This week the Times’s Frank Bruni rhapsodizes about Perbacco (pictured), which has been open for about five years on East 4th Street, but has a much-buzzed about new chef: 26-year-old Italian hot shot Simone Bonelli, who comes from “the northern city of Modena and the kitchen of Osteria La Francescana, where Italy’s old guard meets Spain’s New Wave.” A two star rating from the Times is a slam dunk for a casual restaurant in this price range, and Bruni declares that “some of what I ate lingered in my thoughts for days: a special of agnolotti, for example. [Perbacco] has graduated to a whole new level, worthy of its name, which means “wow.”

The Times’s “$25 and Under” column surveys the city’s schnitzel scene, which “is on the rise.” Seth Kugel visits Pita Joe on 14th Street and two schnitzel places on Coney Island Avenue, “the city’s schnitziest strip.” For the Village Voice, Robert Sietsema covers Karczma, a new Polish restaurant in Greenpoint “that attempts to elevate Polish cuisine above the level of diner fare.” It succeeds, for the most part: “Farm implements are scattered on the walls, including pitchforks that might impale you if you get too excited about the food. The farm theme proves a pleasant context for a menu that might best be described as gold-plated peasant… ‘Eat Healthy—Eat Lard’ is our new slogan.”

The Voice’s Sarah DiGregorio enjoys a wide range of “tacos, gorditas, and those completely wonderful chimichurris” at the taco trucks in Sunset Park: “If Norman Rockwell were around now, he'd be painting scenes of taco trucks on summer nights.” For the Sun, Paul Adams declares Kafana on Avenue C an alternative (for meat lovers) to the “sassy, trendy Momofuku establishments.” Danyelle Freeman at the Daily News is one of the first critics to review Convivio, where "chef Michael White's sweetbreads look and taste almost ethereal."

And at NY Mag, Adam Platt swims upstream against the critical buzz on Matsugen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s haute soba joint: "Who knows what causes normally composed, well-adjusted, sane people to become quietly (or in some cases, not so quietly) unhinged in certain dining establishments?... [At] Matsugen, it’s pretty much everything… I didn’t have the nerve to pay $160 for a taste of boiled Wagyu beef (go with the $55 lobster), but my friend the Steak Loon did. ‘It might be the greatest waste of good beef in history,’ he said.”

Photo courtesy Youngna Park/NY Mag