Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

This week the Times's Frank Bruni piles on Shang, a restaurant in the Thompson LES Hotel helmed by the acclaimed, formerly Toronto-based chef Susur Lee, whose first mistake is making Bruni exercise: "The staircase was the first befuddlement and miscalculation I encountered — and a clue that the evening and restaurant might not be all I’d hope for. It’s a long, drab, foreboding rise of steps from the sidewalk to the host station, an entrance less inviting than aerobic. I’ve gone on runs that didn’t leave me as winded." As for the menu, some dishes are "intensely pleasurable," but overall it's "inconsistent and uneventful. The magic that Mr. Lee reputedly made in Toronto hasn’t followed him here."

Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice has a thorough accounting of five El Salvadoran pupusa joints in downtown Jamaica, for the next time you're in that neighborhood. Meanwhile, the New Yorker's Lauren Collins visits Txikito (pronounced "chee-kee-toe"), the small plates Basque restaurant in Chelsea. Collins is pleased, but cautions everyone to order carefully: "At these portions and prices—it’s at least six plates to a full stomach—a lackluster dish feels like a squandered opportunity."

Steve Cuozzo at the Post has a hot tip on a free food deal at Eighty One, the pricey modern-American restaurant in the Excelsior Hotel on West 81st Street. The first 150 diners who e-mail Eighty One this morning will be eligible to try the new two course "eco(nomy)-menu" FOR FREE on Friday night. Cuozzo has all the details on the new value menu, normally priced at $30.81, but you'll want to take advantage of their desperation right now by e-mailing free@81nyc.com.