Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

Writing for the Post, Andrea Strong feasts at Broadway East (pictured), the chic new Lower East Side organic restaurant with the dainty carbon footprint: The restaurant composts, filters and carbonates its own water, uses a green linen company, and donates waste cooking oil to the Environmental Energy Recycling Corp. Oh, and the food? Strong calls it “a brilliant compromise” between carnivores and vegetarians, “showcasing veggies along with organic meat and sustainably harvested and locally procured seafood.”

Times critic Frank Bruni awards a significant star to La Sirene, a casual, 25-seat SoHo bistro. He’s got a major man crush on French chef Didier Pawlicki, “a scolding, coddling, hyperactive presence” who rides a motorcycle and spends his downtime trolling the web to defend his “bitter” chocolate sauce: “Americans expect Hershey’s!” Meanwhile, the Times’s “Under $25” critic Peter Meehan ventures to Bushwick for Roberta’s brick oven pizza and loves their “heretically creative pies” – but you already knew all about Roberta’s right? And Kim Severson has a funny expose in the Times about how food bloggers and restaurant critics are all turning into disgusting fatbodies, “to which many members of the Fat Pack say: Shut up and pass the pork butt.”

Writing for Bloomberg, Ryan Sutton hates all over the Plaza Hotel’s newly reopened Palm Court, and Post critic Frank Cuozzo sours on the big trendy African bistro Merkato 55, faulting the chef for jet-setting around while the restaurant “runs off the rails.” Time Out NY has a pictorial about the sartorial affectations of today’s “mixologists,” as well as fetish shots of their cocktail tools. The Sun previews this spring's restaurant openings, and the Village Voice’s Robert Sietsema devours Fujianese noodles.

Photo of Broadway East: Ryan Charles