Since July 3rd an unprescedented number of restaurants and bars that have announced openings later this year or even further out. 16 at last count. Places as modest as Sprinkles Yogurt to as exciting as Marc Vetri’s third restaurant dot the below map. Check it out and wonder, have we weathered the worst of this recession?

View Philadelphia Restaurant Announcements in a larger map

Le Bec-Fin has a new offer, a tasting menu of 4-courses (appetizer, fish, meat and dessert) and the price…. You pay want you want.

The offer is valid Monday through Thursday during July and limited to 20 guests an evening. You can even bring your own wine.

So what would you pay?

Le Bec-Fin [Official Site]

Don’t ever feel bad for Stephen Starr, he has two of the highest-grossing independent restaurants in America: Buddakan and Morimoto (the New York branches, of course) at numbers 12 and 84 respectively. Buddakan pulled in $20 million in ‘07 while Morimoto trailed at $11.7 mil. Think about that the next time you’re sucking down an overpriced SRO cocktail. No Philly restaurants on the list at all. [Restaurants & Institutions Mag]

The Delightful Dan Gross notes that Obama has not yet tried a cheesesteak. We think this is because he’s taking our advice and believing in the Audacity of Roast Pork. [PhillyGossip]

Why aren’t food writers dealing with rising food prices? Are we in denial? Do we not care? At Foobooz, we talk about them all the time and even provide some handy guides for dealing with the problem without having to revert to cooking. [Slate]

…and taketh. And taketh and taketh and taketh. We hate to remind you, but it’s April 15th.

To help get you over the hateful hump, we’ve updated our Recession Specials Guide. We’ve got new specials from Ansill, Davio’s and Coquette, among others.

We’d like to remind you that the Recession Specials have not all been confirmed, so call first. We’d also like to remind you that the selections in the guide are all based on our inexplicable whims, unpredictable moods and weird preferences, so you’ll see that some of your suggestions have been included in the actual guide, while others have been left to loll about in the comments, especially if they are a ‘drinks only’ special.

Please keep them coming! And do let us know if you have a good, bad or insane experience.