The Times’s Frank Bruni chimes in at last on the abundantly reviewed Merkato 55 (pictured), an ambitious pan-African brasserie in the Meatpacking District that “pivots into a sexy evening for the Marc Jacobs set. It’s Spice Market on the Serengeti.” Dishes like the cast-iron pot of lamb meatball in smoked tomato sauce are "a delight," but overall it’s hit or miss. And some unlucky waiter made the mistake of pouring water into his wine glass and took 15 minutes to correct it. One star.

Robert Sietsema treks out to the food stalls in Flushing’s Golden Shopping Mall for the Voice. This is the place to be for an “arcane assortment of Chinese regional cooking styles.” The steamed dumplings at Stall 1A are “exceptional,” but be sure to “ignore the menu over the counter, left over from a previous occupant.”
And Sarah DiGregorio slams the recently-opened YourAsian, which she calls “an unmitigated disaster.”

Danyelle Freeman at the News reviews Eletteria, the haute-Indian restaurant in an old West Village club (8th Wonder) where Hendrix used to shred, and finds the “inventive riffs on traditional Indian dishes” to be “pleasurable.” But NY Mag’s Adam Platt thinks “the small, truncated menu makes it feel more like a high-minded bar,” and with a Death & Co. “mixologist” doing cocktails, you should stick with the liquids.

Pratt has kinder words for Persephone, the classy new Greek restaurant on East 60th: “What the non-Mediterranean chef, James Henderson, lacks in originality he makes up for in the quality of his ingredients.” And the Times’s Julia Moskin adores Italian restaurant I Sodi: "The bread is excellent, the lamb chops thick and tasty, and the Negroni menu, an education in the bittersweet strangeness of Italian aperitivos."

Photo courtesy Ryan Charles.