Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

On behalf of the Village Voice, critic Robert Sietsema dines at chef Anita Lo’s newish Bar Q and deems the tuna-rib appetizer “mouth-worthy.” But then things go wrong, and Anita’s mom gets caught in the crossfire: “An appetizer of baby back ribs ($11) with ‘my mother's BBQ sauce’ tastes like it's been dumped out of a white carton from the local Chinese carry-out… The spicy pork wings remain flightless because they're heavily coated with cloying Korean ketchup.” Yet Bar Q “thrilled” the Post’s Steve Cuozzo on “all visits but one when Lo happened not to be in the house.”

Also for the Voice, we think Sarah DiGregorio enjoys an eclectic West Village joint called the New French, but it's hard to tell because her dense online review is in desperate need of paragraphs. Writing for the Sun, Paul Adams joins Gothamist in praise of Broadway East, the gorgeous eco-friendly restaurant that’s mostly vegetarian, with some concessions to fish and fowl. Adams promises that “all sorts of 'tarians should be happy at Broadway East, and if they bring their meat-eating friends, the latter should be quite content as well.”

Onto NY Mag, to which, apparently, we now have a subscription? (Anyone else getting mysterious NY Mag deliveries all of a sudden?) Anyway, critic Adam Platt has fun trashing the fancy South Gate at the Jumeirah Essex House: The extravagant restaurant has four star attitude but gets just one spangle from Platt. “The shreds of fish” in his hamachi crudo “were barely large enough to feed a cat.” About the ricotta stuffed cannelloni, Platt’s companion quips, “It tastes like Martian bar mitzvah food.”

The Daily News guardedly approves Olana, the inviting Flatiron District restaurant with the house-made pastas that Danyelle Freeman says “are worth the trip alone, but Di Meglio also manages to strike a delicate balance between decadence and homey comfort food.” As for the Times's Frank Bruni, it seems he's too bummed about Florent's closing to file a review. But the Times’s Peter Meehan has nice things to say about the food stalls at the Brooklyn Flea, declaring the made-to-order cannoli from Salvatore Bklyn Ricotta “the best I’ve had outside of Sicily.”

Photo of Bar Q courtesy Ryan Charles.