Grub Street

In the past few weeks, there's been talk about a possible divide in the food-writing world: The roles of food writers and editors seem split fairly evenly among men and women, but the same cannot be said for the role of the restaurant critic, where the divide currently favors more men. In fact, LA Weekly critic Besha Rodell recently posed the exact question: "Why is there such a small percentage of female critics, especially in high-prestige positions?" In an effort to start answering that question, Grub Street got on the phone with female food critics around the country and asked them about the critical gender divide, potential hiring obstacles, motherhood, sexist reactions to reviews, and lots more. Read on to see what everyone has to say.

Guy Fieri's got himself a brand-new restaurant in Las Vegas, where the General Tso's chicken arrives in lollipop form, fried onion rings are served threaded on lead pipe, and there's a separate bar that serves 20 kinds of chilled shots, no ice. Though Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen & Bar, which opens today, marks the beginning of a new chapter for the celebrity chef, the spike-headed Fieri is still seeming a little bristled by Pete Wells's brutal 2012 takedown of Guy's American Kitchen & Bar, his Times Square opus. The interesting thing now, however, is that as he maintains there was "nothing realistic about what was being said" in the paper's review, Fieri seems to have moved on and thrown that restaurant's cooks under the dragon-chili-cheese-fry-themed bus in the process.

Time was, Taco Bell introduced a new product and the world went crazy. Then Taco Bell would go on to sell hundreds of millions of units. But this week, some other chains have stolen the Bell's social-media thunder (such as Domino's and its questionable new chicken hunk "pizza" and the return of the KFC Double Down). How could this happen? And what's Taco Bell going to do about it? Here now is a look at what is most likely happening inside the chain's Irvine, California, headquarters right this second.

Last week, chef Katy Sparks told Grub that she wanted to serve "accessible food — the kind you want to eat regularly" at the reboot of Tavern on the Green, which opens to the public on April 24. The menu relies heavily on high-quality ingredients sourced from local purveyors, like La Quercia speck and Finnish Ruis bread. Take a look at a few of the dishes, straight ahead.

Danny Bowien's world has recently seeming been all about Mission Cantina — double-decker tacos and all — but now some great news has arrived that the chef's shuttered Mission Chinese Food will return from 5-11 p.m. tonight, for one night only at Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli's Frankies 457. The menu includes the restaurant's salt-cod fried rice, kung pao pastrami, and mapo tofu, and more, such as Benton's bacon-and-rice cakes. It's most likely going to be a mob scene, but those missing the old Mission Chinese should give it a try: In other news, Bowien has now confirmed his former LES restaurant, which closed at 154 Orchard Street last fall after nearby construction sent mice teeming into the restaurant's basement, will not reopen in the same address. [James Daniel Bowien/Twitter, Related]