Ms. Hesser and Ms. Stubbs

Former New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser made a media splash a few years ago with the launch of a crowdsourced home-cooking site called Food52. Started with Merrill Stubs, who co-authored The Essential New York Times Cookbook with Ms. Hesser, Food52 has become a household name for certain Internet-savvy foodies. The site features recipes, a hotline for asking and answering food questions, as well as plenty of recipe contests. Now, Food52 has raised $2 million, according to a Form D filed with the SEC and published on FormDs.com.

A source within the company confirmed to Betabeat that it has closed the $2 million round. The form indicates that 13 investors participated in the round, but does not state which firms that includes. However, Lerer Ventures' Ken Lerer is listed on the form, and our Food52 source confirmed that his firm is an investor. Lerer Ventures also participated in Food52's seed round when it raised $750,000, and Mr. Lerer currently sits on the company's board.

The fresh infusion of capital will most likely go towards expanding popular features on the Food52 website, as well as possibly launching some new products, though the source declined to elaborate just what those might be.

The Food52 site currently features a shop that collaborates with "high-quality producers, shops and artisans to bring you the greatest in food and drink, kitchen and tabletop items, books and gastro-fabulous experiences." Ms. Hesser and Ms. Stubbs also published a well-received crowdsourced cookbook called The Food52 Cookbook: 140 Winning Recipes from Exceptional Home Cooks back in October 2011.

Mr. Van Veen.

Food52 and Eater.com are in the middle of a guerrilla restaurant run-off where a group of "mavens of pop culture" sample and judge 16 New York eateries in a series of head-to-head match-ups. In today's installment, Ricky Van Veen of CollegeHumor and the studio Notional, which is behind the new cooking show Rocco's Dinner Party, reviews two Asian restaurants in a conversational style, complete with suggestions for Zagat. Did you know Mr. Van Veen once considered opening a chain of Kaoh Soi restaurants? "In addition to being a food novice, I'm also a racist," Mr. Van Veen writes in an early caveat.

On Takashi, Japanese in the West Village:

Part of the fun is certainly grilling your own food right in front of you. Though watching somebody else do it is almost as much fun. Somebody once told me that Tracy Morgan eats at Benihana three nights a week. How fucking great is that? You can just imagine him being impressed by the onion volcano night after night. Anyway, fanfare food pretty much rocks (dipping things, passing courses around, eating next to a hot grill, etc). Zagat should list Fanfare as its own type of cuisine.

The beef steak tartare with egg was great, as was the more basic stuff like the spicy cucumber. Overall, a fun experience. And a little bit of danger lurking in every corner in the form of, "Hey bro, do you think I cooked this raw meat enough? Really? You sure?"

And Kin Shop, contemporary Thai in the West Village:

We got the crispy soft shell crab, pan roasted trigger fish and the spicy duck laab salad (Josh assured us this was a "must have," and it lived up to the hype). On the more adventurous side, we tried the massaman (braised goat), which wasn't bad, though it was the only thing that didn't get completely eaten by the end of the meal. Maybe because goat is perhaps THE least delicious sounding animal. I mean, don't they eat cans?

The verdict? "Kin Shop for the win." We're eager to read what fellow hipster entrepreneur Dennis, also one of the judges, has to say about his dining experience, as well as how many Foursquare references he can sneak in.