Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

Katie Sokoler/Gothamist

This week Frank Bruni at the Times bestows two stars on chef April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) for their new high-end seafood pub The John Dory (pictured), in the Meatpacking District: "In what is clearly a labor of not just love but also vivid (sometimes too vivid) imagination and real guts, [they] have fashioned a place that doesn’t look like any other and that doesn’t taste like any other, either...But experienced in aggregate, too many dishes are too blunt. The overall flavor spectrum is too narrow, a wallow in buttery, creamy and salty effects. I sometimes left feeling overwhelmed — maybe I should say capsized — in a way I seldom do." Still, Bloomfield's menu is full of "nervy surprises."

The Surinamese-Indonesian cafe Warung Kario in Richmond Hill, Queens is the destination this week for Village Voice critic Robert Sietsema. He says the "melding of influences from Indonesia, China, Holland, and the Caribbean is astonishing to behold... The chicken on the bamie is mouthwatering." Meanwhile, Sarah DiGregorio lets some of the air out of Co. (pronounced "company"), the "new, ultra-hyped pizza restaurant" in Chelsea, which "pizza obsessives and restaurant watchers across the city" have followed "like it was the second coming." However! "If you care about crust, you should go. Period. But the care, clearly lavished on the crust, has been dealt out stingily to the hit-or-miss toppings, and the prices seesaw from very fair to immoderate."

The Posts's Steve Cuozzo has a hearty slam for Gordon Ramsay at the London NYC Hotel this week (but be forewarned; the tabloid's website is crawling with roaches as part of an ad for The Exterminators). Cuozzo goes in for a "better than mediocre" meal, but at what cost? "$630.50 for three, with one bottle of wine? Yup, thanks to a jump in the cost of the basic three-course dinner from $80 to $110 in just over two years... If you forgot that Ramsay has a restaurant here, you're not alone... Zagat Survey publisher Tim Zagat says, 'I thought he was going to be a major player here. But I think his restaurant has become essentially a cipher in the New York dining community.'"

Park Slope's Beer Table snags three stars from NY Mag for its Tuesday night $25 three course prix-fixe, "one of the best values in town on any night of the week...That the food is so good comes as no surprise—[chef Julie] Farias is an alum of kitchens like Café Boulud, and seems to be relishing the casual environs, the freedom to improvise, and the local following for whom Tuesday-night dinner has become not just a night out, but a cherished ritual." The "Damon: Frugal Friday" dinner in the private dining room at Craft also earns some warm praise, because "Damon Wise... is a serious cook... and his menu is playful, global in inspiration, and peppered with haute touches like savory jams, marmalades, and gelées embellishing dishes that seem to embody all of today’s culinary buzzwords, from tapas to offal, crudo to pork belly."

And Danyelle Freeman at the Daily News has fun at Desnuda, the "guerrilla molecular gastronomy" cevicheria in the East Village, finding it "completely unpredictable, in the best way... There's no kitchen at Desnuda... There's a popcorn popper, a microwave, a dinky sushi fridge, and a toaster oven. So how does Christian Zammas, the chef, manage to smoke raw oysters every night? In a gravity bong, of course. Zammas made his bong from scratch, using a Sprite bottle and a glass bowl he bought on St. Marks Place... He does it right on the bar. Now for the audience participation part. You lift the shot glass, inhale the intoxicating, pine-like perfume, then raise the oyster to your mouth and let it slip down your throat."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Food on February 11, 2009 9:14 AM

Comments [rss]

Zyskandar A Jaimot

Shared Work - Partly Done

There is a dividing line

at certain au courant dining establishments

most of us never see or witness

That invisible wall of labour

On one side part-time waiters/waitresses

Making extra spending money

subsidizing costs of higher education

Young white men and women mostly

(Yes at Denny's and IHOP Hispanics

now are allowed to await on tables)

All spotlessly clean groomed taking orders

Making small happy talk that they are

soon to improve their social status and position

from what is in their narrow perception

this manual service drudgery

Hardly ever noticing fellow coworkers

Behind the heat lamps of meal pick-up areas

Black and Latino males endure as kitchen help

Sweating in soiled aprons from blood of dead beasts

as they work in fires from ovens and broilers

while washing dishes/pots

Communicating only by yellling "orders up!"

To those they consider far-away

from work-a-day existence where wages buy

another week's room rent and not trips to the movies

as a break from grueling study courses

These kitchen workers watch sometimes with jealous eyes

as others count their tips from ordinary service

Eager moments until slowtime to savor a break

A quick cigarette and to hungrily bite

the fresh empty air and a moment to dream

before returning inside to prep

More meals for both parts of this system's puzzle

Neither side ever really encountering the other.

JMH

I wish I had the energy to trek to the places Robert Sietsema reviews, because a lot of them sound really good, but I don't really have time to go all the way out to one of the last stops on the E train (using the current review as an example) to go have a meal.

SP

Well, maybe not a weeknight, but on a weekend why not? If you plan your evening around it, it would be a lot of fun. When I was a kid we would get on the subway and trek out to Jackson Heights for Indian food every once in a while, get there a little early and walk around the neighborhood, check out the shops and soak up the vibe. It's not a casual, pop in type of thing, you have to plan it somewhat.

ides_of_march

"....essentially a cipher in the New York dining community.'"

Dining community?

I guess anyone with a functioning respitory system can also be described as part of the "breathing community" or anybody using the bathroom is a member of the "toilet community."

MzEnigmatic

perhaps they are referring to gourmands aka "foodies"?

SP

You're a dipstick Ides. The is a dining community just the same way there is a beer league softball community, or any other community of people who gravitate around a particular hobby, interest or passion, in this case, food. Just because you're not part of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.