Wednesday Food News: Early Edition

This week in the Times, Bruni goes to the new Landmarc in the Time Warner Center, awards the restaurant one star. “It’s three times the size of the original Landmarc in Tribeca,” he says, “whose menu and competent cooking it replicates but whose warmth it largely lacks.” He compares the food to what you’d find at a Midwestern Marriot, but says that perhaps it’s just what the overly self-conscious Time Warner Center needs.

Peter Meehan goes to Plattduetsche Park Restaurant for $25 and Under. Just over the Queens border, in Franklin Square, the restaurant and beer garden “is a fine destination for a pilsner and a plate of the chef Herbert Aigner’s Teutonic specialties,” he says. Especially good are the sausage, schnitzel and jäger spätzle.

Cuozzo’s on a tear about food that bears no resemblance to the item actually ordered. “I’ve had boiled rice described as ‘risotto,’” he says, and dry shellfish masquerading as ‘boillabaise.’ A Caesar salad can mean anything with leaves and cheese.” It’s not intentional for the most part, he says—restaurants simply aren’t specific enough about what they’re serving.

Ryan Sutton stops by Borough Food & Drink, Jeffrey Chodorow’s latest, for Bloomberg News. The restaurant serves global food inspired by New York’s five boroughs. Says the chef, Zak Pelaccio (of Fatty Crab) “gives us a hodgepodge of lowbrow dishes that I like to call International Deli.” And it’s not expensive: most dishes are under $20. Sutton also stops by Suba, where the Spanish food under chef Seamus Mullen is “modern but simpler.” And where you can get absinthe, used as the base for a flaming mojito.

And in the NY Sun, Paul Adams goes to Mercat for Tapas. Says it serves similar fare to Boqueria, “but pulls less punches.” He also says “nothing is immune from the heavy heartiness that forms the cuisine’s aesthetic,” including pea shoots and salad, which is served with sweetbreads. And he says to skip dessert.