Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup
Today the Times's Frank Bruni has kind words for Nolita newcomer Elizabeth, which "has its problems, annoyances and confusions...and it still doesn’t seem entirely sure of what it wants to be...But it also has an adventurous, sometimes silly spirit that’s winning in its way." (Note the skull pictured here.) "My waitress’s outfit one night (scary knee-high boots with a skimpy black satin dress) made me wonder if she was poised to mete out cocktails or lashes." And the desserts! The rice krispy treats "function as shovels for an unexpected chocolate and peanut butter fondue with a hood of toasted marshmallow. It’s dessert as gooey spadework and dessert as regression therapy, taking you back to a childhood of Reese’s and s’mores."
Also for the Times, Betsy Andrews rhapsodizes about "the elemental trinity of the burger; so simple it’s transcendent" at three joints: 67 Burger, 5 Napkin Burger, and Joy Burger Bar. The Village Voice's restless Robert Sietsema ventures forth to "a nowheresville stretch of Brooklyn's McDonald Avenue" to review Am-Thai Chili Basil Kitchen, which specializes in Bangkok-centric cuisine. "The most impressive use of coconut milk is in the tom kha gai soup ($4), a Bangkok favorite that had my pals moaning in ecstasy."
The Voice's Sarah DiGregorio is also on the Thai tip, filing a mediocre verdict on that new space-age looking Second Avenue restaurant Kurve, which has been perennially delayed. In fact, co-owner and chef Andy Yang insists that when she ate there, it wasn't actually open. He tells her, "We opened to see how the AC works, the sound system, test out the computers," To which DiGregorio rationally responds, "If that's the case, the restaurant should be closed—actually closed, not just closed in the owner's mind. You can't open, realize you weren't ready after all, and then decide that the opening never happened." Yang's other, less-hyped but now-popular Thai place, Rhong-Tiam, is "excellent."
The Post's Steve Cuozzo gives his blessing to Tudor City Italian place Convivio, despite the fact that chef Michael White "doesn't have an ounce of Italian blood...This is a restaurant that makes you glad to live in New York, a town where cultures mesh almost as merrily as the flavors in White's malloreddus - not a smelly pasta, but a winning marriage of toothsome Sardinian saffron gnocchi, crab and sea urchin." (Paul Adams at the Sun is also enamored.) And Danyelle Freeman at the Daily News isn't the only one pissed at obnoxiously trendy Soho nightspot Delicatessen, where the cocktails are $14 and arrive half-empty: "The clientele doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the food. And that may very well explain why the kitchen isn't paying much attention either."
Photo courtesy Hugh Merwin
