegraph Online, Moss says, “Lest we forget, banners, souvenir shops, cranes and smiling airport officials in branded uniforms remind all visitors to Beijing that 2008 is Olympic Games year.

“Only the good news about the torch's world tour has been making it into the local papers, while protests in London and Lhasa have been presented as anti-peace-and-harmony demonstrations by radical separatist Chinaphobes.

“No doubt recent events have rattled government officials and members of the BOCOG (the official Games committee), but politicians and ordinary Beijingers alike remain confident that they can pull off an Olympic Games that will be memorable as well as historically meaningful for future generations of Chinese.”

Moss warns that unless you have a ticket, a bed and a flight booked, stay clear of Beijing and environs between August 8 and 24 (and a few days either side of those dates).

“If you are heading there before or after the Games, though, you should make a point of calling in at the stadia and Olympic parklands, which have some of the most striking new buildings in the whole of the city.”

Read Moss’s steer on what to see and do in Beijing; where to stay, eat and shop – and where best to view the main Olympic sights.

Zip up those pants, Thomas

The Melbourne Age has carried a review by Kate Duthie of Thomas Kohnstamm’s book, Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?

Kohnstamm has been in the news of late after admitting that some of his research for Lonely Planet was gained second hand from girlfriends and fellow drinkers in bars.

“Ask any travel writer about their dream job and they will tell you it isn't travel writing,” says Duthie.
“Sure, there are exotic destinations, free drinks, meals and hotel rooms but there are also long-haul flights, weeks at a time away from home and no chance of any down time once they arrive.

While showing some sympathy with the task facing Kohnstamm and other guide book writers, Duthie is less than impressed by his methods.

“Telling the ‘real’ story of how guidebooks are compiled is a good idea, but you soon realise that as Kohnstamm spends so much of his time drunk, stoned or chasing skirt that it's not surprising he finds it all a bit of a strain.

"Even if it were possible to work 24 hours a day," he pants, "I could not visit but a fraction of the places that I have left to review."

“Zip up those pants,” says Duthie, “and stay away from the bar, perhaps.”

Read the full review here.

Homeless check in to T5

BOOT (The Business of Online Travel), the entertaining travel blog from Tim Hughes (tims-boot.blogspot.com), draws attention to a Time magazine article on London’s Heathrow Airport, where it found a section of society that is actively seeking out the much-troubled Terminal 5.

The article - called Heathrow's Down-and-Out Jet Set - tells the story of London homeless (or rough sleepers) posing as stranded travellers to enable them to sleep in Terminal 5.

Terminal 5 may not be a good airport terminal (yet) but it makes a great homeless shelter with lots of space, central heating, constant flow through of people, lots of food left behind and clean toilets.

“Not sure that is what BA CEO Willie Walsh had in mind when signing the cheques to build T5,” says Hughes.

Read Time’s story here
.