Habitu s of Section F of the New York Times will notice a couple of changes in today's Dining section layout. Most notably the Times' love of briefs have made the move from Styles to Dining. On F11, where one might expect to see Peter Meehan's weekly $25 and Under Column, one finds "Dining Briefs." It's notes 'n' news, updates and bits. The feature will alternate on a biweekly basis with Peter Meehan's usual $25 and Under. So not only is the Times' recognizing its own fallibility and tempering the overly weighted effect of a Frank Bruni review with the column, it's also picking up the pace. When Bruni reviewed Gilt, for instance, in 2006 (2 stars), the chef was still Paul Liebrandt. Now the place is run by the very different Christopher Lee, so it makes sense to revisit. Section editor Pete Wells explained it to us today: "I felt we weren't covering a lot of restaurants critically. I was looking for a way to help readers sort out what's new."

So Wells, Bruni and Meehan have stepped in to lay down the hurt. The result? Wells re-proves himself an able writer and Meehan, who will occasionally pitch in with the briefs, works Venn Diagrams, mega man and Druid Fluid into one review.

At the same time, while it's nice that the Times wants so hard to be a blog, the addition of Dining Briefs and the downsizing of $25 and Under doesn't play to the paper's strength. A weekly section will never be able to keep up with blogs like Eater and others in terms of up-to-the-minute reviews. What the Times does and has historically done well is offer an authoritative well-informed adventurous voice to guide readers. Claiborne, Sheraton, Reichl, Grimes, Meehan and Bruni aren't meant entirely to be reporters, in the sense that they're not just conductors of data who traffic in facts. They traffic in taste, and context. By its brevity, these "casual reviews" preclude the sort of descriptions often needed to accurately convey a taste explosion in a mouth.

And, because the paper still is a paper and thus finite, the addition of Dining Briefs means the frequency of $25 and Under will be halved. That's a shame, really for the 14 Times readers whose household income doesn't exceed 6 digits. "Ten years ago $25 and Under wasn't a cheap eats column. It used to cover family-owned Italian places on the Upper East Side. Now, there's no way we could include those restaurants," said Wells. Well, Meehan and his peripatetic wanderings will be missed. Wells thinks this: "It's not the readers who are changing. It's the city." That is to say, like briefs, getting constrictive, and maybe a little snug. —Josh